Harry didn't like the way their Defense professor eyed his best friend. No one else seemed to notice how the man's dark eyes would stop upon her and an emotion Harry couldn't name glimmered in them as he considered her. When he called on her in class, his tongue stroked her name like it came from a sugar quill.

For a while, Harry thought his friend was heeding his warnings. She didn't assist Professor Riddle, and the two were cool toward one another in class and when passing through the castle.

Some time around the start of the second term, it had changed. Professor Riddle once more favored her, and Hermione seemed besotted.

Should he talk to her? Would she listen?

She now knew everything Harry did about the man, but she had forgiven him the omissions if her current behavior was an indication.

Classes ended for the day and he gathered up his note taking materials. "Hermione," Harry called. She glanced up from shoving a book into her bag and smiled. An errant curl fell over her face and she batted it back. "Er, would you help me with that Potions essay due Friday? I'm stuck."

The girl clicked her tongue. "You've had a half a week already," Hermione admonished.

"And I've worked on it. I've tried, but I'm lost. I need you." He laid it on thick and watched her pretty amber eyes dance at his desperation.

"Alright." Hermione sighed, but she was obviously pleased. "We will go to the library and I'll take a look. We can find some books together, too."

His cheeks reddened as he returned the smile. "Great. Thanks, Hermione."

Before she could follow to the door, another voice called her name. She turned on her heel, robes flaring, to face the professor.

"Would you stay a moment? I wanted to go over the club agenda one more time."

Hermione nodded promptly and shot an apologetic grimace toward Harry. "I'll meet you there in a few, alright?"

He wanted to fight, but that would do nothing except upset the girl, and he didn't want to do that. All Harry wanted was to help her, to keep her safe, to…

Since her first had the idea to assist Hermione by wedding her and thus giving her a safe place in the Wizarding world, Harry had developed an irrevocable crush on her. How not, when she was kind and smart, thoughtful and good, and quite pretty.

And now she was turning those wide, lovely doe eyes on Professor Riddle, and his heart twisted. She thought he was willing to sacrifice his future for her, when what he was really proposing was to become her lifelong partner.

"Alright there, Potter?" Draco's query was posh even when casually coded.

Harry nodded. "Hermione said she'll meet us in the library."

"She's talking to Riddle?" The blond edged closer and glanced around the halls to check no one was listening in. "Do you know when they started up again?"

He shook his head. "The new year maybe. I haven't gotten her alone to talk about it yet."

"Hermione, you mean?"

Harry jolted and glanced back at the lanky figure who had just appeared. "Keep it down."

Ron reddened to the tips of his ears. "Sorry. But, er, why can't we talk to her together?"

"We don't want to terrify her, Weasley." Draco rolled his eyes.

"But why Harry and not you?"

The two others exchanged a long look.

"It's because she finds talking about certain subjects awkward with me," Draco said at last. "We are practically siblings, whereas Harry is a good friend, and less…"

"Of a tosser?" Ron supplied.

Harry suppressed his laughter behind his hand while the badger glared at his fellow Gryffindor.

They were nearly at the library already, Harry realized. They could make their way across Hogwarts without looking by now. How the years had changed them. As they passed the threshold into the solemn library, Draco murmured, "I only hope we can convince her."

Tom drew Hermione into the empty classroom with a hand on her lower back. It was the first club meeting since he had managed to sway his little lioness back to his side, and he was tempted to cancel in favor of keeping her all to himself.

"Get the practice dummies on that side, love," he murmured and suppressed the smile as her cheeks reddened.

She'd made him wait far too long. Tom considered himself a patient man, but he had already waited years for Hermione to be ready, only for Lucius bloody Malfoy to swoop in and pluck her from Tom's influence.

He was lucky the younger wizard hadn't destroyed his Gryffindor.

"Excellent. Such an efficient worker," he praised. "Show me your form. It's been a while since I saw you cast."

Hermione took up the dueling pose Tom had taught her, if a little stiff. She would relax into it with a little more practice. Then she sent a stunner followed by a disarming spell.

Such standard spells, really. Tom wondered how far he might push her. "Try a slicing hex." She sent one without questions, then added another basic jynx. "Have you tried anything darker yet?"

"No," she admitted freely.

"How about a tongue-chewing charm?"

The practice dummies weren't as graphic as a living being— or an inferus, which was what Tom had his more advanced student use, but the hinged jaw began clamping in the familiar chewing motion, and he saw Hermione shudder in revolution. She dropped it immediately.

"You shouldn't be afraid of curses, Hermione." He laid his hand on her shoulder and massaged the her knotted trapezius. "The wizards who you fight will never balk at using dark magic on you, not even the Unforgiveables. You must be prepared to fight fire with fire."

Her lashes fluttered under his ministrations and she nodded.

"I know you have it in you. The Unforgiveables are taxing to cast, but you have that power within you. You need to practice."

"Practice the Unforgiveables?" she said breathlessly.

