All the Wrong Choices

by QueenOfTheDreamers87

Hermione is kidnapped by Severus Snape and taken to Lord Voldemort, who behaves in a bizarrely familiar manner with Hermione. When she's rocketed back in time by Voldemort, she realises just why he knew her so well in the 1990s - it was because he'd known her very well indeed, as Tom Riddle, in an entirely different time. She had to go back because she'd been there. Re-upload.

2. Chapter 2

It seemed to Tom Riddle as though his life had quickly devolved into a farce. One moment he was completely in control, entirely confident in the power he wielded over others. The next moment he'd been intoxicated by a mortal female. He'd been reduced to his basest human instincts, and the thought troubled and enraged him.

At breakfast the following day, he stabbed angrily at his eggs with a fork, simmering in crackling silence at the Slytherin table. His 'friends' were filtering into the Great Hall one by one; Tom had been particularly early this morning for the morning meal. He'd found himself rather unable to sleep the previous night and had taken an early (long, cold) shower. He was one of the first students in the Great Hall this morning.

Of course, she was early, as well. Hermione plodded into the Great Hall without any of her new Gryffindor friends. She did not so much as look at Tom as she set her rucksack down upon her table and poured herself a glass of pumpkin juice.

She was tarted up this morning, Tom noticed at once. She had red lipstick on, and her hair was smoother and better arranged into wide curls.

No, Tom thought, jabbing his fork onto his plate so hard that it squeaked hideously. She isn't the most beautiful girl in the school. But she is properly distracting.

He glared at her as she pulled out a textbook from her bag and opened it. She began eating an apple, and Tom found himself utterly transfixed. The way her painted red lips opened slowly as she read her book, the way her jaw moved as she chewed, the way she used the back of her hand to wipe away a bit of juice from her chin. Every move she made was calculated, he knew. She could tell he was watching her; she didn't seem like a fool. But she pretended not to see him - she ignored him - and that made Tom more angry than ever.

He seethed alone at the Slytherin table until Avery, Rosier, and Lestrange came ambling into the Great Hall. They surrounded him and sat down, and Tom suddenly felt very stifled by their presence. He shifted a bit in his seat but said nothing, ignoring the way Avery and Rosier were laughing at a crude joke told by Lestrange.

"All right, there, Tom?" Avery asked after a while. There was caution in the other boy's voice, and Tom turned his face to him with a warning in his gaze.

"I'm fine," he said through clenched teeth. He made it quite clear that he did not wish to discuss his foul mood, and the other boys managed to awkwardly move their conversation on to the upcoming Quidditch match between Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff.

"There's a girl on the Ravenclaw team, you know," Avery was saying. "Wonder if she'll wear her skirt for the match? I'd love to see her go tumbling from her broom, arse over face, just in case that skirt were to flip up and give us a show."

The boys chortled, but Tom said nothing. He never responded to childish talk like that; he was above such ridiculous thoughts and words. He was above the libido-driven lifestyles led by his gormless peers.

Wasn't he?

Tom stared beyond plump-faced Rosier, his dark eyes locking onto Hermione. She wasn't alone anymore; a few Gryffindor girls and the boy Tom recognised as Ladon Scamander were surrounding her. She was engaged in a lively conversation with her House-mates. Tom watched as Ladon Scamander said something to Hermione, causing her face to light up and break out into mirthful laughter.

An ugly coil of jealousy appeared somewhere below Tom's stomach then. Ladon Scamander was the son of renowned Magizoologist Newton Scamander. The boy came from money, and prestige. He was rather pimple-faced and simple-looking, but he'd had a pretty girlfriend the previous year. The girl, a Hufflepuff, had been drawn to Ladon's exciting home life and the promise of wealth if she married him after graduation. The relationship hadn't worked out, Tom knew, but now it seemed the boy was pursuing the new arrival. Hermione.

The other Gryffindor girls seemed to be wandering off into their own conversation, and Tom watched as Hermione and Ladon Scamander began to banter merrily back and forth. Finally, Ladon pulled a parchment from his bag and held it out to Hermione. She giggled when she read whatever was on the paper, rocking back and forth upon the bench and nodding at Ladon.

Tom was suddenly overcome with anger, with envy, with all sorts of sensations that made him feel weak and vulnerable. He hated Hermione Villeneuve in that instant. He hated the way her red lipstick drew attention to her pretty little mouth. He hated the happy gleam in her chestnut eyes. He hated the tinkling sound of her laughter, which carried all the way to the Slytherin table.

He despised Hermione for having appeared in the stairwell the previous night. Tom had managed to push her from his mind long enough to do nearly his entire patrol, but then - poof - there she was. In a confined space. A dark space. An isolated space.

Tom had briefly thought that the circumstances were perfect to destroy her, that a deserted staircase after curfew was just the sort of encounter he'd wanted in order to eliminate her as a distraction.

But then he'd been taunted, once again, by her delicious signature aroma, this time coming straight from her body. Why could he sense her so strongly, he wondered? He was a talented wizard, but he had a perfectly normal sense of smell. And, yet, even standing a foot away from her, he was overcome with the fresh smell of spring. It was magnetic; it was intoxicating.

He'd wanted her, last night in the stairwell. That realisation had made Tom angry and uneasy. He'd wanted to touch his lips to hers and see whether she tasted as delicious as she smelled. He'd wanted to pull up the hem of her skirt and do awful things to - with - her. Things he'd never particularly wanted before.

For doing that to him, Tom Riddle decided that he hated this new arrival. Hermione. He hated her.

No one ever told Tom Riddle 'no.' No one ever rejected him. He would not allow her to be the first. Tom watched as Ladon Scamander elicited ever more glee out of Hermione, and fury boiled up inside his chest until he felt tingling come over his entire form. Tom rose slowly to his feet and ignored the questioning gazes of his 'friends.' He walked smoothly around the Slytherin table and made his way over to the Gryffindors.

No one ever told Tom Riddle 'no.' She would not be the first.

---

Ladon Scamander, as it turned out, had a terribly amusing sense of humour. Hermione had spent the past twenty minutes or so listening to Ladon relate some tales from his childhood, clearly embellished to make them more humourous. He told Hermione of the time he and his father Newt had gone to Romania to research a book on dragons. Ladon's father had managed to singe off every hair upon his head with dragon fire, Ladon said.

"So I said to him, 'Dad, at least you've lost your receding hairline!'"

Hermione giggled at Ladon across the Gryffindor table. Her merriment was quickly subdued when she noticed a tall, lean figure gliding smoothly toward her.

"Oh, no," she moaned softly, lowering her eyes to her bowl of porridge.

"What is it?" Ladon Scamander asked with warm concern. Then he turned over his shoulder and saw Tom Riddle looming over him. "Oh. Good morning, Riddle."

Hermione flicked her eyes up mutely to Tom Riddle, who was eyeing her just as he'd been doing for nearly an hour now. They'd both been early to breakfast, and Hermione had scarcely felt Tom Riddle's eyes leave her since she'd arrived. Apparently, he had not been as amused by Ladon Scamander as Hermione had been.

"May I sit here, Scamander?" Tom asked tightly, gesturing to the spot opposite Hermione… the spot where Ladon currently sat.

"Erm… yeah, of course," Ladon mumbled, and he picked up his porridge and pumpkin juice and rose from the bench. "See you, Hermione."

Hermione was properly cross that Tom Riddle was able to intimidate other students with such a simple request. She was cross, and she was impressed. She did not want to be impressed by Tom Riddle. She scowled at her glass of pumpkin juice as Tom slipped elegantly onto the bench opposite her. He put an apple onto a plate before him and silently flicked his wand a few times. Hermione watched as the apple began to neatly slice itself, and then the core Vanished.

She frowned ever more deeply. She did not want to be impressed by Tom Riddle.

"Good morning, Hermione," Tom said in a low murmur. He picked up an apple slice and put it between his lips, chewing the fruit thoughtfully. Hermione watched him eat, watched him swallow. His Adam's Apple bobbed in his slender throat when he did. She looked away again, seeing spots in front of her eyes.

"Is there something you need, Tom?" Hermione whispered desperately. A few feet away, she knew, Betty and Maggie were paying rapt attention, though they were trying to keep their eyes trained upon their food. Tom clearly noticed this as well; he shot a little smirk toward the other girls as he ate another apple slice.

"I trust you found your way back to Gryffindor Tower last night?" he asked smoothly, and Hermione furrowed her strong brows at him.

"No," she said sardonically, "I never did. It's too bad you didn't escort me, Tom. I wound up spending the entire night sleeping at the foot of a statue in the sixth-floor corridor."

Tom's jaw stopped chewing for a moment, and his eyes glittered strangely at Hermione. His crooked smile disappeared, and then he swallowed his bite before saying, "Sarcasm is rather unbecoming upon you, Hermione."

"I find I do not much care what is 'unbecoming,'" Hermione hissed at him. Then, feeling properly cross with his presence, she demanded, "Why are you here? Why are you sitting at the Gryffindor table, eating an apple? Why have you been staring at me for nearly an hour? What do you want, Riddle?"

His face was stony and still for a long moment, and Hermione watched Betty's face look up curiously from beside her. Betty's face snapped back down again when Tom mumbled,

"I merely wish to better make your acquaintance, Miss Villeneuve."

"Why?" Hermione narrowed her eyes at him, and she heard him huff out a frustrated breath. He pinched his lips into a straight line, and then he spoke again. His voice sounded annoyed, as if Hermione was pushing him too far. She wondered absently if she was; he was obviously dangerous.

"Because I find you… intriguing. I should like it very much if you were to join me for a walk across the Viaduct and down to the lake. This afternoon, after Defence Against the Dark Arts."

Hermione pondered his offer. It seemed very unwise, she thought, to go wandering the grounds with the boy who would become Lord Voldemort. To do so alone seemed downright suicidal. She took a sip of her pumpkin juice and touched her lips delicately with a napkin. "No, thank you," she said.

Maggie Prewett gasped a bit from a few feet away, and Tom Riddle shot her an irritated glare. Then he turned his eyes back to Hermione. There was a heat there that she had not seen yet from him. He seemed truly riled now that she'd explicitly turned him down. He cleared his throat and leaned across the table a bit.

"Why not?"

Hermione met his eyes for a moment, feeling the same odd flutter in her stomach that she'd had the previous day. "I do not believe it is… proper," she said, grasping for a reason. Tom squinted at her with a look of pure loathing, and then Hermione felt afraid of him again. She cleared her throat rather loudly. "Well, I'm off to Arithmancy. Good day, Mr. Riddle."

She packed up her bag and walked quickly from the Great Hall, wondering if she'd made a terrible and dangerous mistake in rejecting him.

---

He should not have ever stepped foot over to the Gryffindor Table, Tom thought as he stormed down the empty corridor to the Charms classroom. He'd left the Great Hall early, before the rest of his peers, for he was unwilling to sit and rehash his conversation with Hermione at the Slytherin table.

He knew full well that Hermione had no interest in him. She was afraid of him. That was plain enough. And wasn't that what Tom wanted - to be feared?

Not by her, an odd voice in the back of his head whispered. Tom scowled and whipped out his wand, pointing it at a window as he stalked down the empty corridor.

"Reducto!" he whispered, and a wild jet of blue light burst forth from his wand. It crashed into the stained-glass window, and then there was a loud explosion as the glass shattered into a million miniscule pieces.

Tom kept walking down the corridor, feeling properly annoyed now. She had rejected him - twice - but he felt more strongly than ever that he wished to pursue her. Why? What on Earth was so special about her? She was rather plain in appearance, and he knew virtually nothing of her personality. And, anyway, even if she had been pretty, or funny, or smart, Tom wouldn't have cared.

He used people. He did not like people.

But he wanted Hermione, and that made him very angry indeed.

Four more windows were smashed before Tom reached the Charms classroom.

---

Hermione sat at her Arithmancy desk, scribbling away furiously. She rather liked Professor Rolle Pascal, a wizened old man in overlarge robes. The old wizard seemed kindly and helpful, unlike. Professor Vector from Hermione's own time. Professor Vector had been more than competent in the subject of Arithmancy, but had usually been rather unsympathetic when students experienced difficulty in her lessons.

"Miss Villeneuve… Mr. Scamander. Have you found anything of note?" Professor Pascal wheezed out his question, and Hermione met his kind, pale eyes. Beside her, Ladon Scamander finished writing. He was the only other sixth-year Gryffindor in this class; Maggie Prewett and Betty Cattermole were in Divination this period.

"I've just finished running the numbers for my First Pinnacle, Sir," Hermione said matter-of-factly. She pushed her parchment across the desk toward Professor Pascal. The old man nodded and made a small noise of approval as he looked over Hermione's work. Hermione found herself smiling proudly as Professor Pascal said,

"Impeccable craftsmanship with the numbers, Miss Villeneuve. However, I believe you started with an inaccurate birth date? Perhaps a mere typographical error. I do not believe this prediction fits you at all, my dear. What date did you say you were born?"

Hermione felt a cold flush through her veins, felt her lips go numb, and she said in a dull voice, "The nineteenth of September, 1926. Sir."

"Hmm…" Professor Pascal shook his head, looking a bit befuddled. "Are you entirely certain your birth year is not an odd number, my dear? I must say, this prediction simply makes no sense for you. I can not see as it would be accurate. However, if the birth year were odd, then…"

"Oh, yes!" Hermione nodded vigorously. Too vigorously, she thought after a moment, and she stopped her head from moving. She smiled broadly, apologetically, and took back the parchment. "I… It was 1927. That's right. I'd forgotten that my parents put me into school a year early, Sir. I apologise for the error…"

She quickly Vanished her work on the parchment and started over. Professor Pascal stood and patiently waited for her to redo her work. Beside her, Ladon Scamander frowned. Hermione could scarcely blame him. What sort of person misremembered their birth year?

At last, she handed the parchment back to Professor Pascal. This time, he nodded with a small smile. "Ah, yes," he said. "Your First Pinnacle is now much more than blathering nonsense, as the other one was. You, my dear, are destined for greatness. But you must cast aside old beliefs, turn away from those you once called your friends, and embrace the change surrounding you. You must summon all your inner fortitude to do so, but if you can accept the challenge… then you will be great, my dear."

Hermione mutely took the parchment back from Professor Pascal. She stared down at the paper for a long while in silence while the old teacher helped Ladon Scamander with his work.

The rest of the day flew by in a whirlwind of activity. Hermione had a very busy schedule today - Arithmancy and Charms before lunch, followed by Defence Against the Dark Arts. She had a break in the afternoon, but then would need to spend hours this evening working on a Transfiguration project that had been assigned the previous day.

