Dumbledore originally defeated Grindlewald in 1945, but I changed it to be 1942, which is Tom Riddle's 6th year. Also, Hermione's birthday is October 31st, lol. Just a head's up so you weren't confused about the timeline.
It's a dream! Hermione thought desperately. I can see the room even though my eyes are still closed. That isn't physically possible. I'm dreaming. The heavy, icy presence of the pendant seemed to sing against her skin. I have to be dreaming.
Voldemort stepped silently into the comparative brightness of city lights glittering through the glass. The rain slammed against the window, uproariously loud beside the thick silence within the room. Slow, fluid movements made his steps completely quiet against the carpet as his shadow fell across her sleeping form. In spite of the darkness he cast across her, the closer he got, the more sharply she could see him, as though proximity made him more real. She wanted to squirm out of her skin and run away.
Calm down! she ordered herself harshly, fighting terror. It's just my imagination! Just a nightmare! My mind working through my doubts from earlier! Maybe if I just let it play out, I will wake up…
Maybe if she kept repeating it, she would start to believe it. Logic told her that she must be correct, but logic wasn't watching a dead fascist maniac pacing ever closer through the shadows, and her fear did not respond well to it. The sight of him turning into ashes and floating away at the battle at Hogwarts flushed through her memory as he drew nearer and nearer. It's ok Hermione! You're dreaming!
Could he be a ghost? She wondered. He's not see-through...Whatever he was, Hermione could not take her eyes off of him. Literally, she had no choice but to watch, helpless, defenseless, as he closed in on her.
He seemed to be having the same problem with her, his piercing blue eyes locked on her with magnetic focus. He stopped directly beside her, so close enough to touch, and stared down at her, his face wary and unreadable. When he didn't immediately do anything further, Hermione began to wonder through the tempest of her shock and confusion what he could possibly be doing here. Even in her dreams, he could not be up to any good.
His eyes traced over her face and down to rest on her chest… no, on the hollow of her neck. Where the pendant lay.
His expression didn't change, exactly, but something in his eyes seemed to quietly break as he examined it, then to harden. She tried to hold her breath as he slowly lowered himself to crouch down beside the bed, but her air sighed in and out as deeply and evenly as ever. Her heart, however, lurched painfully in her chest, galloping as though it could carry her away from danger if it could beat fast enough. She didn't understand how she could be panicking this badly and still be so deeply asleep.
Especially when she saw his hand reaching for her.
It's a dream! It's not real! Tom Riddle is dead! It's just a dream! It's just a dream! It's just… It's… don't… Don't touch me!
He stopped. His hand was an inch from her skin, his fingers hovering over her throat. He slowly drew in a deep breath, his eyes narrowing defiantly. Then she felt his fingers brush along her collar bone. Charged with adrenaline as she was, she felt that delicate caress throughout her entire body, like she was water, and the tentative glide of his fingers had created ripples that spread out over every part of her.
Lightening split the night again. But this time, it was inside. There was a crackling, snapping noise, and a flash of purple lit the room. Tom Riddle drew his hand back with a hiss, curling his fingers reflexively into a fist. His eyes narrowed dangerously, a look of frustration so potent that it bordered on outrage darkening his pale features, and she heard him huff out an angry breath. Slowly, he lowered his hand to rest on the bed at her side, carefully not touching her.
"Oh, Hermione…" The sound of his voice, so close and real in the quiet, caused a visceral reaction, twisting her stomach in knots and sending little thrills of fear along her spine to skip between the beats of her heart. He knew her name? "What have you done?"
What the hell did that mean? She was wondering what kind of answer she would give, if only she could wake up, when she realized, with the weight and relief of an epiphany, that he didn't expect one. His voice held an introspective quality; his tone was thoughtful. He was talking to her, but in a way that one might speak to a person in a coma or in a grave - which is where he should be - you weren't really talking to them, you were talking to yourself.
He doesn't know I'm awake… she realized.
I'm not awake, she insisted to herself on the heels of that thought. Tom Riddle is dead, and this can only be a dream…
His brow troubled and furrowed with frustration.
"Always so unpredictable, always changing the rules, always causing me trouble…" he sighed and a sad, reluctant smile curled one corner of his mouth. "Wonderful, Hermione. Perfect. I wouldn't have you any other way." Slowly, the smile faded. "But now what will I do?" he murmured, shaking his head, a dark, haunted, almost frightened light flickering in his eyes for an instant. "What will you make me do next?"
He fell quiet, and there he remained, his eyes fastened unwaveringly on her sleeping face, though they occasionally darted back and forth, as though he were thinking hard and only half seeing her. His jaw clenched intermittently, as though he were swinging between seething rage and quiet desperation. He did not try to touch her again. Hermione began losing all sense of time, wishing her head had turned far enough to put her in view of the clock on the nightstand, but this interval of stillness was comparatively short. Tom seemed to reach some kind of decision because his eyes slid closed and Hermione read something like bitter resignation in his features as his head bowed slightly as though under a great weight.
"There's so much I need to say to you… so much that has to remain unsaid… and so little chance you could ever understand. But since this is the last time I can visit you like this..." His eyes snapped open again and practically danced with a kind of dark amusement that made Hermione want to curl into a ball and hide under her covers. "Where should I begin?"
