Tom had gotten rather used to the idea of a permanently bonded sex partner. Life partner. It helped that when he'd nervously mentioned children she'd thrown something at him and sworn if he ever got her pregnant she'd hex his balls off.
He hated children.
Well, he hated almost everyone but children were sticky and that made them even less acceptable than non-sticky people.
If you have to be a magically bound, immortal couple, it's good to agree on the question of whether or not to have children.
Not. Not was the right answer.
It also helped that he liked to collect things that were precious and his mate was most definitely precious. Bitchy and manipulative and downright evil at times but his.
Hers too, though.
The first time he'd called her his, she'd gotten upset, and not the kind of pissed off that turned him on but a fear akin to that of an animal caught in a trap. He'd felt that horrifying urge to comfort her.
Dark Lords were not supposed to comfort distraught girlfriends.
If there had been a manual that would have been in it.
Still. Veela. It wasn't like he had a choice.
She'd narrowed her eyes at him, hiding her terror so well no one but him could have known. "You need to get over this idea I belong to you," was all she'd said.
"You do though," he'd said. "My mate. Bonded. I marked you. Weird magical crap and it made you mine. You can't even touch another man anymore, can you? Feels like slime, doesn't it? Like you've shoved your hand into a vat of sewage when you even brush up against anyone other than me? Trust me, I know; it's the same for me. You're stuck with me. I'm stuck with you." He'd pulled her into arms and she'd been so upset she hadn't even stopped him. "Only bad part for me is you own me too. I can't bear for you to be even slightly displeased with me. At least when I'm pissed off at you, you don't have the screaming urge to drop everything to make it better."
"Fucking weird magical shit," was all she'd said. "I should have let myself starve to death. Too bloody late now, I guess, what with all the fruit you seem to have access to."
He knew she'd gotten used to it too, though. She slept with him, luxuriated in the smell of him, loved him.
Not that she'd say it. He was pretty sure she'd finally agree to rehearse a duet with Abraxas before she'd say that out loud.
Of course, he didn't need her to.
. . . . . . . . . .
Tom watched Hermione across the Great Hall. She was talking to some worthless Gryffindor – he made a note on his 'List of Trivial Things to Do' to find out who it was in case he needed to kill him – while being very careful not to touch him.
The slime feeling really was awful.
The way she casually moved away from the git to ensure he couldn't put a hand on her made Tom smirk as he stared at her. She was his. His bright, shiny toy from the future was his.
"I don't get why you like her so much," Primrose Parkinson said with a sniff.
He didn't even bother to look at the girl. "She's mine."
. . . . . . . . . .
Tom was walking in the hall with Hermione when Dumbledore stopped them to ask how their last summer at the orphanage had been.
Hermione answered politely enough so her flare of rage and loathing puzzled Tom.
She really, really didn't like Dumbledore.
Compared to this, her feelings about Mrs. Cole were little more than mild dislike.
Fascinating.
When they got back to his room he tugged her onto their bed. "Why do you hate him?" he asked.
Hermione leaned back against him, her head on his lap as she stared up at the ceiling. "He's a vile, disgusting excuse for a human being," she said at last.
Tom shrugged. "So am I and that doesn't seem to bother you."
She didn't speak and Tom stroked her hair, letting each curl wind around a finger before undoing it and spinning another one. "He's your main opponent, you know," she said after a while. "In the future. He thinks you're evil, that you're not capable of love. That he is. That that makes him special, that that will justify everything he'll do to defeat you, even though he's just as ruthless, just as vicious."
"What does he do?" Tom asked quietly.
"You try to kill Harry, I told you that." Tom nodded. "You fail, but you kill his parents and Dumbledore just drops him off at an aunt's doorstep with a bloody note."
She was livid, Tom noted to himself, despite her calm voice.
"That house makes your little orphanage look like paradise. And he knew." She closed her eyes and Tom watched the moisture that leaked out from under her lashes. "He let my best friend grow up abused and alone in order to turn him into a weapon to kill you. Shaped him for seventeen years, sharpened him, then pointed him at you."