Hermione had almost forgotten that her Defence course was a Gryffindor/Slytherin pairing. She wandered into the classroom with Maggie and Betty, and the three girls seated themselves near one another and continued chatting.

Galatea Merrythought, the Defence professor, waddled into the classroom from the rear. She was a fat old woman with a squished face, but her countenance seemed cheerful and her eyes twinkled in much the same manner as Dumbledore's.

"Good afternoon," she greeted the class, and the students responded in kind. Professor Merrythought cast her eyes about the room and said happily, "Today we shall continue our work with nonverball spells. I wish for you to work in pairs and attempt to Disarm your opponent with a silent swirl of your wand. Remember that you must incant the spell inside your mind with great force and fervour… Expelliarmus is the incantation, of course. Now. I am well aware of the ancient and senseless enmity between Houses Gryffindor and Slytherin, but today I wish for you to find a partner from the opposite House. It's high time all Hogwarts students learned to work well together. So… Gryffindors, find a Slytherin, and vice versa. Get to work, please!"

There was much grumbling then as chairs were slid away from desks and students rose to their feet. Hermione groaned softly as she realised that the Slytherins were here. She turned round and there he was. Him. Tom Riddle, with his cronies all around him. Immediately, he was rushed by three Gryffindor girls, including Betty and Maggie. Betty got there first. She batted her pretty eyelashes up at Tom and simpered,

"Mr. Riddle, I'd be honoured if you'd duel with me today!"

But Tom ignored Betty entirely, his dark eyes trained upon Hermione. She felt a stab of discomfort through her stomach at the intensity of his stare. She wished he wouldn't reject other girls to try to pursue her. Didn't he realise that he was only making her life more difficult by sowing enmity between her and the other female students?

Of course he did, she thought angrily. Of course he realised that, and he liked it. He relished it. She clenched her fists at her sides when Tom flicked his eyes to Betty and away again.

"I'm very sorry, Miss Cattermole," he said smoothly, "but I was hoping to work with Miss Villeneuve today."

"Oh… of course," Betty said quietly, sounding profoundly disappointed. But Hermione took a deep, trembling breath and gathered her courage. She cast her eyes upon the boy to Tom Riddle's right - Rosier, she thought - and said,

"Mr. Rosier, would you be so kind as to practise the Disarming Spell with me?"

She saw out of her peripheral vision the way Tom reacted. A black flash came over his glittering eyes, and his sharp cheekbones coloured a deep scarlet. His reaction lasted only a moment, and then he said sharply,

"On second thought, Miss Cattermole… I accept your offer. Shall we?" He extended his arm to Betty without looking at her, and the smitted blonde girl giggled a little as she laced her arm beneath Tom's elbow. Hermione felt an inexplicable surge of emotion at the sight of Tom walking away, arm-in-arm with Betty Cattermole.

Jealousy. She'd felt it before in her life, and it was unmistakable now. She was jealous of the sight, of Tom openly accepting the affections of a different girl. Why?They were practically strangers. Moreover, they didn't seem to like one another very much.

Hermione grimaced, feeling a bit queasy as the strawberry blonde Rosier approached her cautiously.

"Erm… so, let's begin, then, shall we?" the boy asked, and Hermione nodded absently.

She stood about ten paces from Rosier and pointed her wand at him. He did the same, and he said, "I'll begin."

Hermione frowned. Weren't boys of this time supposed to be chivalrous? Whatever happened to 'ladies first'? But she nodded her consent and prepared to be Disarmed by Rosier's nonverbal spell.

Rosier jabbed his wand into the air, but nothing happened. He pursed his lips, and Hermione tried not to laugh at his utter failure.

"Say the incantation quite loudly in your mind," she advised him, for she was very good with nonverbal magic. "Your inner voice, your thoughts, should be screaming the spell."

"Yes. I know. Thank you." Rosier narrowed his pale eyes at Hermione, and she felt an uneasy shiver go down her spine at the way he'd bristled to her help. She just nodded and waited for his second attempt.

After a long while, Rosier jabbed his wand forward again. This time, a little flash of white appeared at the tip of his wand and flew rather sluggishly through the air toward Hermione. She lost her grip on her wand, as if it were suddenly very slippery, and the wand clattered to the floor. But it was, without question, the weakest Disarming Spell Hermione had ever seen. She bent down to pick up her wand. When she rose, Rosier looked quite pleased with himself.

"See?" the boy said. "Not so difficult."

Hermione sighed, suddenly rather overcome with a desire to show off her skills. It was stupid to do so, she knew. It was inflammatory and confrontational. But she couldn't help herself. She raised her wand toward Rosier and silenced her mind. Then she swirled her wand, and forced all of her thoughts to silently shriek, 'EXPELLIARMUS!'

A great burst of red light shot out of Hermione's vine wand, with so much force that she skidded backward a bit upon the classroom floor. The red burst of light smashed into Rosier, knocking him clear off the floor so that he landed with an 'oof!' upon the ground. His wand flew into the air, spiraling away in an elegant arc.

The classroom had suddenly gone quiet and still as everyone had stopped and given their attention to the bright red flash, to the sight of Rosier tumbling to the ground and his wand soaring through the room.

"Oh, well done, Miss Villeneuve. Well done, indeed! I see that Beauxbatons Academy is not failing its students in duelling instruction, eh?" Professor Merrythought clapped her hands a few times and smiled broadly at Hermione. "Now, all of the rest of you… I'd like to see similar results. Keep trying, if you please!"

The rest of the students resumed their duelling, but there were only occasional white flashes as the occasional person managed a weak nonverbal Disarming Spell. Rosier was unable to replicate even his weakly successful attempt, but Hermione indulged him and let him keep trying.

About ten feet away, there was a small white flash from Betty's wand, and she smiled rather triumphantly as Tom Riddle's wand clattered to the floor. He crouched with a smooth motion to pick it up. Hermione, feeling very distracted indeed, watched as Tom said in a sugary tone,

"Good work, Miss Cattermole. Now it's my turn."

Betty looked somewhat terrified. Everyone knew Tom Riddle to be a brilliant student. He didn't let their expectations down. A huge red jet of light flew from his wand after he flicked it at Betty with a bored expression on his face. Betty toppled to the ground and her wand flew directly at Tom.

Tom reached out into the air and deftly caught the flying wand, and he narrowed his eyes at Betty Cattermole, who was lying nearly-unconscious upon the stone floor. Once again, the classroom went silent, and this time Professor Merrythought came dashing over.

"Are you all right, Miss Cattermole?" she asked with a hint of concern. Betty slowly sat up, looking dazed and tired.

"I… I'm fine," she insisted, but her pretty cheeks coloured scarlet with embarrassment. She smiled nervously up at the handsome boy opposite her. "Well done, Tom."

"Miss Villeneuve and Mr. Riddle," Professor Merrythought said abruptly, "Your spells are much too strong for your current matches, I should think. It isn't terribly productive for you or for your partners. Miss Cattermole, why don't you work with Mr. Rosier? And Mr. Riddle, you work with Miss Villeneuve. I'd like the two of you to practise nonverbally Shielding yourselves from one another's Disarming Charms. Thank you!"

Hermione's mouth dropped open in horrified surprise as Rosier switched places with Tom Riddle. He stood across the room from her and gave her his trademark crooked smile.

"Right," he said in a low, sibilant murmur. "Go ahead, Hermione. I'm ready."

Yes, I'll bet you're ready, Hermione thought irritably. She cast the strongest Disarming Charm she possibly could at Tom, and her wand exploded with red light.

But he merely flicked his wand at the light, cocking up an eyebrow at Hermione as he did. The red light dissolved instantly, and Tom's wand was still securely in his hand. He laughed, low and in the back of his throat, and the sound of his laughter enraged Hermione. It also sent a terrible shock of want through her body, a feeling she'd never quite experienced before. Hermione shifted uncomfortably upon her feet, horrified by her physical reaction to Tom's magical prowess.

Suddenly he was walking toward her, closing the gap between them one pace at a time. Hermione lowered her wand and swallowed hard, trying not to let his delicious aroma fill her nostrils as he neared. She lowered her eyes, for she knew that if she stared up at him, the unsolicited physical reaction would start again.

"I shall make a deal with you, Hermione," she heard Tom say, when he hovered above her only a few feet away. His voice was melodious and silky as he spoke, and Hermione felt her hand shake as she clutched her wand.

"A deal?" she repeated numbly, and then Tom laughed again in his beautiful low rumble.

"Indeed. If you can successfully block my Disarming Charm, then I shall leave you alone forever. We shall forget all about who sensed what in Potions yesterday. But if you are unable to block my spell, then you must accompany me on that walk I asked you about at breakfast. Right after this lesson. Do we have a deal?"

Hermione felt her ears go hot. They rang loudly. She was dizzy with confusion. She just nodded, still not looking at Tom. He returned to his side of the classroom, and Hermione sighed as she looked up at him.

She didn't even have time to raise her wand properly, much less cast a solid Shield Charm, before his wand was pushing a bright burst of red at her. The light moved like a bolt of lightning across the room, and before Hermione could react, her wand was gone, soaring away like an inanimate bird. She was pushed backward by the force of Tom's spell, and she stumbled and tried to stand. It didn't work; she collapsed onto her bottom on the stone floor and crashed into a chair painfully.

She was still disentangling herself from the furniture when Tom's slender fingers appeared before her. He was holding out his hand to help her stand. Hermione didn't take it, so Tom smoothly retracted his hand and brushed absently at his robes as Hermione helped herself up.

"That wasn't very fair," she complained in a growl. "You didn't even give me time to put my wand up."

"If there is one thing magic has taught me, Hermione, it's that life is not fair." Tom smirked at her. "I hope you're wearing sensible shoes for walking."

---

They were halfway across the Viaduct before Hermione said a word to Tom. They'd walked all the way here in stilted, uncomfortable silence, but finally Hermione stopped walking and let out an indignant sigh. Tom stopped his own feet and turned to look at her expectantly. He waited for her to speak. When she did, he was rather unsurprised with the questions she asked. It didn't make them any easier to answer.

"Why are you pursuing, Tom?"

Her voice wasn't shaking. She wasn't afraid. She sounded angry. Tom cleared his throat and said delicately,

"Honestly, Hermione… I have no idea."

"You do not seem like the type to do things without a reason," Hermione argued. She leaned back against the post between two gothic windows on the viaduct, and she crossed her arms over her chest.

"I'm not. Not usually," Tom admitted, and he gritted his teeth at the discomfort of saying that to her. He chewed his bottom lip. "I find myself rather entranced by you, Hermione, but I have great difficulty articulating precisely why."

"Because I smell nice?" Hermione joked awkwardly. She shifted on her feet and tightened her arms around her torso. Tom glared down at her and shook his head deliberately.

"No," he said firmly. "I mean… yes, you… I am drawn to the scent of you, for some bizarre and inexplicable reason. But that isn't it. I found myself very cross this morning at breakfast when I observed you receiving the attentions of a different male student."

Hermione raised her eyebrows at him and scoffed, "I think you just don't like to share, Tom. Let us be reasonable about this, hm? You smelled 'me' in the Amortentia, and it bothered you enough to give me a bouquet of flowers. I was rude, I admit. I Vanished the lilacs and made it very obvious that I was not interested in your romantic attentions. So you felt jilted; you felt rejected. And it isn't in your nature to feel that way. I doubt very many people ever tell you 'no,' Tom. Do they?"

She was brazen with him, in a manner that he seldom allowed. Most people were intimidated enough by Tom Riddle that they naturally cowered into submission. The ones who did not submit as easily were quickly put into line. The only two people who had ever spoken to him like this were Albus Dumbledore and, now, Hermione. He dragged his top teeth over his bottom lip in frustration and growled,

"No, Hermione. No one ever tells me 'no.' I always get what I want."

"And why do you want me?" She asked again. Tom felt a bubbling surge of rage in his chest. She was truly being irritating.

"I… have no idea," he repeated through clenched teeth. "I find myself quite unable to curb certain reactions around you. It is unpleasant. I wonder whether a curse has been cast upon me; whether I've been poisoned with some sort of potion. It is inexplicable, what I am experiencing. It is unacceptable."

She looked downright amused then, and that only sent Tom's heart beating more fiercely in his chest. He was affronted by her little smile.

"Are you accusing me of bewitching you?" she demanded. Then she shook her head and laughed. She laughed at Tom Riddle, and she said breezily, "No, Tom. I would never dose you with a potion, nor curse you into pursuing me."

Tom looked down into her chestnut eyes, feeling frustrated at how pretty they looked as they gleamed with amusement. He noticed for the first time the little dusting of pale freckles that danced across Hermione's nose. He noticed that she had an awfully nice form beneath her robes, from what he could tell. He wanted to know more about that form. He growled in irritation and tried to take a step away from her.

It did not work; he wound up stepping toward her instead. Hermione's little smile disappeared when he whispered fiercely, "Who are you, Hermione?"

The glint in her eyes was gone then, too, and she mumbled clumsily, "I - I… I'm just a girl running away from a war."

Tom's hands acted before he could stop them. He'd completely lost control of his movements - a fact that would later alarm him into insomnia.

He pushed Hermione rather roughly by the shoulders until she hit the wall behind her. She let out a soft 'oof!' of surprise, and her amber eyes flew to look at her right shoulder, at where Tom's hand gripped her.

He held fast to her with his left hand, and with his right he cupped her jaw and directed her face up to meet his. She looked frightened now. It was the expression Tom was used to seeing in people - wide eyes glistening with unshed tears, lips parted in alarm, breath coming hard and fast in terror. He knew this expression. He liked it. It made him feel strong.

Usually.

Right now, it made him feel a bit odd. She was pretty like this, he thought. She was pretty with her doe-eyed face panting up at him. He could practically hear the thud of her pulse as she grew more frightened of him by the second. But then, suddenly, he thought back to how her eyes had looked when they were amused.They'd glinted then, too… differently, though. In a more appealing manner.

"You're trying to scare me," Hermione whispered up at him. Tom said nothing. He curled his fingertips up around her cheek and stroked there, feeling how soft her skin was. Warm. Soft. He wanted to touch her more, and that made him angry. Hermione flinched a little as he petted her. That made him angrier than ever. She whispered again, "You're trying to scare me… why? Scare me into bedding you? Scare me away? Which is it, Tom?"

He had no logical response to that question. What did he want from her? The previous day, he'd wanted to destroy her because she was a profound and noticeable distraction. He'd even briefly considered doing something awful to her in that stairwell. But then he'd been rather overcome with a strange longing for her - something he would never be able to explain. All thoughts of destroying her had dissolved in the stairwell, and all he'd been able to think about was the way she looked, the way she smelled, the sound of her voice.

