"You're courting how many people?" Tom asked, delightfully scandalized.

"I'm not courting them," Hermione snapped, her hands on her hips. "Courting is a promise of exclusivity. I'm just—I'm seeing them. There's nothing formal going on with any of them. They're free to date whomever they like too."

"How many?" Tom wanted to know, and Hermione gave in with a sigh.

"Viktor," she said, ticking them off on her fingers. "Fleur. And maybe Draco or Blaise."

"You hussy," Tom said approvingly, and Hermione folded her arms and huffed, her face turning a dark red.

"So long as you don't get pregnant, I don't see what the problem with this is," Voldemort drawled, raising a thin eyebrow. "You wanted to be wildly attractive, didn't you?"

"I mean, yes," Hermione said, reluctant.

"Then accept your success," Voldemort said grandly. "If you have many admirers, you can use them and enjoy them however you please." He paused. "Though, I'd again advise on not getting pregnant."

"I'm not going to get pregnant," Hermione said indignantly. "I've—all I've been doing is holding hands and some kissing—"

"Just 'holding hands'?" Tom said, smirking. "That's what you call what you did with Theo and Blaise over the summer?"

"Oh my god," Hermione moaned, mortified. She dragged her fingers down her cheeks and tugged at her eyes. "Merlin, I confide in you, and you just throw it back in my face later to torment me. Why do I even tell you anything?"

"Because you love me," Tom said, grinning. "And you want me to be jealous."

"Jealous?" Hermione repeated, incredulous. "Of what? You had far more admirers in school than I've got."

"No. Not jealous of you," Tom said, raising an eyebrow. He took a step towards her. "Jealous of them."

Tom was tall, dark, and incredibly handsome, and he knew it and knew how to use his height and good looks to his advantage. Hermione felt her mouth dry as he moved closer to her, his dark eyes looking down into hers, and even though she knew what he was doing, her knowledge didn't mean it didn't still work.

"And why, Tom," she said, managing to get the words out, "would you be jealous of them?"

His eyes glinted.

"Why, Hermione, while you get to enjoy them," he purred, "they get to enjoy you."

Hermione felt like a fly caught in a spider's web under his gaze, but somehow a fly that would enjoy being devoured. "And you think I want you to be jealous of them?"

"Don't you?" Tom's smirk was dangerous. "We both know you're attracted to me. You've had me teaching you seduction lessons that you're putting to use. And when you want to take that next step…" He raised an eyebrow, suggestive. "Well. Let's just say there are benefits to having a body that isn't truly real."

Hermione was speechless.

"I—I never—" she sputtered. "I didn't—I wasn't planning—"

"Oh, boo," Voldemort said loudly, interrupting. "He doesn't actually think you want to sleep with him, Hermione. He wants to sleep with you."

Hermione turned to look at Voldemort, who'd thankfully broken the intense moment with Tom. Voldemort was rolling his red eyes and had folded his arms.

"And it's not a bad idea," Voldemort went on. "It would certainly avoid the pregnancy issue nicely. But that also means I would have to watch, and I've got no interest in playing casual observer as you two bump uglies."

Hermione's jaw dropped. "'Bump uglies'?"

"When did you become so apathetic and asexual?" Tom demanded, looking very annoyed. "We've always used seduction and our sexuality as a lure, but that doesn't mean we didn't enjoy it."

"I sought to transcend the limits of humanity," Voldemort sniffed. "If I was to live forever, why would I need to create progeny to carry on my legacy?"

"It's still a human need," Tom argued. "And it's fun—"

"It's a distraction that hijacks your brain," Voldemort argued.

"It is not—"

"Isn't it? Look at you now – you've got the brain and body of a horny teenager, and even though you should be trying to persuade her to give you a real body, you're trying to convince her to sleep with you," Voldemort accused. "She came to you for lessons. She wants to become a great Dark Sorceress, and you can't get past the fact she's a pretty girl who likes you."

"I—that's not—" Tom's voice broke off, and he looked a cross between angry, appalled, and speechless. "You make it sound like I'm just trying to get my dick wet!"

"Aren't you?" Voldemort raised an eyebrow.

"You're an ass," Tom snapped. "I'm not going to pretend I wouldn't enjoy it, because I would, but it'd be an extension of her lessons. If she wants to master being seductive, eventually it will need to move into lessons of a different kind."

Hermione's face was on fire. Her cheeks felt like they were burning, she was blushing so bright.

"She didn't come to you for lessons like that," Voldemort said lazily. "She wants to be attractive, sure, but she wants to be attractive to the masses. She wants to amass power and an army, remember?"

