Authors Note: So I appreciate the reviews and messages I have gotten from this story and to no extent thank those who took the time to write and send them. I appreciate it.

Here's the second chapter just like I promised, again not as long as my usual chapters but I realized that my chapters were like unnaturally long and that was another one of the reasons they were taking so long to write and was making me lose effort in writing because I needed them to be so long and they didn't really need to be ten thousand characters long. But that's not to say I still won't write chapters that long because I GET CARRIED AWAY OH LAWD DO I.

Anyway, lol. REVIEW please because I have to have more feedback if I want to continue this. Also read and review my new chapters for What They Don't Know and Private Intentions.

I can't tell you how much I love this story's Tom, he my fav honestly.

I have to stop talking because once I get started I never stop and this authors note will end up being longer than the damn story.

Enjoy!

Hermione never lied. It wasn't a statement, it wasn't some unknown knowledge, and it was a stone cold fact. Anyone who knew Hermione Granger knew three things, she could at times be a know-it-all, she followed rules to the T, and she never lied. It wasn't to say that she'd been with Ron and Harry when they told a lie in order to get something risky done on a mission, but Hermione would always be the first through the door back at the institute dying to tell the head of their institute, Minevra McGonagall, what had really happened. She was the one who had to reel her friends in when they were on the brink of something stupid that might get them killed. She could literally think of hundreds of times where they'd been dispatched out to take care of some rogue demon and she saved their butts from one of Harry's poorly planned ideas (not that they were all poorly planned, Harry just had a tendency to be slightly irrational).

So when it came time for Hermione to leave the institute to meet with the mysterious Tom Riddle, she found herself in a state of sheer panic. There was no way in hell she would be allowed to leave the institute alone under the circumstances of meeting alone with a man from a strange downworlder club. It would look even more odd had she gone out in her full hunting gear just to get some food (which was the lie she had picked to tell, after going through what felt like a hundred different scenarios with their lying counterpart, this being the only one where she couldn't exactly find a hole). She knew she ought to just cancel the whole meeting, if this man was capable of making her officially lie for the first time to her friends, she wasn't sure she wanted much else to do with him.

However, here she was, standing in a nice worn pair of blue jeans and one of her nice but simple black and white polka dot blouses and a matte pair of black flats. Tom had told her to dress however but she thought it might still be rude to show up dressed in a sweatshirt and worn pair of tennis-shoes. She grabbed her purse, sneaking here stele into the pocket along with a sensor and a small extendable dagger (it's important to be prepared for anything), she made her way out of the institute. Her hands still shaking slightly from wringing them roughly from when she told McGonagall and her friends she wanted some air and was going to get some food.

Neither of her friends spared her a second glance, too enchanted in the chess game they were playing, waving a hand without looking at her saying good-bye. If anything, McGonagall just raised an eyebrow asking why she felt the need to tell her this information, it wasn't required for shadow hunters who were over the age of sixteen to ask permission to leave the institute for something so simple. Hermione had never heard of the restaurant Tom had told her to meet him at and she doubted such a restaurant, a place called Blood Catchers Diner, would be on her phone's GPS. She knew the street and recalled walking past it several times but couldn't exactly remember a sign or anything about this particular restaurant. None the matter, she made her way towards the street, keeping her eye out for danger all around. She had more of chance being killed on her way to the restaurant than she did on a mission with her friends.

It took about ten minutes before she reached the street where the restaurant was supposedly located but she didn't see any signs or anything, but she didn't have too. Tom Riddle stood leaning casually against the brick wall of a dingy fortune teller's shop, a cigarette placed softly between his lips. His cheeks hallowed in as he inhaled a hefty breath of it, his eyes closing softly and she thought he looked rather dreamy, like some sort of high fashion magazine photo, no matter the fact of his atrocious habit. Suddenly, as if he sensed her presence his eyes shot open turning to look at her, that charming smile slowly appearing.

