It was him. She had committed the rich timbre of his voice to memory the first time she'd heard it, the way it swooped melodically over the highs and lows of the syllables. She heard it, behind the opulent gilded door from which she now stood behind, her ear pressed to the wooden frame. The cream-coloured paint was smooth and cool against her hot cheek. It dripped, honey-sweet and coaxing through the door.
A coil of white-hot panic took root in her stomach. It guided her feet, bare against the rich burgundy carpet out of the drawing room and through another door, and then another. Quicker than she'd thought possible, she slammed the door shut, locking it with a key and then her wand. It wouldn't do, wouldn't hold for long. He was too powerful to be stopped by a mere door.
She was in a dead-end now, this room was her bedroom. Foolishly, she'd wanted the corner of the brown stone mansion because she'd get two windows instead of one. Hermione wracked her brains. She couldn't apparate, the wards were specifically designed for anti-apparition. It was one of the reasons she'd found it so attractive in the first place. No fireplace - no Floo. There was always the window, but she didn't feel safe separated by walls or air or metres. Of course, there was another solution.
Shaking hands delved into the neck of her gown. A thin gold chain supported a shimmering hourglass - her Time Turner - her salvation. He hadn't found her in three years, hidden beyond time and space. She'd picked a deliberately innocuous time, a deliberately innocuous place. Who would've suspected a Muggle stately home only 26 years previously? Still, it had been inevitable he would find her.
There was no banging at the door, but she watched the shadows of his feet underneath the doorjamb. She felt him, his smooth silky presence.
She hoped the next place would give her as much time, maybe longer. She liked the people who lived here. They liked her. They were likely all dead now. Hot, angry tears sprang to her eyes. It was so unfair, so unjust. She hated him. She was afraid.
Her fingers trembled as she slowly turned the dial. Forward, or backward? She was still in her nightgown, no shoes on, hair unbound. There had been no time to pack.
She heard a click in the lock as it turned of its own accord. Felt herself stop breathing, her face drained of colour. A pale, unblemished hand became visible. And then, all of a sudden, him. She had the Time Turner in her hand, she could leave, leave now, and yet she stood frozen still - her bare feet rooted into the Turkish carpet.
He was as she had remembered. Tall and lean - reedy, like a willow branch; dark-haired, clad in the elegant, tailored style he had favoured in the fifties. His crowning glory however, were two cruel eyes set into his head in luminous green. He was beautiful and terrible, Tom Riddle.
He strode into the room, stopping a few paces away from Hermione. He smirked.
"Darling. It's been such a long time." He said in his lily-sweet voice of his.
It had been so long since Hermione had moved, those few crucial seconds had felt like an age, her hands still clasped around the Time Turner, her wand carefully strapped at her side. It was only now she realised, as she longed to reach for it, that Tom had cursed her with a Full-Body Bind, as silent as the devil, the minute he'd walked into the room. She burned with indignant rage.
He twirled his own wand between pale fingertips. Hermione knew it well - bone-coloured yew carved with wildflowers. She trembled.
"Oh, don't fret darling. Just a little Full-Body Bind, nothing particularly lethal." He had begun to wander closer. She could smell him from this distance, lemon leaves and mint and death, caught with the scent of the hyacinths on her desk. It nauseated her.
He was close now, too close. He'd bent his knees to sit on eye level with her, his expression catlike and strangely gleeful. He was lovelier from up closer, Hermione knew this. She'd once memorised every inch of Tom Riddle's face, committed his every eyelash to her memory. It was still there, somewhere in the dank, shameful part of her brain.
"I've found you." He whispered in her ear. If Hermione could've moved, she would've shuddered. "I've found you, little bird." His fingers traced a cool path along her burning cheeks. To her shame, Hermione wanted to close her eyes and relish the feeling. It was him; he had found her. Her Tom. He was here and now everything would be alright again. He smiled, it was little and warm and wrong, but it was all for her.
The pit of her stomach dropped out and she wanted to scream, scream fire and smoke and incandescent rage. She knew that little probing feeling in her brain. He had wormed his way into her brain, it was him whispering sweet nothings into the recesses of her brain - Legilimancy. How dare he peer into her private thoughts? How dare he presume to control her? She conjured a threatening image in her mind and then snapped up her mental walls. Mentally, at least, he was blocked out. She wouldn't let her guard down again.