"Why not both?" Hermione quipped, desperate to break the tension in the room. "I can have an army and a boyfriend, right? Or girlfriend?"

Voldemort and Tom stopped their argument to look over at her, and Hermione bit her lip.

"Right?" she said, hating that her voice sounded so hesitant. "We can do lessons on both?"

Tom and Voldemort exchanged a silent look, and Tom seemed to refocus on the task at hand, adopting his more scholarly, teacher voice he often took when giving her lessons.

"There's a difference in approach to all this," Tom told Hermione. "You can be attractive and compelling to the masses, but if you want real power through seduction, you need to be able to make people subconsciously drawn to you on another level."

"I feel like I should be taking notes," Hermione said. She tried for a friendly, teasing tone, still trying to dissipate the earlier tension in the atmosphere, but her voice came out somewhat shaky. "How do you do that?"

"The first way? Eye contact," Tom said. "When you look directly at someone, it triggers a primitive part of the human brain – either approach or retreat."

"Phenylethylamine," Voldemort offered. "Also called 'PEA'."

Tom whirled to look at him. "Excuse me?"

"You're talking about how intense eye contact can make people feel like they're in love, right?" Voldemort said. "It triggers PEA in the system. That's the neurotransmitter you're talking about."

Tom stared at Voldemort for a long moment, while Hermione felt herself relaxing. Their arguing felt like it overwrote the previous argument, letting it vanish into the ether, and at least they weren't arguing about her anymore.

"…right," Tom said slowly. "Anyway. So long as you make sure you've got your 'bedroom eyes' on – just expanded pupils here, really, not the full seductive glance – it'll trigger the 'approach' response instead of the 'retreat' fear one."

"Have your eyes linger, too," Voldemort chimed in. "After someone's done talking, keep eye contact afterward for a moment or two too long. It'll keep the chemicals coming."

"I'm sorry, are you teaching this lesson, or am I?" Tom demanded.

"We are teaching this lesson," Voldemort corrected, smiling nastily. "Just because I don't use this nonsense anymore doesn't mean I've forgotten it."

Tom huffed, annoyed, while Hermione hid a smirk.

"Is eye contact seriously this important?" Hermione asked. "This seems like a lot to presume from something so simple."

Tom raised an eyebrow. "It's why you're attracted to your Bulgarian boyfriend."

Hermione's jaw dropped open. "I'm sorry, what?"

Tom smirked.

"Viktor Krum doesn't speak English natively," he drawled. "Whenever you speak, I bet his gaze lingers on you a bit too long afterward. It's probably just because your words are still processing in his head, but I bet some part of you feels awake and attracted to him because of it."

Hermione's eyes widened. "Is it really…?"

"I'm not saying it's the only reason you're attracted to him," Tom said, dusting off a piece of invisible lint from his shoulder lazily. "But it's one of them. It's probably why when he flirted with you, you kept flirting back."

Hermione was stunned.

"I'm going to have to test that," she said, astonished. "I'll pay attention at dinner tonight – see how much eye contact he makes…"

"It's probably why he was into you too," Tom said, eyes glinting in satisfaction. "When you met him, you didn't know who he was, so you weren't intimidated. People avoid eye contact when they're intimidated – there's a natural bashfulness or shyness around your celebrities. But you probably looked him dead in the eye when you spoke to him. I bet it'd been a while since he'd gotten that."

"He was into me because I didn't care about what was the 'Dark Arts' or not," Hermione objected. "But… maybe…"

"Wait, that's why you're into this boy?" Voldemort demanded, suddenly becoming alert. "He likes Dark magic, and you're planning on going to Hogsmeade as your date?"

"As opposed to what?" Tom snapped. "Raiding a graveyard?"

Hermione was recalling the time she met Viktor. She had looked him in the eye – her parents had drilled into her that eye contact was polite and important when meeting someone. And she'd kept eye contact during the conversation about Dark Magic – ostensibly, to gauge his reaction to her possibly inflammatory words – but that didn't mean it wouldn't trigger whatever primal response chemical in Viktor.

"That's… if that's seriously what created the initial attraction here, that's insane," Hermione said faintly. "That's mad."

"It is," Tom said, nodding. "I had an easier time of it than you'll have, mind – my eyes are so dark, it made it easy to look like my pupils were expanded. You could barely tell what was the iris and what was the pupil to begin with. Your eyes are a lighter brown, so you'll have to work on it more."

"If you want to intimidate people, you can still use the eye contact trick, just in reverse," Voldemort chimed in. "Stare them down with narrowed eyes and pupils, and the PEA will trigger the fear response and make them quiver where they stand."