"Those will kill you, you know." She took a deep breath walking up to him, speaking like the know-it-all she was.

"Fear Not Death For The Sooner We Die, The Longer We Shall Be Immortal." Tom quoted, taking another long swig of his cigarette before flicking it to the curb.

"Benjamin Franklin? Who knows a quote like that off the top of their head?" She narrowed her eyes at him as she came up to his side.

"People like you, obviously." He looked at her outfit. "Much better than the hunting gear."

He was dressed closely to how he'd been the other night, a casual black suit with a white button up, his jacket hanging open. Hermione was staring him down when she noticed that he wore a ring on his finger. Is that…is that a goat's head over a pentagram…what the hell is that?

"That's a rather odd piece of jewelry." She nodded down at the ring to which he responded with another smile.

"It's a family heirloom of sorts, come let's get inside, we have much talking to do." He gestured ahead to the alley which lay between the shop he had stood against and the building next to it.

"You expect me to just walk down a dark alley with a man I just met yesterday?" She cocked an eyebrow at him.

"I'll go first then." He shrugged before walking down the alley.

Hermione stood and watched as he walked down the alley a good twenty or so feet before coming to a very large metal closure in the ground. He knelt before it waving his hand at it before it swung open revealing what looked like a stone staircase down into the ground.

"Are you coming or not? You'll probably get killed standing out here, it's not a very safe part of town." He waited at the entrance, his hand holding the grate open.

She bit her lip and felt that familiar sensation again, her body tingling softly and her mind going fuzzy. Hermione began walking towards him, a warm feeling spreading in her stomach branching out to spread across her body as she walked towards the entrance, taking Tom's elbow to journey down the stairs.

The restaurant, if that's what you wanted to call it, was dark and moody. It was full of people, except that they weren't people at all, vampires, faeries, a girl who had rather large gills running down her neck with little bubbled of water placed over them, and many other types. The room was lit with dark green and blue lights, swirling around while thumping soft rave music played. Tables lined the edges of the room and a very small dancefloor sat in the middle where people had grouped together to dance.

"You call this a restaurant?" She shook her head, the music and lights snapping her from her gaze. "You tricked me again."

"Ah-ah-ah, not a trick." He grabbed her wrists and she couldn't help but notice how warm his skin was. "We've got a private room."

He led her back around the crowd which showed the dancefloor to be much lengthier than she had thought, a large black light lit bar lining the wall. Tom came to a wall which held several doors covered with beaded curtains, pushing open the door that was painted with a pair of angel wings that were dripping with black paint. The room itself was rather pleasant, an elegant square table with polished legs and a soft black tablecloth. The middle of the table held a very ornate candelabra with melting red candles. The floor a plush thick red shag, there was no windows however, instead the room was draped in alternating red and black velvet drapes.

"You certainly have a taste in room, don't you?" She asked, walking up to her chair.

"Allow me," He pulled her chair out for her and she sat down sliding into the table. "I just prefer the color red, that's all, but black is also very choice."

"Is there anything about you that's light?" She raised an eyebrow as he sat across from her pulling his napkin out to lay on his lap.

"My past, very light indeed." He looked as though he had a very laughable inside joke.

"So how does this work?"

"It works really well with wine, do you prefer red or white?" He picked up the menu glancing at it casually.

"I don't drink." Her voice was flat.

"Of course you don't, now red or white?" He looked up at her over his menu.

"Red, I suppose." She found that her voice had a rather impatient edge to it.

"Perfect, my favorite." His smile was sharp and he slapped his menu shut turning to look at the wine glass next to his plate.

She watched in fascination as the glass next to her plate began to fill itself with a dark red liquid that came from what looked to be an invisible wine bottle, splashing up until it filled halfway then disappeared. She swallowed, her throat becoming unexpectedly dry but resisted. If she drank and he decided to kill her or decided that she wasn't of use, being drunk wasn't the choice way she wanted to go down fighting. He sipped at his glass giving her a small smile.

