CHAPTER SEVEN

"This isn't the first time you've been up here, is it?" Hermione asked him in a shaky whisper.

Tom smiled as she clung tightly to him, "I come up here to think. It's quiet, isn't it?"

Hermione gulped as she peered over the ledge of the sloping roof atop the Great Hall, "Yeah ... quiet."

She shrieked shrilly when she felt Tom nudge her. Her entire body tensed, her throat felt cold with terror, and she scowled over her shoulder up at him chortling behind her, "Don't do that!"

Hermione smacked his shoulder with the back of her hand and he smirked, "Calm down, Hermione. I won't let you fall."

Her heart still rattling within her chest, Hermione scooted up higher so that she could sit beside him rather than in front of him. "I'd ask if you've ever landed in trouble for this but you're a Prefect."

Hermione was glad she had chosen to wear her pants, regardless of how unflattering they were. It made it much more manageable to follow Tom up to this precarious niche. Tom fell silent, mesmerized by the honey-like reflection of the sun over the Black Lake.

Hermione glanced between it and his softened dark eyes, "Why do I feel like you want nothing more than to escape from reality?"

Tom's face turned a little away from her as he watched an owl circle around the Astronomy tower, "It's better there."

Hermione pursed her lips and nodded, "But, it's not life, Tom. How bad can your reality really be?"

She watched his jutting Adam's apple bounce before he said quietly, "I'm a son out of wedlock. My mother deserted me and now I'm in hell."

Hermione felt her throat become cold again and it wasn't from a fear of falling, "She died."

Tom frowned down at her, "She was weak, Hermione. She let death take her away from me without a second thought! It's all her fault."

Hermione reached out to touch his back but she hesitated, "I don't understand you, Tom. How can you have so much hate for a woman you never knew?"

Tom suddenly became as still as a gargoyle, "I never said anything about when she died." Hermione snatched her hand back as he turned slowly to look at her again. Those almond-shaped dark eyes made her heart tremble. "Whatever it is that you've been keeping from me all this time ... you know more about me than you should."

He grasped her chin a bit harder than he had intended and after a moment she pulled away, "I'm not hiding anything, Tom."

Tom swallowed deeply, "After everything I've done for you ... how could you lie to me?"

"Tom, you're scaring me." Hermione backed up on her hands and knees.

Tom snorted, "Join the club."

Tom watched Hermione bolt away from him down the corridor. She had accepted his help while descending down to solid ground but it was in impenetrable silence. He could taste the terror radiating off her, arousing his every sense. Tom's face remained expressionless as he stared for a little too long at the place where she had vanished down the corridor. He felt his lips trembling and decided it was time to find a place to be alone.

Hermione found herself blinded by the tears streaming down her cheeks. She whirled on the spot, trying to find something familiar to tell her where in the castle she had brought herself to. But, this was almost fifty years in the past. The castle was largely unchanged but for a few crucial landmarks. Hermione staggered over to the nearest window and peered down upon the grounds.

She concluded she was on the third floor in a corridor which had been forbidden to all students when she was a First Year.

"You look lost, Granger." She heard a pompous voice say.

Hermione spun around with a gasp. There were three of Tom's followers Avery, Yaxley, and Rosier, the one who had conveyed a direct threat to her merely a fortnight prior. Hermione noticed some peculiar bruises around the boy's neck.

Hermione took a deep breath when she realized she had, stupidly, left her wand beneath her pillow up in her dorm, "I don't want any trouble."

"You are trouble, Granger." Taunted Yaxley as he stepped within a yard's distance of her rapidly rising and falling chest.

The three boys exchanged knowing looks and Rosier cackled, "As I recall ... you 'love a challenge', miss. It just so happens that so do I and my mates beside me."

Hermione tried to slide past Yaxley but he blocked her freedom with his arm. She saw that predatory stare in his eyes and she her tears began to well again. Yaxely leaned in close to her face and Hermione banged her head against his nose. The boy stumbled backwards in agony, seething with the pain of his broken nose. Hermione spotted one door down the corridor and bolted towards it.

Avery and Rosier took chase, abandoning Yaxley reeling on the stone floor. Hermione crashed against the heavy wooden door and fell to the ground inside the room. For a split second she realized she was in the room that would eventually house Fluffy, Hagrid's monstrous three-headed dog. What she would give for the beast to be here now. Rosier burst into the room behind her just as she staggered to her feet.