He reached for her again, this time to stroke a few strands of hair back from her face. Her skin tingled as more arcs of purple lightning lanced through her field of vision. Up from her body, she realized with a start, to strike at the oncoming digits. She watched him wince in pain as he jerked his hand back once more.
Something was keeping him from touching her.
"Wear it for protection. Wear it when you sleep."
The pendant.
That's insane… even inside her head, it sounded like denial. So, is the pendant protecting me or paralyzing me? She pondered. Or both?
"The first time I saw you," Tom Riddle said quietly, interrupting her rationalization, "was the day I got on the train for Hogwarts my first year. You wouldn't know it, but I loved your unruly brown hair even though I made fun of it."
What? On the train? Your first year? What?!
"lt was as new for you as it was for me, but instead of becoming fast friends, we became rather competitive. That was mostly my fault, I'll admit. But thus began our long history together as adversaries, and even fell into our natural place as friends. We never truly hated each other and we were Hogwart's top students who were perfectionists. I gave you good reason to hate me though," Tom chuckled, his eyes crinkling in mirth as he remembered something funny from his past. Hermione stared at him. Was this the same man that she saw at the Hogwarts battle? Perhaps it's a Voldemort imposter?
"You were born to Daphnee and Samuel Fangledire. Both purebloods. I know because I had Christmas with your family in 5th year. I remember feeling so jealous. Why couldn't I have had a family like that, I wondered to myself." He sighed with an air of martyred disgust, shaking his head. "All the world to ponder from the seat of supreme power, and pathetic as it is, where did I turn my gaze first? And what should I discover, Hermione, but you?"
He cocked his head, his eyes softening.
"Have you any idea how fascinating you are to watch, Hermione?" He hummed thoughtfully to himself, as though contemplating his own words. "Perhaps it is because we are two souls who are curious by nature, but most wizards, in general, are not very curious. Their magic makes them lazy, almost. And most muggles are not clever in the slightest," he snorted lightly. "Nor elves, nor giants. Yet you… you are both. You are the only person on earth…the only being I have ever met anywhere, if I am honest… with the curiosity and cleverness to rival my own. You captivated me. Even more rapidly than you ensnared your Weasely friend."
What in the world is he talking about? Hermione's mind reeled. He was mad. She didn't know quite what she'd been expecting, but this definitely wasn't it. He couldn't possibly be saying what she thought he was saying.
"It was almost insurmountably difficult for me," he went on conversationally, "to reconcile my growing regard for you. I am very independent and have never felt the need for anybody. Indeed, in the beginning, I believed that I was merely using you as a means to an end and simply pretended to be your friend. But the more I knew you, the more I grew to respect you. Such passion and courage, so fierce and ambitious, so unpredictable, yet so loyal. So driven, so determined to prove yourself, yet at the same time soft, sweet, vulnerable… the force of your will matched only by the scope of your imagination and the sweet spice of your nature, all hidden away in such a fragile, ephemeral form… I… I couldn't admit it then, could barely even understand or recognize it with so many other worries and sorrows clouding my mind from my life in the orphanage. Perhaps if I had been less heartsick, less vulnerable, perhaps… but such a woman as you…" He shook his head again, casting his eyes down. "No, there was no escaping your pull. To lay eyes on you was to be lost."
Okay… maybe he is saying what I think he's saying… Despite her continued fear and unease, Hermione wanted to blush and fidget. Fortunately or unfortunately, she was still asleep and watching him through her eyelids, so she couldn't. Never in her wildest dreams… No, only in my wildest dreams; this is just further proof that his is all happening in my head, she insisted to herself. Lord Voldemort confessing his love has to be the final straw. None of this can possibly have any basis in reality.
The trouble was, it all felt very, very real.
His eyes flicked back up at her face, intent.
"It was the beginning of our 6th year in Hogwarts when you died, disappearing from my life." He whispered, voice full of pain as he blankly stared at some space above her. "It was Albus Dumbledore's fault." He seethed, "A Transfiguration project gone wrong. He created a portal of sorts in class." Tom shook his head and scoffed in wonder, "Yes, he created it out of a cauldron. Your cauldron, specifically. You were making a potion we had found in the restricted section and you tried it without consulting me." His eyes held an accusatory glare in them towards me now, "His spell, mixed with your potion, created a bridge of sorts, to another realm. It began to destroy the room and Dumbledore closed it...but not without you getting sucked in first. I called out to him that if he destroyed the bridge, we would never see you again. I truly believed that that, if nothing else, would give him pause, give me… I don't know, a moment, time enough to do something, to grab you...to stop him from destroying all of my carefully laid plans..." he shook his head, his face and voice expressive and his eyes distant as he lost himself in his tale. "But he ignored my words. I was astonished and disgusted. He willingly sacrificed you to save a classroom of idiots. You, Hermione… a creature such as you would grant him your loyalty, and he traded it away for a hand-full of muggles."
His lip curled as he spat the words, as though they offended him. Hermione felt incredulous. What a story! Making a restricted potion certainly sounds like something I would do... No. This is all so ludicrous. It's just a dream. But part of her was reeling.