"So Hermione, tell me about yourself." He leaned back in the chair his glass clasped in his fingers.

"I'm a shadow hunter, there isn't much to know. You seem to know a lot so I can assume you know what a shadow hunter is and how they're raised." His eyes were enthralling to look at, they seemed to move all in themselves. The dark blue twirling around with specs of black as if they were actually a separate entity, alive in themselves.

"That doesn't always mean they all live the same lives, surely you don't mean to tell me that you all are mindless zombies, walking around killing demons thinking the same things? Eat, sleep, kill?" That charming all-knowing smile never seemed to live his lips, sticking to the corners as if he were always smiling.

"I simply meant there isn't much too me, I don't live a very exciting life, it doesn't change very much." She shrugged though she was fibbing to an extent.

Every mission was different and she loved it. She loved the second the speaker in their rooms would call them out, alerting them to a mission. She loved how it felt when she had to put on her uniform and how well the material seemed to fit, as if it had been magically made to fit her as a second skin. She loved how her stele felt when it was marking into her skin, burning slightly at first and then edging away to form a beautiful tingling masterpiece of intricate runes. She couldn't think of anything she would have rather done in life than to be a shadow hunter and she found herself oddly grateful that she got for the chance to do it, waking every morning with a thick sense of pride knowing she was doing the angel's work.

"Pride is a sin, you know?" He raised an eyebrow. His words shocked Hermione, oh good, you can read minds too?

"Reading minds?" She unclenched her fingers, realizing she'd had them curled into fists since she'd sat down.

"No, I just know pride when I see it. So, besides killing demons what do you do for fun?" He changed the subject, picking up his menu again to glance over it.

Hermione knew she'd been hungry when she'd left the Institute, but she didn't feel hungry at all anymore. She realized she was feeling a tad sick to her stomach and if she was able to look inside herself, she would have seen that her stomach and its fellow organs were twisted up into each other. She knew though that it would be impolite to be invited to dinner and not even glance at the menu. It was small and everything was written in what looked like thick red blood, the cursive miniscule and formal. Hermione had to imagine that whatever they were going to eat was expensive because there were no prices next to food listed on the menu.

"I read."

"That's all? Surely you aren't that boring." He put his menu down and moments later a beautifully arranged dish of food appeared on it.

"I spend a lot of my time with my friends, I read, I study a lot. I like to go the museums around London and I enjoy traveling though I don't get a chance to do it very often. There, are you pleased?"

"Where's your favorite place to travel?" A small look of curious amusement was on his face.

She fiddled her fingers, twisting the ring on her pinky that her parents had given her when she turned sixteen. The ring was small and intricate, a vine looking metal with small sapphires woven throughout the shiny metal. She glanced down at the ring and then nervously back up at Tom who had begun to cut into the food on his plate, his movements oddly graceful for his age. The lights in the room flickered creating shadows and for the quickest moment she could have sworn that the shadow dancing behind him looked almost like wings. Her eyes blinked rapidly at the wall and it was gone, as if it had never been there.

"I love Paris, but Prague definitely rivals." She glanced down at her plate and found that it had filled itself with some sort of pasta topped with a delicious smelling fish of some sort. She grabbed her fork, poking around at it not wanting to be rude. "What about you, what are some things you like to do?"

"You'll have plenty of time to learn things about me, tonight is about you." He leaned forward to take another sip of his wine.

"I thought tonight was to discuss the terms and conditions of a game of sorts?" She placed a bite of the food in her mouth and had to keep herself from rolling her eyes back, whatever the hell it was, it was delicious.

"Oh, it is. But of course I wasn't going to spend our first date going over the rules of a game, how boring." He rolled his eyes. "I'd like to get to know you before we have all our fun."

"Who's to say I even want to play?" She couldn't help herself, taking another bite of her food.

"Well then you wouldn't have shown up now, would you?" She looked over to her glass and relieved to see that it had at some point changed to water and she helped herself to a tentative sip.

