"I don't understand why we have to clear out of our room just so you can sleep with that Mudblood," Abraxas whined. "I'd understand it if you were fucking her. I mean, it'd be gross, but I guess everyone's got a fetish."
He turned to glower at Antonin who made a face and looked up at the ceiling.
"Don't call her that ever again," Tom said, his voice the kind of idle, uninflected tone most people used to comment on uninteresting weather. "If you do, I'll hang you from the Common Room ceiling and find out how long a person can last during live vivisection."
"Always so dramatic," Abraxas muttered.
"I really wish you'd stop harping on the clown thing," Antonin said. "It was just the one time and you have brought it up incessantly."
"He, I don't judge," Abraxas said. "You like your women dressed up like circus clowns. That's great. At least it's a creative fetish. Most people like shoes or feet or something."
"At least I don't go around the dorm singing songs from West End musicals," Antonin snapped "One more rendition of 'Tea for Two' and I might kill you in your sleep."
"You don't appreciate great art," Abraxas said with a sniff.
. . . . . . . . . . .
Tom Riddle really really wanted to have sex with Hermione Granger. It wasn't just the way she smelled, though he found himself fascinated by how powerful pheromones were. He was just drawn to her as if they were bees or something.
He had added an entire page to his Big Book of World Domination in order to brainstorm ideas on controlling the masses via smell. It seemed a bit out there, but, hey, he'd already turned his diary into a self-aware soul storage unit. He was pretty comfortable with 'out there' ideas.
Plus, the molting; that was pretty 'out there'. Where did the feathers even come from?
Still, sex.
He wanted to have it.
And not just because of the pheromones.
He was a budding Dark Lord with a knack for anagrams but he was also a horny teenaged boy and he's just convinced the woman – girl? woman? – to sleep in his bed every night. Really, it was just a matter of time. Very frustrating time.
Time. Time was the root of this whole problem. If the stupid girl – woman? – hadn't traveled back in time he never would have found out he was a Veela and was stuck with her forever. And feathers. He was stuck with the feathers.
Once he'd even found a pink one. What the hell?
At least she'd been laying off the unicorn crap lately.
He'd torn several pages out of books and left them in her bag and her rage had turned him on and bolstered his mood all through Potions as he sucked up to that idiot sycophant Slughorn, though the resulting erection had been a trifle awkward when class was over. He was tired of wanking in the shower and thinking about how fucking amazing the stupid woman smelled and he knew that she had the same response to him and it just wasn't fair.
Why wouldn't she just fuck him?
Tom Riddle sat on his bed and sulked and waited for his girlfriend to get back from whatever it was she was doing that had her so damn pleased with herself.
. . . . . . . . . .
"The name thing is stupid," Hermione said as Tom handed her another blackberry. "There's nothing wrong with the name 'Tom'." She paused. "Though I can kind of see your point about the 'Riddle' bit,' especially given Antonin's thing with the clowns."
"I beg your pardon," he asked, not pursuing how she knew about Antonin. Some things even an evil Dark Lord didn't want to know about.
"Voldemort. It's a dumb name, even if the anagram is kind of clever and your ongoing thematic obsession with death nicely worked in."
"Lord Voldemort is not a stupid name," he muttered.
"Is," she disagreed and took another blackberry. "But wizards tend to go for stupid names so I suppose you feel like you fit it better with it, though why you can't just use your middle name I have no idea. Lord Marvolo has a bit of a nice ring."
"Lord Marvolo and Lady Hermione," he said with a smirk before adding, sulkily, "and I'm not trying to just fit in."
"Really? Mulciber. Abraxas. Thoros. Your friends all have dumb names. Stands to reason you'd want a dumb name too." She patted him on the hand in the condescending way she knew he hated. "It's okay to want to be like your friends, Tommy."
"I could kill you," he said under his breath.
"Can't, actually," she said.
"I'm special," he muttered, "I should have a name that's not ordinary."
She took another blackberry. "That's right. You're my special little scary snowflake."
. . . . . . . . . .
"Tommy." Hermione was hanging upside down over the edge his bed – their bed, really – and working on casting a wandless, silent muffliato to drown out Abraxas.
"What?" he snapped. He'd been making minor edits in his Big Book of World Domination and he hated to be interrupted when he did that. It made him petulant.
"I've been thinking about your quest for immortality," she said. "I don't think you should make any more horcruxes. It's not efficient."
"This isn't an automobile factory," Tom said. "Efficiency is not my main goal." He waited for her to go on and when she didn't, just lay there, draped upside down and starting at him and feeling annoyed, he finally closed up his Big Book and turned around. "So what do you, swotty future girl, think I should do?"
"I think you should kill Nicholas Flamel and take the Philosopher's Stone," she said. "Elixer of Life and all that."
Tom sighed. "You say that as if I hadn't already considered it, but what if someone steals the Stone? I don't like being dependent on some fantastical object."