She felt a little twist of… something… behind her breast bone. Something like… vindication? She winced internally. She never would have wanted Dumbledore to trade innocent lives for her. And from the sound of it, it was partly her fault. But it didn't change the fact that a small, selfish part of her felt hurt by the idea, almost betrayed that the Dumbledore she knew and loved would've allowed something so horrible to happen to her. And to have those feelings defended by Riddle, twisted and unacceptable as they were… Am I really that pathetic? She wondered again if she really was heartless. It was obviously her fault if Tom had paid attention to his own story. She shouldn't have been making a potion from a book from the restricted section. Consequences.
Stop it! Hermione growled to herself This isn't real! You didn't do any of those things! You didn't die, idiot.
"He always was a fool," Tom went on, cutting short her self-recrimination, "But that day his rashness educated me. For in that moment, watching him cast you aside without a moment's hesitation, I thought to myself…" he leaned closer, his voice dropping to a low pitched whisper that seemed to slither along every nerve in her body, "…if she were mine, there is nothing I would not sacrifice for her. Nothing I would not endure. Nothing I would not destroy. For her, I would watch worlds burn."
Hermione's stomach twisted with foreboding. A peal of thunder rattled the windows.
Tom Riddle leaned back, his eyes seeming to smolder in the darkness before he blinked and appeared to mentally shake himself, the intensity of a moment before falling jarringly aside as he glanced away from her to examine the landscape painting that hung on the wall across the bed.
"But you were well hidden…" he sighed, nodding his head slowly as though he were reliving and reaffirming a past decision that he regretted but could not have avoided,"And so I began to study the darkest of magic, and summoned Death to me in order to bargain for your life. He said he would restore your life for a price."
"And so, in order to reach through the veil… to reach you…" silence hung in the air between them like the Sword of Damocles, before he severed its thread with a note of finality, "…I sold myself. Body, mind and soul to the being known as Death who had me sever myself into 7 different pieces." He smirked out at the stormy night. "He too was a severed creature. And he promised me all my heart's desire if I returned the Deathly Hallows he had given to the Peverell Brothers to make him whole again. But first I had to make 7 horacruxes." His voice was somber, quiet, and a little bit...pained?
He paused, and his eyes drifted back down to hers, tracing her features intently, familiarly, as though he'd done so countless times before. Had he? Hermione's foreboding deepened. He said this was the last time he would visit me… How many times before had he stood over her like this, while she was unaware of it?
He continued, his tone so matter-of-fact and casually bored that he might have been commenting on the weather rather than airing all of the deepest secrets of his soul. "And so I killed Myrtle Warren and created the diary you had given me as my first Horacrux."
Hermione's mouth would have dropped open in shock if she had control of it. I gave him the diary?! But...But it's just a dream… she comforted herself unconvincingly …isn't it?
"I had created all 7 of my Horcruxes but you still had not appeared. The prophecy about Harry Potter defeating me came, and I imagined that it had something to do with why you had not come back to life. So, I went to kill the child and then fell from power," he continued, his tone so matter-of-fact and casually bored that he might have been commenting on the weather rather than airing all of the deepest secrets of his soul. "The boy, Harry, destroyed me. Or rather, his mother's blood sacrifice had. A detail I unfortunately overlooked. And so, my spirit fell into the void."
"When I dropped into the abyss, I landed in an unfamiliar place far outside the realms of this world and was deeply grateful that the vortex had not claimed me. The horacruxes ensured that I would not die. And yet," an edge of bitterness crept into his words, "I had nothing left. No home, no name. I was utterly alone in ways I had never prepared myself to face. I wandered the dark places between the stars, bereft of all hope." He shivered in a way Hermione envied. "The universe is… unkind, Hermione. It finds creative ways to make you suffer. The lower you sink, the uglier and more brutal it becomes. I never want you to learn that for yourself, so trust me when I tell you: even when you believe you have experienced the deepest depravities imaginable, you can still discover new ways to feel pain."
He swallowed hard and looked away again, as though suddenly unable to meet her non-gaze, his eyes wide and fixed, full of some horrific memory. He was quiet for what felt like a very long time before they refocused on her with a haunted look still clouding them. But they grew less glassy and frightened the longer he looked down at her.
"In my darkest hours…" he said, his voice slightly hoarse, "I… thought of you." The beginnings of a smile that Hermione might almost call gentle softened his features. "The one person that I had ever cared about; that I had ever called 'friend'. I recalled your sharp eyes and your shining spirit, your keen intellect, the sassy snap of your voice, the bright song of your laughter... You were my last memory of light and goodness in a world made of shadows and agony." He closed his eyes, momentarily overcome by some bittersweet emotion. "It was you, Hermione. I need you to know that."
His eyes fluttered open again, and though hers were still closed, he was looking right at her, as though he could see through her eyelids to stare into her eyes, and from there, right down into her soul. Even if she had command of her body, the raw intensity of his gaze would have pinned her inescapably in place.
"While all else in the universe conspired to nurture my wrath and secure my vengeance," he pressed on, his voice dropping to an impassioned murmur, "you became the shape and figure of all my hope. You were the lamp that led me safe and straight across the treacherous darkness to my destiny. And the rain… you were the rain that washed me clean each time I dirtied my hands in order to survive." He shook his head and glanced away. "I didn't mean to love you. But how could I not?"