"What do you want from me?" she asked deliberately, trying to get an answer out of him. Tom shook his head and let out a shaking breath as he admitted in a voice that sounded frightening even to his own ears,

"I do not know what I want from you. I know what I need, what I must have. I'm going to kiss you now."

There was the slightest hint of a question in that statement, a request for her to bend to his will. She did, nodding a little and swallowing nervously. Tom let go of her shoulder with his left hand, bringing it up to cup the other side of her jaw. Then he lowered his face, tortuously slowly, until his lips ghosted against hers.

She moaned.

The instant his mouth touched hers, she moaned like a proper harlot. Well, perhaps it wasn't as bad as that, Tom admitted. It was just the tiniest little sound of want, a small cracking sound from somewhere in her throat. Whatever it was, he thought, she should not have done it. By making that sound, she managed to send Tom into something of a frenzy.

His lips were crushing hers. His tongue was urging her mouth to open for him, and then he was exploring the roof of her mouth and sucking roughly upon her bottom lip. He'd never kissed a girl, not like this, but he somehow found he knew exactly what to do.

She tasted sweet and fresh, like lemon and vanilla, and Tom could not suppress the hungry grunt that vibrated from his mouth onto hers. He needed more. He needed more now.

His hips were pressing her roughly against the wall, and Tom found himself unashamed of the hardness that was forming there. He wanted her to feel it; he wanted her to feel the way his body was reacting to the taste of her. He ground his hips hard against her body, letting his erection dig into her abdomen.

She moaned again, louder this time.

And suddenly Tom was stumbling backward, away from her, swiping the back of his hand over his lips and making a confused, angry growling sound. He glared at her, enraged that she'd made him lose control of his body like that.

She panted, staring wide-eyed at him with her back still pressed to the wall. Tom looked away; she was too appealing like that, with her lips swollen and shining from his kiss.

"Go away," he said brusquely, turning to face out the opposite side of the Viaduct. There was silence behind him. Tom shut his eyes and took a shaking breath, and then he said again, more harshly, "Go away, Hermione."

Her footsteps faded quickly as she fled from him.

Tom skipped his next lesson and stood seething on the Viaduct until he knew what it was he had to do.

---

Rather mercifully, the next day was Saturday. That meant Hermione could avoid Tom Riddle with relative ease, and she did just that. She sat in the Great Hall at breakfast with her back to the Slytherin table, and she accompanied her fellow Gryffindors out to the Quidditch pitch for the match between Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff.

"I've got Gobstones Club this afternoon," Ladon Scamander was saying as the group trudged back into the castle. "That ruddy little second-year Slytherin girl - Eileen Prince -is frightfully good, I'll admit. Would you care to come and watch, Hermione?"

Hermione hesitated for a moment. She truly had no interest at all in Gobstones, for it was a wizarding game to which she'd only been upon her first arrival at Hogwarts. She'd found it rather dull. Nonetheless, she wanted to fortify her friendships with her fellow Gryffindors. The thought of that - of making friends during this new timeframe - made her quite nostalgic for Harry and Ron. She shoved aside thoughts of the friends she reckoned she'd never see again, and she smiled warmly at Ladon.

"I'd love to see you play."

He looked quite pleased with that response. Perhaps too pleased, Hermione quickly realised, and she hoped sincerely that she hadn't led him on.

"So... we've been avoiding asking you, but we simply can't wait any longer for details." Betty Cattermole eyed Hermione askance as the group climbed the marble staircase out of the Entrance Hall. She gave Hermione an expectant look, mirrored by Maggie Prewett. "How was your walk? With Tom Riddle?"

Hermione frowned and sighed a bit. She had tried hard not to think about that walk, about the way he'd pressed himself up against her on the wall and kissed her. The taste of him had sent a spike of want straight through Hermione's core, and she knew she'd moaned a bit. She coloured at the memory of that, of making noise to urge him on instead of pushing him away.

He'd tasted surprisingly warm, surprisingly sweet. Caramel and honey and mint and cinnamon. He'd tasted like the most delicious dessert Hermione had ever eaten, and she'd found herself lost as he'd pressed his mouth to hers. Then he'd ground his hips onto her belly and showed her that he was hard, that he was aroused. That had only magnified Hermione's wanton sense of need, making her heart pound in her chest and her ears ring and her stomach flutter.

And then he had flown back from her, swiping at his mouth and looking angry and confused. Betrayed by his own body, by her. The black flash of rage had come over his eyes and he'd told her in no uncertain terms to leave. So Hermione had, trotting back to the castle with tears boiling in her eyes.

She'd wanted to forget about the encounter. She'd wanted to pretend it hadn't happened. More than anything, she'd wanted to believe that it had been a fluke - that if for any reason he were to kiss her again, she would not react the way she'd done. She wouldn't moan and feel a surge of moisture between her legs. No. She would slap his smooth cheek and scream and run away. Yes. That was what she'd do.

Only, she knew full well that was not so. Hermione was angry that she had no control over her reactions to Tom Riddle. She knew what he was and who he would become. She knew the things he would do. But that didn't make him taste any less like caramel and cinnamon.

"The walk was... it was nice," Hermione said at last, and she watched as Maggie exchanged a giggle with Betty. Feeling rather irritated by their girlish response, Hermione quickly amended, "I think it is quite clear, though, that Tom Riddle and I are thoroughly incompatible. I think he understands that."

Hours later, she relaxed in a sunny courtyard, her feet tucked neatly under her bottom as she sat and watched Ladon Scamander battle little Eileen Prince in a game of Gobstones. The small girl was scrawny, with a beakish nose and scraggly black hair. Her skin was sallow and she looked very unhappy as she flicked a Gobstone toward Ladon.

Hermione held her breath anxiously as Eileen Prince's green stone glided precisely toward one of Ladon's red ones. The green Gobstone knocked its opponent squarely out of the white circle. A shot of putrid liquid spurted out of the green stone, up toward Ladon's face. He swerved and the foul-smelled liquid landed upon the grass behind him. Eileen looked at Ladon with a triumphant smirk.

"That's seven, then," she said in a hoarse, grating voice. "That's the match. You lose, Scamander."

Ladon chuckled under his breath and gathered up the Gobstones to start over. "Best two of three, then," he suggested, and Eileen nodded.

Hermione felt drowsy in the warm afternoon sun. It was an unseasonably mild day, and it was pleasant to be outside.

"Don't mind me," Hermione mumbled to Ladon. "I'm just going to rest a bit. This sunshine is making me a bit sleepy."

She flopped backward onto the grass with a comic lack of grace. She arranged her skirt neatly about herself and crossed her ankles, bringing her hands up to rest behind her head. The sun was bright, so she shut her eyes and just listened to the sounds of the school.

The little clink, clink, clink of the Gobstones was echoed by the occasional squawk of a bird overhead. There was the low din of various conversations happening among students enjoying the weather. It was peaceful, Hermione thought with a small smile. It was home, no matter the year.

"All right, Miss Prince?"

Hermione's eyes flew open and then quickly shut again against the glare of the sun. She sat up quickly, brushing blades of grass from her bushy hair as she recognised the voice that had suddenly broken her peace.

Tom Riddle had walked into the courtyard, and he was hovering over the game of Gobstones with an imperious expression upon his face. Eileen Prince smiled up unpleasantly at him and nodded.

"Hello, Tom."

"Who's winning?" Tom asked. Hermione thought he must know the answer - Eileen Prince was apparently the best Gobstones player at Hogwarts, despite her age. Tom merely wanted to hear it be said that Slytherin was beating Gryffindor.

"Erm... Eileen is," Ladon acknowledged cautiously, "Though we're going for best two out of three."

"Hmm." Tom nodded thoughtfully. He'd still not acknowledged Hermione's presence, even though she was only a few feet away. She huffed crossly and lay back down, rearranging herself upon the grass and resolutely shutting her eyes.

Then there was an odd pressure beside her, palpable upon the grass. There was the sound of gently swishing fabric, and the radiating heat that indicated another person's presence. More significantly, there was the cold, metallic scent of iron mixing with the warm notes of rosewood. Hermione sighed and turned her face away from him, keeping her eyes shut tightly.

"It's beautiful weather today." His voice came from slightly above her, but was very near. Hermione figured Tom must have sat down beside her upon the grass, but she refused to open her eyes.

"So it is," she said finally. "That's why I'm lying here, trying to relax in the warm silence."

"Walk with me," Tom commanded suddenly, his voice sounding very self-assured. Hermione turned her face back toward him. She put a hand above her eyes to shade them from the sun, and then she glared at him.

"No, thank you," she said through clenched teeth. Tom looked properly irritated at her refusal. His jaw ground visibly, and he stared off at a tree as he tried again.

"Please, Miss Villeneuve. Join me for a walk."

"No. Thank you." Hermione knew she was treading difficult waters here. There was a twinge of something dangerous in his voice as he insisted she walk with him. She knew he would not want it to be obvious to his Slytherin cronies that he was pursuing a girl who did not want him back. That would seriously compromise his authority. Nonetheless, Hermione was afraid to be alone with him again. And, anyway, why should he get everything he wanted? She wrenched her eyes shut once more and put herself back flat upon her back. "I want to stay here. I hope you enjoy your walk."

She had simultaneously rejected and dismissed him, and it had not gone unnoticed. There was a gruff little sound beside her as he cleared his throat in frustration. After a long moment, Tom sighed and Hermione heard him make his way to his feet.

"Very well," he said softly. "Enjoy the fine weather, Hermione."

She did not thank him, nor bid him farewell. She waited for a very long while, until she was certain he must be gone, and then she pulled herself up and cracked open her eyes. As she adjusted to the bright sunlight, she saw Ladon Scamander eyeing her rather oddly from his place at the Gobstones table. Ladon's eyes flicked to the ground beside Hermione, then back up. She furrowed her brows and let her own eyes go where Ladon's had. Then her breath hitched in her chest, and she felt dizzy.

On the grass beside her, bound in green ribbon, was a bouquet of lilacs.

---

She did not want him. He needed to accept that and move on, for her public rejections of him were not something that could keep happening. Tom knew full well that the situation with Hermione Villeneuve could compromise his standing among his Slytherins, and he could not have that. He could not appear weak or subject to the same foolish inclinations as the rest of them.

On Sunday, he made absolutely no attempt to speak with her. He did not even cast his eyes toward her in the Great Hall during meals. Instead, he spoke with his Slytherin boys about the situation on the Continent.

"My dad says that Grindelwald's taking full advantage of the Muggle war to gain power," said Mulciber. Tom eyed him cautiously and waited for the other boy to continue. Mulciber chewed upon a rose Turkish delight and then spoke with his mouth full. "He shaid dat Grindelwald is amashing quite de army..."

"Swallow your food, Mulciber," Tom sneered, turning away from the boy's chomping with disgust. Mulciber obeyed, looking embarrassed by Tom's judgment.

Good, Tom thought. They must know better than to behave like that in front of me.

"Rumour has it that Dumbledore intends to confront Grindelwald," said Nott from across the table. The wiry boy sipped carefully at a cup of tea and continued, "They were old friends, you know. If anyone were able to bring down Grindelwald, it would be Dumbledore."

Tom felt an odd flush of fury at the suggestion that Dumbledore was the most powerful wizard alive, that only he and Grindelwald currently held any sway over the wizarding world. Tom said in a low hiss,

"I could defeat Grindelwald, if you put us wand-to-wand. It simply does not serve my purpose at the present time."

"Oh... yes. Of course, Tom. I meant to say... Grindelwald would only be threatened by Dumbledore or by... by you." Nott stumbled over his words and spilled a bit of tea down his jumper, swearing as the dark liquid soaked into his clothes.

Tom rolled his eyes and picked up his wand. "Tergeo," he sneered, and the other boy's jumper was siphoned quickly of tea.

"Thanks, Tom," Nott mumbled.

That night, as Tom lay in his bed with the curtains drawn, he folded his hands over his pyjama shirt and stared up at the ceiling. The other Slytherin boys were sleeping, he could tell, but he was having difficulty again quieting his mind. He wanted her to go away, just like he'd told her to do. And she had, in a way. She'd trotted away from him and rejected him in the courtyard and made it very, very plain that Tom would not be successful in having her for his own.

But she hadn't gone away from his mind. She was still there, like an annoying insect buzzing about between his ears. He could see her gleaming smile as she spoke with Ladon Scamander in the Great Hall. He could smell her - rain, lilacs, damp wood, and lemon - and he could see the way her chestnut eyes had stared at him in the stairwell and on the Viaduct. He could feel the low vibration of her voice as she moaned into his kiss.

Even now, Tom felt an uncomfortable straining in his pyjama trousers at the memory of it, at the thought of how her cheeks had felt warm and smooth beneath his hands. He growled in frustration and touched himself, pumping his hand up and down and squeezing his eyes shut as he thought of her.

Lilac and rain and wood and lemon... sweet and fresh tastes mingling in his mouth as he pulled her tongue between his lips. Her hair, splayed out beneath her like a halo on the grass of the courtyard. The way she'd crossed her ankles so very primly. Amber eyes, wide with want and confusion and fear, as he slammed her back against the wall and moved to kiss her.

His breath came hard and ragged through his clenched teeth, and when he came and made an enormous mess of his pyjamas, Tom sneered down at himself disdainfully.

Who exactly did this girl think she was, that she was entitled to do this to him? Tom climbed quickly and silently from his bed and padded to the showers, where he scrubbed his skin mercilessly until it was raw and sore.

She had no right to disable him like this, he thought with a pang of anger. Who did she think she was?

---

Hermione reinforced the invisible, magical mask covering her face as she lowered a calendula flower into her cauldron. The potion they were brewing today would produce Garrotting Gas, and Professor Slughorn had warned the sixth-years that to breathe in the vapours would be terribly dangerous. Hermione had no desire to suffocate in Potions lessons, so she was brewing with extreme caution.

Beside her, Ladon Scamander's cauldron made a strange hissing noise and flared purple.

"Oh, dear," Ladon sighed, shaking his head. He Vanished the contents of his cauldron. "I shall have to start over."

Hermione gave him a little sympathetic smile. Professor Slughorn wandered over to their desks, drawn by the sound and flash from Ladon's work.

"No problem, my dear boy," Slughorn said to Ladon, waving his hand dismissively. "Begin again, and this time ensure that you only stir sixteen times clockwise before changing direction, hmm? Oh... Mr. Scamander, I'm reminded that I am hosting a get-together on Wednesday... a dinner for the Slug Club. You'll join me, won't you?"