"So do you really think your identity is important enough to the point of revolving an entire game around guessing who you might be?"

"Well, I don't like to sound conceited, though I am very much so, you'll come to realize I'm quite an important person Hermione." If anything it was that damn smile, that stupid "I know something you don't know" smile. It was driving her crazy and it probably had something to do with her insatiable need for knowledge of everything and she had a feeling he knew it.

"So what else do you want to know about me then?" She pursed her lips pushing around the remaining flood on her plate with her fork.

"So being a shadow hunter, you must be very religious?" His tone had become seemingly formal and his look changed to match.

"Not so much so…" Her voice went rather high, her cheeks pinking from embarrassment.

Many of the shadow hunters she knew were quite religious, believing Heaven and Hell to the extent that they attended church regularly. Ron's family happened to be quite devout, his mother insisting on the family meeting at church every Sunday and meeting at her house for lunch afterwards, it was a family tradition that her and Harry had been sucked into. Hermione found the bible fascinating and had read it once and constantly found herself peaking back through the pages at it, rereading stories and the words of encouragement all throughout it. However, it all seemed to be a little much for her. Surely if any God existed, he would be as merciful as he were spoken to be in the bible.

Obviously something was real or else her people, these powers, this magic that existed, wouldn't be here, but for some an omnipotent being to exist, surely there would be…more? She realized she'd gone very silent and Tom was studying her as she thought about her answer. It wasn't something Hermione enjoyed talking about because usually the adults that brought this up, well their responses tended to be rather harsh when they heard of her disbelief.

"You don't believe? Surely the things you've seen would lead you to believe in something?"

"Some of the things I've seen in this world have led me to believe that if God did exist, there might be more…" She trailed off, to use the word proof seemed a tad stupid.

"You're looking for proof?"

"Maybe not proof, just something. Something that isn't there, maybe compassion. What about you? You sound like a believer."

"Well I'm not very religious myself, I'm a very devout believer if that makes any sense." His smile reappeared. "If angels and demons exist, surely there would be a Heaven and Hell to create them?"

"And maybe there is, but that doesn't mean that there is someone up there watching over them. How well do you know the bible?" She looked down and saw her food had disappeared.

"Very, very well actually, and you?"

"I've been through it more than once and I just have trouble believing that the God they describe in the book can actually exist in a place like this?" She moved her hands around the room dramatically.

"Think of it this way. You have a book but a book is only written from one perspective, in this case, several perspectives. Now if you had gone back into time and you had asked every single man, woman, and child alive to write their own perspective of the bible do you believe it would have turned out the way it did? Of course not, what of all the Hebrew slaves? What of Cain's brother Abel? What of all the harlots or the disease infested? Had they of been included do you think the bible would have painted such a pretty picture of our all loving savior?" His voice was smooth and captivating, that of a perfect orator and she found herself listening to every word, wanting to hear everything he said.

Her silence must have been answer enough because he gave her a small smile, continuing on.

"God can only do so much, Hermione. His job is to watch over and tend to those who give and dedicate their lives to him and to give the sinners their just dues. Human kind is not perfect and their lives weren't mean to be so. Surely you know the story of Adam and Eve?

"And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever,"

"Eve brought forth sin unto human kind and therefore took away any chance to live a sin-free life. Therefore God must punish and let their ancestors live accordingly. Do you know the current population of this earth? Seven billion people. Do you know how many of them are God fearing folk? Eighty four percent of people believe in some type of divine being, that's nearly six billion people. That means that every second of every hour roughly half that number are praying, speaking, or praising our heavenly father. Do you think, that even someone as strong and supreme as God could answer and care for every single one at once? Do you think that seeing all he has seen, the filth, the sins, and the unimaginable horror that takes place on this planet every day, do you think he ought to stop it all?"