Hermione's world spun with the sheer ardor in his voice, and the magnitude of what he was expressing. She didn't know what to think – this was so surreal it bordered on absurd – so she tried very hard not to think anything at all. Let it play out… I'll wake up. God, I hope I'll wake up…
"Even so, it wasn't until I was trapped in the blackest pits of desolation, broken, defeated, stripped bare of everything I had always known or been, robbed of any fleeting hope of going back..." He forced out a breath between clenched teeth as his fingers fisted in the sheets beside her, as though caught in some memory so terrible that it undid his control of his own limbs. He made a visible effort to relax his bunched muscles before turning his eyes back towards her, as though he didn't want to associate those dark emotions with the sight of her. He quickly changed direction and Hermione was left wondering what he would have said.
"But then Death played a nasty trick on me. You came back through the portal, there in Hogwarts...as a baby." He seethed, angry, "Dumbledore realized what had happened somehow and he plotted on how to use you against me. He raised you up to help the Potter boy defeat me. He gave you to a muggle couple he personally knew and placed powerful wards so I couldn't find you."
This was getting more and more incredulous as she listened to this crazy story. It didn't make any sense. She had so many questions! And she felt unspeakably nervous that he knew her parents were muggles.
He reached for her again, and Hermione tried ineffectually to recoil. He paused before he could touch her skin, his hand drawing back at the last instant as though he had forgotten himself, and the pendant's bite. He wavered there for an instant, indecisive, before his fingers tightened into a fist again, this time from frustration. His voice gained a hard, angry edge.
"I had no idea you were even alive," he growled through clenched teeth. "Death had gotten the upper hand of me. Your life was restored without me even knowing. It was only when I saw you at the Ministry of Magic the day that boy came to get the prophecy..." He shook his head, resigned and bitter, and changed the direction of his words yet again, "Dumbledore had given you up. And he gave me up as well, even before he learned that I was…" cut that thought off with a decisive shake of his head. Hermione was feeling mental whiplash from the rate that he was changing the subject and didnt stay on topic. It was obviously a very difficult subject for him, "He had turned his back on both of us, Hermione. He had given up every right to expect loyalty."
He reached out for her again, then recoiled again. With a low, angry noise from the back of his throat, he sprang to his feet and paced away from her, his frame wound tight with aggravated energy, as though he could not bear to be so near her without touching her any longer. He stepped towards the window, and Hermione could just barely see his reflection in the glass as he stared out at the rain.
"I learned you had been raised by some muggle family, as abandoned as I by Dumbledore's foolish choices. And I knew that if only I could find a way to reach you, that I could…" the words seemed to stick in his throat and he had to try again to get them out. When they finally came, they were almost sheepish and self-deprecating, tinged with a kind of raw, hopeless longing. "I was certain… that I could find a way to make you love me, if not remember me."
Hermione didn't know if she wanted to laugh or cry. His expression in the reflection of the window was so raggedly vulnerable that she was suddenly intensely grateful that she was unable to react. She had absolutely no idea what she would have done in the face of this kind of confession. She could still barely believe what she was listening to. And the sense of foreboding that lingered in her gut, coupled with the way his broken expression began to darken and harden, warned her that there was worse to come.
His expression turned bitterly mocking.
"To this day, the wizarding world believe I came to conquer the earth, in order to gain immortality, or to kill the Potter boy, or even to make myself king of the ants. And oh, I admit I did enjoy the show." He huffed out a derisive little laugh, his voice dripping with disdain. "But what use had I for the unicorn's blood? The sorcerer's stone? The cloak, or the Eldar wand? Death had already given me immortality...in addition to EIGHT horacruxes to carry out his purposes? It was almost too easy, watching all of them dance on my strings. But all of that was merely means to an end, Hermione... This night, you and I alone will know the truth."
Hermione didn't want to hear his truth.
"All of it…
No…
"… all of it, Hermione…"
Please…
"…all the suffering and destruction, all the fire and screaming and the blood… all of the killing… "
Don't say it…
"…all of it was for you."
In her mind's eye, Hermione saw the burnt out shells of the buildings, the stone fragments of Hogwarts, the jagged London skyline, the craters in the streets – the little make-shift memorials of pictures and flowers that littered the streets, marking the spots where loved ones had died…
Harry's parents...Dumbledore...Dobby...Cedric...Hedwig...Fred...Professor Snape...So many faces, wizards AND muggles. So many gone.
No! The fear soaking her body ignited into a sudden updraft of fiery anger, and in an instant, she wanted to leap up out of the bed, rage at him, to claw at him, to kick and scream, to make him bleed if she could. To hell with that! You made your own goddamn choices! It had nothing to do with me! Nothing! I won't share your guilt! I won't…
She heard him draw in a slow breath, watched the set of his shoulders and the bend of his neck relax, as though speaking the words had dropped an enormous weight from his shoulders. Her heart leaped as he spun around and descended to kneel beside her again. This time, though, he moved even closer, and the mattress shifted as he rested his arms beside her and brought his chin down to rest on the backs of his hand. She couldn't see his face anymore, just the outline of his dark hair in her periphery, but she could feel him beside her, his nearness, his face was right next to hers, the slow warm fan of his breath on her cheek, stirring her hair. Wait! Wasn't he bald before?
