A/N: Not really my characters or plot, sadly enough.
Chapter 6: Of Hummingbirds
"Is there something wrong Hermione? You're not eating."
I put down the glass of water I have been holding, to briefly meet my mother's gaze.
What to say? The truth? Oh, may I find it in my heart to laugh at the truth.
Oh nothing mother, it just seems as if my brother, you know - your son, has inappropiate thoughts about me – his sister. Other than that, there's nothing wrong. Nothing, whatsoever.
But of course, I do not say that. Mother, father and I are seated at the table for dinner, with Tom still being out with Bellatrix and most likely doing every unspeakable act under the sun to her, no, with her. I wonder if he thinks of me when he is doing that. That unspeakable thing. My stomach turns.
..But then again, he has never been much of a monogamist. It would be most strange if he was mentally loyal towards this.. this perverted idea of me, when real people's feelings does not concern him in the least.
"Actually I don't feel so well. May I be excused from the table?"
Mother frowns. She is really pretty still, while frowning.
"Okay honey, go lie down and see that you get well fast okay? Do you want me to make you some tea? I bought that new brand you seem to like so much."
Her motherly overconcern touches me and I manage a sad smile. It is nice to have someone that cares for you, even if it is only your mother and that technically is her job. Still, there are mothers in this world that do not care.
"Thanks mom. That would be great."
She gives me a heartwarming smile that for some reason fills me up with guilt. You haven't done anything wrong Hermione. You play no part in this mummer's farce.
We only call her mom on special occasions, same with my father. Tom and I began referring to our parents as "mother" and "father" as a joke that one time when we were little, seeing as it sounded so damned courteous. In the end, the names just stuck. They are "mother" and "father" to me now, the joke put aside.
I lie down in bed and try to read one of the old tomes I got lying around, but to no avail. I am distracted, as Ginny and all my good friends kindly have pointed out to me earlier.
Distracted by the thought of my brother fucking me.
I shudder at the idea and turn so my face is squashed into my pillow. The book falls onto the floor and I realise that I do not even know the title of it. It is all smudged out and replaced by the idea of my brother doing that.. The unspeakable act. While I feel my eyelids grow heavier my mind is occupied with unwelcomed thoughts of him touching me, stroking me, caressing me, kissing me, hitting me..
Yes, the noble Tom hits me too - in this sexualized version of him that my freakish mind has created. I see him before me now.. Grand and beautiful and cruel.
It is not like his playful, taunting pinches, but full-on punches. Blows rain of my face, my stomach and my bum, all the while he is yelling. Your fault! he screams and his porcelaine face hints towards a shade of angered crimson, never quite reaching it fully. YOUR FAULT! And then all I can see is a fist, strained white and prickled with his and my blood.
As I wake up I realise that I must have died. That dream-Tom must have killed me. Fragments of the beating are coming in like waves, entering my brain when I notice something else, pressing myself harder into the mattress as I do so. The voice. The touch.
He is sitting at the end of my bed, humming while stroking my ankle with a single digit.
I lay still.
The humming stops.
"You're awake little sister."
Did he notice the change of my breaths? Are my eyes reflected in the moonlight? Like those of an animal scared stiff?
I do not know what to answer. My ability to speak seems to have left me. It is dark. The sun has gone down to be replaced by the soft moonlight, leaking in through the cornes of the curtain, framing the dark shadow that is Tom. He is sitting with his back towards the window and I can neither see his face nor make out what he is wearing. But the shadow is glowing, the edges lighted up by the moonlight.
And his shadow is a darker spot in an already dark place.
"I heared that you were ill so I came in to check on you. How do you feel, Hermione?"
Still, the stroking of my ankle does not stop. I want to pull back. To kick him.
I force myself to answer.
"I.. I'm fine really. Just a little tired I think," I try to make out the time, but the hour hands have faded into the darkness, "what time is it? Shouldn't you be in bed?"
Somehow I am able see his delighted sneer, or if I am plainly imagining it – for it seems to shine like a fluorescent light in that dark spot that holds his form.
