Notes: There is a lot happening in this chapter, and I hope it doesn't feel too disjointed and episodic, but I wanted to avoid long and drawn-out filler. Also, more smut! This one contains mild BDSM, which I am pretty well convinced Tom would be into if he were canonically a sexual being, so if that's not your thing, you can skip the section. It's second to last and marked with divider lines, as usual in this fic.

Thanks so much for all the interest!

Chapter Thirteen: Making Plans

Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place, London.

"How could you be such a fool?" Arcturus Black demanded, scowling fiercely at his cousin.

Pollux Black rubbed the back of his head. A bruise was still present from where the girl's wandless magic had slammed him into his own wall.

"Well?" Arcturus continued. "What do you have to say? It was a foolish enough idea in the first place. You have always been too impatient. We have a plan, Pollux."

Pollux nodded, looking down. "It just struck me as better to do an interrogation. More accurate."

"No, you like inflicting pain for the fun of it," Arcturus said with profound disdain. "But you still shouldn't have acted without reinforcement. Naturally I would not involve myself in something like that, but why didn't you bring Malfoy? Or Lestrange, or even Rosier?" he continued, gesturing in turn to the three other wizards present in the room. "She would have been prevented from escaping if someone else had been in the room."

Pollux looked up sharply. "With all due respect, I am not sure that she would have. It was very powerful wandless magic, and Dark at that. Imprecise, basically just raw force, but wandless curses usually are. It might have blasted anyone who was in the room."

"Then someone should have been there to take away her wand and stand guard by the door!" Abraxas Malfoy exclaimed. "Pollux, this is a piece of carelessness that could be fatal."

"Yes," Pierre Lestrange agreed. "If she were to inform Dumbledore of it—"

Arcturus set his cigarette down on the ashtray. "Dumbledore's involvement would be to their disadvantage. He is fortunate that his friendship with Grindelwald is not well known. Were it to be exposed, the people would draw the obvious conclusion, and it would cast doubt upon such an extreme claim as a Ministry Department Head using an Unforgivable Curse to interrogate."

"Still, it is a bad thing that she got away," Malfoy said. "She has a memory of the event, and it is evidence that would be difficult to explain away if it did come to light."

"Memories can be tampered with," Lestrange said dismissively. "You could say that obviously Grindelwald did such a thing to frame him."

The fifth wizard, Crawford Rosier, looked uncertain. "Pollux, your account of the event is… somewhat disturbing," he said. "She resisted very well. I hate to suggest this, but is it possible that we have the wrong person?"

Four disapproving stares instantly met his eyes.

"It's always possible," Arcturus conceded, "but unlikely. There is definitely an information leak to Grindelwald's organization about our faction. We are in agreement on that. He knows too much about us. Even though he is losing on the battlefront, he still had Malenfant and Gaspard assassinated last week!"

Lestrange looked especially glum. His cousins in France had been patrons of both individuals, members of the advisory board of Beauxbatons Academy who had been secretly planning to introduce a proposal to ban Muggle-born admissions.

"The most suspicious character is definitely the girl," said Malfoy. "She appeared out of nowhere to take her seventh year. Has anyone found out anything about her family?"

"There are records of the Squib uncle and aunt—the girl's grandparents—having a non-magical daughter, Squib or Muggle, whatever you choose to call freaks like that," Arcturus said, "and a marriage to a definite Muggle."

Everyone in the room made a grimace of disgust.

"The thing is, the records I found also indicate that none of these people are alive anymore. The Muggle father was killed in their war, and the mother in the bombings. Why hasn't the girl mentioned that? How is she so magically competent—the children tell me she is top of the class, tied with the Head Boy! The story is that she was privately tutored."

Four faces turned to Arcturus, their attention riveted. Every one of them had apparently come to the same conclusion.

"Yes," Arcturus said with smug satisfaction. "I do think that Hermione Green was 'tutored' by Grindelwald himself all these years, and that is why no one has ever heard of her. And I think it is time that we take care of the situation—intelligently," he added, looking pointedly at Pollux. "We have a plan, and I suggest that you hold to it from now on."

Hogwarts.

Tom made good on his promise.