She longed for a moment of control, to at least be able to track him with her eyes, to watch the change in his expressions, to do anything but be completely at his capricious mercy. He never touched her, but she could feel his heat and nearness, and the sweep of his eyes raked her more penetratingly than any physical touch. She wondered if he could hear the blood thundering through her veins in mimic of the storm outside.
"I wonder," Tom said thoughtfully, "if Harry Potter ever told you what the Horacrux does to those it touches." He spoke softly, gently, barely above a whisper, but his lips were right next to her ear, and she could feel the vibration of his voice dancing along the fine hairs on her skin and invading her mind. "Especially since he unwittingly became my 8th. It doesn't change you, you know. The Horacrux reveals you. It tears down every wall, every inhibition, every doubt until the ugly, unbalanced core of you stands naked at the mercy of whoever has the knowledge to lay hands on it."
His voice grew harsher by the moment as he spoke of it, the crest of his emotions beginning to build as he cast demons from his memory into her imagination. So, while they had been in the woods with Salazar Slytherin's locket; it hadn't changed Ron while he was wearing it? It had only revealed his insecurities? What about Professor Umbridge? It had only shown what a horrible person she already was underneath it all? Maybe if she could have trembled or recoiled, done something, anything, in response to the sensation his words and proximity elicited, she could have dispelled the terrible energy coursing through her body, searing her emotions and scattering her thoughts. But she remained helpless, a captive audience in every sense.
"Once I had surrendered myself, it seeped into the very fabric of my being," he murmured; it sounded to Hermione like his teeth were clenched behind his lips. "Rotting away every lie I had built to shield myself from my true nature. No one should ever have to face themselves the way the Horacrux forced me to do. I didn't understand that until it was far too late. I had already let it pry open my mind and rip away every wall, every shelter, every pretty lie I had ever built to deny my deepest, most primal desires. Death found me, deep inside myself, and he showed me what I really am."
Hermione felt sick. Don't tell me, she begged silently. I don't want to hear this.
I don't want to be the cause of this.
"Do you know what I am, Hermione?" His voice was ragged, begging, angry now, and hurt in ways she couldn't comprehend. "I am chaos. I am destruction. I am fear. I am killing frost and all-consuming fire. That is me, and that is the weapon that I placed in the bony claws of Death, as payment for passage across the universe to gain immortality. That is what I unleashed on your little world, what I breathed into your finest minds, what I sowed amongst your greatest heroes." At last, perhaps because he was close enough that she could feel his breath wash over her skin, she was able to tremble slightly at the terrible truths he unfolded. "Nothing more or less than the sum of all that I am, gilt in tongues of flame and offered up as a gift to consecrate my devotion. To you."
Once again he sounded bitter, but this time towards her. Almost… betrayed. That's not fair, Hermione thought furiously. How was I supposed to know? What was I supposed to do about it even if I did? She mentally shook herself, trying to pull away from the hypnotic undertow of his voice. I will not submit to these mind games! I am not the cause of this! I refuse to be your scapegoat!
What was he really saying though? That he had let the Horacrux make him some kind of mentally unstable marionette for Death's will? Even if it was true, it didn't absolve him. She tried to hold on to that – what he'd done was cruel, selfish, callous, murderous, and unequivocally wrong! But her complicated, gray-blurred musings on morality from earlier were still fresh in her mind and their insidious whisper mixed with his, the water colors of right and wrong running together in a confused wash of hues. He had saved her from Bellatrix's torture...who suspiciously hadn't been at the battle of Hogwarts.
If even half of what he's saying is true, was it really a choice? That swirling sliver of her brain wondered rebelliously. To continue to suffer through what sounds like a living hell, or sell your soul to Death for a chance to escape and achieve all your heart's desires? Could she honestly say she'd choose differently? Hermione didn't know. But he couldn't lay the blame for it at her feet! He let himself be controlled, and that's all there is to it. If only that were all there was to it… Maybe he wants to vent his feelings and feel like he's been absolved. That's what confessions like this are for. But does he regret what he did? Would he change it if he could? Would he do it again if he thought he could get what he wanted?
How much did any of that matter?
It matters to me… She didn't understand why, but she realized it was true.
Tom rambled on, ignorant of her internal struggle. The anger in his voice had cooled again. Hermione realized that his moods seemed to come in waves, building, cresting and spilling over onto her, and that they were growing ever more volatile with each surge. Her throat wanted to close with fear as she wondered if she would survive the deluge unscathed, or drown in it.
"Once inside, Death became my master and owned me almost completely. All but my knowledge of you. That alone I was able to keep from him." She thought she could hear a small smile in his voice. "Of that, at least, I can be truly proud. I buried you deep as I could behind the layers of my rage and revenge. And he never found you inside me."
He sighed gustily, rubbing a hand over his forehead as though suddenly weary; Hermione hummed involuntarily in her sleep, and her face turned towards his, nuzzling into the pillow to banish the tickle of his breath against her skin. His face came into view again as he cocked his head, seemingly fascinated by her unconscious movements. He swallowed hard, and Hermione thought he might try to touch her again. Instead, he spun around and lowered himself to sit on the floor beside the bed, so that all that was visible was the dark fall of his hair and the wide frame of his shoulders.