She sat there speechless her mouth hanging open staring at him as he spoke, this aura seeming to come up around him as he spoke. This type of power that seemed to draw her in leaving her unable to listen to anything around her but his voice, to hear every single enchanting word that left his lips. She realized that while he'd been speaking she leaned up far against the table, drawn in by his words as he spoke. While is tone had started as formal, it ended as though he were defending God, speaking on his behalf and it became almost defensive.

"No, no one ever quite thinks of it like that do they?" He smiled, his demeanor changing suddenly and his tone becoming less serious and once again charming.

"You might convince me to believe after all." She realized suddenly that the room had become very hot and she reached for her glass, taking a large sip of the cool water.

"Why don't we change subjects? You wanted to know about our little game then?" She blinked at him, a little surprised that he was able to change subjects so rapidly when their previous subject had hit him so strongly.

"What of it then, how do I play?" She wasn't going to deny that she wanted to play. She lived for things like games and danger so why not this?

"While I myself love to bend the rules and find a good loophole now and then, this isn't the type of game where I'll be able to find any unfortunately." He lifted his finger over his empty wine glass and it refilled itself. "As a shadow hunter is bound by their oath of the angel, I am bound by similar rules."

"Someone as powerful as yourself?" She knew her tone was coming out in a joking manner but she had a hard time believing that anyone with as much power as he made himself sound to have had to follow rules.

"Regrettably, with great power comes great responsibility. As such, our game follows a very strict set of rules. I can of course allow you to see…certain things. Allow you some…rather daunting clues but nothing too straightforward." He spoke as if he were going over a business document. "However, for us to play such a game, you'll be unfortunately requested to follow the same silence."

"You mean, if I guess correctly I can't tell anyone? I can't tell anyone about any of this?" She felt hesitance running through her veins.

"Of course you're more than welcome to share with anyone you like of our time together, just not the information I share or the information you learn. Do you understand?" He clasped his hands together on the table.

"You want me to swear on the angel that I won't tell anyone anything you tell me?" She sat back in her chair.

"No, you see. Swearing on the angel won't exactly work in this case, I'm a man of paper, and you could say I'm old fashioned. I'll expect you to sign a contract?"

"A contract? What like if I say something I have to give you my soul?" She laughed aloud unable to help herself.

"Something like that." He smiled mischievously.

"You can't honestly expect me to sign such a document? Do I get to read what I'm signing?" She shook her head disbelieving.

"Oh, there won't be much to read. It'll just say what we just went over. You're more than welcome to read it, it'll be short and sweet and to the point. No hidden fine points or anything like that." He reached into the breast pocket of his jacket and pulled out a single scroll of parchment paper and a fancy gold lined calligraphy business pen. "Go ahead then."

She stared at his hand and grabbed the paper to read over its fine print but he was right, there was only a simple paragraph on the paper and it was straight forward and very straightforward. The paper had two small lines at the bottom where one had already been signed in a very fancy old-fashioned cursive script with Tom's signature which looked as though he'd been practicing writing it for a long time. Another empty line below his where her name was printed next too, the empty line awaiting her signature.

I, Hermione Granger, do swear that any such information shared on any basis with Tom Riddle, will be kept between the two named parties. Ay information shared between the two named parties shall therefore be assumed classified and any sharing of said information will be a direct breach of contract and will be met with the direct termination of contract as well as punishment fitting of the breach of contract. Unless given permission or direction to do otherwise, no information pertinent to the "game" or its two parties shall be shared.

"So if my friends were to ask what I did tonight, I could tell them we ate dinner together…but…" She trailed off allowing him to finish her sentence.

"You wouldn't be able to tell them about anything we spoke about." He pushed the pen towards her and smiled. "It's all up to you, I won't force you to sign it and of course signing it doesn't mean you have to play, it just gives me my privacy."

"What is the punishment?" She glanced down at the paper.

"A loss of memory. Nothing that will have happened to you since last night will be remembered, not even a meal."