Over holiday break, he spent the night in Hermione's room every single night. Since Slytherin was the house of associations, he and Hermione were the only ones not to have someone to visit. Tom had, in the past few years, managed invitations to the homes of some or other of his pack, but as he confided to Hermione, he didn't like it. The families of his schoolmates had been much cooler to him than their children, regarding him with only patronizing interest at best.

It was vastly preferable, he declared, to stay at Hogwarts and learn something new with Hermione.

For her part, Hermione did not allow doubts to intrude on her enjoyment of his company after that first time. After their second time, she had had a sudden, unwanted thought of pregnancy, but there was a potion recipe to prevent that, and it wasn't that hard to make. Tom had been strangely impassive when she made the potion, and Hermione had wondered about that. Surely he wasn't displeased.

He's a few days away from eighteen, she thought. And I'm almost nineteen. She had figured out that her "new" birthday, the day that was a year since her last one in 1997, would be in January 1945. We're both too young for that, and I never read that Voldemort or Tom Riddle ever had the slightest interest in having a kid. –Then again, she supposed, she had also never heard that the "original" Tom, in the unaltered timeline, had ever been interested in a relationship with another person. Nevertheless, it didn't matter. They were in school, after all. Even if he did like the idea on some level, he clearly understood that it was a terrible one, since he did not try to argue her out of making the potion.

What about after? If she stayed in this time, did that imply staying with Tom specifically? He was responsible for his own choices, but sometimes people did need help making better ones. It would hurt now, really hurt, if she lost him to his own darkness after all. Hermione did not countenance failure very well. Rationally she knew that most adolescent and early adulthood relationships did not last… but a voice nagged at her that Tom was not exactly a typical teenage boy. What if he didn't grow bored with her? He might not, after all. He did everything he enjoyed with obsessive intensity. She was invested in him, but was it enough for that? She was not ready to face that question.

Still, the process of separating Tom of the 1940s from Voldemort of the 1990s was complete. She could honestly say that Tom had never hurt her. Even when they were unfriendly, he had only expressed a suspicious, hostile interest in her—understandable, all things considered. As soon as he learned her secret, he had been inclined to protect her—at first, she acknowledged, because she had useful information, but later on, he had actually come to care about her for her own sake. His protectiveness was ferocious now. The defining moment was probably when Grindelwald had ordered her kidnapped. Tom had been very upset and concerned when she reappeared in the village. Since then, they had progressed from friendship to attraction to this.

Tangling limbs together and clutching at each other as we pant, gasp, move together, then his hands and strong arms grabbing my wrists and—

Hermione, daydreaming on Christmas Eve as she sat in one of the Room's armchairs, blushed at that memory. The previous night, he had tried that, taking her wrists and holding them above her head. It had been a bit intimidating to trust him to do that, but at the same time, very, very thrilling, and somehow it had made things much more pleasurable even than they usually were.

She realized that, for the first time since she had traveled back in time, she was actually happy. Having this intimate relationship—with Tom Riddle, of all people—made her happy, whereas before, she had alternated between terror of the situation and melancholy about what she had left behind.

She had learned that his birthday was December 31, and it was difficult to think of two gifts to be given to someone in the space of a week, but she had managed it. She was rather looking forward to seeing his face when he opened them.

After a very well-spent Christmas morning, they stumbled out of bed and got dressed. Hermione headed into the nice bathroom the Room of Requirement had produced, so she did not see him taking out a small book bound in navy blue leather and lifting a very recent memory out of his head to deposit into it. He grinned smugly at the memory and put the book back into his rucksack, pulling out another item just as she emerged with his gift.

They stared at each other and the packages they held in hand. It was completely obvious what type of item both gifts were. Hermione stifled a laugh as she passed her boxy package to Tom and received a similar-shaped one from him.

Tom unwrapped his package to uncover A Guide to Medieval Sorcery. He smirked in pleasure as Hermione worked on her package. "We had a very similar theme this Christmas, you'll see," he noted.

Hermione's eyes popped in alarm as she set eyes upon her gift, Dark Arts in the Dark Ages: In Search of the Necronomicon and Other Fabled Tomes.

"It's actually history," Tom remarked as she gingerly opened the book. He was already devouring his own book's table of contents. "There are several schools of magic, pre-Founders, that we know nothing about anymore. It's unknown if they ever existed in the first place or are myths that emerged through time."