"Much as it shames me, however, I must confess, my want of you was touched by the whispers of the Horacrux itself. I didn't want what I felt for you to be corrupted by the ugliness of what I had to do to reach you, but there was no part of me that hideous corrupting influence did not singe. It… lured my love for you into my other ambitions. Of all I did, my greatest disgrace is that I allowed it to use you against me, to make you the prize for every villainy, and the balm for every injury. Even in the shadow of the horrors I committed, the Horacruxes made it all seem perfectly clear: I could become as blood soaked and monstrous as need be, because when I at last held you in my arms, it would balance every sacrifice. Every evil." He shook his head, cringing slightly, as though embarrassed. "Can you imagine my secret heart, Hermione? That dreamed of you even as I lay waste to your muggle land? In the grip of the dark magic, I made such audacious plans…" His shoulders sagged slightly, and his head bowed.
Outside, the rain battered the window with such ferocity, Hermione wondered distantly if it had turned to hail. Emhagalaz, she thought, how appropriate. She had an irrational urge to laugh, mostly because it was better than the urge to cry when there was nothing she could do to satisfy it.
"My dreams grew darker as the stain of blood on my hands deepened. While I waited, waiting impatiently for my traps to spring, all I thought of was you. Of the day I would be enthroned as the god of the wizarding and muggle world, and have you brought before me; of gazing down into your wide, frightened, fascinated eyes and knowing that you saw me as I truly was; of displaying my trophies to you – the Sorcerer's Stone, the Invisible Cloak, the Elder Wand... I dreamed of raising you up by my side, of laying your entire world at your feet, of giving you everything you could ever have wanted, and everything you never knew you wanted."
His tone changed, and she could practically feel the wicked smile that curved his mouth.
"And I dreamed about the endless, arduous challenge of winning your favor and adoration… about watching you struggle wildly against me, in mind and in body, and against your own desires… about making you beg, making you cry, making you scream for me… about making you smile and laugh, only for me… about your bright nature slowly succumbing to my darker one, consumed in it as I tempted you ever further into my web, until your lost, entangled light shone only for me… until your magnificent mind aligned with mine, and your heart opened up to absolve me of all my ugliness… until your body opened willingly to embrace me… Oh, Hermione, I could blush to describe what I wanted to do to you to addict you to my touch… what I still would do to you, if only…"
He was breathing too fast, as though his heart raced to describe his fantasies out loud. Hermione was equal amounts horrified and equal amounts curious. She couldn't help it. She listened carefully, not wanting to know... but also wanting to know. His shoulders flexed, and he leaned his head back carelessly. A few strands of hair brushed her elbow and little purple sparks skittered along them like static electricity. His frame stiffened, and his breathing hitched, then slowed. The pain seemed to remind him that all these grand plans of his had been in vain. His head dipped again, pulling away.
"I vowed to burn worlds for you Hermione." Hermione felt twin tears leak from the corners of her sleeping eyes. "And in the Horacruxes insidious grips, that is exactly what I did."
The wind howled outside. Thunder crashed and the windows rattled with the force of it. Hermone had a wild, desperate thought that if she could just send a patronous...then Ron would know she needed him, and rescue her from these unwanted revelations, hold her close, quiet her mind, make her stop thinking, make everything simple again… but neither the wind nor the rain penetrated the seals of glass and concrete. And in spite of everything – or maybe because of it – she had long since given up counting on Ron or even Harry to come for her. There was nothing to stand between Hermione and Voldemort.
Nothing but the pendant lying on her chest.
Suddenly – so suddenly that it made her wish she could scream - he moved to turn, to look at her again, darting around like a striking snake to face her… No! I can't look at his face! I don't want to see what he's feeling! Please -!
There was a thunderous crash, directly over the building. Lightening screamed down from the clouds. An instant before she could glimpse the expression he wore, the lights outside the window went dark. The shadows of the hotel room rose over her sight like a flood of black ink, swallowing everything into the shade of night.
A power outage, her higher thoughts supplied after a moment, swimming up through the fog of panic and sorrow he'd stirred inside her head.
The darkness was absolute. So was the silence.
For a long time, everything was still. Beyond the beat of the storm, silence reigned, and all she could hear was the pounding in her ears.
Maybe he was gone.
Please let it be over….
Maybe he had never really been there.
If it's a nightmare, just let me wake up.
Maybe she was finally awake. She didn't dare test it by trying to move. To try risked the possibility of failure.
She had a wild thought of Ebenezer Scrooge begging the Ghost of Christmas-Yet-to-Come for a second chance. Not caring how ridiculous it was, she bargained silently with the universe that she would do her best from now on, no matter how asinine the idea was. She'd even agree to work at the Ministry of Magic. Heck! She'd become the freaking Minister of Magic! Only please...
Let him go rest in peace now, or whatever… let me rest in peace…
Her whole body buzzed with terror of the unknown.
The room was cold and quiet. Her heart began to calm.
Yes, of course. Whatever it had been, surely it was over, she told herself…
Lightening had hit the generators, causing the crash that had wakened her, she reasoned… it had just been an incredibly vivid dream.