Hermione felt rather amused that Slughorn had apparently been at his game of favourites for decades. She tried not to scoff as Ladon said,

"Oh. Yes, of course, Sir. Thank you."

"Bring a guest!" Slughorn insisted. "A young lady, perhaps?" The teacher chuckled under his breath and looked meaningfully from Ladon to Hermione and back again. Hermione felt her cheeks colour with embarrassment, and she cast her eyes down into her cauldron. Slughorn dashed off at the sound of another cauldron bursting across the room.

After a long, terribly awkward moment of silence, Ladon Scamander said quietly, "Well... would you care to accompany me to the Slug Club party, Hermione? It might be a nice way for you to meet some new people...?"

He sounded very unsure of himself, and when Hermione looked up to give him a warm smile, Ladon's cheeks were flushed and his eyes were wide. Hermione nodded and said,

"I'd be delighted. Thank you, Ladon."

Then she saw the boy a few tables over - him, Tom Riddle - who was staring intently at Ladon and Hermione as his cauldron simmered. Tom looked properly cross as he interpreted the interaction between Hermione and Ladon. His dark eyes were narrowed and a small frown pulled at the corners of his lips. Hermione was annoyed that he was still behaving this way, and she flicked her eyes back to Ladon and widened her grin.

"What time shall I be ready for the party, Ladon?" she asked, her voice too loud for the quiet classroom. Ladon looked a bit taken aback by her sudden enthusiasm, and he stammered,

"Eight - eight o'clock, perhaps?"

"Wonderful." Hermione nodded and grinned more widely than ever.

On Wednesday night, she emerged from the bathroom with a look of abject trepidation upon her face. She'd borrowed a dress from Betty Cattermole for the occasion, a pretty teal frock made of tulle. It fit her well except for being a tad long, since Betty was taller than Hermione by a few inches. Hermione had applied cosmetics and styled her hair into what she hoped was a convincingly accurate iteration of formal curls from the time.

"I say, Hermione!" exclaimed Maggie Prewett. "You do clean up nicely, don't you?"

The two other girls sat upon Betty's bed and were flipping through the latest copy of Witch Weekly magazine. Betty grinned from ear to ear at the sight of Hermione all tarted up.

"Oh... he's going to think you look splendid!" she exclaimed. Hermione smiled meekly.

"I hope he does, but only so that I don't embarrass him. I want to be friends with Ladon, not -"

"I wasn't talking about Ladon," Betty smirked, and Maggie giggled from beside her. "Tom. Tom Riddle. He's always at those Slug Club parties. Professor Slughorn thinks he'll be very powerful someday, so he's pulled him into his circle, you know."

"Tom will be there?" Hermione hadn't thought of that, for some reason. She hadn't heard Professor Slughorn invite him in the Potions lesson. But, then, of courseTom Riddle would be at a Slug Club event in the 1940s. He was the future Lord Voldemort, and anyone could see that the boy's potential for power was immense. The ambitious Slughorn would have seized on that.

Would have. Did. Is.

Hermione shut her eyes for a moment as the tenses of verbs jumbled in her mind. Was this the 'past' anymore? Or had it become her present? Was the future that she'd already lived even relevant?

She couldn't think of that now. It was only a few minutes to eight, and she was due to meet Ladon in the Gryffindor Common Room. Hermione was about to spritz on some perfume at her vanity, but she paused with the atomiser aimed at her neck. She suddenly remembered what Tom Riddle had said to her, when they'd stood upon the Viaduct days previously.

I am drawn to the scent of you, for some bizarre and inexplicable reason.

It wouldn't be wise to cover up her own signature, Hermione pondered, and she set the bottle of perfume down. After all, if Tom Riddle could manipulate everyone around him, why couldn't Hermione Granger manipulate him?

---

Tom was already seated at Slughorn's table when she walked into the room. Tom flew to his feet, touching the buttons of his suit coat gently and inclining his head chivalrously.

"Welcome, Miss Villeneuve... Mr. Scamander!" Slughorn greeted the two of them happily, and Tom watched as the Scamander boy pulled out a chair for Hermione and unfolded her napkin for her. She let him do it, too, even though Tom knew full well that Hermione was no delicate flower.

Tom sat back down once Hermione was seated, placing his own napkin carefully upon his lap. He'd come alone, of course. He could have asked any girl in the ruddy school to accompany him, and they would have swooned at the thought of a date with Tom Riddle. He could have asked any girl he wanted... except for her.

She'd said 'yes' to Ladon Scamander (the pimple-faced idiot), but Tom knew full well that Hermione would have rejected him if he'd asked her. Why? He was infuriated by that knowledge. Tom was good-looking, ambitious, powerful, popular, and intelligent. What did Ladon Scamander have that Tom didn't, exactly?

The conversation at the table revolved for an hour on Quidditch. Tom had no interest in discussing the sport, and it seemed Hermione didn't, either. She was picking absently at a meatball upon her plate with a fork while Ladon Scamander enthusiastically discussed the Appleby Arrows' new Chaser.

Tom stared at Hermione intently, willing her to lay down her fork and look at him. He was not entirely sure why he wanted that. Perhaps he wanted to make her uncomfortable, to make her feel threatened.

Or perhaps he simply wanted to look at her chestnut eyes for a moment.

Tom coughed a bit at the thought of that, and then Hermione did what he'd been willing her to do. She raised her eyes to him and stared back, her face unreadable.

She looked rather pretty, Tom thought disdainfully. She had on a teal-coloured confection of a dress, and her hair was elegantly coiffed. Her lips were painted and her eyes shadowed, and she wore a delicate string of pearls round her neck.

Her arms were bare, for the dress she wore had quite short sleeves. Tom could not help but notice the nice shape that her arms had - lean and toned, but not overly skinny. He wondered what it would feel like to ghost his fingertips over the skin of her arms. Would she shiver if he did?

He huffed and stabbed his fork into the meatball upon his own plate, for now Hermione had managed to be brought into the conversation at the table. She was discussing her apathy toward Quidditch, and the others were trying to convince her of the game's merits. She laughed jovially and brushed them off, and Tom felt a queasy sense of envy coiling in his lower abdomen.

Why could they all make her smile, and he couldn't? He was Tom Riddle - he was Lord Voldemort - he was not incompetent, but she was making him feel that way. He positively quivered with anger when Slughorn announced that it was time for dancing, and Ladon Scamander guided Hermione smoothly to the small dance floor.

Tom stayed seated where he was, bile rising in his throat as he watched Hermione put her hand on Ladon Scamander's shoulder. Worse yet was when the Scamander boy dared put his hand upon Hermione's waist, and then they began moving to the strains of the string instruments in the corner.

"We should have brought girls," said a voice beside Tom, and he jolted and turned his attention to Orion Black, the Slytherin boy from the powerful and ancient Black family. He was a few years younger than Tom, but already seemed as though he would make a loyal follower. Orion gave Tom a wistful stare and leaned onto his hand, saying, "I was going to ask Walburga, you know. But I couldn't find the courage."

Tom smirked at the younger boy. "You must level allow yourself to feel intimidated by a woman," he said, and then realised with a nasty start that he was doing just that. Orion said nothing in response; he merely nodded, but Tom felt a surge of determination in his veins. "Excuse me, Black," he said politely, and he rose from his seat with a smooth motion.

Tom pulled at his sleeves, straightened his tie, and took a deep and steadying breath. Then he glided across the room until he reached the dance floor. Hermione was smiling at Ladon Scamander as they danced, and the sight of it made Tom very cross. He pulled up behind Ladon, and Hermione's smile suddenly disappeared. Tom put his hand upon Ladon's shoulder, letting it sit there like a weight, and the Scamander boy stopped moving at once. He pulled his hands from Hermione's body and turned round to face Tom.

Tom cocked his head to the side and flashed them both his trademark crooked grin. "May I cut in, Scamander?" he asked delicately. "I can scarcely leave this evening without a dance from Miss Villeneuve."

She stared at him as though she were strongly considering some snide remark, as though she were going to tell him he wasn't getting the dance he wanted.

Stay silent, Hermione, and just dance with me, Tom willed, letting his dark eyes glitter at her. Ladon Scamander muttered some polite words of excuse and made his way over to the dining table. Tom slid into his place, never once losing eye contact with Hermione. He put one hand upon her narrow waist and reached for her other hand, and he felt her own hand carefully reach up to rest on his shoulder. Tom tried not to flinch when her fingers curled around his suit jacket, gripping him gently as they began to sway to the music.

He stared at her in silence for a good long while, breathing in her refreshing aroma and noticing that she'd not covered it up with perfume. That had to have been on purpose, he thought. She wanted him to smell her. She wanted him to want her.

Well done, then, Hermione, Tom thought bitterly, for he was unable to control the way his body tingled at the places where his skin contacted hers. He was suddenly catapulted back to the taste of her, to the sound of her moan as it buzzed against his lips. He shut his eyes and swallowed heavily, feeling angry again.

"May I ask you something, Hermione?" he said through clenched teeth, and he looked down at her to see that her amber eyes had gone wide. She was watching him struggle, but for once she did not seem to find it funny. Her own breathing was coming shakily through her nostrils as they danced. Tom realised that no matter how badly she attempted to fight off the attraction, she wanted him, as well.

"Would it matter if I said 'no'?" Hermione replied, cocking up an eyebrow. Tom chuckled a bit and shook his head.

"Why do you despise me so?"

He was used to being feared, to making people nervous, to getting what he wanted. He was entirely unaccustomed to this - to being so thoroughly and evidently despised.

"I do not despise you," Hermione murmured. She lowered her eyes and stared at Tom's tie, and he absently hoped it was straight and neat at his neck.

"Is that so?" he pressed her, and she hesitated on her feet for a brief moment before falling back into the rhythm of the dance. Tom continued, "Why is it, then, that you are here with Ladon Scamander?"

"Because he asked me to come," Hermione frowned. She looked up at him through her eyelashes, and Tom squared his jaw as he sighed crossly. Hermione said, "You didn't ask me."

"I wasn't given the opportunity," Tom snapped. "Obviously, I would have asked you to accompany me. Except I rather expect I would have been rejected. Again."

She said nothing in response to that, but her hand tightened at his shoulder a little, and her lips parted as she tried to think of what to say. Finally, she murmured,

"The lilacs are on my bedside table. In a vase with water. I've charmed them to preserve them, so they won't die."

Tom stopped dancing then, unable for some reason to keep moving. He stared at Hermione's amber eyes, at the way they glistened with unshed tears, and he thought back to how he'd left the lilac bouquet beside her prone form in the courtyard on Saturday. So she'd kept the flowers. So what?

"I should have sent you away," Tom found himself saying, and he tried desperately to begin moving correctly to the music again. "From the Viaduct, you know."

"No?" Hermione demanded incredulously. "What should you have done, Tom? Should you have kept kissing me until we both lost control entirely? Until you did something both of us would have regretted?"

"You want me, and I want you," Tom growled, gripping her waist more tightly and pulling her closer to his body. He felt a sudden possessiveness of her. "I have no idea why. I don't know the meaning behind the experience with the Amortentia. But I find myself unable and not exactly eager to fight it off anymore."

"So am I meant to go back with you to the Slytherin boys' dormitories tonight, then?" Hermione scoffed. "After all, Tom Riddle always gets what he wants, correct?"

"Correct." Tom sneered the word down at her like a curse, and then he abruptly dipped his face to meet hers. He touched his lips to her cheekbone, fearing that if he tasted her mouth again, she'd slap him in front of everyone.

She shivered in his arms, and it felt delightful to know he was affecting her. But then her pretty brown eyes fluttered shut and she shook her head sadly.

"I don't want to play games with you," she whispered. "Please, Tom. Just leave me be. You can have any girl in this school, any girl you want -"

"I do not want them," Tom said honestly. "I would sooner have no girl at all - I would gladly have no girl at all. I am currently dancing with the only one I want."

She chewed on her bottom lip, looking torn and nervous, and she squeezed his hand as she frantically mumbled, "You don't know anything about me. We're strangers."

"Fine, then," Tom grumbled, rolling his eyes. "Tell me your favourite colour. Your favourite food. What your parents did for a living. Tell me the title of the best book you've ever read, and what it is you hope to do after school. Tell me about the pets you grew up with, and how you take your tea."

Hermione looked as though she were going to cry, and for once the expression did not fill Tom with a sense of accomplishment. "Do you care about any of that?" she asked softly.

"Not really," Tom admitted, for it was useless to lie to her anymore... at least about this sort of thing. But Hermione dragged her teeth over her bottom lip, and she said determinedly,

"My favourite colour changes with my mood. Some days it's orange; other days it's a pale purple. The colour of lilacs. My favourite food is Brie cheese with sliced apples and walnuts. My parents are dead, so let's not speak about them. The best book I've ever read is A Biography of Bridget Wenlock. I have no idea, truly, what I'm meant to do after school. I wish I knew. My life would be easier if I knew. I grew up with a few cats; we never had a dog."

She took her hands off of Tom and stepped back, for there was a break between songs and the music had ended. She wrung her hands together and stared down at her fingers, and then she murmured,

"And I take my tea with a small bit of milk. No sugar."

"I see." Tom cleared his throat. He didn't care about Brie cheese or Hermione's interest in Bridget Wenlock. He did not care about her cats, or her aspirations, or the fact that she apparently enjoyed the colour of lilacs as well as smelling of them.

He did not care. Did he?

No. He could not care - he must not. She was just a silly little girl with a silly little body that was trying to distract him from his goals. And the least of his concerns was whether she preferred sugar in her tea. That didn't matter at all.

Did it?

"Slughorn's wrapping up the evening," Tom said briskly. "Come. I shall escort you back to Gryffindor Tower."

She quirked up a smile then, crooked like his so often was, and she shook her head gently. "Have you forgotten?" she asked. "I came with Ladon Scamander. Hecan walk me back. Thank you anyway, Tom."

"Oh. Indeed." Tom let his voice sound distant and detached, and he cast a stony blankness over his face. "Goodnight, then. Thank you for the dance."

"Goodnight," she answered numbly, not moving from her place on the dance floor as Tom bowed his head and strode quickly away.

---

The night was considerably chillier than the day had been, and as Hermione walked with Ladon Scamander through the corridors, she wished she'd brought a jumper to put over her dress. Goosebumps prickled up upon her arms and she shivered a bit as they walked.

"Here you are," Ladon said, and he took off his suit jacket before putting it delicately around Hermione's shoulders. She smiled meekly at him, at his chivalry, and murmured,

"Thank you. I had a wonderful time this evening, Ladon."

