As much as Tom liked Hermione's hands on his cock, that summer he came to appreciate her mouth more. Having her mouth on his cock not only felt much lovelier – though she did spit out a feather once and glare at him while he muttered a sullen apology – it also kept her from talking.

Once she'd made him listen to an entire lecture on situational ethics while jerking him off and, after that, he really appreciated anything that kept that from happening ever again.

Ever.

Like he cared about ethics.

"I'm the Dark Lord, Hermione," he'd said. "Murder. Mayhem. Immortality. Not endless discussions on love making things right."

Murder. Mayhem. Immortality. And blow jobs. It was so very good to be bad.

If he'd been really good to Hermione on any given day, she'd even think about how much she loathed Mrs. Cole and the myriad ways the orphanage matron could be made to die while she sucked him off. The time she'd imagined cutting the woman into small bits he'd come the moment he'd entered Hermione's mouth.

"Damn," Hermione had said.

"Don't say anything," he'd muttered and, for once, she'd listened.

"Am I still your special snowflake?" he'd muttered into the silence, embarrassed as she wiped her chin and she'd stood up and kissed his forehead. He'd cringed, waiting for thoughts of gamboling puppies or, worse, pity but instead she'd concentrated on feeling how much she hated the orphanage and everyone in it – except him – and he'd let her hatred soothe his wounded pride until he realized he was lying down in her lap and she was stroking his hair.

"I love you," he'd said. Her hand had stilled for a moment then gone back to petting him.

"It's just the pheromones," she'd said reassuringly. "You're still a sociopath."

. . . . . . . . .

Hermione hated the orphanage and she hated Mrs. Cole.

For one thing, the woman made her realize she actually had an emotional connection to Tom Riddle. She could have lived without knowing that.

At Hogwarts she'd never felt the need to defend the wretched boy because his endless stream of sycophants perpetually fawned on him. But here, here in this orphanage with this judgmental matron who didn't like Tom simply because he was an evil genius, well, here she started to defend him and that wasn't acceptable.

Realizing she cared that the matron condemned him made Hermione realize she cared about Tom.

She cared about Tom Riddle.

The very idea made her shudder. It was one thing to let his talented fingers get her off – and having a direct line to her feelings did give him a bit of an advantage in that department – it was another to actually care about the boy.

She blamed Mrs. Cole for that discovery and that blame fueled her hatred.

Also, Hermione was fairly sure the orphanage would not have been deemed acceptable in the era she'd grown up in and she saw no reason to lower her standards on what qualified as reasonable living conditions for children, namely herself. She hadn't approved of Harry's living under the stairs or behind bars and she didn't approve of this ten-cots-to-a-room 'we love you Mrs. Hannigan' bullshite either.

She also missed sleeping with Tom.

He was molting more because of the nights away from her and she spent most of her waking hours curled up against his side 'studying' together, walking with him, or sneaking into closets for trysts, justifying it to herself by saying it was to help him.

No need to dwell on how much she'd started to enjoy his company.

Mrs. Cole tried to tell her one day she had to help take care of the younger children and Hermione asked to see the books that documented how much the woman was being paid by the school to take her in and feed her and whether or not that fee had been adjusted to compensate for the labor the woman was trying to extract.

Mrs. Cole told her to mind her lip.

Then Hermione threatened to kill anyone left in her care. "I don't like children," Hermione said while Riddle had leaned against the wall and soaked in her rage like parched soil absorbing rain. "I'm not good with them. Any of them left with me aren't likely to fare well. Are you following me? I could use smaller words. Maybe."

Mrs. Cole stomped off threatening to write the school.

"Hermione," Tom Riddle said weakly from his place at the wall, "Do you think you could think about unicorns or something? I'm really…"

She looked at him, erection bulging in his trousers, and thought about unicorns and kittens and how adorable they were backlit by the sun in a field in the late afternoon. He sagged in relief as the telltale swelling receded.

"I'm losing my touch with the unicorns," Hermione said as she slipped into his embrace, enjoying the smell of him and the feel of him. Enjoying him.

She was probably going to go to hell for that.

On the other hand, immortality.

Well, you win some, you lose some.