When he came close enough, Hermione smacked him with the back of her hand. Her long nails sliced into his chubby cheek. While he clapped his hand to his face and tripped Avery when the boy bounded over the threshold, Hermione dove for the trap door, wrenched it open, and fell head-first into the blackness. There wasn't a mass of Devil's Snare to break her fall this time. Hermione scraped her palms and knees when she collided with the gravel.

"I'm not going down there!" hissed Avery as the two boys were joined by Yaxley who was gushing blood from his nostrils.

"Gew are uh cow-vard," said Yaxley thickly, licking his own blood into his mouth as it poured over his lips.

"Then you go first!" retorted Avery. "We don't leave anyone alive, remember? We can't just leave her down there."

"She'll die of starvation," said Rosier calmly. "But, someone could hear her cries for help."

Avery leaned close to Rosier, "Maybe our lord could curse this place so that no one would come to her aid."

Yaxley guffawed darkly, "Gew 'eally are thick, Ah-very. He cares for deh mub-blood whore."

Hermione scotched backwards out of sight from the trap door filtering in light from overhead. She clutched her legs to her chest and rocked back and forth, praying that they will abandon her.

"GET IN!" roared Rosier and Avery was kicked down the hole and flopped on the ground before Hermione.

"You bloody tosser!" he growled as he heaved himself back to his feet. "Ah, miss Granger. She's down here!"

"We know that, you idiot!" said Rosier as he lowered himself down the trap door and landed on his feet on the gravel below. "Keep watch, Yaxley!"

Hermione scrambled backwards in the loose, sharp gravel as the two Slytherins lunged at her. She was breathing shallowly, sobbing, squealing, screeching shrilly, and clawing at them.

"What's this?" jeered Rosier as he gripped her chin. "Oh, look! The mudblood's crying!"

Hermione spat up into his eyes and bellowed, "DON'T TOUCH ME!"

Rosier wiped away the saliva from his eyes while Rosier flipped Hermione roughly onto her back and weighed her down with his own body, "You've never been fucked, have you, Granger?"

Hermione's screams were muffled when he pushed her face into the gravel. The fair skin of her face was being diced with shallow cuts from the jagged rocks. She dug her hands into the gravel and sent them soaring up to the cavernous ceiling and raining back down on all of them.

"Avery, let me have at her." Said Rosier calmly.

Avery grunted through clenched teeth, "She'll escape!"

"Where have your manners gone this time, gentlemen of Salazar Slytherin?" came a deep voice from the surrounding shadows.

Hermione spat out tiny bits of gravel when Avery rolled off of her at the sound of his lord's inquiry. Her face was covered in dirt masking her reddened face covered in small cuts. Still trembling head to foot, Hermione glanced over her shoulder and gasped at who was accompanying Tom Riddle. Yaxley was suspended about a foot off the ground, making him nearly as tall as Tom. It would seem that an invisible attacker was holding the boy by his throat.

Yaxley's legs were bent at the knee and his arms were shaking at his sides as though fighting for freedom. His eyes were so wide that Hermione felt sure that they would fall out of their sockets. His broken nose had stopped bleeding but dried blood was cracking around his mouth. Tom's dark curtain of hair was perfectly set and his long robe did not give any sign that Yaxley had struggled against the attack ... perhaps he didn't have a chance.

Tom only had eyes for Hermione as he said to the underground room at large, "Perhaps I was not clear enough that night, Rosier. Which part of my simple request did you not comprehend?"

To anyone else, his tone would seem polite. Almost akin to having asked about the weather. Rosier dropped to his knees before Tom, "As I said to you that night, my lord ... I was unaware that any harm that came to the mudblood's well-being would be of concern to you."

"So, I was not clear. That's fine. I don't mind repeating myself, Rosier." Said Tom as Yaxley drifted closer to Rosier. "Some lessons aren't learned the first time."

Hermione staggered to her feet and started retreating, "Tom?"

Tom strode between Rosier and Avery to stand before Hermione, "Are you alright?"

Hermione gaped her mouth further, "Please, please, get me out of here. Please. I swear I won't tell a soul what happened here. I just want to go home."

She had no intention of keeping this attack a secret and Tom seemed to read it in her eyes as though written in text. Yaxley gargled in the background while Tom pursed his lips, "I told you that no incidents are traced back to us."

Hermione set her face stony, "No spell can wipe this from my memory, Tom."

"I'm not asking you to forget," he said calmly, though Hermione could have sworn that she saw a flicker of remorse streak across those dark eyes like a comet. "I'm promising you that they will not go unpunished. It is vital that this does not leave this cellar."

