"'The hills are alive,'" Hermione sang as she spun around the room, "'with the sound of music, la la la la.'"
"What year is that monstrosity from?" Tom asked. He was studying from the copy of Every Boy's Guide to Violent Curses that Hermione had stolen from the library and making assiduous notes. "Look at this one. You can actually turn someone's lungs inside out and it's wordless."
"Wordless would be good," Abraxas muttered, twitching with the obvious urge to out his hands over his ears. "Silence is a beautiful thing."
"I don't know," Hermione said. "Sometime in the fifties I think. 'With songs they have sung, for a thousand yeeeeaarsss."
Abraxas glared at her. "You're a right bitch, you know that?"
"You took my peaches," she said with a shrug.
"No one takes her fruit," Tom said, not looking up. "You should know that by now."
"You're also nearly tone deaf," Abraxas said and Mulciber muttered something that sounded like agreement.
"'snot my fault Hogwarts doesn't have an adequate arts program," Hermione said. "I'm sure you agree that the arts should be an important part of every student's education. Think how much more dulcet my tones would be if I'd just had voice lessons instead of classes on interpreting the movements of the stars."
"I'll be in my room," Abraxas said. "My soundproofed room."
. . . . . . . . . .
"Where's Snowflake?" Hermione asked, stalking through the Slytherin common room in a fury.
"Last I checked he was kissing Slughorn's substantial arse," Thoros said.
"It's Tuesday," Mulciber agreed. "That means it's that queer potions club of theirs."
"Not Tom," Hermione said with evident annoyance. "Snowflake. My cat. He's been missing for three days."
Mulciber blinked at her a few times. "That big white thing? With the nasty attitude?"
"There's nothing wrong with Snowflake's attitude," she sniffed.
"He hates everyone," Thoros pointed out. "He tried to kill a house elf. He shat on Slughorn's desk. I mean, he hates McGonagall and she basically is a cat."
"He loves me," Hermione said, getting down on her knees to look under the couches.
Mulciber stared at her arse for a moment before saying, "In shocking news, male creatures that hate everyone have been known to love you." He muttered something that might have been 'damned if I know why' under his breath.
"You will be damned if Tom hears you say that," Thoros said quietly. "Or if he catches you staring at her like that."
Mulciber found something enthralling to look at in his textbook.
. . . . . . . . . .
Tom wiped his face off and looked up from between Hermione's legs. "Happy?" he asked.
"As if you didn't know," she said with a snort, tugging him up so she could kiss him.
"This Veela bullshite isn't all bad," he admitted.
. . . . . . . . . .
Tom was about to give him minions some instructions when he made a noise that sounded rather suspiciously like a loud squawk.
Thoros looked at him. "Did you just squawk?" he asked in disbelief.
"Merlin," Mulciber muttered, letting his head sink down onto his arms on the table. "Now he's making bird sounds. This whole world domination thing is doomed."
"I did not squawk," Tom snapped.
"You squawked," Abraxas said. "Have you ever considered letting Hermione be sort of the public face of our Legion of Doom? I know she's a Mud... Muggle-born but she doesn't ever turn into a bird by mistake."
"And she's just as evil as you are," Mulciber said encouragingly as he lifted his head. "Did you see the Muggle clown calendar she gave me? Evil, I tell you."
"She's quite well-spoken," Abraxas added.
"I did not squawk," Tom muttered.
All three of his minions just looked at him.
. . . . . . . . . .
Tom and Hermione were walking along one of the paths at Hogwarts when he stepped on a rake and it popped up and hit him in the face.
"What the actual fuck?" he exclaimed while Hermione tried not to laugh. "Who just leaves a rake sitting out like that?"
"Did you just make a pun about leaves and a rake?" she asked, still suppressing her snickering.
"I hate you," he muttered.
. . . . . . . . . .
Hermione slid the Big Book of World Domination back across the bed toward Tom. "So, this is looking better," she said. "You seem to have edited out the worst excesses. I'm still not sure I see a real coherent plan, though. I mean, let's think about goals. Have you defined your five-year plan? How do you intend to shift the paradigm and leverage the various synergies available to you? I mean, what are the core competencies of each of your minions?"
"Abraxas can sing," Tom muttered.
"I was thinking more along the lines of skill with unforgivable curses, talents for strategy, things like that. You can't build an evil empire with the chorus line, Tom." She turned back to the book and tapped her finger on one of his bullet points. "And, honesty, I'm note sure you'll get a lot of public buy in to 'let me be your evil overlord: at least I'm openly rotten, unlike the corrupt fools currently in office.' For one thing, it's not catchy. For another thing, it's too honest. Marketing is never about honesty." She leaned back. "Actually, Abraxas could come in handy here. Do you think he could come up with a jingle?"
"A what?"
"A jingle. You know, some kind of catchy phrase set to music that people can't get out of their heads. 'Plop plop, fizz fizz, oh what a relief it is'," she added, singing along to some awful tune.
Tom stared at her in horror. "Plop plop? What the hell is that?"
"Gas relief, I think, for some Yank product. That's not the point. The point is, it's short. 'I'm stuck on band-aid brand 'cause bandaid's stuck on me.'"
"Gas relief? Bandaids? Synergies? What are you on about?"
"A jingle, Tom. A short marketing phrase set to music. Something that makes your evil seem appealing and desirable. 'Let me be your evil overlord, I'll only kill some of you' is just not going to work."
"But it's true," he protested.
She sighed and set the book down. "Tom, please tell me you aren't really this stupid."
. . . . . . . . .