Tom only chuckled, his hands brushing deliberately past the lace of her nightgown to where her wand lay holstered. He took it, then delicately removed the Time Turner from her neck and her fingers. The brush of his fingers against the nape of her neck made her feel hot and cold and sick. She could count the individual fibres on his fine, plum-coloured woollen jumper. Waves of lemon leaves and peppermint roiled across her vision.
He murmured. "Sweet little bird, now that I've removed your talons, I can let you go." He feathered a curl of hair behind Hermione's ear, and she felt as if she were on a knife's edge. His gaze dripped down her body. It felt foul, crude. Her nightdress was by all standards very modest, layers of frothy lace and cotton in the Victorian style, yet he stripped her bare with one hot look. He could've chosen to cast nonverbally, but instead, whispered richly, obscenely into her ear. "Finite."
The thread that had been keeping Hermione coiled so tight had snapped. The moment was broken, and she reared her arm back to punch him in the face. Riddle may have taken her wand and her escape route, but she still had other ways of defending herself.
He caught her wrist, long fingers clasping like a vice. She moved to shake him free, but he was steadfast and much stronger than her - five years older and a head and a half taller. She howled in frustration, punching with her left hand now. He caught this one too. She growled, attacking now with knees, kicks, even a headbutt or two. He pulled her closer which made it much harder. She tried anyways. She felt consumed by fury, desperately pulling to get free. She had to get free. His fingers were hard and cruel against her skin.
She screamed. "Get off! Get off me!" She felt like a wild thing.
Tom shook her violently. Hermione's jaw clacked together painfully.
"Enough." He whispered angrily.
She caught gaze of his face, for a moment, just for a moment, he looked as wild and as crazed as she did. It fell from his face as quickly as it had arrived, a porcelain mask of calm taking over. Abruptly, she fell silent. She had rarely seen Tom lose control.
"Tut tut, Hermione." He said her name like a prayer. It made her feel sick to her stomach. "After all this time, I would've expected you to play a little nicer." His lip curled. "Nevertheless."
She felt his wand against her temple, and she went from consciousness slowly, begging.
The light came in a haze. Hermione's eyes burned. She was tied, she guessed magically, to the bedpost of her four-poster bed. It hurt to look, but she could feel the crimson crepe-de-chine scraping against the back of her calves and elbows. Her head felt full of thick fog. It coated her tongue and left her vision swimming. A dark figure split and multiplied across her field of vision.
"Hush. You're just coming to." The voice sounded velvety and vaguely familiar. What had happened? Why was she tied up? She struggled against the bindings, feeling her wrists strain painfully against the invisible ropes. Magical bindings. She couldn't feel the soft weight of the little golden Time Turner at her ribs. She wanted to panic but couldn't summon the energy.
The voice made little soothing noises. She felt the bed dip beside her and struggled to open her eyes. She felt leaden and sleepy. Something was wrong, very wrong, but she couldn't put her finger on it, couldn't bring herself to care. The stranger was stroking her hair now, pulling careful fingers through her wild curls. She made a little noise in the back of her throat from satisfaction. She was so tired. Her bones felt heavy and liquid in her compliance.
She was warm, so warm. The man's touch felt like sunbursts on her skin. She wanted to stay here, in his warmth.
Her head was resting on the man's shoulders - she was certain it was a man now. His shoulders were broad and his voice husky. Her head dipped, the muscles in her neck useless and her nose collided with his soft jumper. She caught the scent of something she never thought she'd smell again. Lemon leaves, mint, and death in her nostrils. Tom Riddle.
She did her best to start in horror, but her head felt like it was full of treacle, so she was sure it was more of a slow, lazy jerk of her body. She felt Tom's amused breath on her cheek as he exhaled. He was so close. His hand was still tangled in her hair. "That's right, little bird. It's me."
Little bird. The nickname lingered in her mouth nastily. He had given it to her so long ago. The day they'd first met. Hermione fought to open her eyes. Tom appeared in waves, swirling and swirling.