"Did it work?"
"Oh, yes," she said. "And then I fell into the past."
"Into the lap of the man who'd been the enemy you'd just defeated," Tom said, his hands still in her hair.
"Isn't life mysterious?" Hermione said bitterly.
Tom leaned down and kissed her forehead and she laughed, still bitter. "Keep the fruit coming, snowflake, and maybe I'll forget I'm Lord Voldemort's Mudblood pet."
"Mate," he said quietly.
"There's a difference?" she asked.
"Partner?"
She pulled herself up and looked at him. "Promise me you won't kill Harry. Not Harry. Not Ron. And no loopholes. No killing their parents and preventing conception, no sending minions to do it. They live. They live and they're safe."
"In a home worse than the orphanage?" Tom asked her, not wholly sure who 'Ron' was but figuring he had several decades to suss it out.
She stared at him, unblinking, and at last he nodded. "I promise."
She lay back down. "Partners," she agreed. "Of course, the more we change the future, the less valuable my knowledge will be."
"Can I kill Dumbledore?" he asked as the silence stretched out.
"I suggest poisoned candy," was all she said. "I suggest you do it soon before he gets too suspicious of you. Of us."
He kissed her then, tongue thrust into her mouth, a hand reached down under her skirt and into the waistband of her knickers, fingers twirling on her in a practiced rhythm that made her moan, then gasp, then call his name as shuddered against him. "Tom," she whimpered against his lips. "Tom."
Mine, he thought with vicious satisfaction. And all he had to do was not kill two people.
. . . . . . . . . .
Hermione sat down at the Slytherin table for the first time that night and Abraxas looked at her nervously. Tom wrapped arm around her with even more than his usual possessiveness and she smirked up at him as he produced a small box.
"Chocolate covered cherries," he said.
"You do know the way to my heart," she said.
"Through your chest wall," he said. "Obviously."
"Shouldn't you be sitting with them," Thoros Nott gestured towards the Gryffindor table.
Hermione shrugged and opened her mouth. Tom set a cherry inside and she nipped at his finger.
"Merlin, do you two have to engage in your fruit based foreplay at the damn table?" Mulciber complained. "I'm eating."
"They're tedious," Hermione said after she swallowed. "I can't take them anymore."
"She belongs with me," Tom said. "She's mine and I don't share."
"I thought you were one of them," Abraxas said. "All red and gold and good and shite like that."
Hermione shrugged again as Tom dished up some food for her. "I was. But they natter on about courage and nobility and such as if they had even the faintest idea what any of those words really mean and I've had it. If I have to hear one more discussion about, say, slaying dragons, I may start cursing people." Her contempt was so obvious even Mulciber didn't miss it.
"You don't fetishize bravery?" he asked.
"I wouldn't throw the word 'fetish' around if I were you, clown boy," Hermione said. "And none of those idiots even know what bravery is."
"And you do?" Abraxas eyed her.
"I think I've met a lifetime quota of doing brave things," Hermione said. "Multiple lifetimes. I've learned a sensible person doesn't march up to a dragon with her sword out."
"What does a sensible person do," Tom asked, letting his fingers play with a curl at her neck.
She eyed him. "Obviously, a sensible person lets the idiot Gryffindor lure the beast out and then steals the hoard and is gone before the dragon returns."
"What happens to the Gryffindor?" Thoros asked while Tom and Abraxas laughed.
"Like I care anymore. Give me another cherry, you brat," she said to Tom who, obligingly, placed one in her mouth.
"How did you do all these brave things?" Mulciber asked.
"Mostly trying to kill this one," she said around the cherry, tipping her head towards Tom.
"Explain to me why you're so avidly panting after a witch who openly admits she's tried to kill you in the past. Future. Whatever." Mulciber demanded of Tom. "Can't you just go for one of the endless Greengrass or Parkinson girls? Primrose Parkinson is hot as hell and you can be reasonably sure she won't try to slit your throat in your sleep."