Hermione clenched her jaw, "What do I have to say to –"

"You can have the night to think of it," said Tom. Hermione frowned in surprise. He held out a hand for her to take. "I think you've been through enough horror." When she took his hand, Tom said over his shoulder to his trembling followers, "I can be a merciful lord to those deserving."

"Stay away from me," whimpered Hermione as she pushed past the heavy wood door out to the third floor corridor.

Tom did not abide, "Hermione, you can't walk through the castle looking like that."

Hermione's face was peppered with tiny cuts from being thrust into the jagged black gravel and fine dirt highlighted her hollow cheeks. Tears were spilling down, leaving stark tracks in the blood and dry soil. Hermione widened her stride as his footsteps grew louder.

"Where are you going?" asked Tom.

Hermione pursed her lips and stared straight ahead, "Touch me and I'll scream."

Tom gripped her upper arm, "No!" He yanked her around to face him, "You will say nothing to anyone, understand?"

Hermione tried to slip her arm out of his cold grip and whimpered, "Let go of me! Please, Tom -!"

Tom pulled her to his chest, "Don't cry anymore, Hermione. You're only exhausting yourself."

Hermione hit her fist against his ribs but he did not react. She tried to push him away but he grabbed her waist, "I d-don't know w-what I've done t-to deserve this. Why won't y-you leave me a-alone?"

"Because I can't," said Tom through clenched white teeth. "They know your secret now. Can't you comprehend how incredibly dangerous that is? If anything ever happened to you -"

"You were too late!" Hermione stammered and hit his chest again.

Tom composed his face and stared unblinkingly into her welling eyes, "Was I?" Hermione furrowed her brows, scowling up at him. She had the distinct impression that he had read her mind when the corner of Tom's lips twitched, "No ... I can promise you this, Hermione. They will find themselves forever incapable of procreating their monstrosity."

Hermione took a deep breath. Her scream was strangled by Tom's quick hand clamping over her lips. She struggled against his strength as he lifted her to his chest and opened another door at the other end of the corridor with his shoulder. Hermione wriggled in his arms and he staggered as he laid her down on the ground. She tried to bite his hand but missed her target. He was now sitting on her hips, holding one arm down with his free hand and the other with his knee while the other hand remained over her mouth.

"Don't fight me, Hermione." Whispered Tom desperately. "I'm trying to help you!"

Hermione's eyes were widened with terror and she screamed into his sweating palm. Tom pursed his lips and looked over his shoulder at the door. Before Dumbledore came to invite him to attend Hogwarts, Tom had already mastered a secret way to make himself unheard. The frame around the door vibrated and he knew that no one would hear her cries.

Hermione gasped hungrily when he released her, "Stop trying! Stop talking to me, stop following me! Stop acting like you give a damn about me!"

Tom dismounted her and kneeled at her side, "It's not an 'act', Hermione. I told you how you have an effect on me."

Hermione gingerly touched a deep cut on her lip and gave him an icy scowl, "Evidently not a whole lot." Tom saw Hermione flinch when he reached inside his robe to pull out his wand and she wondered aloud, "What are you doing?"

Tom slid a hand beneath her shoulder, "I need you to sit up for me."

Hermione shook her head, "No."

"I'm just going to clean you up," said Tom through clenched teeth.

Hermione sneered, "You've made me dirty in more ways than one, Tom Riddle."

Tom pressed against her shoulder, "Don't be a child!"

"Stop it!" Hermione tried to scoot away from him but he lifted her up and pushed her back against the wall.

Tom pointed his wand at her face, "Stay very still ... tergeo!"

His lips parted a little as though about to pull into a smile as the dried blood evaporated on Hermione's soft skin. Hermione found herself unable to move when he reached forward and gently wiped away the dirt with the sleeve of his robe. He traced along the line of her small jaw and Hermione felt a rush of blood flood the roots of her hair. When Tom pulled away to aim his wand at her face again, Hermione glanced down at her hair and saw that it was more vibrant with health than it had been in months.

Tom aimed his wand at her swollen lip and whispered, "Episkey!"

After a moment, Hermione licked her lip and found that the cleave had healed over and the swelling had receded. A few seconds later, the tiny cuts dotted all over her face began to close of their own volition.

Tom sighed and scooted a few feet away from her, "I don't want to hurt you, Hermione Granger."

Hermione stroked her smooth cheekbone while she stared up at him, "Then tell me something ... how did you know where I was? What was happening?"