"As did I. You looked lovely tonight, Hermione. I'm... very glad you've come to school here."

Hermione paused her steps and looked up into Ladon's face. His eyes were pale and shone in the moonlight that beamed in through the open archways. His skin was imperfect, and his face was plump, and he wasn't terribly tall. But Hermione suddenly didn't much care about any of that. He was very polite, and he seemed interested in her. She flashed him another small smile and started to continue walking.

But then she felt Ladon's hand reach out and take hers, lacing their fingers together, and he pulled her back to face him. He was gentle and slow as he moved, but rather persuasive, and Hermione felt a heady rush come over her. She looked at his pale eyes again and saw the unmistakable male hunger there. She shook her head firmly.

"Oh, Ladon... I'm very sorry if I... if I've been confusing. I'm so glad you're my friend; I should be terribly desolate here without your hospitality and that of the Gryffindors, but -"

His hands moved to her waist, and he smiled down at Hermione with a wide grin. "You haven't been confusing, Hermione," he insisted. "You've been very obvious."

Hermione frowned and shook her head again. He was still moving in a slow, deliberate way. So he doesn't scare me off, Hermione thought quickly, so that I don't run.

She suddenly thought she ought to have her wand in her hand, and she reached into the Expanded purse she'd brought with her and fished about until her hand closed around the handle of her vine wand. She started to pull it out, but then she saw Ladon point his own wand at her. A small ball of white light appeared, and Hermione was shoved backward a few metres on the ground. She stumbled and realised her wand had been knocked from her hand by Ladon's nonverbal Disarming charm.

"Ladon," she said firmly, trying to sound menacing, "Give me my wand back. I'm going back to Gryffindor Tower - alone."

She had no idea what had come over him. He'd seemed so gentlemanly, so proper and kind and friendly. But now he was sneering a bit as he leaned down to pick Hermione's wand up off the floor. He tucked it away into his waistband and reached for Hermione's waist again. She turned around and ran. It was the only thing she could do.

Of course, Ladon was armed, and she heard him say, "Impedimenta."

Hermione's legs suddenly felt as though they weighed a tonne each, and she was no longer running. It was as though she were trying to swim through honey; the air felt thick and heavy and solid.

"Come back, love," she heard Ladon's soft voice say behind her. "We should be more than friends. You don't need that Riddle boy."

"Doesn't she, though?"

Hermione tried to turn round at the sound of Tom's voice, but Ladon's jinx was still making it impossible to move.

"Finite incantatem," she heard, and then her freedom of movement was quickly restored. She whirled around to see Tom pointing his wand at Ladon, who had been nonverbally Disarmed himself by Tom. Ladon's wand, as well as Hermione's, lay upon the ground beside Tom.

Tom, who looked very, very angry, Hermione noted. He was visibly shaking as he cast some nonverbal spell that sent Ladon hurtling backward and crashing against the stone wall. Tom briskly stalked over to stand above the other boy, who was now moaning in agony. When Tom spoke, he bared his teeth and hissed,

"I saw you, Scamander. I heard you. Are you deaf, or merely an imbecile? She told you plainly she was not interested in you. She asked for her wand back after you took it. And what did you do, Scamander? You tried to put your hands back on her."

Hermione felt abruptly frightened, for there was a terrible threat in Tom's low, furious voice. His wand hand was trembling fiercely as he aimed it down at Ladon Scamander. Hermione was just about to call out to Tom, to urge him to have some control, but then she heard him mutter,

"Crucio."

Tom sounded alarmingly unaffected by saying the awful incantation. He almost looked relieved when the web of red light burst from his wand and tangled its way around Ladon Scamander's huddled form. And he looked downright joyful as Ladon shrieked and moaned, twitching and writhing upon the ground in pain.

"Tom," Hermione said. She'd meant to be more forceful, to have more volume and insistence behind her voice. But she was so shocked by what was happening that his name escaped her lips as little more than a cracked sob. She tried again. "Tom... Tom, please. Tom!"

Finally, Tom flicked his eyes up to her. His Cruciatus was still active on Ladon, and the boy continued to convulse from the torture. Hermione vigorously shook her head, feeling tears stream unchecked down her face.

"Please stop it," she said. Tom squared his jaw and snapped his wand up, breaking the curse. He sneered down at the still-twitching Ladon, shoving the boy with his foot.

"Do you see, Scamander?" he asked. "It isn't terribly complicated to listen to a lady. She told me to stop, and I stopped. Let that be your lesson tonight. Get off the ground and go back to whatever hole you crawled from."

It was a very long moment before Ladon Scamander pulled himself to his knees. He swiped his hand at his nose, and there was a bit of blood. Other than that, his body looked unharmed, for the Cruciatus did not cause physical injury. But Ladon was quaking and looked very pale as he stumbled away from Tom. Hermione impulsively took off the jacket he'd given her and thrust it at him. He scowled at her, and she could see that his bottom lip trembled as though he were struggling not to cry.

"Your wand, Scamander," Tom said. Ladon turned round to take the wand from Tom. Before he released the wand, Tom met Ladon's eyes and tipped up his chin. "Do not ever touch Hermione again, unless she very distinctly asks you to do so. Do you understand?"

"Yes. I understand. I'm sorry." Ladon's voice sounded blank and distant. He took his wand and turned to limp away. Hermione watched him go until he rounded the corner away from them. Then she turned back over her shoulder and saw Tom looking down at her with a smug, self-satisfied expression.

"Are you quite all right?" he asked her finally. Hermione felt anger bubbling up in her chest as she realised that it really was him. It was Voldemort before her. He'd just tortured a boy when a simple Disarming spell would have worked just fine. But he liked to cause pain, she realised. Hermione's hand was flying toward his face to slap him before she could think through it.

He caught her wrist deftly in the air and squeezed gently as he dragged her hand away from his cheek. He did not let go of her hand, nor break contact with her eyes. He took a step closer to her and asked again in a silky murmur,

"Are you all right, Hermione? Did he hurt you?"

"No." Hermione shook her head resolutely and felt more tears tumbling from her eyes. "No, Tom. He didn't hurt me. You just tortured a boy for being stupid. I hope you're happy. I really do hate you now."

She turned away from him and tried to pull out of his grasp, tried to walk away. But he pulled her back, and when he looked down at her now, there was a very odd expression crossing his face.

He looked... frightened.

His dark eyes glittered, but not in the predatory fashion they normally did. He looked... desperate. His lips were parted and his breath shook through his teeth as he whispered,

"Please, Hermione. What must I do for you?"

Hermione felt more tears, hot and insistent, streaming down her cheeks, and she used her free hand to swipe them away. She shook her head helplessly, not knowing how to answer Tom's question. Suddenly he was pressing her wand into her hand - he must have picked it up off the ground, Hermione thought - and taking a step back from her. He licked his bottom lip and said,

"Go on. Get your revenge. You don't want me, but my mind and body seem most unwilling to accept that fact. So, please, Hermione. Hurt me, hex me. Make me hate you as you hate me."

Hermione stared down at the wand in her hand and thought for a moment. She could hex him, but she did not want to. She finally met his eyes and said,

"You want to hate me, Tom Marvolo Riddle?"

He flinched visibly at her use of his middle name, but he quickly recovered himself and nodded. "If I can't have you, then, yes. I want to hate you."

"All right," Hermione shrugged. She took a trembling breath and said matter-of-factly, "I'm a Mudblood."

He furrowed his eyebrows at her and frowned. "What?"

Hermione took a half step toward him and nodded with a sense of satisfaction. "I'm a Mudblood," she said again. "My mother wasn't a witch. My parents were Muggles. I know how you feel about Muggle-borns, Tom. So, there it is. Hate me. I'm a Mudblood."

He looked furious with her, his top lip curling up into a snarl as he shook fiercely and growled, "That isn't enough."

Hermione felt confused. She took back the half step she'd taken, moving away from him. "What do you mean?"

"I'm standing here, and you've just told me that you've got Muggle parents," Tom affirmed desperately. "So you're a liar, and you're a Mudblood. But it isn't enough. I don't hate you, no matter how badly I want to. I still smell the rain on you. I still smell spring when you're near me. I still want to taste you and touch your skin. I still want to look at you lying in the sun. I still want to give you lilacs, and -"

She silenced him by closing the space between them, reaching up to grasp his face in her hands, and crushing her mouth against his.

---

She'd turned him into a bloody fool, and he'd let her do it.

Tom was overwhelmed as she kissed him. His body sprang to life - his skin prickled with excitement, his head rushed as though he were drunk, and his trousers suddenly felt very restrictive.

Some part of his brain was screaming at him to point his wand at her and kill her, to eliminate the threat to his ambition that she posed. But he could not do that, no matter how much logical sense it made.

At some point, she broke away from their kiss, and Tom impulsively snatched her hand and dragged her down the corridor until he came to a classroom he knew was deserted. He unlocked the door with a nonverbal incantation, and he shoved his way over the threshold.

"Incendio," he whispered, and the lanterns upon the wall lit themselves, bathing the empty room in a warm, low glow. Tom locked the door and cast a Silencing Charm upon the space. Then he turned back to Hermione and tried to breathe.

She was particularly pretty tonight, he realised again. The teal frilly dress she wore hugged her lean frame beautifully, and Tom once again marveled at the smooth, pale skin of her arms. He reached out with a shaking hand - willed his fingers to be still and steady - and he touched her. He ghosted his knuckles down from her shoulder, over her elbow, and he stopped when their fingers touched.

Hermione had shut her eyes, and she swayed where she stood as if she were very dizzy. Tom smirked to himself; she liked to be touched. She liked to be touched by him. He brought his hand back up to her jaw and leaned down toward her. He pressed his lips to hers, and it was as if something had ignited between them. It was a fire, raging beyond control, burning hotter and brighter with each passing second.

Tom sank into a chair at a desk and pulled Hermione down by her hands. She clumsily climbed onto his lap, straddling a thigh on either side of him and trying to keep kissing him.

"Why?" she asked suddenly, her hips hovering maddeningly above Tom's. He grunted in frustration and bucked his erection up to try and make contact with her knickers.

"What do you mean, 'why'?" He demanded crossly. "Why what?"

Hermione pulled her lips away from him, eliciting another grunt of anger. She put her hand on Tom's jaw and let her fingers drift over his cheek. Tom tried not to shudder at the pleasant sensation. Finally, Hermione spoke.

"Why did you torture him? All you had to do was get his wand away... why did you cast an Unforgivable, Tom?"

"Because of the way he touched you," Tom answered truthfully. He was speaking through clenched teeth, and his hands reached up suddenly to grip her waist rather tightly. "Like this. He held you like this, as if you were his."

"I'm not anybody's," Hermione said firmly. "Not yours, either."

Tom felt a strange flush enter his cheeks, and he sneered at her, "I know that. You've made that very plain."

"You can't just torture people when you don't like what they do, Tom," Hermione said, and there was a distant sadness in her voice that told him she was slipping away from their physical encounter. She made a move to rise from his lap, but Tom tightened his grip.

"I can do whatever I please," he corrected her, glaring into her amber eyes. She parted her lips in surprise at his gall, but he continued, "I did not care for the way he touched you. He was going to do worse. He was going to keep going, you know. I looked in his head. I saw him imagining... awful things. He was going to hurtyou."

"So you hurt him first," Hermione nodded. She looked as though she might begin crying again, and there was a strange stab in Tom's chest at that thought. For some bizarre reason, he did not wish for her to cry.

"I protected you," Tom whispered. He felt conflicted.

Kill her, said a corner of his mind. She is a distraction. A threat. Get rid of her.

But then another part of his mind started shouting, just as loudly. Kiss her. Touch her. Say pretty little words to her and make her melt into you. You want her.

He did. He wanted to possess her, far more than he wanted to kill her. He dragged his teeth over his bottom lip. Hermione looked up at him through her eyelashes.

"Why? Why did you protect me? You don't even know me." She shook her head and frowned.

"Yes, I do." Tom nodded resolutely. "You may be a Mudblood, and you may be a liar. So there may be a great deal I do not know about you. I do not care; I have no fear of secrets. But I know enough. You are intelligent, and witty, and strong-willed. You smell like rain. You taste like vanilla. Your eyes are the colour of warm honey. And you take your tea with a bit of milk, but no sugar."

She was kissing him again then, and she pressed herself more firmly against his seated body. Her tongue darted into his mouth and he sucked on it, releasing it just so that he could drag his teeth over her lips. She moaned, far more wantonly than she'd done in the Viaduct, and she drove her hips down onto Tom's. Her lovely dress splayed out around them, covering up the point where her knickers made contact with his suit trousers.

He was almost painfully erect now, and it was getting worse every time she ground her hips onto him. His manhood twitched and ached and strained in his trousers, and Tom groaned against his will into Hermione's mouth.

He wanted to possess her, to consume her. He wanted to feel every bit of her he could. He had no idea whether or not this opportunity would present itself ever again, so he reached beneath her skirts and pushed aside the crotch of her knickers. The pads of his fingers found a delicious wet warmth there, and he struggled to stay conscious.

She pulled her mouth from his and tipped her head back, staring at the ceiling and sighing with want. Her elegant, swan-like neck was fully exposed when she tipped her head back, and Tom lunged forward to kiss her there.

She cried out loudly when he did, and her hands buried themselves in the thick curls upon his head.

"Tom," she whispered, and he shivered at the sound of his name. His fingers were dancing against her entrance as if they knew precisely what to do. He was massaging her, rubbing circles and dipping a fingertip inside of her every now and then. She bucked her hips hard onto his lap, and he pushed himself against her desperately.

"Are you..." he began, his voice a low grumble against the skin of her neck. He was not sure how best to posit his question. "Have you ever..."

"No." She shook her head firmly and panted. "No. I'm a virgin."

"Oh. I see." Tom was not certain what to make of that. Of course, he'd never been with a girl, so it seemed neither of them had very much experience. He found himself rather unable to judge whether or not she intended for this to be how she lost her virginity - to a boy she scarcely knew, in a deserted classroom, after a rather disturbing encounter in the corridor. He stilled his fingers against her entrance and asked in a silky murmur, "Would you like me to take you, Hermione?"

She pushed herself against his hand, urging him to move again and drawing a visceral noise from his throat. But she shook her head once more and whispered,

"Not tonight, Tom. I'm sorry..."

"Don't be sorry," he commanded her, relieved to hear that his voice had managed to regain some of its normal flinty distance. He pulled back and smirked up at her crookedly. "I shall take you when you're ready."

She scoffed at him and blushed deeply. "Tom..." Then she rocked her hips against his hand again and asked meekly, "Keep going? Please?"