"Don't be ridiculous," Hermione said. "You've already got two horcruxes as backups and your obsession with making them be important and special objects means they're already easy to find and destroy. If you really objected to being dependent on fantastical objects, as you put it, you'd have made a grain of sand into a horcrux, tossed it on the beach, and known no one would ever find it. But, no, you have to be special and different.
"It's really your main weakness," she said. "Well, that and the daddy issues."
"I do not have daddy issues."
"Also," Hermione said, "how do you plan to handle having me die of old age? I'm kind of a built in expiration date for your mad immortality plans unless you keep me alive too."
"Fuck," Tom Riddle muttered. "You're right."
"I usually am," she said. "Also, I want an engagement ring."
He raised his eyebrows and looked at her, tasted her feelings. She was totally, completely, unequivocally, sincere.
"Well, we are stuck together and social mores do dictate that means marriage," she said with a shrug. "Plus, I'm getting tired of the feathers and keeping you happy keeps that under control. Last time we kissed I got one in my mouth; how can that even happen?"
"Will we have sex if we're married?" Tom asked.
"Make me immortal and get me a ring and then we'll talk," she said.
He smirked. Nicholas Flamel was as good as dead.
. . . . . . . . . .
"You know," Tom said as he worked a brush through Hermione's hair with immense care, "snakes are not as interesting to talk to as you might think."
She laughed and he sighed. She never took his problems seriously.
"How dull are they?" she asked, mustering interest. "I never asked Harry; he was just too freaked out that you and he had the same creepy language skill to be willing to talk about it in any depth."
"Who's Harry?" Tom asked, his hand stilling. He didn't like her to talk to other boys. Antonin was acceptable, what with the way he only liked clowns and Tom was quite sure Hermione would die laughing before she'd put on floppy shoes, and Abraxas could barely manage to pretend to be interested in the stunning girl he was being forced to marry after graduation. But who was this 'Harry'?
"The baby you aren't going to kill as a favor to me," she said. "In the future. Keep brushing."
"I don't see why I should do you any favors," he muttered.
"I know," she said. "But you will anyway."
He sighed. "So this 'Harry' could talk to snakes too," he asked.
"That is what I said. I wish you could keep up with me, Tom. Having a slow Veela is a bit like having a simple dog. It seems sweet enough but – "
He groaned and spun her around and kissed her to shut her up. Some days it was the only thing that worked. She nearly purred against him as she opened her lips and Tom considered the great mercy that she came from a time period with significantly looser morals. Imagine if she'd traveled to him from the past and wouldn't even let him be alone with her.
"Snakes," he finally whispered against her skin, "are very limited thinkers. They care about food and warmth and killing things and sex and nothing else. They are very very boring to talk to."
Hermione pushed him over onto his back and, laying down at his side, thought very lewd things at him. He shut his eyes and sighed. "You're just teasing me again," he said. "You have no intention of letting me fuck you. You are a really evil bitch, you know that?"
"Tell me more about snakes," she invited him as she reached a hand down into his trousers. "You keep talking and I'll keep amusing myself at your expense."
There were, Tom Riddle considered as he began to discuss serpentine conversational failings, worse things than a girlfriend who could think dirty thoughts at you. She didn't even slip in one unicorn or puppy until after he'd come in her hand.
"Bitch," he muttered at the image of frolicking unicorn foals.
"But I'm your bitch," she said.
. . . . . . . . . .
Hermione looked over the ring Tom handed her, turning it back and forth and holding it up to her eye.
"For fuck's sake," he snapped. "I washed the blood off before I gave it to you."
"Oh, well, I'm glad there are standards," she said. "For the record 'I already washed the blood off' is not the most romantic ring presentation ever."
"You would have preferred I didn't?"
"Sometimes," Hermione said, "talking to you makes me want to bang my head into a wall." She handed him the ring back. "Go research how to propose and come back when you've got a good one worked out. Ask Abraxas or something; one of those musicals he's always singing should have an idea you can steal. Also, I'm out of blackberries."
. . . . . . . . . .
Hermione had very strong feelings about pedagogy. Normally Tom hated it when she went about projecting her damn emotions all over the place but he made two exceptions.
One was the way she felt when he played with her body; the taste of her emotions as he buried fingers inside her and worked her with his thumb was particularly nice. He'd actually made her beg once doing that and considered pulling repeat pleas out of her mouth a life goal on par with taking over the Ministry and staffing it with his own, clownish minions.
The way she contemplated lurid forms of murder when she sat in classes with teachers she didn't approve of was just as nice.
She had a remarkably vivid imagination and he began to appreciate her more and more. During History of Magic he didn't even try to take notes, just leaned back and let her murderous frustration wash over him.
When she contemplated letting animals gnaw Professor Binns to death while the man remained fully conscious – something very few students in the class were – Tom realized he had been quite mistaken about his own emotional failings.