She opened her mouth and closed it, which seemed like a very hefty price for his privacy. She tapped her fingers on the table rereading the paper and while her smarts very usually told her this type of thing was very stupid and this was normally the type of thing she was always trying to talk her friends into not doing, everything inside of her wanted her to sign this paper. She knew she could keep a promise and the rather punishment that would be laying on her shoulders would definitely be enough to keep her mouth shut, but it was a hard decision.

"What if I don't want to sign the paper?" She felt her fingers inching toward the pen anyways.

"Then I've got nothing left to talk to you about, as much as I enjoyed your company." He shrugged reaching forward for the paper but she slapped her hand down on it and he smiled.

She remained silent for another minute, her mind quickly trying to mule over what she was about to do but she knew she'd already made her decision and it felt really as though she were simply trying to delay what she really wanted. She took a deep breath and grabbed the pen, holding the paper and signing away what felt like her life for some reason.

"Now what?" She handed him the pen, feeling like something very spectacular should have happened, maybe a shining light of the shedding of blood onto the paper to truly bring meaning to what she'd just signed but nothing happened as he rolled the paper back up and placed it into his pocket.

"Now we begin." He stood up, reaching out his hand for Hermione's who narrowed her gaze at his hand but allowed herself to take it and be guided around the table.

She realized that a couch was pushed up against the side of the wall, one reminiscent of the couch she'd sat on when she first met Tom and he led her to sit down on it, coming to sit next to her. She seemed to have trouble remembering if the couch had been in the room when she first walked in and she didn't think it had and realized that Tom may be quite a bit more powerful than she originally thought he was.

"So what can I ask?" She leaned back against the arm of the couch trying to put some space between her and Tom.

"Oh, you can ask anything you want but that doesn't mean I can answer it all. Like I said, there's only so much I can give and show but I never said anything about making it easy." She saw from the corner of her vision that his hand was itching closely towards her thigh and she felt her body tensing.

"If this is a game, don't you want to win?" She felt her fingers curling into the side of the couch grasping it as his fingers brushed her leg and the heat was scorching and she felt frozen in place.

"You misunderstand the point of the game. I want you to know. I'm very much ready to share my secret with someone."

"Why me?" She realized that her heart was thudding so heavily in her chest it almost hurt as his fingers finally clasped onto her leg.

"Why not?" His fingers grasped her leg and she had to take a thick intake of breath to keep her body from reacting, unable to think of a time when her body had reacted so shamelessly.

She looked down at his hand and stared at the perfectly pale skin against her jeans staring at the obnoxious ring on his finger and found that she realized the symbol of the ring.

"So you believe in Satan as well?" She didn't remove her vision from the ring on his finger but his reaction was evident through the way his hand tightened unexpectedly on her thigh and it caused her to look up and his smile was almost scary, his perfectly white crooked teeth shining at her.

"Surely if one exists, so does the other." It wasn't a question, it was a statement.

"So why the ring then? Why memorabilia to Hell rather than Heaven?" She found herself unconsciously reaching forward to touch the ring and jumped when an electrical shock pricked at her fingers from touching it.

"I guess I just have a bit more interest in one than I do the other." The smile remained on his lips and she felt a shiver run down her back.

She pulled her hand away, slightly shocked that she'd been so forth coming in reaching forward and placed her hand back next to her leg. Though Tom's hand remained squarely on her leg and she found that she was still breathing in rather shallow soft breaths.

"So what happens after I guess? Can you just tell me…everything?" She looked around and regretted that her glass of water was still on the table because her mouth had becoming unbearably dry.

"Not exactly. Some things are better left unsaid in my case. Some things simply meant to be left unknown except to those who need to know." His eyebrows furrowed slightly and took on a rather dark look before smiling again. "How's about this, I send you home with a little hint?"

He stood up, his hand sliding off her leg and reaching forward again to gather her hand. He didn't speak much as they left the room, the club they walked through having gained some more patrons and some looked as they passed. Hermione prayed to God (she was pretty sure she was going to be doing that more often) that no one in here would recognize her and say something to someone at the institute.