"That's not helping," he said, as she pressed against him and let her mind dwell on how she was starting to be rather fond of him. To care about him. "If you're not going to let me fuck you, could you stop being so damn delicious?"

. . . . . . . . . .

"Where's my fruit?" she demanded.

"I can't get it here," Tom said with a pout.

"I don't see why I'm supposed to put up with a sociopathic Veela who thinks he owns me when there aren't any peaches in the bargain," Hermione said. "Pass the sugar."

Tom slid the sugar bowl across the table and Hermione started to giggle as she spooned it into the vile instant coffee Mrs. Cole kept in the kitchen.

"What?" he demanded.

"Just… I'm hanging out with Lord Voldemort over coffee," she gasped. "It's… swell."

"And people say I'm the crazy one," Tom muttered.

. . . . . . . . . .

Hermione knew Tom would get picked to be Head Boy. After all, she came from the future. It made her less than properly giddy when he got the badge in the mail and he sulked for three hours.

She made it up to him by reading a book about serial killers out loud in one of the common 'play' areas of the orphanage. He sat at her feet as she explicated the crimes of Jack the Ripper and watched the horrified faces of the other orphans with utter delight.

Hermione was not popular in the orphanage.

It wasn't that she had threatened to allow harm to come to anyone left in her care. It wasn't even that she was constantly in the presence of a boy of whom most of the other children were terrified.

It was that she berated them about schoolwork.

"You have no hope in this world to pull yourselves out of this miserable, stinking poverty except education," she'd lecture. "Do you want to end up like Mrs. Cole? A slovenly matron of unwanted children? No? Then stop playing ball and study your algebra and learn to write a decent hand."

"Do you plan to scold the offspring of my followers that way," he asked, lounging with his head on her lap in the park on one of the 'fresh air outings' Mrs. Cole had taken to insisting upon. She wouldn't allow Hermione and Tom to stay behind, knowing full well they'd likely engage in sordid sex acts she read about in the grimy romance novels she hid in the kitchen.

"Do you plan to make me live with these theoretical offspring?" she asked with a shudder.

Tom grinned up at her. "Maybe."

"Liar," she said. "You like children less than I do."

"Contraceptive charms are a beautiful thing," he said. "I don't suppose you'd consider doing anything that might require one anytime soon? I did get you the ring."

Hermione stroked his dark hair and he nearly cooed with happiness at her touch. "Well," she said, "I understand as Head Boy you get your very own dormitory you only have to share with the Head Girl. A private room and everything."

"I do," Tom admitted.

"And, even for the stunningly poorly supervised co-ed boarding school we go to, that seems like an opportunity not to be missed."

"Mrs. Cole would not approve," Tom agreed.

"I assume you can handle the Head Girl problem?"

Tom smiled up at her, a wicked smile if ever there had been one. "I think I can manage to do that," he said.

"Then," Hermione said with a shrug, "we can have sex."

. . . . . . . . . .

"I feel bad I was not properly enthusiastic about your selection as Head Boy," Hermione said, wiping a trail of semen from her lips.

"Head being the theme of this broom closet encounter?" Tom asked as he leaned back against the wall and fumbled with his trousers.

"Mmm. Well, yes, though you owe me."

"It's hard to go down on you in a closet," Tom said. "We tried my kneeling and the angle was all wrong for you."

"True enough," Hermione admitted. "I'm keeping a tally for when we go back to school though. But that wasn't what I was talking about. I have a present for you; a bit of a congratulatory thing."

She stood up and handed him a vial filled with a silvery grey cloud of inchoate wispiness.

"What is it?" Tom asked.

"A memory," she said as she brushed dust off her knees. "I wish Mrs. Cole kept this closet cleaner. It's a bit of the future. You'll need a pensieve, I'm afraid – "

"Easy enough," he said with a shrug.

"- but I'm quite sure you'll enjoy it."

"This isn't you having sex with that Harry, is it?"

"Ewww." Hermione hit him and he licked his lips. "Harry was – is – my best friend. Like a brother. Just… don't be disgusting." She settled her skirt rather primly about her hips. "For your information, I'm a virgin." He made a scoffing noise. "Technically," she amended.