"I wouldn't actually trust Primrose," Thoros muttered. "She bites."
"This one doesn't bite," Tom said. "I bite."
Hermione gave him a very dirty look and he smirked at her. She didn't even bother thinking about puppies; thinking about sex until he could smell her arousal with his creepy Veela enhanced senses and began to shift on the bench was much more fun. A smile crept onto her face as Tom's minions began to grow more and more uncomfortable watching the silent battle between Tom and his girlfriend.
At last he mouthed, 'You win,' and it was her turn to smirk.
"Well, the cherries were great, sweetheart. Maybe some day I'll even let you pop mine," she said with horrid cheer as she stood up and made sure to position her pelvis as near to his face as she could while she fussed with her bag. "But right now I have to go to Runes." She nodded at the boys gaping at her. "Gentlemen."
"Bitch," Tom swore as she sauntered off, then grabbed his head while she flashed him one final thought of her quite literally undying love for good measure.
"You two are so fucking weird," Mulciber finally said into the silence.
. . . . . . . . . .
Tom ground out his cigarette and gestured for his lackeys to follow him with a sharp wave of his hand.
Thoros looked at the cigarette butt. "I thought you wanted to be immortal," he said. "Smoking can't be good for you."
Tom stopped to look at his minion. "I'm going to get the Philosopher's Stone," he said. "I'll be able to make the Elixir of Life. Do you really think a fag now and then is going to be a problem?"
"Fair point," Thoros admitted.
. . . . . . . . . .
Hermione and Tom sat in the Slytherin common room while Abraxas looked over some edits Hermione had made to Tom's Big Book of World Domination. Tom held a blackberry between his teeth and she leaned forward to take it from him and they rubbed noses. "You're just my little snowflake," Hermione said.
"Honestly," Thoros said, "must you two do that? It's putting me off my feed."
Tom looked over at the spinach salad Thoros was eating. Thoros had food issues and claimed he could eat nothing but raw food that had been planted during the full moon. He even had the Nott family house elves bring him food from home to accommodate this.
"You're eating what looks like weeds and carrot shavings," Tom observed. "It's like you're a rabbit or something. I don't think it would take much to put a person off that."
"Tom," Abraxas whined. "She doesn't like my design for the identifying tattoo."
"I have digestive issues," Thoros said sullenly. "And at least I'm not being all cute with my girlfriend. Some Dark Lord you are. 'Special snowflake'."
"It's a ridiculous design," Hermione said.
"When was the last time a girl sucked you off?" Tom asked, balancing a blackberry on his nose and trying to toss it into Hermione's mouth who made a bit of a pro forma glare at him but didn't even bother to think about bunnies gamboling through fields or fluffy puppies. She just ate the blackberry.
They did, after all, help get the semen taste out of her mouth.
"What's ridiculous about it?" Abraxas demanded. He'd long since decided the best way to cope with Tom's constant references to sex was to ignore them. "It's snakes and skulls. Snakes are the Slytherin symbol and skulls represent death."
"After the Primrose incident I'm a little wary of letting a girl's teeth near my cock, okay," Thoros muttered, lifting another forkful of leaves to his mouth. "That woman is a menace."
"Well, Hermione isn't," Tom said smugly as the woman in question snagged the whole box of blackberries and went to lean over Abraxas' shoulder at the table being careful not to touch him. She'd written 'lame lame lame' next to his sketch of a potential Death Eater mark.
"It's so obvious," she said. "I mean, if you want to just say 'we're the bad guys' go ahead and use snakes and skulls. Hell, add in a spider for good measure. But maybe you could consider not screaming 'don't trust us' from the rooftops."
"So if I add a spider it will work?" Abraxas asked, pulling out a sketchbook.
Hermione looked at Tom who was trying not to laugh. "I'm so grateful I'm your mate, snowflake boy, and not his. You might be an evil wizard bent on taking over the world, but at least you're clever," she said.
"I'm very clever," Abraxas said.
Thoros choked on his leaves.
. . . . . . . . . . .