Tom tensed his jaw muscles, "I've never been afraid of anything before you came along, Granger. I didn't feel anything. I never learned what it was to fear, to laugh, to just ... be. I thought I was the only one who knew about my mother's death. My father didn't even know. When you let slip that you knew it made me wonder ... who you really are."

Hermione closed her eyes, "You still haven't given me an answer."

Tom looked at the dusty floor between them, "I go to that cellar whenever I need to be alone. It's much more secluded than the roof. The darkness is ... it comforts me. I don't have to see anyone and no one can see me. But, you're making the light not so scary after all." He glanced up at her as though looking for a reaction but she looked away. He gave a small smile then regained his composure, "I was most surprised to find you there with ... them."

Hermione looked at him, "I went there for safety ... but, they found me."

Tom nodded, "There was safety down there waiting for you ... sorry that it was belated. I really, truly am. I know I don't deserve your forgiveness, but ... I need it."

Hermione swallowed, trying to moisten her dried throat. She thought of her parents, the Weasleys, Harry, Luna, Neville ... all those people she loved so dearly were depending on her, "I need some time, Tom. Maybe ... a lot of time."

Tom gave a shaky sigh, gazed up at the cobwebbed ceiling, then stared at his shoelaces, "Then I'll wait."

Hermione stepped over the threshold into the Gryffindor common room. It was hard for her to believe that it was still the same day that she had climbed to the roof of the castle with Tom. After Avery, Nott, and Yaxley attacked her ... she considered dark things. Hermione staggered up to the girls' lavatory and, when a wave of nausea seized her, she raced to the nearest sink and puked. She wretched till there was nothing left but stomach acids dripping down in her watering mouth. Hermione was too numb to wipe her lips. She picked a shower among the ones fashioned against the wall and slowly undressed.

Yaxley, Nott, and Avery were huddled together in the dark cellar. They harmoniously flinched when they heard quiet footsteps approaching. Nott hastily gasped, "Lumos!"

They all flinched when Tom's thin and handsome face, partially hidden beneath the hood of his Slytherin robe, was illuminated by the wand's light. Tom observed his frightened comrades and began to laugh. It was a strange sound, one that none of the boys had ever heard before. It was a high, cold laugh.

Tom began to pace before them as his laughter died out, "Are your cocks still stiff, my friends? Or did they fall limp when I interrupted your ... moment with the muggle-born witch?"

Avery cleared his throat and answered quietly, "My lord, I am confused."

"Oh, that's an unfortunate thing to occur, Avery." said Tom quietly.

Avery nodded feverishly, under the false impression that he was pleasing his leader, "My lord has spoken many times of ... violating the mudbloods' honors -"

"I can understand why you would pick Hermione Granger to act-out what I've spoken," Tom nodded as he locked his eyes on Avery's while he paced past him. "She's an exquisite beauty ... why would she take your small dick? Don't deny it, my friend." Tom warned the boy teasingly, "I can understand that you'd feel the need to force yourself onto her."

Nott was visibly trembling, "M-my lord ... are you not ... happy? W-with what we were doing, mind?"

Tom stopped pacing and stood before them, "Come with me and you will know my ... appreciation."

"Can I join you?" Hermione asked of her dorm mates quietly that night for supper in the Great Hall.

Logan, the girl she had bonded with the most, nodded once. Hermione suspected that they all knew that she had broken the curfew and she didn't have to wait long for one of the girls to ask 'why'.

"One bed was unoccupied a fortnight ago," said the girl, whom had bright blue eyes and dark hair.

Logan waited for Hermione to speak up for a second before encouraging her, "It was yours, Hermione. Where were you? Or we'll tell the head of house."

"No need for threats," Hermione said, squinting at the girl. "I left to meet Tom."

She knew any lie she could come up with would not satisfy the girls. The truth was more interesting to them than anything she could conjure up. There was a collective murmur among the girls, whispering theories to each other as though Hermione were deaf.

"We went beyond the grounds with a few of his mates," Hermione continued cryptically. "We were not alone, if that's what you're thinking."

Logan raised her eyebrows, "You are either very brave ... or completely mad."

Hermione's lips parted, "Why would you say that?"

"The last girl they 'invited' died not long after," said the blue-eyed girl. "Her spirit now haunts the place where she passed."

Hermione bit her lip then nodded, "Moaning Myrtle."

"It's bad luck to poke fun at the dead," said Logan reproachfully.

Hermione squinted at her, "I thought that was her name. My apologies."