Hermione could see now that he was telling the truth, and it was just a history book. "Thank you," she said sincerely. "It was hard to find anything like this where—when—I came from."

"I'm sure it was, if Dumbledore's crowd ran things," he said sourly.

Six days later, the scene partially repeated itself as Tom opened his birthday gift privately in the Room of Requirement. Hermione was especially pleased with this one. It was a gift he should have received last year, since he had come of age as a wizard, but he had not had anyone to give it to him—at least, no one from whom he could have accepted it with any measure of dignity. There were no "Mr. and Mrs. Weasley" for him, no friend's parents who held genuine affection for him.

It was also a very appropriate gift from her symbolically.

This time it was Tom whose eyes widened in surprise. He lifted a gleaming gold pocket watch from a velvet-lined box. In addition to the usual clock face, it told the phase of the moon and zodiac sign. He picked up the enclosed note.

Belated, but not too late.

-Hermione.

He suddenly realized she was not just talking about the watch. He set it down in its protective case and turned to her with dark eyes. "Come here," he growled. He did not wait for her to respond, but reached—almost lunged—for her immediately.

Half an hour later, he put his vest back on and proudly attached the watch.

The rest of break passed idyllically. It was—odd. Hermione thought, as the start of the new term approached, that it felt almost ominous. The sincere pleasures of Christmas, Tom's birthday, and consummating their relationship—repeatedly—had almost pushed from her mind the dark events that had started the break. Almost, but not quite, and those memories were working their way back to the forefront of her mind. She had a nasty suspicion that the intrigue and danger would begin anew as soon as the school train pulled into Hogsmeade Station, if not sooner.

He seemed to be thinking the same thing. "I suppose I'd better get ready to interrogate your old roommates," he muttered the night before the students would return.

Hermione looked up. Yes, the unease had reasserted itself, all right. She rather missed the pleasant interlude of the holidays.

"I have to repeat what I asked of you after it happened," she said. "Don't torture them." She put a hand up to forestall his objection. "When Black had me under the Cruciatus Curse, I considered lying to him—twice—to tell him what he wanted to hear, just to make the pain stop."

Tom's eyes widened.

"So if you really want to know the truth, that is not the method to use."

He gazed at her for several moments, considering what she said, before nodding. "I'll need to swipe some Veritaserum from Slughorn's office, then," he said.

"What about Legilimency?"

"I only mastered it recently. I'd rather have the potion if necessary."

"Let me go with you."

He did not object, so they Disillusioned themselves as they left the Room of Requirement and began the long trek down the stairways.

Slughorn was in his own quarters already, and Tom made short work of the locking charm. Once inside, he went to the storage shelves and began to read over the labels, some of which were very faded. A large bottle of clear potion caught his eye. He withdrew three small single-dose flasks from his robe pocket and levitated the bottle off the shelf.

Something else on the shelves drew his attention as he filled the flasks. "Hermione, I thought I heard something. Could you check?" he whispered. He could not see her, but he felt the breeze shift around him as she left the office. Good. Now he could get the other potion he wanted. He did not want to have to explain this one to her—at least, not yet.

She returned to the dark office just as he was corking that fourth flask.

"Tom, what's that? Is that poison?"

He pocketed the flask. "No. It's something for me, in fact."

Although he could not see her eyes, he could tell that she was skeptical. However, she did not pursue arguments with him when she knew she would not gain her point. It was one of the many ways she had changed over the past year.

And after all, if he got what he wanted from this potion, he would tell her.

Hermione did not want to be present for Tom's interrogation. She hoped that her appeal to pragmatism would deter him from using torture, and was in fact reasonably sure that it would, but she still did not want to witness it. Harry had described what it was like to watch someone talk under Veritaserum and it was not something she had any desire to see.

She stayed in the Slytherin common room, reading her new book, as he did… whatever he was doing. It was necessary now to spend time in the common room so that the other housemates did not become too suspicious of her absences. Tom would Confund the roommates when he was through with them, but keeping up appearances was always for the best.

At last the three girls emerged into the common room, looking none the worse for wear. They passed Hermione without any recognition. Evidently Tom had already put the spell on them. A minute or two later, Tom himself entered the common room.