He could feel love.
Fascinating.
. . . . . . . . . .
"So," Headmaster Dippet regarded the girl who'd shown up from the future with a twinkle in his eye; eye twinkles were handed out as soon as one became Headmaster. "Though you assure me this is technically your sixth year I do think you should write your O.W.L. exams with the fifth year students."
"Technically this is more like my eighth year." Hermione stopped to consider whether the year she'd spent doing inept covert operations for a war counted as a year of school. "Maybe seventh," she amended.
"I have had some difficulty in getting your records forwarded – or backwarded – from the future," Dippet said.
Hermione squinted at him.
"You will need your exam records to get a job," Dippet said, starting to speak slowly as though he wasn't quite sure the girl in front of him was following along.
She shrugged and concealed her furious thoughts. She didn't like being spoken down to. "Fine. I'll write the exams."
In the Slytherin common room Tom Riddle tipped his head back and gave a groan of pure delight. Abraxas looked at him in confusion but Thoros Nott rolled his eyes and explained. "Somewhere, Hermione is pissed off about something. If that woman ever breaks down and hits someone who annoys her, Tom might come on the spot."
"Do you think we could set that up?" Tom sat up. "Or stabbing. I'd love to feel her stab someone." His fingers began to twist into excited claws and he swore under his breath and tried to calm down.
"Being a Veela is fucking weird," Abraxas observed. "I mean, bird claws? Really? Next thing I know you'll be eating suet or something."
Back in the Headmaster's office Dippet was still talking, oblivious to Hermione's mood. "And you have a room to stay this last summer in the same orphanage as Tom Riddle. I do think you know him? Dumbledore told me that he set that up when you first popped up from the future."
"Tom and I are somewhat acquainted, yes," Hermione said. "I'm sure he'll help get me settled this summer."
. . . . . . . . . .
Tom was nibbling on her neck when she told him she should consider studying for her O.W.L. exams. He pulled away and looked at her, waiting for the punch line.
"Is this some kind of a threat to get more peaches?" he asked at last when no joke was forthcoming.
She twisted the engagement ring on her finger with a petulant frown. "Dippet seems to feel I should sit them so I can get a job."
Tom Riddle snorted. "You don't need a job. We're going to take over the world as immortal dictators. Hello? Have you not been paying attention? I'm a crazed megalomaniac and you're my creepy magical bird mate. And fiancé. We're stuck with each other and I'm not going to stop being interested in power just because you smell nice."
"Your plan to acquire power is still shite," Hermione told him. "Why have you stopped kissing me?"
"You told me you needed to study," Tom informed her. "I could use that time to revise my 'shite' plan."
Hermione laughed and pulled his mouth back to hers. After a few moments she said, "I did already sit them once, and then studied another year, and then did a year of practical field work while I tried to figure out how to kill you. I suppose I'll be fine without a review."
"I must say, I'm a bit put out your practicum was all about killing me. That seems like a bit of a bad quality in girlfriend."
"Fiancé. You got down on one knee and recited poetry and everything. Though, I still think, 'On Another's Sorrow' by William Blake was a weird choice."
"It's about sharing feelings," he muttered.
"Whatever." Hermione pulled her shirt off and Tom bit his lip and began to reach around to undo the clasp of her bra. "And I thought my history of wanting to kill you was part of our special bond."
"Do you still want to kill me?" he asked, lowering his mouth to one nipple and tugging on it, ever so carefully, with his teeth, before flicking his tongue back and forth across the hardening flesh.
"Sometimes," she gasped.
"Still hate me?" he asked.
"Sometimes," she admitted.
"Going to fuck me anyway?"
"Eventually."
"I can live with that." Tom returned his full attention to the way her smell changed when she was aroused. Pheromones really were wonderful.
. . . . . . . . . .
Sitting exams becomes much less stressful when not only have you taken them once before but you also have a backup plan to become queen of the world with your sociopathic mate at your side if gainful employment doesn't work out.
. . . . . . . . . .
Hermione hefted her bag over her shoulder and looked at the grim orphanage. "You have to be kidding me," she said to Tom.
"Home, sweet home," he said.
The matron came out and looked at them, her hands on her ample hips, a dirty apron tied over a poorly fitted dress. "Well. You came back," she said, sounding disappointed.
"Mrs. Cole," Tom said politely. "I believe the school wrote to you about Miss Granger."
The woman fastened her beady eyes on Hermione and sniffed. "I won't have any hanky panky, missy," she said.
"Well," Hermione said, "you certainly won't remember any, no."
. . . . . . . . . .
A/N - Thank you for all the feedback. I'm so glad everyone appreciates the utter solemnity of this story. I mean, I reference William Blake, always a sign of somber intent.
On the off change you might have not heard the song Abraxas Malfoy is annoying his friends by singing, I pinned it. www . pinterest colubrina/a-nose-that-can-see/