The girls were so perturbed by finding out the truth about where Hermione had gone that they soon drifted off to more mundane subjects. Hermione ate her supper in silence, nodding when appropriate in the conversation. She glanced once more at the Slytherin dining table and her jaw dropped. There was Tom leading Nott, Avery, and Yaxley. She frowned when she noticed something peculiar about Tom's followers.

They were all walking with an inhibited gate as though their thighs were stuck together. Hermione closed her mouth when Tom looked precisely into her widened dark eyes.

Hermione was following Logan out of the Great Hall when supper was finished when she felt a hand grasp her upper arm like a vice. Tom yanked her from the crowd before anyone would notice them and pulled her out to the courtyard opposite the Great Hall.

Hermione staggered behind him till he stopped at the dry well at the center of the courtyard, "What are you doing?"

Tom sat on the ledge of the well, "Don't be mad. I had to check on you. Spend the night with me."

Hermione forced herself to smile, "You are depriving me of rest, Tom."

Tom grinned up at her and patted the spot on the stone wall next to him, "What's life without risk?" Hermione hesitated to bait him further and he added, "I'm a prefect. You can trust me."

Hermione relented and sat on the cold stone beside him, "Fine, I am all yours. What do you want?"

Tom's grin widened, "You."

"Well, I don't belong to anyone." Hermione scoffed.

Tom considered her for a moment, "Give me an hour and maybe you'll reconsider." Hermione swallowed audibly and he stroked her lower back, "There's nothing to fear, Hermione. It's time we've had a laugh."

About a half an hour later, Hermione found herself skirting the edge of the Forbidden Forest with the boy she could not decide what to think of anymore. She averted her eyes from the hut at the edge of the mysterious woods, preventing her heart from breaking over being so close to Hagrid and being unable to speak to him. He would not know her now anyway.

Feeling like he had just read her mind, Tom said quietly, "That's the dwellings of the student who was harboring an adolescent Acromantula inside the castle. The beast killed a girl while she was in the girls' lavatory last year."

Hermione nodded, knowing that he was lying and remembering what Logan had said about the girl in question, "Were you her friend?"

Tom looked away, "Something like that. It was quite tragic what became of her. I only wish I had been there to fend the monster off."

Hermione's lips pursed when she chanced a glance back at Hagrid's hut, "I don't want to talk about this anymore."

Tom looked at her, "That's alright."

Hermione looked into the Forbidden Forest, "Have you ever gone in there, Tom?"

"Many times," said Tom, with an air that suggested he was trying to impress her. "There are many beasts inside the Forbidden Forest. I saw unicorns, half-breeds, thestrals -"

Hermione frowned up at him, "You can see the thestrals?"

"Why does that surprise you?" Tom asked politely.

Hermione cleared her throat, "Well, they can only be seen by people who've seen death."

Tom suddenly grabbed her hand and took her behind a tree trunk, "I want to entrust you with something that I've never told a single other soul."

Hermione felt like her throat had gone dry, "You can trust me."

A few moments passed before Tom said in a rush, "I watched my father die ... at my hands." He held up the ugly ring on his finger to her eyelevel, "This was his."

"Why?" asked Hermione quietly.

She was surprised when Tom's lip trembled and wondered if he was going to cry. Tom gave a shaky sigh, "Because he abandoned me, left me to rot in that orphanage. Left my mother to die. He was just as weak as her."

"Did he fight back?" Hermione asked.

Tom frowned at her in surprise, "What? N-no, no, he couldn't."

"So ... he was not a wizard?" She asked carefully, afraid of questioning his rumored pure-blood status.

This is a night of surprises, thought Hermione when he nodded, "He was a muggle. He tried to convince me that he had been bewitched and had run away once the enchantment was lifted ... the coward. He said any offspring my mother spawned would be a demon."

Hermione bit her lip then tilted his chin up, "Tom, it means a lot that you trust me enough to tell me this. But, I must ask you ... one last bequest. If you want me to be yours, you must not harm another soul."

Tom's lips parted, "I cannot promise you that."

Hermione felt her stomach drop. She had failed, "I understand."

"No, you don't." said Tom as he cupped her face in his. "You are a muggle-born witch. If I was not so certain of my feelings for you, I'd have thought you'd enchanted me like my father claimed to have been. But, I know this is real. You are not pure-blood, Hermione. That marks you as a target of my followers. I can offer a counter to your bequest. I will not harm another witch or wizard ... unless they harm you."