"Let's talk."

She got up and followed him up the many flights of stairs into the Room of Requirement. It was certainly good exercise, she thought wryly. He strode over to the luxurious and by now very familiar bed and sat down with her.

"Well?" she said, raising an eyebrow.

He sighed. "None of them knew."

Hermione's eyebrows shot up high on her forehead. "None of them?"

"Black apparently just visited them that night, using his familial—or future in-law—relationship with them as cover for what he really wanted to do. I would guess it was his own daughter's book that he used. There were indications that Walburga had had something Obliviated, and it was probably that."

Hermione frowned. "You said before break that Lestrange and Rosier were dealing with Black. He wouldn't involve the girls?"

Tom shook his head. "It's not that surprising after all. Families like that don't generally want to involve their daughters in sordid business."

"What about your theory about Lucretia?"

"She's not a spy," he said. "She is not involved with any of this in the least. She is counting the days till the end of school so that she can have her wedding and get out of that house. She actually likes that Prewett fellow. I found him an insufferable prat in school… but no matter. The other two girls, Pollux Black did use for information about your habits and interests—that's how he knew to use a book, I'm sure—but he didn't tell them about this specific plot."

Hermione felt vaguely relieved. It still would not be safe to go back to the room; Black could easily owl the girls with other Portkeys (or worse), but it was good to know that at least her former roommates had not been party to her kidnapping and torture.

"Tom, that's… good… but I'm still worried. I doubt any of this is over."

"I'm sure it's not," he agreed. "But I've got the situation in hand now. You are safe in this room and with me, and I know who needs to be monitored."

"What about long-term? I don't want to hide from them forever."

"I'm working on that," he said with a grin.

Tom did not leave the room that night. He sat in his usual armchair, sleeves rolled up to the elbows, reading his new book and occasionally glancing at Hermione.

Finally he set the book down and breathed heavily. Hermione recognized that sound by now. She bookmarked her place and put her own book on the table. He was gazing at her predatorily, and she could not help but notice the bulging condition of his trousers.

"Tom, you are insatiable," she sighed.

"I certainly can't have enough of you," he agreed. "Tell me something. How much do you trust me?"

"And what is that supposed to mean?"

He got up from the chair and stalked over to her. "I was thinking of that time that I held down your wrists. I think… I want to do more." He met her eyes and leered. "I want to tie them up."

Hermione stared back at him. She had heard of such things, but it was the sort of thing spoken of in giggly, shocked whispers. Sex itself had been naughty enough to talk about when she was last at school; kinky sexual fetishes were definitely forbidden territory. However… she felt older than her years, certainly not like a silly schoolgirl, and that Tom would want to do this somehow did not surprise her.

"Is that all you want to do?" she asked carefully.

He smirked. "Well, obviously not… but I assume you're not asking if I want"—he paused for a fraction of a second, quickly deliberating something—"to fuck you raw."

Her jaw dropped, and her face flushed with heat. "What has got into you?" she exclaimed, feeling the color in her cheeks. Tom occasionally used the milder swear words, but she had only heard him say that one once, and not in its original context.

He raised an eyebrow and smiled insouciantly. "It isn't that I haven't enjoyed our intimacies so far," he said. "I have, very much. But that time got into my mind, and I've imagined… going rather farther. I want to try it."

Hermione realized that, although he was not doing so overtly—his pride and Slytherin indirectness would not let him actually make the verbal request of her—he was seeking her permission, and she could refuse if the idea repulsed her.

"All right," she said hesitantly. "You have to stop if I don't like something, though."

"Of course," he said at once. "I don't want to hurt you."

He means that, she thought. "Then… I don't know what you want me to—" she began to say.

"Don't worry about it," he said. He grabbed her wrists and pulled her up. "Just do what comes naturally to you… while you can," he added in a hiss, smirking.

They moved toward the large bed, Tom steering her. He really did like being in control, she thought, as he laid her down on the mattress and climbed atop it himself. The pillows on this bed were just as large and luxurious as everything else about it. Hermione was able to sit almost upright while leaning against them.