He smiled to himself as he pulled his fingers from her and wiped them discreetly upon his trouser leg. He put his hands back on her hips and guided her to move rhythmically against him. She let him do it, and her hips were soon cycling up and down, driving against Tom's insistent erection each time she came down.

He moved his mouth to her neck, to the side he hadn't kissed yet, and he dragged his teeth over her skin as he huffed out breath. She was saying his name, over and over again, chanting it like a prayer as she begged him for... something.

"Please, Tom... yes, Tom, it feels... oh, Tom, I'm going to..."

He suddenly wanted to feel her finish for him, for he'd never been in the presence of a woman's orgasm before. His hand was up beneath her skirt before he knew what was happening. The moment his fingertips touched her entrance again, Hermione keened out his name in a desperate wail, and her hands clutched onto him as if she would die otherwise.

Then there was an irregular clenching around Tom's fingers as she finished, driven to her climax by the pressure and friction of their contact. Her walls seized around his fingertips and there was a surge of wet heat. She was moaning as if she was in pain, her breath coming in frantic pants through her teeth.

Tom just sat and marveled at the spectacle, finally pulling his fingers from her again when he sensed her coming down from her high. It had been beautiful, and fascinating, to feel her finish for him... to know that she'd been driven to that by his body.

Hermione slowly edged backward, sitting upright and trying to catch her breath. Her hair was a dissheveled nest, but Tom found he rather preferred it that way. Her lipstick was smeared and there were angry welts on her neck where he'd been a bit rough kissing her. It was splendid to see her like this, he thought. To see her a mess because of him.

"You didn't..." Hermione gasped slightly, gazing down at the large and obvious lump in his trousers. She raised her caramel-coloured eyes to him and whispered, "I'm sorry!"

Tom quirked up the corner of his mouth, knowing he'd have to finish himself off in his dormitory to avoid an entire night of pain down there. He did not wish to pressure her to touch him - he might frighten her away forever if he did.

"It's quite all right," he lied. "Let's... let's get you back to Gryffindor Tower, then."

---

The walk up to the seventh floor seemed interminable in its heavy silence. Hermione felt like an absolute harlot. She'd done awful things with Tom - with him, with the boy that would become Voldemort. And the worst bit was how very much she'd enjoyed it. Enjoyed him.

His kisses sent a fiery heat straight through her. The sight of his eyes made her knickers wet and sticky. The feel of his fingers, of his erection, against her body had been enough to bring her to climax. It did not seem fair; he'd been marginally more in control throughout the entire encounter and hadn't debased himself by finishing in his trousers.

"Hermione," he said carefully, as they neared the portrait of the Fat Lady. She turned to face him, peeling off the suit jacket he'd offered her on the way here. It was the second suit coat she'd been given tonight, Hermione realised with a deep frown.

"Thank you," she said quietly to him. Then, thinking quickly that it might sound as though she were thanking him for touching her, she clarified, "For walking me back. For... rescuing me. No matter how overboard you went with your vengeance."

She smiled weakly at him, and he looked serious as he urged her to keep on the suit jacket. "It's a chilly evening," he noted. "You keep that for now."

Hermione pulled the jacket around herself protectively, nodding her thanks.

"Goodnight, then, Tom." She turned to give the password to the Fat Lady.

"Hermione, I..." Tom's voice was low and steady behind her, but when she turned round, his eyes were sparkling with a strange expression. He gritted his teeth and looked rather cross with her, his face contrasting sharply with the words he spoke. "I am very glad you are here, Hermione."

She did not know if she could respond in kind. There was a sharp memory in her mind of him, a much older, much less human him, sending her back here. He'd done it after years in tyrannical power, years of terrorising wizards and Muggles alike. Terrorising her.

So Hermione just nodded, overcome with confusion, and turned to the portrait of the Fat Lady.

"Cataplectatio," she murmured, and the Fat Lady gave her a disapproving stare as she swung open the entrance to the Gryffindor Common Room.

She entered without another word or look back to Tom. When she climbed the stairs into the girls' dormitories, Hermione felt the full weight of this reality settling upon her shoulders.

'You were there, and so now I must send you. You understand? I don't have a choice. I very much dislike when I am not in control - you shall quickly learn that about me, I suppose. But in this matter, there can be no alteration of the path, no compromising reality. You were there, and therefore now you must go.'

Hermione nearly collapsed to her knees in the corridor outside the sixth-year girls' bedroom. She could hear his voice, as Lord Voldemort, plain as day. He'd sent her here because she'd already been here. No one had seemed eager to tell her just what she'd done here.

He'd kissed her, roughly, in his old and hideous form. He'd pushed his tongue between her lips and cupped her jaw just like he'd done earlier tonight. And he'd said calmly,'Ah, yes. I remember that, too.'

As if she'd already kissed him before.

But then Hermione realised something. Unless there was an aberration with time, unless there was more than one Hermione in existence in the 1990s... then something had happened to her. She'd died, or she'd gone somewhere else in time. He'd been alone for years, after all. If Hermione stayed here, in this time, what was to become of her?

The door to the bedroom flew open then, and Hermione looked up to see Betty Cattermole standing in the threshold, looking concerned. She had curlers in her hair and was wearing a flannel night robe. She looked so old-fashioned, and it reminded Hermione thoroughly of where she was. She felt tears worming their way down her cheeks again.

"Hermione!" Betty cried, reaching out into the corridor to retrieve Hermione and gently pull her into the dormitory. "What on Earth happened to you? You're a right mess!"

"Is she all right?" Maggie Prewett turned round from her vanity, where she was combing out her bright red hair. Maggie's brow crumpled at the sight of the dissheveled, crying Hermione, and she set down her hairbrush. "Who hurt you, Hermione?"

She cried even harder then, for the girls were being so very kind. Cattermole. Prewett. Those were names that would still be present in Hermione's time. She'd known these young ladies' descendents, and now she stood in a room with them as a fellow Gryffindor.

Finally - finally - the weight of it all hit her, like a brick to the face. She disappeared into the bathroom and shut the door, crying for a good long while she sat upon the edge of the claw-foot bathtub.

Hours later, Betty and Maggie had gotten Hermione settled into bed. Once they'd established that she did not need to go to the Hospital Wing, they'd helped her wash her face and comb out her hair, and they'd urged her to go back to the bathroom and put on pyjamas.

Hermione took Tom's jacket with her to bed. She wasn't sure why she did that, except that it smelled like him and comforted her. It shouldn't comfort her, she knew. She should have been horrified by the thought that she'd let him touch her the way he'd done. He'd kissed her, and fondled her, and...

And given her lilacs. Hermione flicked her eyes over to the bedside table, where the magically-preserved purple flowers were visible in the moonlight.

He tortured Ladon Scamander, Hermione reminded herself. The image of Ladon writhing around on the ground was fresh in her mind. The sounds of his shrieks as Tom stood above him, calm and relieved... it was almost too much. It made Hermione queasy to think of it.

He only hurt Ladon Scamander because Ladon Scamander hurt me, Hermione's inner monologue noted then. Or, at least, he was about to truly hurt me. Tom rescued me.

Hermione growled in frustration, punching her pillow and flopping over onto her side. She could not think now on who - what - Tom Riddle was. He was a monster. He was her saviour. He was dreadfully attractive, and terribly dangerous. He was all of it at once.

Unable to process any of it further, Hermione buried her nose in the suit jacket he'd given her. It was him, there in her bed, when she shut her eyes.

The jacket smelled like rosewood. Like soap and cinnamon and iron. It smelled of him. As Hermione breathed against the jacket, she was soothed, quite against her will, and soon enough she slipped into a truly exhausted sleep.

---

Hermione did not interact with Tom Riddle for another week. She avoided him, turning her back to him in the Great Hall at meals and skirting quickly out of classrooms with shared Gryffindor/Slytherin lessons. Maggie and Betty didn't press her on the matter; she'd come back from the Slug Club affair so distraught and messy that they both figured something awful must have happened.

She refused to talk to Ladon Scamander, too, even though the boy approached her a few times and seemed to want to initiate a conversation. Hermione wanted to slap Ladon whenever she saw him. Her mind was still reeling with the memory of how he'd held onto her waist, how he'd Disarmed her and made her feel threatened.

One morning at breakfast, Hermione was chatting with Betty about the newest singing star in the magical world - a handsome young wizard who sang Big Band-style music and reminded Hermione of a young Frank Sinatra.

"I heard him on the wireless the other day - oh, his voice is just dreamy!" Betty gushed, clasping her hands together and grinning. Hermione chuckled at her new friend, who seemed to be particularly boy-crazy.

"Excuse me, Miss Villeneuve."

Hermione looked up at the sound of her assumed name and saw that Ladon Scamander was standing behind her bench at the table. His face looked rather sad, and for a brief moment Hermione forgot that he'd tried to take advantage of her in the corridor. She fixed her face into an angry scowl and said,

"Yes, Ladon?"

He frowned very deeply, a sorrowful look crossing his eyes. "Please, Hermione," he said gently, "I really do need to speak with you."

"Go on, then," she prompted him, and his cheeks coloured with embarrassment.

"In private?" he hissed, and Hermione considered his demand. She was scared to be alone with Ladon, but he seemed truly agitated, shifting on his feet and looking quite upset.

"Leave your wand here," Hermione commanded him. "Betty will hold it for you until we come back. Won't you, Betty?"

Betty Cattermole looked alarmed, but she flashed a wide-eyed glance between Hermione and Ladon and nodded emphatically. She held out her hand, and Ladon reluctantly passed her his wand.

Hermione followed him out into the corridor outside the Great Hall. She could feel Tom Riddle's dark eyes watching her go as she stood from the Gryffindor table and made her way out of the Hall. She didn't care. She ignored him. She'd tried not to think of what she'd done with Tom Riddle the night of the Slug Club party, and she wasn't about to begin perseverating now.

Finally, she and Ladon were alone near the House Points hourglasses. Hermione crossed her arms over her chest and shrugged half-heartedly at Ladon.

"Well?"

"I feel compelled to explain something to you, Hermione," Ladon said. He looked almost confused as he furrowed his brows and bit his lip anxiously. "About the night of the party."

"What is there to explain, Ladon? I was there. I know what happened."

"Well, it's just... I believe I was cursed." Ladon looked around as if someone were going to appear out of thin air, and he lowered his voice. "I believe someone put the Imperius Curse upon me. I would never - never - force myself upon anyone, Hermione. Least of all you. I remember what happened, but I don't remember doing it, if that makes sense. It was almost as though I were watching it happen through my own eyes, but not acting of my own accord at all."

Hermione swallowed heavily and felt quite nauseated. She shut her eyes and shook her head. "I'm sorry I rejected you, Ladon. But you can't just say you were Imperiused. I - I know what you did..."

She was trying to convince herself as much as Ladon, but ultimately she had to let her words die in the air. There was only one person who would do this to Ladon - to curse him and manipulate him to make Hermione hate him. There was only one person who would take advantage of that situation by dragging her into an empty classroom and sticking his fingers inside her body and kissing her furiously.

With a sickening pang of horror, Hermione realised that it was just the sort of thing Lord Voldemort would do.

---

Tom Riddle had a terrible headache. He had experienced quite a bit of difficulty falling asleep the previous night, and when he finally did, his sleep was haunted by terrible dreams. He dreamed that he had died, that he was being lowered into the ground in an unmarked casket. The cemetery was on some deserted moor, and no one was there. No one cared that he had died.

Tom had awoken utterly disturbed by the vision, and he'd opened the drawer in his bedside table and touched the black diary there - his Horcrux. He'd managed a bit more sleep after that reassurance, but, even so, he'd awoken feeling drained and annoyed.

His headache wasn't much helped when, at breakfast, he watched Hermione Villeneuve walk out of the Great Hall with Ladon Scamander.

Tom shouldn't care a lick what Hermione did, he knew. He'd managed over the past week to nearly convince himself that he'd been a fool to pursue her. She'd lied to him, after all, about having a witch for a mother. She was just a filthy Mudblood, Tom had told himself for the past seven days. Not worth his time, and not worth the risk.

And yet, it sincerely irked him to watch her leaving the Great Hall with Ladon Scamander. He'd have thought her to be of better sense than that. After what the Scamander boy had done to her in the corridor - after Tom had tortured the boy as punishment - didn't Hermione know better than to go near him? Tom scowled as he watched them leave, stabbing a rasher on his plate angrily.

"What do you think, Tom?" he heard Silas Lestrange ask, and he turned his face to see that four or five of his 'friends' were looking at him expectantly.

"About what?" Tom demanded. Lestrange looked rather disappointed that Tom hadn't been listening to him, but the boy quickly steeled his face and clarified,

"I... erm... I thought I might ask Prunella Parkinson to accompany me to Hogsmeade this weekend. I was wondering what you thought about that."

Tom curled up his top lip into a derisive sneer and said, "Why should I care about the girls you drag to Hogsmeade, Lestrange? I have very little interest in your escapades to the tea shop."

Lestrange's cheeks darkened and he looked quite embarrassed. The other boys snickered, and Tom felt a surge of power at having humiliated Lestrange. He looked back down at his plate and cut a rasher with his fork, pulling it up toward his mouth without another word.

"Tom Riddle? May I speak with you, please?"

He raised his dark eyes in confusion and saw her - Hermione - standing across the table, behind Nott and Mulciber. She had her arms crossed over her chest, and she looked infuriated. Tom cleared his throat quietly and set down his fork, linking his fingers together and calmly staring up at her.

"Go ahead," he said. He was not going to let her make him look like a fool. Not here, not in front of his assembled Slytherins. They were all watching the exchange with rapt attention, waiting to see how Tom was going to handle the impudent girl. He flicked his eyebrows up expectantly at her and watched as she shifted anxiously upon her feet.

"I would like to discuss something with you," she said angrily. "In private, if you please."

Tom nonchalantly picked his fork back up and popped the rasher into his mouth. He chewed carefully, with his mouth shut, taking his time before swallowing the sausage. He sipped leisurely upon his pumpkin juice before drawling,

"As I'm sure you can see, Miss Villeneuve, I am rather busy at the moment with my breakfast. I might have time later in the day -"

"How dare you!" Hermione exclaimed shrilly, and Tom found himself struggling to keep his face impassive. She'd balled her hands into little fists and thrust them down to her sides, and she was practically crackling with rage. Tom's cronies stared at her with wide eyes, and a few glanced back at Tom to see his reaction.

He shrugged. "I'm quite certain I have no idea what you're talking about, Miss Villeneuve," he said, sounding bored to his own ears. She visibly shook before him, her breath coming quick and shallow through her nostrils.