Silly to lie here in the dark when she was so keyed up. She should get up and go grab her wand out of her bag. Maybe get dressed, go downstairs, make sure everything was alright.
It's over now… of course it is over now… it has to be over now...
More tears leaked from the corners of her eyes. It didn't matter how hard she wished or rationalized. She could feel it:
He was still there, beside her.
"Now look at me…"
Hermione wanted to sob at the sound of his deadpan, hopeless voice blooming out of the blackness.
"…I, who should have been your Lord and your god, reduced to stealing into your bedchamber in the night like some sneak thief…"
It can't be real, it just can't…
"…unable to look into your eyes, or hear your voice, never to talk with you, laugh with you, hold you… never to share in anything you give that red-headed Weasly child so undeservedly…"
The real Voldemort would never say…
"… casting sleeping spells on you so that I can kneel before you like a slave on this field of my defeat and count your precious, numbered breaths like the pathetic, lovesick fool I've become…"
Sleeping spells? No wonder I've been sleeping so soundly this week. Please don't be real….
"…and like a fool, I thought it would be enough. At least until I could… but no, I have been truly blind. This little act of defiance, this Fae magic you have procured, has changed everything. It isn't often I am bested at my own game. But you have changed all the rules, Hermione. Enough is not the same it was before. For good or ill, you've made me see what should have been obvious by now: with you, enough could never be enough."
Fae magic from the pendant? Please be a dream… I don't know what I'm going to do if this is…
"And yet now I am denied even the ability to touch you without…"
Suddenly purple light flashed through the black abyss of the night as she felt his fingers slide into her hair, cradling her face. Amethyst lightning arced through the inky darkness, and in the acid purple haze of the magic, she could see the outline of his face, wild with anger and contorted with pain. His fingers spasmed, and there was a low noise in the back of his throat, but he held on.
He held on… with a real touch. A real hand, cradling her face, tightening with pain…
Not a dream! Real!
"I can't help it," he gasped. "I can't help what I have to do now, Hermione. I believed I had lost everything for a third time when Potter defeated me by turning the Elder wand against me. And cloistered in the dungeon of my own making, as the Horacrux's grip on me abated I was forced to relive every ugly, demeaning, blood-soaked act I had committed through unclouded eyes, believing it had all been for nothing. But now… now that I am free, in every sense… now that I have another chance… I have to at least try, Hermione. I have to believe there's a chance, because we both know there's no going back…"
He shook his head, closing his eyes as though mired in humiliation and frustration.
Then he smirked dangerously and opened them, leaning close over her, the arcing currents of magic striking out at him like writhing serpents.
"Just as we both know that my sleeping spell failed long ago, and you can hear every word I've said..."
Panic spiked through her so fiercely that it caused something clear and fragile that Hermione hadn't previously realized was there to shatter inside her mind.
With a shuddering gasp, at long last, her dark brown eyes flew open. She was wide awake, blinking frantically.
And face to face with Tom Riddle in the purple glow of the rune's protective magic.
"Tom…" she breathed, both relieved and terrified. She shivered as she had been waiting so long to do, frightened by how easily his name came to her lips, confused and strangely, intensely aware of him. Her skin felt alive with electricity. Yet somehow her overriding emotion was still surprise. "You're here… you're alive… how…" She trailed off as his expression shifted.
In spite of the pain that was obviously coursing through him, she watched his eyes drop closed and his lips part in a jagged sigh, as though the sound of his name on her tongue brought him physical pleasure. His fingers suddenly tightened her hair, and she whimpered, afraid, as it wrenched her head back at a sharp angle, holding her immobile. He lowered his face against the exposed arch of her throat. Her mouth flew open in a gasp of shock as he ran his lips along the line of her neck, nipping at her pulse.
"Do you realize it's been half a century since you've last spoken my name to me?" he breathed against her skin, his voice tight with a mix of emotion and the intensity of the pain the pendant was pouring into him. Even so, he refused to release her. "You're playing with fire, temptress. Of all the nights I have come to visit you… of all the lies I dared to dream… all the madness of my vivid imagination… there was one desire above all that I never gave in to. Because there is no point in taking what you aren't aware I have stolen." He raised his head to face her, and his hand unclenched from her hair and slid down to replace his lips, wrapping loosely around her throat, holding her head gently but inescapably in place as his intense blue eyes stared down into her wide, frightened brown ones with a look of agonized adoration that she did not know how to answer. "But you can see me now. You can feel me. I won't be sorry. Your lips have betrayed your virtue. And so must I."
He kissed her.