Tom stared at her for a moment before lunging. "Get your clothes off," he growled, centimeters from her face, though it was unclear whether it was an order to her or a verbal statement to himself. Probably some of both. He began undoing her tie and blouse. She kicked off her flats and started working on her skirt and tights. Before long she was naked of everything except her undergarments.

"Leave those on for now," Tom murmured, removing her bra. "I want to take them off."

Of course you do, she thought.

He tossed her bra aside and grabbed her wrists. He relished holding them for a second, breathing deeply in satisfaction, before pulling them above her head with one hand. He reached for his wand with the other.

Hermione had, for some reason, expected him to use his tie—though on second thought, it was not that surprising that he would use magic. He cast the Incarcerous spell nonverbally, and a length of rope wound around her wrists and one of the ornate bedposts.

"Are you disappointed?" he asked, leaning over her.

"No, I just expected you would use your tie," she said sheepishly.

His eyes gleamed, and he smirked. "You'd like that, would you? I think I know what to do with it."

With deliberation he untied and threaded the green-and-silver necktie from around his shirt collar. He held it in hand for a moment, gazing at her. "You said you trust me," he said.

She suddenly realized what he was going to do. Her heart started to thump. "I—yes, do it."

His pupils were dark and wide with desire. She breathed deeply, taking in that look, before he descended on her with the tie in hand and covered her eyes with it. He tilted her head forward and tied it in the back, loose enough not to hurt, but tight enough not to slip. Her field of vision was blocked. She couldn't know what he was going to do until he did it—and the uncertainty excited her.

She did feel the mattress shift and hear the soft rustling as he removed his clothes. He was not touching her at all as he did, and she knew that was deliberate. He would want her to anticipate his return—and she was.

She felt the warmth of his body a fraction of a second before he was upon her, but that was only just enough warning for her to prepare for the tingly thrill of contact. Then she felt his lips—and teeth!—against her neck, kissing and nipping up the soft skin. A hand ran over her right hip, fingers slipping under the band of her underwear and then immediately withdrawing, as if to remind her of what he could do but—for now—was choosing not to.

He reached her left earlobe. A kiss, a gentle flitting of his tongue, and then he bit.

It hurt, but it didn't. Hermione shrieked with surprise and a new, inexplicable mix of pain and pleasure. She heard—and felt—him chuckle darkly before running his tongue over the shell of her ear and nipping again, a bit harder. She sucked in her breath, trying not to thrash against the mattress. He chuckled again—and then pulled away.

"Since you can't see it, I want you to feel something," he said.

She nodded.

He surged against her still-covered center. "That's for you," he growled. "Every bit. And you know what I'm going to do with it?"

"Why don't you tell me?" she growled back.

He ground against her harder, clearly turned on even more by her tone of voice. "I believe I told you earlier. Do you want to hear it again?"

"Yes."

Smack! His palm connected with her left thigh. She gasped in surprise.

"Naughty," he hissed. "You do like this." He probed over the surface of her underwear with one hand. "You're soaked." He sounded impressed.

"Just say it—"

"I'm going to rip these knickers off and fuck you raw," he hissed.

Hermione shivered with pleasure at the words—and then felt his fingers slide under the waistband and tug. The underwear turned inside out as he yanked it off and down her legs. He tossed it somewhere and instantly pushed into her, hard.

She had not felt any pain during this since the first minute of their first time, before he had cast a healing spell. Over the holiday break they had learned about how to draw it out for longer as well, to make it last. This time, though, he was not taking things slowly. He was moving so aggressively that it was… consuming, she thought. It was an all-consuming friction. It actually did feel raw… but pleasurably. Very pleasurably.

He brought his right hand down to her center and started to roll his fingers over her clit, flicking and touching, while gripping her hip very tightly with his left. "Hermione," he moaned.

She strained against the ropes that still held her hands to the bedpost. She had dissipated some of her release by gripping his back and grabbing handfuls of his hair, but that was not going to be an option this time. That meant—

He thrust forward as far as he could go, pressing her clit hard. That was it. She screamed as the full intensity of the climax rushed from her center and over her body in waves, pulling against the confines so hard it would probably leave marks, and kicking her legs. He grabbed both of them and held them down on the bed, panting above her from his own release.