Despite the sound he made, Tom felt pleased. The Veela thing came with a surprising amount of possessiveness. He already had a tendency to like to hoard special things, rather like a crow, and he didn't care to share them at all. The way, however, he felt about the rest of his little shiny treasures – and, no, he didn't want to talk about why he liked the gum wrappers, he just did – was nothing compared to the way he felt about the wretched, wonderful girl who'd just sucked him off. She was absolutely his prize possession and he was quite sure he'd kill anyone who looked at her wrong.

If he could kill anyone who even looked at her that would be better but it was impractical to carry out, mainly because, when he'd suggested she spend her life in seclusion, she'd decided to do a 500-piece puzzle of Persian kittens sitting on a pink, satin pillow.

She wasn't good at puzzles.

By the end he was begging at her feet for her to stop with the cute kittens. She's made him kneel and apologize and promise never to suggest such a thing again. Then the fucking bitch had finished the puzzle anyway, contemplating the cuteness of the fluffy little cats with the flat faces the whole damn time.

He hated her.

She was so fucking evil.

He adored her.

For pretty much the same reason.

Now he hefted the memory she'd given him and looked at her. "Will I like it?" he asked.

"Oh, yes," she said. "I think you'll love it."

. . . . . . . . . .

"How did you do on your O.W.L.s, oh swotty one?" Tom asked as Hermione opened the envelope from Hogwarts.

She tossed the results over at him.

"You got an 'O' in Muggle Studies?" he said, making a face. "You don't even take Muggle Studies."

"I got ten 'Outstandings'," she said, slightly irritated, "and you focus in on that one."

"It's kind of embarrassing given my political position on Muggles and Muggle-borns," he said. "Maybe we can not tell Abraxas and Mulciber about that one."

"I assume by 'political position' you mean 'incoherent plan to wipe them out'," Hermione said.

"Don't start with me," he muttered.

"Besides, were you really planning on bragging about my grades to your minions?" Hermione scoffed.

"I could tell them about your brain or your mouth, which do you prefer?"

"Bastard," she said.

"I'm afraid not," he said. "My daddy issues don't include that one."

. . . . . . . . .

When they returned to school, Hermione didn't even pretend she wasn't staying in Tom's room every night. She remained unsure whether Headmaster Dippet didn't know or didn't care the two of them had effectively been co-habiting since midway through the previous year and she had stopped worrying about it.

Tom really did smell amazing.

Sleeping with him was possibly the most wonderful thing in the world. She'd tried to keep that from him for a while but the way he was attuned to her emotions made that a doomed effort. He'd smirked at her the first time she'd woken up next to him, wallowing in pheromone-induced contentment. "I take it that the smell thing does work both ways," he'd said.

She'd scowled at him and he'd laughed at her.

Summer without him next to her in bed had been agonizing.

She never planned to put herself through that again.

He knew that too, of course, the bastard.

"How the power has shifted," he teased as she sprawled on his bed in the Head Boy room. "I think you might be as fond of me as I am of you."

She spun their engagement ring on her finger. "Arsehole," she said.

"But I have raspberries," he said, a teasing lilt in his voice and she opened her mouth and he popped one in. "And I do so like putting things in your mouth," he added.

Hermione muttered something around the fruit, then, after swallowing it, said, "Why don't you go look at your present, sweetheart. I'm sure there's a pensieve lying around somewhere."

He came back soon thereafter, wet spot on his trousers, a wild look in his eyes. "Who was that?" he demanded. "Who was that little clone of Abraxas' you punched?"

"His grandson," Hermione purred. "I take it you liked my memory?"

He bore down on her, claws curling from his hands, "You'd better think of something fluffy and pink if you don't want me right now."

Hermione licked her teeth and thought about how much she'd hated Mrs. Cole and Tom was on her almost instantly, He shoved her cute little schoolgirl skirt up and snarled at the way she wasn't wearing knickers. "You were waiting for me," he said, the words nearly a hiss. "You knew what that would do to me. You bitch," he said. "I fucking came in the goddamned common room."

"My turn, then," Hermione said, and, breathing hard, Tom Riddle looked at her. The realization she wasn't going to say no made him relax a little and the claws slowly faded away and he shoved a finger into her.

"You're dripping wet," he said.