Muliber barged into Tom's room than stopped in utter horror. Hermione was tied to the bed frame and a nearly naked Tom Riddle was straddling her.
"What the hell?" the witch nearly shrieked. "Can't you teach your idiot minions to knock?"
"Oh, fuck," Mulciber was saying as he backed away. "Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck –"
"That was the idea," Tom snarled, "Until you decided to interrupt us."
"Don't hurt me," Mulciber said, hands up as he backed toward the door.
Tom pulled out his wand and froze the intruder in place as Hermione, glaring first at one of them and then the other, wordlessly and wandlessly cast the charm to undo the knots holding her down and pulled her clothes back on.
The mood was wrecked again. He was never ever going to get to actually fuck this woman. Tom could feel his hands curve back into the angry claws, a Veela quirk which had the annoying side effect of causing his wand to tumble out of his fingers to the floor.
"Gotta hate not having opposable thumbs, bird man," Hermione said as she bent down and picked it up. She glared at Mulciber. "Were you raised in a barn? Jesus."
She flounced to a chair and plopped down in it, pulling one of her Muggle novels off the shelf. "I need strawberries. With chocolate. Now." She flipped the book open. "Fuck. Tom. This is the one you ripped pages out of. You told me you'd get me another copy." She threw it down. "You promised me. Promised."
Tom muttered, "I need to work on my wandless skills. This not being able to hold a wand whenever I'm pissed off thing is a problem."
"Well, calm the fuck down," Hermione snapped. "And deal with your stupid minion."
"Will obliviation be good enough?" Tom asked, doing a series of breathing exercises he'd found in a book on meditation.
Breathe in happy thoughts (ripping Mulciber's head off he'd seen Hermione naked Hermione was his no one got to look at Hermione), breathe out anger (he'd been cock blocked again). Breathe in happy thoughts (ripping Mulciber's head off), breathe out anger (just fuck).
When it worked and his hands returned to their human form he pulled his trousers back on and then took his wand up again. He pointed it at the shaking Mulciber. "Obliviate," he said.
Mulciber blinked. "I think I lost my train of thought. Why aren't you wearing a shirt?"
"You barge in here to tell me something and then forget what it was?" Tom snapped with apparent disgust.
"Well, darling, the sight of your manly chest is enough to distract me," Hermione said.
"Really?"
"It's distracted me from the fact you still haven't replaced my book." She paused. "Actually, it hasn't. Get me my damn book. And strawberries."
"You'll get your fucking fruit," Tom muttered. "Just as soon as bargey-boy here tells me why he's bothering us."
"There's been a… I guess it's an accident," Mulciber stammered.
"So? This is a dangerous school. People are constantly losing bones, falling down multiple flights of moving stairs, being decapitated."
"But…" Mulciber trailed off again.
"Are students really decapitated?" Hermione asked curiously.
"About one every seven years on average," Mulciber said.
"I remain astounded that people send children here," Hermione said. "Giant spiders. Angry centaurs. Decapitating stairs. The place is a death trap."
"Spit out what you came here for, for the love of Salazar," Tom snapped at Mulciber.
"Dumbledore's dead," Mulciber said, looking nervous.
"Professor Dumbledore?" Tom nearly purred. "How tragic." He turned to Hermione. "Happy belated birthday, darling. Do I still have to get you that replacement book?"
"Yes," she said, smiling back at him, her tongue darting out to moisten her lips. "You don't get to wiggle out of replacing things of mine you destroy just because…." She glanced at Mulciber. "Just because bad things happen. Lots of bad things happen, especially around you."
"Oh no," Mulciber said. "Tom, you didn't. Please tell me you didn't kill Dumbledore."
"Oh, for fuck's sake," Tom said and pointed his wand back at Mulciber. "Obliviate."
. . . . . . . . . .
A/N – Well, here it is. Darker, ever darker, until the thrill silences the fear.
You know I love your comments. Also, I'm on tumblr. Which is weird and confusing but so far so good. colubrina . tumblr . c o m