"You Imperiused him," Hermione accused. "You cursed Ladon Scamander to do what he did in the corridor, just so that you could manipulate me. How. Dare. You?"

Tom stared at her quaking, enraged form for a long moment. Then he licked his bottom lip and reached again for his pumpkin juice again and sipped. He dabbed gently at his lips with his napkin and murmured,

"I have no idea what Mr. Scamander's told you, Miss Villeneuve. All I can say is that his actions rather spoke for themselves. Make of that what you please. Now, if you'll allow me to finish my breakfast in peace? Good day."

She stormed off wordlessly at his dismissal, rushing back over to the Gryffindor table and sitting down with a cross huff.

"Did you do it, Tom?" he heard Orion Black ask hesitantly. "Did you really use the Imperius curse on Scamander?"

"Of course I did," Tom said smoothly. He gathered up his rucksack and stood from the bench, looking down into the impressed faces of his lackies. "He did deserve it. That, as well as the Cruciatus he received from me later in the evening. Mulciber, Nott, Lestrange. Let's go. We've got Transfiguration in ten minutes and I've no intention of sparring with Dumbledore today about tardiness."

The three boys he'd summoned stood immediately from the table and followed Tom obediently from the Great Hall. Tom smirked a bit as he realised just how intimidated the other Slytherins had seemed as he'd boasted about using Unforgivables on Ladon Scamander.

In truth, he'd never cast an Imperius curse on the stupid boy, though he rather wished he had done so. He had used the Cruciatus against Scamander, and now that he knew the other boy had lied to Hermione in addition to accosting her, Tom thought he might do it again.

---

As usual, Hermione was the only one in the library on Saturday. Some things, she thought, did not change with time. Most of the school had gone down to Hogsmeade, but Hermione was determined to finish her History of Magic essay over the weekend, and she'd buried herself among thick books at a table in the silent library.

'In times of Muggle conflict,' she wrote, 'Dark magic flourishes. It becomes far easier to hide deaths that might otherwise seem quite suspicious. Certain curses may be explained away as the result of Muggle disease, famine, or direct violence from warfare.'

"Hermione?"

She put down her quill when she heard his voice from behind her. "What do you want?" she asked, and there were a few quiet footsteps as Tom Riddle stepped around the table and stood in front of her. She hadn't spoken to him in three days, not since the awful encounter in the Great Hall. But now he'd found her, alone in the library, and she could avoid him no longer.

He looked terribly handsome today, Hermione thought reluctantly. He wasn't wearing his long, black school robe, owing to the fact that it was a Hogsmeade weekend. Instead, he wore a neatly tailored grey suit, with a black tie and a crisp white shirt beneath. Hermione frowned and remembered that she still had his suit jacket from the night of the Slug Club party.

"Your jacket is hanging in my wardrobe," she said absently, moving to pick up her quill again. "I shall have the house-elves deliver it to your dormitory. I apologise for keeping it so long."

"No need to apologise," Tom insisted. Then, after a beat, he said quietly, "I did not cast an Imperius Curse upon Ladon Scamander. Perhaps I should have done that, but I didn't. I came down the corridor and saw him - saw in his mind - what he intended to do to you. I am a Legilimens, Hermione. Perhaps you did not know. I could see it, plainly as the sunrise, in his thoughts. He planned to take you to a quiet place and force himself upon you."

"Rather like you wound up doing, then," Hermione said skeptically. Tom's eyes flashed with indignant anger at that, and he shook his head firmly.

"Perhaps I am mistaken, but I seem to recall you being a very willing participant, Hermione," he reminded her. Hermione felt her cheeks go hot, and she looked down at her essay. Tom continued, "Ladon is lying to you if he's told you I Imperiused him. I did no such thing. I would not be ashamed to have done it, and indeed it would have served my purposes that night quite well to do so. But I didn't."

"If you're unashamed of the accusation, then why bother trying to convince me you didn't do it?" Hermione smiled up at Tom with an artificial grin that she knew must look more like a grimace. Tom sucked on the inside of his cheek and answered in a menacing sort of mumble,

"I do not care for the insinuation that I needed to curse a boy in order to take you into that classroom, Hermione. I should like to think that what happened that night was the result of something more genuine than that."

Hermione was shocked at that response. She frowned up at Tom and shook her head. "But if you didn't curse Ladon, then why -"

"You're a bright witch, Hermione," Tom interjected. He looked frustrated. "Does it not occur to you that perhaps - perhaps - Ladon Scamander is a manipulative and pitiful creature?"

Hermione shook her head stoutly. It had been much easier to believe that Tom Riddle, the future Lord Voldemort, had played her like an instrument. Now she had no idea what to believe.

"I think it very likely that you did curse him, Tom. You Imperiused Ladon Scamander into behaving the way he did so that you could show up and 'save' me. And then I'd be oh-so-very-grateful and take my knickers off for you."

"No!" Tom exclaimed. Hermione stared at him in wide-eyed horror as the air around him crackled with barely-controlled magic. She watched him take a few steadying breaths, and then he shut his eyes and murmured, "You have been terribly misled, Miss Villeneuve, though not by me. Everything I did that night to you was the result of actual interest, I assure you." He opened his eyes and glared down at her. "The next time you have something to discuss with me, I trust you will have more self-control than to storm up to my table in the Great Hall and shout at me in front of my associates."

Hermione felt ill. She had no idea who was betraying her trust, who was pulling invisible strings around her as though she were a marionette. Quite likely, she realised, she needed to be afraid of both Ladon and Tom. Neither one seemed terribly trustworthy at the moment. She scowled up at Tom and demanded,

"Why aren't you in Hogsmeade today, Tom?"

He dragged his teeth over his bottom lip and appeared to consider his response. "I had no interest in going," he said firmly. "Lestrange was going to be flirting ostentatiously with the Parkinson girl; I've no interest in that as a spectator sport. I thought I'd stay here and -"

"Have you ever been to Hogsmeade, Tom?" Hermione gave him a pointed stare. She remembered how Harry had been prohibited from Hogsmeade trips because his aunt and uncle wouldn't sign the permission form. If the rules were anything now like they would be...

She thought they must have been, for Tom's face flushed an angry scarlet and his dark eyes glinted. He finally shook his head no in response to Hermione's question. She did not need details; she knew he'd been raised in a Muggle orphanage and would be unable to get guardian permission for Hogsmeade. Tom's face was crossed with a mixture between embarrassment and rage, but he stayed still and silent.

"I can't go, either," Hermione said lightly. "I don't have anyone to sign the form for me."

"If your parents were Muggles," Tom said hastily, "and you did not attend Beauxbatons, then how is it you know so much magic?"

"I did attend Beauxbatons," Hermione insisted, but she felt her heart thumping in her chest. Tom smiled crookedly down at her and shook his head.

"No, you didnt," he informed her. "I've had someone inquire about that. You never were at Beauxbatons, Miss Villeneuve. Is that your real name, by the way? Who are you, Hermione?"

Hermione pushed back her chair from the table and rose onto shaking feet. She reached for her wand and started to back away from Tom. This was precisely why she'd been avoiding him for the past week and a half. It was foolish to have been physically attracted to him - to the boy who would become a complete monster, if he wasn't one already.

"Leave me alone, Tom," she said, her voice quivering. But Tom had already raised his wand toward her, and it was with a calm and lethal smile that he whispered,

"Legilimens."

---

Hermione's mind cracked wide open the moment Tom entered it. He was almost overwhelmed by the volume of memories in her mind, and he worked very quickly to sort through them, to organise them into something useful.

A little girl in a comfortable-looking home, sitting between two adults while an old witch talked to her about a magical place called Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Tom realised at once that the little girl was Hermione. So she had been to school here before. When? He kept searching the memories, tossing aside ones that seemed useless, and drawing near ones that seemed helpful.

A shaggy-headed boy, with raven hair, explaining something to that same girl some years later. Telling of an encounter in a cemetery.

'He's back,' the black-haired boy hissed, and the girl's chestnut eyes went wide with fear. 'Voldemort's back.'

Tom flinched, nearly breaking the connection with Hermione's memories. She had crumpled to the library floor and was lying still and silent, but her memories screamed at Tom as they whirled past. Over and over, he heard that name - 'Voldemort' - the name he had fashioned for himself. People spoke in hushed tones about Voldemort. Only a few dared to say his name at all. Most of the talk centered around misdeeds and murders and torture and fear.

It immediately registered in Tom's mind that he was seeing the future... what were memories to Hermione had not yet happened to Tom. She was from that time, he realised with a start. She had time-traveled here. Why?

'Wingardium leviosa.'

Another dark-haired wizard, this one decades older than the boy with the eyeglasses. This one looked dour and depressed as he levitated Hermione's body out of a classroom... the scene shifted, and then Hermione was standing in a dining room, elegant and lavish. A grey-faced monster of a man was moving toward her, talking about sending her back fifty-three years. The hideous, snakelike man leaned down and kissed her, and a scent flooded Hermione's nostrils.

Rosewood. Iron. Soap and cinnamon. The way she'd described the smell of him, of Tom Riddle. Only, this wasn't Tom Riddle. It was Voldemort.

Then Hermione was flying away from the room, yanked backward by her navel when she touched a wax-sealed scroll. She landed with a thud on the wet grass outside Hogwarts.

Tom was suddenly pushed forcefully from Hermione's mind, and he stared down with his mouth agape at her. She'd pulled herself up onto her knees and was sobbing on the ground, covering her face with her hands.

"Get out!" she shrieked hysterically. "Get out of my head!"

Tom stumbled backward a bit, reaching absently for a chair to steady himself. He kept staring at Hermione for a very long time, unable to articulate a coherent thought well enough to question her about any of what he'd seen. She just sat and cried, shaking her head and moaning hopelessly.

"Go on, then!" she said at last, looking up at him with red-rimmed eyes. Her pretty bottom lip quivered fiercely, and Tom was rather taken aback when she said, "I'm sure that's why I was meant to come here. To show you everything, so you'd know what was coming. So you'd be prepared. It already happened, all of it, so it must happen. You yourself told me so. You said there could be no deviation from the timeline."

She shook her head piteously and rose on shaking legs to stand. Then she puffed out her chest a little and balled her hands into fists at her sides. Her wand lay forgotten upon the floor. "I'm ready," she whispered, and Tom eyed her with confusion. He was confused about more than one thing at the moment, but most of all by her current actions.

"Ready for what?" he demanded, his voice icy and detached. Hermione shut her eyes tightly and sighed.

"Go ahead. Kill me. You've seen the truth. You've seen what happens. This is where I end, isn't it? It's why you were talking about remembering me, because I'd been gone for so long. Because you killed me. Here. Now. So go ahead. Do it."

Tom fingered the handle of his wand anxiously in his right hand and sneered, "Why on Earth would I want to do a thing like that?"

She was laughing then, out of nowhere. She tipped her head back and roared with unexplainable laughter. Tom nervously shifted upon his feet and clipped,

"What's so funny?"

"That's the exact same way you reacted... that you're going to react... when I tell you to kill me fifty-three years from now. And, you know, a few weeks ago. It's all relative, I suppose, as to when it happened. Happens. Will happen."

Hermione laughed again, sounding shrill and maniacal. Tears continued to stream down her cheeks, and Tom felt quite ill at ease.

"I'm not going to kill you, Hermione. Is that even your name?"

She finally lowered her face to his. She looked serene, as though she'd accepted some awful fate and was approaching her death with calm grace. Tom squeezed his wand again as she nodded and said peacefully, "Yes. My name is Hermione Granger. I will be born on the nineteenth of September in the year 1979. I'm a Muggle-born. I was sorted into Gryffindor upon my arrival at Hogwarts. My best friend was... will be... a boy called Harry Potter. He'll be famous for defeating you with a rebounded curse when he's a baby."

She nodded and took a quivering breath. She stepped toward Tom, and he recoiled and took a small step backward. Hermione held out her hands to him, cupping his jaw in her palms. He flinched at her touch, not having any idea what to make of her. She stared him straight in his eyes and said smoothly,

"You'll get everything you want, Tom. Power, authority... you will have it all. And then you will lose it, when a little boy sends your own curse back at you. You will disappear, and then you will make a triumphant return, albeit in a terribly decimated body. And in the middle of your new reign of terror, you will send a man called Severus Snape to retrieve me from Hogwarts, and you will send me back fifty-three years in time for me to come here and tell you all of this."

"Why?" Tom hissed. He reached up and wrenched her hands off of his cheeks, feeling rather inexplicably ill. "Why would I fetch you and send you back in time? Who are you to me then?"

She laughed once more, and she shrugged helplessly. Her eyes looked sad and amused all at once. "I have no idea. I didn't think I meant anything to the great Lord Voldemort," she admitted. "He... you... will explain it to me simply that I was here, in the year 1944, and so you must send me back again. It's like a cycle of inevitabilities. I will have no more control of it than you will. But I suppose I've served my purpose here. I've shown you your future, and in doing so I have almost certainly signed a great many death warrants. Please, Tom. Go ahead and kill me now."

"I am not going to kill you," Tom repeated, clenching his teeth tightly together and feeling very overwhelmed. He thought back to the Potions lesson with the Amortentia, how he'd smelled a girl he didn't know and become utterly entranced by her. He thought back to the sight of her lying upon the grass in the courtyard, to how he'd placed the lilac bouquet beside her in surrender. He thought of what she tasted like, the feel of her womanhood clenching around his fingers. He thought of what her eyes looked like when she smiled, when she was frightened, when she was concentrating hard on something.

Suddenly he found himself rather unaffected by her truth. She was a liar. She was a Mudblood. She was a time traveler.

And he was completely besotted with her, whether he wanted to be or not. He put one hand upon Hermione's shoulder and watched her startle when he touched her.

"I don't care about the future," he lied, for it felt like the correct thing to say. "I don't care that you've already lived it, nor that it's your true home. I don't care. I will carve my own future, and if it matches your memories, then so be it. Truly, Hermione... Miss Granger... all I desire at the moment is to possess you, to dote upon you, to kiss and touch you and speak with you every chance I get. You hate me, and I can clearly see why. I don't much care about your memories of me. It seems that will be a different man. But right now, this is me. The boy standing before you, completely and utterly taken with you. You have ensnared by every sense, Miss Granger, in a rather disagreeably unequal attraction. No. I am not going to kill you. If you will permit me, I intend to kiss you."

She stared up at him in fear, and her brown eyes glistened with what seemed for a tortuous moment like hatred. But then something inside of her cracked, and Tom watched her eyes become resigned. He put his fingers to her cheek and she nodded against him. "All right, then," she whispered, and he pulled her up so that he could taste her again.