"Pheromones," she said, arching her pelvis up towards him. "Creepy Veela connection. What turns you on, turns me on." She made a keening noise as he brushed roughly against her. "I knew the moment you dropped into that memory."

He backed away from her and yanked a book of her shelf. She watched him as he looked at her, then deliberately tore a page out and ripped it to shreds in front of her.

"You bastard," she hissed. She tried to think of fluffy animals but he laughed.

"Oh, no you don't," he said, "Not this time," and he ripped out another page.

She lost her concentration on the fluffiness of overweight cats at how furious she was at him that he was destroying her book.

"This feedback loop," she half-gasped, half-hissed, as his arousal from her anger hit her, "is going to break me."

"Good," Tom said, wrestling out of his trousers. "I think this would be a really good time to fuck. And I think this would be a good time to actually mark you as my mate; Salazar knows I've been burning to do it for ages. You get a ring, I get a scar. Where do you want it?"

"Hip," she snarled.

He lowered his mouth to her hip and licked at her skin. "Good choice," he said, his tone as mocking as he could make it, "that way only I can see it." He began to work her with his hand, bringing her higher and higher, guiding himself with the emotions radiating off her so strongly he couldn't believe the whole school hadn't stopped what they were doing to wank in unison, and, right as she peaked, he bit down as hard as he could and she howled.

"You fucker," she said as he pulled back. "That really fucking hurt."

"What did you think being bitten hard enough to leave a permanent scar would feel like?" he snapped, but the pain and hurt she was feeling as she struggled to choke back sobs was too much and he had her gathered into his arms and was actually cuddling her.

That kind of horrified him.

He just couldn't help himself.

His brain was screaming at him that she was hurt and that it was imperative that he kill whomever had done it and, well, he'd done it.

It was a tad confusing.

After she calmed down and the pain she was throwing at him had been reduced from crashing waves to tiny splashes lapping at the shore of the connection that had never gotten less peculiar, she said, "I hope you had a fucking sound barrier up or that stupid Head Girl is probably calling Dippet as we lie here."

"I did," he reassured her.

"And if you ever do that again, I will castrate you in your sleep," she added.

"You're mine now," he said, running his hand over the ring of tooth-marks that were already settling into being permanent, magical scar. "I'll kill anyone who touches you."

The Veela thing really was kind of creepy.

Didn't mean he wouldn't do it.

"Stalker much? I was already yours," she said, sounding aggrieved. "I've been yours since I showed up in this bloody time." She snuggled her head against his chest and Tom felt a kind of internal purring at the closeness; the marking ritual really had made him feel that much more possessive of her which, given he'd already contemplated the practicality of killing anyone who looked at her funny, was somewhat impressive. "You could have bloody well warned me your weird thing would hurt so damn much. I am absolutely not in the mood anymore." She sniffled. "No sex for you."

"You really thought it wouldn't hurt?" He snorted in derision. "Ten O.W.L.s and you couldn't put together being bitten would hurt."

She sulked at that and he sighed. "I'm sorry," he muttered. "I'm being an arse."

"Get a pensieve," she said, still sounding put out. "Maybe the next time you watch me punch Draco we can enjoy the aftermath without any disgusting Veela mating rituals to muck it up."

"Draco?"

"The mini-Abraxas."

"They name the kid Draco? The Malfoys are so pretentious with the naming crap. Who names a kid 'dragon'? Arseholes, that's who."

"So says Lord Voldemort."

He pulled her under the covers and held her, her naked bum pressed rather enticingly against him. He considered that he had gotten his trousers off before he marked her and she wasn't wearing knickers and there were several more hours until dinner and concluded that this still had the potential to end well, if not quite as explosively as he'd hoped.

All he said was, "I'm considering following your advice and sticking with Lord Marvolo and Lady Hermione."

. . . . . . . . . .

A/N – I realize this is not quite as gasp out loud crack-y as the first two chapters. I think it may continue to get slowly darker what with Tom being a sociopath bent on world domination and Hermione mostly caring about fruit. Add in all the angry Tomione sex and the funny is a little thinner on the ground.

My beta, the amazing Shealone, tells me this chapter contains the most explicit line I've ever written. I think she's probably right. And I have a feeling it's just going to get dirtier from here.

Thank you to StarGirlPotter for the pensieve idea.