He relaxed on top of her, still breathing heavily. As soon as it occurred to him, he removed the blindfold. He fumbled for his wand and ended the spell that bound her arms to the bedpost, vanishing the ropes. She brought them back down and was not surprised at all to see red strain marks on them. They would fade soon enough, though. There was no bruising.

"I don't suppose I need to ask if you enjoyed that as much as you hoped," she teased.

He smirked.

They stayed in bed for some time after that, summoning their books across the Room of Requirement and reading, almost sharing a pillow because they were so large. Tom, however, seemed to drift at one point. Hermione noticed that he did not turn the page to his book after several minutes, which was unusual for him. They were both fast readers.

He noticed that she was looking, closed the book, and levitated it onto her nightstand. She bookmarked her own and set it down, aware that he apparently wanted to talk.

She was correct. "Hermione," he began, "you're not going to like what I have to tell you, but I've made up my mind about something."

"I can't imagine I'll dislike it that much." She smiled. "Go ahead."

"Well… it's just this. I've considered what you've told me. And it seems that a lot of it is traceable back to Dumbledore winning the duel with Grindelwald this year." He hesitated, considering how to word it. "It makes him the British wizarding world's bloody hero, but he uses that prestige to slant and suppress information, and to get buffoons like Weasley placed in office to promote awful legislation that just riles up the blood-purity people… and I guess I, the other I, was too loony by then not to get caught up in it again."

"I… guess so," she said quietly. It was still tough to admit that the terrible state of the wizarding world in her original time had been to any degree Dumbledore's fault, but it seemed that it was. He had been friends with Bathilda Bagshot, the historian who had written that utter whitewashing known as A History of Magic, whose work patronized Muggles to a truly offensive—and dangerous—degree, and who had gone on to rewrite the truth of what her great-nephew Grindelwald had been up to. It was a difficult thing to admit even now, but Hermione finally had to face the fact that the tolerant faction's infantilizing of Muggles had fed the blood purists' belief that they were little more than animals.

"And there's something else," Tom continued. "Grindelwald has the Elder Wand. If Dumbledore defeats him, he'll get it."

Hermione stared at him in undisguised shock. "How do you know that? In my time, the other you didn't take an interest in that wand until the last year of his life and had to track it down starting with Gregorovitch. Grindelwald hasn't exactly been boasting of it, either."

Tom paused for a second. "The timeline has obviously changed, Hermione, so what 'he' did in your time is irrelevant now. And as for how I know… well, I just know. I mean—Grindelwald's mark is the sign of the Deathly Hallows. He has it, and you've just confirmed that he has it."

A terrible suspicion dawned in Hermione's mind. "Tom, are you planning to challenge Grindelwald for the Elder Wand?"

Tom smirked. "Of course. Dumbledore can't be allowed to defeat him, Hermione. The wizarding world will go to hell if he does. Your timeline proves that. I need to defeat him and get that wand. It will give me enough clout that I won't have to attach myself to the obsolete ideology of anyone currently in power. I will have power of my own from being the 'hero' of the British wizarding world. I won't have to pretend to agree with their views until I lose myself and actually do agree once more. I can have things my own way."

Hermione sat upright and stared at him in horror. "Tom, it's the Elder Wand! Grindelwald is a dangerous Dark wizard, and he has the power of the unbeatable wand! This—Tom, this is a Gryffindor idea, in a bad way, challenging Grindelwald now! You're eighteen years old. You're brilliant and magically powerful, yes, but you're eighteen."

Tom's face changed. It hardened, but there was also a note of pride in it. "Hermione, you should never forget that I am a dangerous Dark wizard too. No"—he held up a hand as she began to protest—"I am, and you need to accept that. I won't…" He hesitated once more. "I won't let it destroy me this time, but the Dark Arts can be very useful."

"Tom—"

"You have to fight fire with fire, Hermione. Remember the Dark healing. I will not lose to Grindelwald, and I'm saying that for Slytherin reasons. I have a plan, and it will work. I will get the Elder Wand, and I will use his defeat to launch a bid for power, and I won't be beholden to any of these troglodytes to do it."

Hermione gazed at him wearily. "Tom… I know better than to think I can force you to do, or not do, anything… but take care."

"I will. I know what I'm doing."