Her eyes widened even as his slid closed. His mouth was surprisingly warm, his lips soft and firm. He smelled like spice and leather and a man, and as he tilted his head to deepen the kiss, his hair fell across her cheek, and she thought she caught a hint of magic… Her body sparked, and her blood, seeded with adrenaline and anxious energy, caught tingled and blazed in reaction to his ardor. It was a purely physical response, a product of tightly wound tension, merely a chemical reaction to a stimulus… but it was powerful. Powerful enough to drive a small, wanting noise from the back of her throat. The sound of it seemed to drive the breath out of him in a pained sigh and he pressed closer, his lips claiming hers with a kind of determined and fatalistic desperation – a first kiss that was also the last. Magic leapt between them, sizzling, burning, coiling around them like purple serpents, like thorny vines, like squeezing tentacles, dazzling her while it burned and stung him, and still his lips moved over hers, firm and defiant, teasing and insistent, refusing with a will of iron to give ground until he had taken what he would have, and had told her without words all he could about the yearning that burned in him more unbearably than any magic ever could…
With a groan of pain, he finally pulled away, releasing her, and the world plunged into blackness again as the purple firestorm abated. For a long moment the only sound was the thunder of the rain on the window and his tortured, ragged breaths as he recovered from the agony-inducing magic that stood sentinel between them. Hermione discovered that she was both breathless and boneless, and this time it wasn't any kind of magic or trick of the nervous system holding her down. She should be scrambling out of the bed, grabbing her wand, covering herself with a robe, trying to run for the door, maybe searching for a blunt object for good measure… something, anything. Instead, overwhelmed, she lay there, breathing nearly as hard as he, trying to process what was happening and failing utterly.
I'm missing something. That thought was clear amidst the confusion. After… after that… she was admittedly having an extremely difficult time doubting his sincerity. But something… something in all this didn't add up. If only she could think between the threads of electricity that kept zinging relentlessly along her nerves, scattering little supernovas under her skin and detonating them behind her eyes. It was incredibly distracting. She turned her eyes in his general direction, and despite the lack of light between them, she was sure she could feel him looking back. His breath hitched softly, the sound amplified by the deprivation of sight.
"You destroy me, Hermione," he breathed, his voice breaking almost imperceptibly. It occurred to her to wonder if there were tears in his eyes. She felt him shift beside her, and imagined he was looking out the window at the black winds of the rainstorm beyond. "When I freeze inside, you melt me. When I burn, you wash over me and quench the flames. You bring peace to my chaos, and when I would seek peace, you make me restless… You are the rain to my rage. Do you understand yet? Have I explained myself plainly enough? You are my rain… and I can't…"
"Tom I…" This had to stop. Whatever it was that was bugging her, her first priority had to be to put a stop to these declarations so that she could reassemble the scattered fragments of her whirling mind and piece this puzzle together. "I don't… I can't… you must know that I can't…"
"No!"
Suddenly, his hand was at her throat again, but this time it wasn't gentle. The purple lightning erupted and she managed to suck in a panicked breath before the strength of his hand forced her airway closed. Unbidden, the old woman's wide, haunted eyes flashed through her mind, and her words echoed in her ears: "He is dangerous!"
"Do not say it! You don't understand!" In the crackling purple light of the magic, he looked almost as desperate as she suddenly felt as she reached up to scrabble ineffectually at his iron grip. The wave of his volatile emotions had crested again… and this time, she was going to drown in it. "You don't understand," he repeated. "But you have to try! And so do I." He stared down at her, his expression stricken as he watched her face begin to turn purple. "Gods, Hermione, you make me want… impossible things. You make me hope for things I shouldn't even dare to dream. You make me want to rip reality apart to make them real." His eyes narrowed, and his tone lowered warningly. "And you should not doubt that I will. If I have to."
More tears leaked from the corners of her eyes as she dug her fingernails into his skin to absolutely no effect. Her lungs felt like they were on fire.
"It truly is a kind of madness," Voldemort snarled, somehow managing to accuse her with his tone, even as he choked the life out of her. Her fingers, useless as fronds of kelp waving listlessly against his rock hard grip under an ocean of pain and panic, were beginning to go numb. "Harry Potter and Ron Weasley divide their devotion and throw you scraps. And that Weasley boy would have all of you; while I have given all of myself, for nothing but a stolen kiss, and a fool's hope that you could be the one to…." He shook his head, biting off the end of the sentence; his expression was something wild and alien with a poisonous brew of desire and shame. "No… no, not yet. Some few secrets I will keep for myself, despite all you have driven me to reveal tonight… just in case you really are naïve enough to surrender your whole heart to him." He leaned in closer. "But no, not your whole heart either. Never that… the boy might have every other part of you…" the twist of his lips became mocking and conspiratory, "but for a short while, Hermione, you and I burned this world together. We two alone in all the realms share this guilt. And the part of you that is broken by that truth will always belong to me."
"T…To…mm… n-no…st… sto… " The black and purple began to swirl together, her vision beginning to darken as her brain begged for oxygen that her body couldn't give it.
"Shhh…" he hushed, bringing his other hand up, to stroke her cheek, no longer even visibly reacting to the pain of the magic as it zapped and singed his flesh. Spots were beginning to obscure her vision. She felt him brush his forehead against hers, felt him running his nose along the length of hers in a gesture she might have found uncomfortably intimate if she had enough oxygen left to consider it. "Don't be afraid," he whispered against her cheek. "I could never hurt you. At least…" his lips smirked against her skin, "…not more than I have to. Maybe if we ever meet again, I'll let you hex me for it. Hermione, I am a monster…" in the gathering dimness of her mind, she heard his voice thicken with feeling. "…but you are my rain." The heat of his skin against hers was the only real sensation left as a haze closed over her senses. "Remember that. Everything depends on you. And I lo…"
The last words didn't reach her as she sank into oblivion.