She tasted like vanilla, like lemon. She tasted exquisite. He never wanted to stop kissing her, but at last they both needed to breathe.

"It seemed strange to me," he panted against her face, "that my older self would send you back in time just to preserve what seems to be a very imperfect timeline. But now I understand. I won't do it to ensure I make the same mistakes I've already made, though of course I see those mistakes must be made in order for you to make your here. No... I will preserve that imperfect timeline so that I can have this - you, here, with me, now."

She mewled something in protest, but Tom silenced her words with another ferocious kiss, and this time he had no intention of letting her go.

---

Hermione had no idea what was happening until she realised she was walking backward, pushed gently by Tom's hands as he furiously kissed her. The backs of her thighs finally hit something, and then Tom was gripping her by the waist and hoisting her upward.

She yanked her mouth away from his and saw that he'd hauled her up to sit upon the little countertop beneath a bookshelf, and she whimpered a little as the reality of the situation sank into her head. They were snogging like mad, here in the library, where anyone could walk in and find them. Despite the danger, or perhaps because of the danger, Hermione had never been so aroused in her life. She met Tom's dark eyes and saw a simmering heat in his that sent a shock of want through her core.

"You don't care?" she asked him in a panting whisper. "You don't care that I'm from -"

"No." He shook his head firmly. Then, he corrected himself. "That is, of course I care. I do not mind, however. In a way, I'm... rather glad. It explains a bit. And you've shown me very valuable information. You've proven to be immensely useful, Hermione, despite the maddening attraction I have toward you."

Hermione frowned and licked her bottom lip. "I didn't want you to see those memories," she said with regret, shaking her head. "I don't want you to become that man."

Tom smirked at her rather crookedly. "Don't think about that," he commanded her, and Hermione wanted to protest, but he said, "Just think about this."

Then his fingers were gliding up her thigh, beneath the hem of her skirt, working their way toward her drenched womanhood. Hermione shut her eyes and shivered. She shook her head and croaked, "I can't be driven by my libido, Tom. I know the truth about you. And now you know the truth about me."

"Oddly enough, the truth about you has done very little to dampen my desire," Tom said matter-of-factly. He crushed Hermione's mouth with a brief kiss, his lips searing against hers. He snatched her hand and pressed it to the front of his trousers, as if to prove that he wanted her. Hermione felt the sizeable bulge there and gasped into his kiss. Tom pulled away and rather glared at her as he continued, "And you, it seems, have known the 'truth' about me for quite some time. Yet you still kissed me on the Viaduct. You went into that classroom with me and you finished around my fingers. And you're here now. And you like it, don't you?"

He pulled her knickers down roughly, nearly causing Hermione to topple over where she sat on the shelf. She steadied herself by reaching up and pressing her palms flat against the books behind her, feeling dreadfully aroused by their forbidden activities. Tom's fingers delved into her, his thumb working circles on her clit as the bottom of his palm mashed her entrance. Hermione cried out desperately, gripping the books behind her for support.

"Say you like it," Tom panted through clenched teeth. She was almost afraid of his arousal, for he seemed so worked up that she thought he was losing control of himself. He wrenched his eyes shut and hissed through his teeth again, "Tell me you want me, Hermione. Say you like it when I touch you."

Hermione hesitated for the briefest of moments, but then she felt herself nearing the same cliff he'd thrown her from in the deserted classroom. She moaned helplessly and nodded, "I like it. I like it when you touch me. It feels... very good, Tom. I should hate you. I did hate you... but I do want you. Please..."

She said that again, 'please,' over and over, though she had no idea what she was begging him to do. He kissed her as she came, and his fingers curled and hooked inside of her as her walls clenched and spasmed around them. Hermione's ears were ringing and hot, and the room spun dramatically. She kept begging him, 'please, please, Tom,' even as she came down from her high. He tore his fingers from her sensitized entrance and met her eyes with a steely glare.

"Please what?" he whispered, sounding rather unhinged. His nostrils flared and he panted furiously. "What do you want me to do to you, Hermione?"

He was making her beg because he liked to feel in control, she knew. She found that she finally did not care, that she'd resigned herself to who he was, at least for now. She played up the power trip that seemed to be arousing him so much, chewing on her bottom lip and looking wide-eyed at him through her lashes.

"Please take me," she murmured softly. "I want to be yours."

Tom's dark eyes flashed madly and he flinched at her words. She could tell he was trying not to groan or show any sense of pleasure - he liked to look impassive and bored in almost every situation. But he was coming apart at the seams. It was plain as day to Hermione. She thought she knew just how to make him dissolve for her while still giving him the illusion of control.

"I want you to the first man to have me," Hermione whispered, putting her palm against his cheek. "Claim me, Tom. Make me yours. Please?"

He sighed, his breath shuddering unevenly as he squeezed his eyes shut and swayed a bit where he stood. Finally, he looked at her again and nodded slowly. "You are a very good girl," he told her, and Hermione felt a throbbing again between her thighs. She enjoyed seeing him like this, mad with want but maintaining his dominance. It was... sexy. Very sexy. She couldn't help but think it was.

He pulled her knickers the rest of the way off, balling them up after they slipped past her feet and placing them haphazardly beside Hermione on the shelf. Then his fingers worked quickly at the placket of his trousers, and soon enough Hermione saw his manhood spring forth. She marveled at it for a moment, for she'd never seen a man's organ in person before. For a brief and horrifying instant, she wondered how on Earth it was supposed to fit inside of her body. She gulped and raised her wide eyes to his to see his cheeks flushed self-consciously.

"Please take me, Tom," she whispered again. "I want you, very badly."

"Good girl," he said again, wrapping his fingers around himself and shivering. He used his knee to part Hermione's thighs, and then he moved closer to her. Hermione felt a dull pressure at her entrance when he pushed the tip of his cock inside of her. He reached for his wand and aimed it at her belly, muttering a protective spell. Then he set his wand down with quivering fingers and placed a hand on either side of Hermione's thighs. "This is going to hurt," he informed her. "You probably will not enjoy it this time. I'll make it better for you next time."

His voice was icy and distant again, the way he liked to sound to others. He didn't apologise for the fact that it often hurt girls to lose their virginity. He just promised to make it feel nice the next time. Hermione startled at that. Next time? Was this to be a regular occurrence?

She nodded numbly at him and whispered, "Go ahead, Tom." She snaked her arms around his neck and buried her fingers in the hair on the back of his head. She took a shaking breath and readied herself, but she still cried out in agony when he pushed into her rather harshly.

He hissed and groaned, now completely uncontrolled, as he sank into her. He stopped for a moment when he'd thrust past her barrier and was completely sheathed within her. Hermione felt her eyes burning with tears from the pain and from the knowledge of what he'd done to her. But there was something else there, cutting through the stinging she felt. It was want, hot and pulsing and wet and insistent. She wanted him, even though she knew she shouldn't.

"More, Tom. Please," she whimpered, and he obliged by pulling himself out a few inches and then slowly pushing back in. His dark eyes glinted and shimmered as he stared resolutely at her, his breath coming in slow shakes through his nostrils. He began to slowly push himself in and out, in and out. With every thrust, the pain decreased, and soon enough Hermione was keening his name in a low growl of desire.

He never sped up his movements, never got rough or uncontrolled in his steady, slow pistoning. Instead, he just breathed quivering huffs in time with the rolling of his hips. At long last, he pushed himself all the way into her, eliciting a little shriek of surprise from Hermione. She felt him press his forehead to hers, and her eyes crossed as she watched his face twist into an odd expression resembling physical pain. He was pulsing and twitching inside of her, and she felt the warm pumping of his seed. She tightened the grip of her hands in his hair and whispered his name a few times.

He pulled out of her, bringing a little stream of ejaculate with him and making Hermione feel abruptly dirty. He reached for his wand and cleaned them each up, the blood from her barrier and their mixed fluids disappearing as he charmed them both. He wordlessly tucked his softening member back into his trousers and buttoned himself back up, straightening his tie and smoothing his mussed hair. He handed Hermione her discarded knickers, and she blushed with embarrassment as she pulled them back on. Tom stepped away from the shelf, clearing his throat a bit and helping Hermione down.

"So now what?" Hermione found herself asking. She shrugged helplessly and said, "You forced your way into my mind and saw the monster that you will become, the terrible man I've spent years of my own life despising. I should hate you now, too, but I can't. I want to. But I can't. What am I meant to do, then, Tom? Am I supposed to fall in love with you?"

He chuckled rather cruelly and touched her cheek. He shook his head slowly and flashed Hermione his trademark crooked smile. "No, Hermione," he muttered, "you should not fall in love with me. Love is a foolish endeavour, and it's been the downfall of countless people throughout history who might have otherwise accomplished some very meaningful things. No. You shouldn't love me, and I know you never could, anyway. I have no desire to be loved, and I am not a loving person myself."

"Then what is this?" Hermione gestured from herself to Tom and back again, desperately wanting to answers from him. "What just happened, then? That... this... is not supposed to happen without love, you know!"

She was trying to convince herself as much as him, and he looked rather amused as he grinned down at her. "I have never given much credence to what is 'supposed to happen,' Miss Villen - Miss Granger. I only pay attention to what I want, and today I wanted you. And you did very well indeed."

He kissed her forehead and started to walk away, but Hermione felt anger boiling up in her chest at his dismissal.

"Stop!" she cried, brazenly reaching for his arm. He looked rather shocked when she whirled him around, and his eyes flashed oddly down at her. Hermione stomped her foot petulantly and said in a cracked sob, "You've just... you've just deflowered me, and I'm meant to accept that you've got no feelings for me whatsoever? You truly are awful, you know that?"

Tom stared at her for a long moment, cocking his head to the side and squaring his jaw. He swallowed visibly and then said, "I did not say I had no feelings for you. I said that love is a foolish thing that I will not permit here, in either direction. There's a difference."

"Is there?" Hermione sniffed, and he nodded firmly.

"There is." Then he turned and walked briskly from the library, leaving Hermione disheveled and crying between the bookshelves.

---

Tom sat alone in the Slytherin boys' dormitory, waiting for his 'associates' to make their way back from Hogsmeade. He stared out the window into the Black Lake, wishing there were some way to easily Obliviate himself without risking his sanity. He needed to forget what he'd seen in Hermione's head. He needed to forget that he himself had apparently sent her back in time, and he needed to forget the image of himself as a grey and broken man clinging to power. He needed to forget what it had felt like to bury himself inside of her, ignoring the fact that she was a liar and a terrible risk to him.

Then, Tom realised, cocking his head as he gazed at the water through the windows, he didn't need to forget any of that. Indeed, he needed to know it. He needed to remember his future through her, as it were, in order to achieve it. Perhaps, he pondered, he could do things even greater than he'd done - would do - now that he was armed with Hermione's memories as a guide. She might disappear one day, of course, for the course of his actions would certainly have some influence over whether or not she traveled back in time, or was born in the first place.

But that was a risk Tom was willing to take. He craved power; he craved authority. It was the best feeling in the world, he thought, to strike fear and intimidation into the hearts of others. And now Hermione had given him the ability to do that. She could show him even more - could show him his mistakes and where he'd gone wrong - and guide his actions so that he could achieve more than she'd seen him do.

Yes, she might vanish into nonbeing, as if he'd swept his wand over her and murmured, 'Evanesco.' But she would be the instrument through which he achieved glory, and for that he would be eternally grateful.

---

Lord Voldemort stood alone in the dining room at Malfoy Manor, staring at the spot from which Hermione had disappeared.

He sighed through the slits where his nose ought to be and thought about her for a long moment. It had been jarring to see her as a teenaged girl again. He'd seen her as a child, of course; he'd been monitoring her for years in preparation of sending her back in time. And he'd seen her older than she looked now, for in his own past she had aged into a beautiful young woman.

When he'd kissed her, Voldemort had tasted the same thing he had decades earlier. Vanilla and lemon, the delicious mingling of sweet and tart that made him crave more. But he'd pulled away from what he was sure would be their final kiss, knowing that she was afraid of him and that he disgusted her in this form. He'd seen this kiss - tonight's kiss - in her memories many years before, and he'd waited for what felt like an eternity for it.

She'd been gone from him for too long before tonight. It had been far, far too long since he'd smelled the rain on her skin, since he'd handed her a bouquet of lilacs and given her his handsome crooked grin. He had missed her, as much as it pained him to even think that. She had been his weakness for many years now; he'd spent decades waiting for her to be born, waiting for her to grow up 'again,' just so that he could kiss her one final time. He'd known tonight's kiss was coming, known that she would disappear from him when he handed her the parchment with the wax seal.

But he hadn't expected for her flavour of vanilla and lemon to elicit the response it did in him. He was glad, in a way, that she'd melted into the air the way she'd done. Voldemort had forgotten how susceptible he was to Hermione, how much he'd relied on her during his early years.

He stared into the fireplace, swaying a bit on his feet. Was the room spinning? What had come over him? Voldemort suddenly felt most unwell, and he called out for Wormtail before clutching onto the back of a dining chair for support. He called out again, his voice sounding desperate to his own ears.

"Wormtail! Come now. I need you here now."

Something was wrong. Something was terribly, terribly wrong. He was dizzy and lightheaded and nauseated.

Then the room went black, and he was nothing. He weighed nothing; he felt nothing. There was blank emptiness for a moment, and then Voldemort opened his eyes again.

The spinning had stopped. His nausea had abated. But when he glanced down at his hands, they were no longer grey. His flesh was almost rosy in its warmth, and though there were wrinkles on the backs of his hands, he felt flush with health. Feeling panicked, Voldemort rushed over to the window and looked at his translucent reflection.

He was whole again. Aged and wrinkled and not very handsome, but whole. Human and warm, and he felt utterly powerful. He stared at his reflection, at his dark familiar eyes, and suddenly realised he must have never lost his body in the first place. Something had happened - something in the timeline had been altered - and his own past wasn't true anymore.

He turned over his shoulder (when had movement become so easy and painless?) at the sound of the door to the dining room opening. The door pushed open slowly, creaking a bit, and Voldemort waited to see the face of Wormtail. He prepared to scold his servant for not answering his call for help more promptly.

But Wormtail wasn't there. There was a woman in the threshold, a woman with an elegant grey chignon and luxurious dark green robes. She was old, like him, but very, very beautiful. Her eyes were the colour of warm honey.

"Hermione," Voldemort whispered in alarm. He wanted to step near her, to take her face in his hands and smell her, taste her. But he felt frozen where he stood. She smiled warmly at him and said in a gentle voice,

"Good evening, husband."