What's happening to me? She wanted to say, but it came out more like "whuzhaggeningdome." Her tongue had turned garbled and thick in her mouth.
Tom lifted up her chin with a pinching finger and thumb. His dark hair and terrible, pale eyes blurred in her vision. "It's just a side effect of the spell I cursed you with. It will wear off in a few minutes." His tone was charming, meant to influence her to calm down. She whined, fighting against her restraints. It wasn't right, wasn't fair. She couldn't tell what real and what Tom had put in her brain. Something trickled into her brain, like hot honey. She stilled.
No. She thought determinedly. Tom is dangerous. Tom is dangerous. Tom Riddle is an evil man. She repeated it over and over in her mind like a mantra. Tom Riddle is an evil man.
Over a few minutes the fog in her brain cleared and so did the warm, viscous feeling in her lower belly. Her head pounded, but she was clear minded. She sat up.
"Still up to your same tricks. Trying to Imperius me won't work, Tom. It didn't work before, and it won't work now." Hermione said faintly. He'd tried to curse her to do it, to knock her off her guard and make it easier to infiltrate her mind.
"Perhaps." He said in a cold voice. "Your Occlumency has improved since the last time I saw you dearest."
"Perhaps I had need for it." She echoed.
"You're still vulnerable to it, to me." He shifted to face her and and Hermione tilted her chin to glare up at him. Soft rosebud lips curled into a smirk. "You always will be."
She spat at him, a stringy goblet of spit landing on his porcelain cheek. His smirk turned catlike, pleased.
"My, my." Fingers tightened painfully around her thigh. "What a savage little snake you have turned out to be."
"It's nothing that you didn't teach me first." Hermione hissed.
He tutted. "My Hermione, I wouldn't have taught you to be so disrespectful." He tightened his grip on her thigh - it was sure to bruise. She fought the urge to cry out. Tom fixed his gaze on her face, rapt in the absorption of her every pained expression. She couldn't look away. He was beautiful and terrible - twisted.
She struggled against her bonds once more fruitlessly. "Get off me. Stop touching me. Let me go!" She said finally, finding her voice trembling. She was beginning to feel the cold ice of terror creep through her veins. It appeared Tom hadn't come for a cup of tea and a catch-up.
"Really? I seem to remember you enjoying this very much." He was a predator, closing in on his prey. "I seem to remember you begging me not to stop." Hermione closed her eyes in nausea. His voice turned high and clear. "Oh, Tom. Please don't stop. Tom, right there. Oh Tom." He mocked.
Hermione felt the sting of humiliation burn at her eyelids. "Screw you." She said quietly. He released her thigh, replacing it with gentle touch. His hand soothed over the painful bruise for several long seconds. Hermione reddened.
"My apologies, I didn't quite hear you. What did you say darling?"
Hermione opened her eyes. White, hot anger boiled in the pit of her belly.
"I said, fuck you." He was so close to her, practically millimetres away from her face. He looked so calm, so resolute in his position over her. Hermione wanted to skin him.
"Oh, but darling," Tom paused, smile stretching from ear to ear. "You already did."
"I will never touch you again." She spat, barely getting the words out. "I was a little fool."
"Yes, you were." Tom got off the bed abruptly. She could only catch glimpses of him outside her field of vision He looked oddly at home in her grand little bedroom, with its burgundy carpets and Baroque, gilded walls. Gryffindor colours. Not her first choice, but then she'd needed a little courage. He was poise and pure passion, a knife's edge from madness.
"You will beg to have me again, Hermione Granger." He said in a low, dangerous tone. "There is a fracture in you that only I can see. We are the same, you and I. It will grow and grow until you despair of it. There will be nothing you can do, except come to me. You will long for it, for me. I will have you on your knees, begging."
He paused. He was behind her now, she was sure of it. She could feel his warmth behind her. She could scarcely breathe, whether from terror or something unspeakable, growing in the pit of her belly. His lips brushed the sensitive hollow of her neck and she let out a gasp.
"And I will say no." He whispered gently. It sounded like a threat.
"I'm tired of this game Tom. I'm tired of you." She said shakily. "I won't stop running. You'll never find me again. Even if you take my Time Turner. I'll find another."
Hermione could practically hear his smirk. "Perhaps."