Without answering my question he says;
"Too much homework again? You don't need to overcompensate everytime, I know you're good enough dearest." His forefinger stops drawing its patterns on my ankle and his nail pushes down on the skin, not meaning to hurt me, but to emphasize his words.
Somehow that wakes me up.
What am I doing? Why am I letting him do this to me.
I back away from his touch, his finger following me as I move upwards to then drop onto the sheet, as my feet folds in and I am sitting cross-legged.
"What are you doing here Tom? You should be in bed." I say, this time almost commanding it.
He moves his face into profile, his straight nose up in the air.
"I find it harder and harder to sleep. Don't you? Is there a full moon?"
"No," I say, narrowing my eyes and giving in to the anger that is slowly pumping out from my heart to my head, feet and fingers. "There's no full moon. I don't find it hard to sleep unless you're sitting on my bed, which speaking of, you should be getting into yours."
He ventilates an insincere laugh. Who are you? I briefly think. Did I ever know you?
"You're reluctant to have me here," He pulls up a bit, placing his hand on the centre of the small bed. "I wonder why that is. Mayhaps you read something that you ought not to?"
And I am choking on my heart, with every ounch of willpower I force my breathing to remain even, my hands to not shake and my head to stay high.
"What are you talking about?" I ask, sounding utterly arrogant to hide the panic.
"Oh Hermione," and he is sitting across from me, in the middle of the bed, "You don't have to pretend that you don't know what I'm speaking of. We both know." His voice that of a person explaining something extremely easy to a stupid child. "You went into my room."
Reflexes are telling me to deny it.
"No, I didn't." Come on, Hermione! Even that stupid child could tell that that was a lie.
Tom laughs again, I never think I heard him laugh twice in a row before. But it is not genuine. It is the sound of the amused madman.
"You're so cute." He reaches out to tousle my hair. "Let me remind you then, shall I? You - Hermione Riddle - went into my room, found the key to my drawer in the frame holding you and me, whereupon you opened my drawer to read the diary contained within it. No?" Getting more used to the dark, I can see his eyebrows raise up, questioningly.
My throat is dry and for a second I am reminded by the dream I had. How he killed me.
"Little liar you," his middlefinger lifts to stroke my nose, whereon I recoil. "So you know now," he exhales, like bored with it all, "what next?"
I look at the wall, searching for an answer.
"I can forget it," I whisper, strained by his eyes upon me, "In a year, we'll leave for university, until then.. I can just pretend that I don't now. We will continue our lives, interacting as little as possible and soon enough you will forget.." It feels wrong to say me, when I still think of it as being someone else, a totally different person or an alternative non-existing version of me. But before I can pick up my lost thread, Tom is speaking.
"No no no.. That just won't do," and he shakes his head with false graveness. Mocking me, I realise.
"That won't do at all, Hermione! Now, don't you have any questions for me? I imagine your head to be quite overloaded right now."
Questions? Of course I have questions but I can't possible pose them.. They.. He.. Stop. Please, somebody, just make it all stop..
"Well?"
"No. Go away."
"Ouch. Well.. I'm not done yet so I won't leave."
My eyes meet his and for the first time that night, I can make out the colour of them, cold grey around a dark pit - a black hole.
He is leaning on his right arm now, studying me.
"Say I were to agree upon this proposition of yours. Would you be able to do that? To forget?"
"Yes," I answer directly, but I sound unsure, for I am unsure.
He sneers yet again.
"Would you forget that I am on the other side of that wall, wanting nothing more than to erase it? To have you screa.."
"Okay stop it, I couldn't forget it." My hands are over my ears and there is something wet on my cheeks. Tears..
"No, no you couldn't."
And he kisses me.
A/N: Stupid cliffhanger. Why did I write that? I wanna know what happens! Also, I feel an overwhelming need to tell you people this: I had a dream the other night where Joffrey from Game of Thrones was chased by a reincarnated Fred Weasley in form of a snake. The whole dream, Joffey was chased around the Red Keep by snake-Fred and I just watched until at last, Fred ate him up (starting with his right foot). Now. What does that mean?