They reached the outside and she took a breath of the fresh cold air, thankful to be out of the enclosed room that she'd been locked in with him, glancing down at her watch surprised. She didn't realized she'd been gone so long, it'd been over two hours and she didn't really have an excuse to use for why she'd been gone so long when all she'd done was gone to get food. She pulled her cell-phone from her purse and saw she had several missed calls from Harry and Ron and a few texts demanding to know where she'd gone and if she was dead.

"So what's the hint then?" She put her phone back in her bag and turned to look at him and saw that he'd already pulled out another cigarette and had lit it, leaning back against the alley wall to take a deep inhale closing his eyes before opening them to peak at her.

"I've already given it to you." He smiled flicking the small white cylinder in his fingers letting the ash drift away in the wind.

"What?" She wrinkled her nose at the smell that drifted from his smoke.

"Think about everything we talked about inside Hermione, you'll find something in there. I promise." He smiled taking another drag before beginning to walk away from her but she followed, a slight anger building up.

"You said you would give me a hint to leave on." She demanded tailing him as he walked down the sidewalk.

"And I did, I gave you many hints tonight. However, it's not up to me to tell you how to read them or how to put them together. Unfortunately, that's the rather rough side of our game. You'll have to find what I give when I give it." She jumped slightly when he came up next to her, putting his arm around her shoulders nodding at two rather burly men who were walking past, their eyes eating Hermione up and down. "How's about I walk you home though, a girl like you doesn't need to be out walking alone this late."

"I'm more than capable of taking care of myself-"

"Those two men are following you, please. Allow me to take you home." His voice was low and demanding but it lightened quickly, changing subjects. "Now, like I said. I've given you more information than I should have, a smart woman like you ought to be able to figure it out in no time."

She moved into his arm but glanced back either way and saw indeed that the two men had stopped and were leaning against a car on the side of the road, one watching them walk and the other facing away from her as if talking to the guy facing them. She turned back and leaned closer into his arm, how had he known so quickly those two men were going to follow her?

"That hardly seems fair, smart or not this sounds like more of a puzzle than a guessing game." She wanted to turn back around to look but knew better, she'd been trained better. She felt her hand glide casually to her purse to place her hand inside, grasping the extending dagger she'd placed in there before she left.

Tom laughed but kept quiet as they moved along, walking quickly and making sudden sharp turns heading back towards the institute. She knew that while she was very much capable of handling herself she was grateful Tom was here because being able to fight didn't always guarantee a win, especially with two men that looked like them. She could see the spiral of the institute's bell and felt a sigh of relief but Tom still had a firm arm wrapped around her shoulder.

"Will you be able to handle them by yourself?" She felt rather stupid asking that question but she didn't quite feel right leaving someone alone with two guys that looked like they ate people like Tom for breakfast.

"Oh, I'll handle myself. However, it would be smart to let your head of institute know that you were followed and be sure to give a good description, it'll help." He stopped about a block from the church and stared up at it and turned back to Hermione to give her a charismatic smile that made her heart beat quicken. "We'll be in close contact of course, I have every intention of continuing what I started."

Hermione glanced around and didn't see the guys and let her hand fall away from her purse and found herself reaching up to pull softly at her hair, unsure of what she was supposed to say or do. She'd never really been on a date before and didn't really know what was supposed to be done after one. Though he'd seen enough movies and read enough books to know that the man was supposed to kiss her, the thought of kissing Tom Riddle was ridiculous, she would never kiss a boy she'd only known for a day and while she rather liked this man if he thought he was going to kiss her, he had another thing coming.

"So there's no more hints then?" She looked down at her feet and squished the tip of her shoe into the grimy pavement.

"Goodnight, Miss Granger. I have no doubts I'll be hearing from you soon. Remember our contract." He laughed aloud at her comment but grabbed her hand, kissing it quickly before she could react and walking away leaving her to stand there with her face burning like a moron.