Abraxas frowned at her. "A short marketing phrase set to music?" he asked.
"Something catchy," she agreed.
"'Riddle for Overlord: He's No Joke'?" Mulciber suggested.
Abraxas made a disgusted face and then tapped his quill against a sheet of parchment. "It's not a bad idea," he admitted. "I mean, it's not like we're going to have free elections or anything. We're just going to slaughter the current power structure and put our own people in place, but the masses are easily manipulated by words." He nodded several times. "It's a good idea she-snowflake. I'll figure it out."
"How about, 'Riddle's Not a Clown'," Mulciber said.
Hermione and Abraxas both looked at him. "I'll figure it out," Abraxas repeated.
. . . . . . . . . .
"Let's have sex," Tom said. He'd been staring out the open window for at least an hour. There was nothing to do and he was so bored.
Hermione looked up from her book and made a rude noise. "Why bother?" she asked. "Every time we try to have sex something happens. Mulciber bursts in on us. The desk catches on fire. I mean, what next? A Dementor attack? A mad escapee from Azkaban who wants to slaughter someone's pet? I think I'd rather just read. Seems safer."
Tom sighed and, picking up one of her feet, began to rub her sole with his thumbs. She nearly purred and, encouraged, he said, "We've just had a spurt of bad luck. What could possibly happen this time? We're in our lovely Head dorm, the Head Girl is home for the weekend doing some family thing, and I've made it very clear that the minions have to knock. What could possible interrupt us?"
"I don't know," Hermione said, her book tipping in her hand as she made a moaning noise at what he was doing to her foot. "I'm just not in the mood, Tom."
"Uh huh," he said, as he palpitated her foot a bit more. "I'll go down on you first."
She frowned but put her book aside. "When you put it like that how can I resist your romantic importuning?"
Tom smirked. "Whatever works," he said.
She rolled her eyes but pulled her skirt up and tugged her knickers off. She tossed them across the room and Tom snagged them out of the air. "Should I start keeping these as trophies or something?"
"My laundry?" she asked with a snort. "Only if you plan on funding an infinite supply of the things."
"I'm a poor orphan, remember?" Tom took his fingers and spread her before him. "I can't afford to keep you in endless lace and satin."
"Then don't be stealing my knickers as mementos," she said with a grin that turned to a yelp as he ran his tongue over her. The yelp turned into a series of gasps as she grabbed the coverlet of the bed in each hand and held it tightly. Tom licked and sucked and probed at her, stopping to laugh as she whimpered.
"Not in the mood, huh?" he asked.
"Fuck you, Tom," she muttered.
"Merlin, I hope so," he said as he burrowed his face back between her legs and flicked his tongue back and forth across her in a steadily increasing rate until her whimpers became louder and she tensed and gasped and was done and he stopped and rested his head against her, almost panting himself. After a moment he drew himself up and wiped his face against hers.
She stuck her tongue out at him. "You're so fucking crude, Tom," she said.
"It's from your body," he laughed as he rubbed his nose against hers, "and you certainly liked what I did to get all sticky."
"True," she said. She tugged his shirt off and ran a hand over the chest that hovered above her.
"You like?" he asked.
"It's just pheromones," she said but she was grinning up at him and he grinned back. When they were good they were so good. It was hard, sometimes, to believe he hadn't always had this mate as a part of him, as an extension of everything he was and would be.
"You ever wonder why we got stuck together?" he asked. "Is it a genetic compatibility thing or a personality one?"
"Oh, fuck, I hope it's genetics," Hermione said. "I'd hate to think I'm actually a good fit for a sociopath bent on world domination." But she wrapped her arms around him anyway and pulled him down so she could feel his weight on her, digging her nails into his back.
"Watch what you do with those things," he complained, only half in jest, as he reached down to struggle with his trousers. He really should have gotten them off before but he didn't and now he had to pull himself up to get them unbuttoned and shoved away. Trousers off, pants off, he settled himself above this mate of his and got ready to finally – finally – consummate their weird little union.
That was when Snowflake, back from his multi-day cat adventure, jumped in through the window and launched himself at Tom's back, a location onto which he held with claws extended just long enough to deposit the present which he had brought back before returning to the window and disappearing again.
Tom howled in pain as the cat took off and, when he sat up, the dying, screeching, bleeding bird the cat had given him fell from his back and onto the sheets.
Hermione looked at Tom and then at the bird. It struggled to move an obviously broken wing.
"Well," she said, "that certainly killed the mood."
. . . . . . . . .
A/N – I think I might be tapped out for ideas for this one so don't expect anything resembling a timely update.
Thanks to Grovek26 for the rake idea. Make an absurd suggestion in the reviews, even in jest, and, well, you see what happens. Because this is a very VERY serious story.
In that vein, if you have any good jingle ideas, let me know. Or bad jingle ideas. I topped out at "Riddle's no Joke".
To respond to one guest review since I can't do it via PM: "But this fanfic crap about "He could smell her arousal" has got to stop. You can't, you know. Not unless you've got your nose right down there in it. And then it all depends on hygiene. So cease and desist." 1) This is a story that includes time travel, hands changing to claws, wings sprouting from a character's back, telepathy, and enhanced senses. So, no, I'm not going to cease and desist because realism isn't really a thing here AND 2) of all the weird Veela traits a sense of smell better than that of a human is THE ONLY ONE that actually happens in the animal world. So, yeah, Tom CAN smell her because he's NOT HUMAN. Not realism. Let realism go. Run free, realism, run free.
Thank you for your lovely reviews. I so appreciate them :)