"Are you done?" Tom demanded. "I'm trying to teach her how to make fools fall in love with her, not how to terrify a group of followers—"

"I'm bored." Voldemort sniffed. "And it's all the same – manipulating a man, manipulating the masses, whatever—"

"It is not."

"Let's talk about the differences for a moment, then," Hermione said, looking at Voldemort. "If I want to be charismatic and compelling to the masses – how do I go about doing that?"

Voldemort looked surprised for a moment, then pleased. His smile was sharp.

"From what I've heard, you've done a fair job so far," he said. "Your organization is shadowy and formless, mysterious, which is good. You appear as leader only occasionally, and always with great spectacle and power. That's excellent. You're appealing to people's fantasies as well as their secret weaknesses, and you're cloaking it all in ritual, which is also a strong move."

Voldemort seemed thoughtful, an odd expression on his waxy, red-eyed face.

"If I were you, I would try to gather more attention," he said finally. "You need to firmly establish a strong reputation. A strong reputation will defend you more than any action you take will. And say less, when you speak to the masses," he added. "The more you say, the more common you appear."

"What?" Hermione was thrown. "No, that's not right – I've seen famous orators. They speak—"

"Very few people are ever persuaded by words," Voldemort said, cutting her off. "Though they claim to be rational, people are moved by action. They are moved by emotion. If you keep your public words short and enigmatic, people will fill in the details themselves with what they most want to hear, and you'll keep a powerful aura of mystery."

"And this aura of mystery will build my reputation?" Hermione asked, skeptical.

"It will," Voldemort said, raising an eyebrow. "How do you think I did it?"

"You mean it wasn't through the mass deaths?" Tom said sarcastically, and Voldemort scoffed.

"I never let anyone see me act unless I was fully confident in the result or my power," he said. "All experimentation I did, I did in secret. All learning, I did hidden away. You do not let people see you work at greatness. You simply are great."

"Voldemort did do a giant ritual at Stonehenge with his Death Eaters, though," Hermione countered. "He sacrificed a ton of people."

"That sounds like a spectacle and a promise of power from a being of great power," Voldemort countered. "That sounds like establishing a terrifying reputation that's still being talked about even now."

Hermione paused. "…that's fair."

Tom looked thoughtful.

"I think part of your struggle with all this, Hermione," Tom said, gesturing vaguely, "is your heart is torn."

"Excuse me?" Hermione said incredulously. "You're the one with giant bloody rips in his soul—"

"Not literally," Tom cut in, impatient. "Metaphorically. While some part of you wants to be a great leader, to help make the wizarding world into what you think is right, some part of you also just wants to be the top student of her class and get the best marks in Potions. Half of you wants to be a legend, and half of you wants to be a teenage girl."

"Is that wrong?" Hermione shot back. "Is it so bad to want to be a teenager? To have a childhood? To fall in love and grow up?"

"It's not," Tom said, shrugging. "But your followers can sense your indecision with such things. If you aren't bold and certain in your actions, your doubts and hesitations will infect your followers."

"I don't even have followers yet," Hermione argued. "Not yet. Not really. I have friends."

"You do," Voldemort countered. "Your little inner circle of Shadows, call them friends, sure. But the hedgewitches you know? The students at Blackwell you gave magic to at the equinox? They do not think of you as just Hermione. They think of you as something greater, as a leader, and they will follow you when you call."

Hermione felt torn.

"How am I supposed to be this mythical figure and just be a person?" she asked plaintively. "Can't I be both?"

Tom sighed.

"Maybe not," he admitted. "I guess I made that choice at some point, too. Look which path I apparently took."

They both turned to look at Lord Voldemort, beholding his blurred, waxy face and bright red eyes. Those red eyes narrowed, defensive.

"What?" he demanded. "Do I not look intimidating?"

"It's hard to be intimidated knowing you're just a shard of a soul trapped in a book," Hermione said apologetically, and Voldemort looked indignant. Tom's lips twitched in amusement as he looked away, returning his gaze to Hermione.

"Maybe there is a way to be both man and myth," Tom said, "but if there is, I don't know what it is."

"If I have to make a choice, maybe I can delay it," Hermione sighed. "I don't think I'm really ready to be a full-blown legend when I'm not even old enough to Apparate." She looked at Tom, biting her lip. "How did you decide what choice to make?"

Tom considered for a moment.

"I took the legend path, which doesn't surprise me," Tom said. "I never had what I would consider genuine friends, and my ambition was the strongest thing within me, so it was the natural course to take." His lips curled into a smile. "Though admittedly… I wanted to live forever. I had never much wanted to be a human anyway."