"How else can you combat them? I'd be glad to provide you assistance," he murmured, sweeping her curls from her throat. He wanted to press his lips there and taste her warm flesh, but the creak of the classroom door as it opened made him step away.

In stepped his least favorite students, Hermione's three best friends. Draco Malfoy, while rather milquetoast, wasn't all that bad, but Ron Weasley tied with his brother Percy as the worst of the redheaded bunch (and that included the two Prewitts who had graduated a few years previously), and Harry Potter glared at him with a dangerous intensity.

He was more observant than he had any right to be. Those green eyes burned like dungeon fire, seared through Tom's carefully crafted illusions. When had the boy started watching his so carefully? When had his admiration become mistrust and dislike?

It had started when Hermione began additional lessons with him, but had grown since the debacle this summer. Tom harbored no delusions; that foolish old man had started to spread his (albeit, true) conspiracies again.

"Everyone pair up," Tom ordered the students as they filed in. There was Ginevra Weasley, a clever and fiery girl who would be worth recruiting were her family not problematic, and Longbottom, who had revealed his parents' abilities were ended with them.

Blaise Zabini, who had rekindled his friendship with the young Malfoy more recently, and Zacharius Smith, all too happy to have another badger of an old lineage.

He had quite the interesting segment of students here, down to a dreamy Ravenclaw who had somehow made friends with the youngest Weasley. She was frankly unnerving even for Tom.

"Today we are focused on slicing hexes and shields. You will practice on dummies first. Only once you can control your slices will you be allowed to practice on one another." A few of the more violent students groaned while the more cowardly had blood drain from their cheeks. "Hermione and I will be roving to observe, and one of us will let you know when you may move on. You may begin."

Harry stared at him for a moment longer than the others, then murmured something to his friend before he finally turned to the practice dummy to begin.

Hermione was the first to stop by that pair, and she chatted with them, a smile lighting her lovely face. She laughed and Tom was transported to a time long ago when jealousy would flood him as he watched his peers receiving something that should be his. He had to forc3e himself past the emotion and on with his rounds. As time ticked down to the joining of his soul to hers, Tom found himself getting restless. He hadn't made a Horcrux since the diadem.

Diadem, ring, journal. He had Helga Hufflepuff's cup hidden away, and Slytherin's locket, but he had started teaching before he added those to his collection. And once he was under such watchful eyes, he'd been unwilling to create more lest the changes become too notceiable to his colleagues.

Once had had secured Hermione, he needn't worry anymore. He could create the other two until he has his seven soul fragments, and he could unveil himself as his true self: Lord Voldemort.

For years, he'd thought of ways to steal Gryffindor's sword, though when he found out that the thing was tied to that ragged hat, he decided it was not worthy. He thought through other heirlooms— Slytherin's wand would have been ideal had it not been lost in the Americas— and magical artificates of renown. A philosopher's stone would have been an ironic symbol, but there was only one known creator, and he was a friend of that doddering old fool.

And then Hermione appeared. Sweet, intelligent, paradox. She reminded him of himself in so many ways, impure but gifted, intelligent and thirsting to prove it.

At first, she was just a curiosity, then a possible follower. As she grew and further showed her exceptionalism, she became more to his plans.

"I don't like the way he looks at you." They were clearing the room post-club meeting. Hermione was fetching with her curls up in a high ponytail (a most un-witchlike style, but it suited her).

She paused and wiped at her hairline with the back of one hand. "The way who looks at me?"

"Potter," he said. "He looks at you like he wants to save your, keep you for himself. And he looks at me as though he'd like to throttle me."

Hermione clicked her tongue. "He's my best friend, of course he wants to keep me safe."

"That's not how one looks at a friend, Hermione." He stroked her throat. "It's how a man looks at a woman he wants. It's how I look at you."

Her breath faltered.

"You are mine, aren't you? My girl?"

"I—"

"I'd thought that you finally made a decision to return to me. Was I wrong?" His voice dropped and her cheeks flushed. He could see how his words impacted her. "Oh, dear girl, you'll break my heart."

Her lips twisted as she tried to suppress a smirk. "Do you have a heart, Tom?"

He wrapped a hand around her wrist and laid it against his chest. "You tell me, Hermione. Do I have a heart? Or perhaps this material is too thick to feel it." He guided her hand up and pressed her fingertips to his pulse-point. "Do you feel my blood rushing through my veins? How it's racing? That's you, your presence, and how very much I want you."

Hermione's cheeks flushed and her lips parted, her eyes hazy as she stared at him.

"Think about what it is you want, my love. Write in your journal. Wear the ring. I suggest specifically wearing it on a chain since you have such dainty, feminine hands, and it's much too large."

Hermione nodded. "I will."

"Do you promise?" he asked.

She swallowed at his solemnity. "Yes. I promise."

"Then go. Don't leave your friend waiting."

A/N

It's been more than a month, I know, but March was really hard for me. TW for pet death.

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Some of you know I foster kittens. We had a litter of seven. Four have passed and the surviving three are currently working on becoming stronger so they can get fixed. I'm still worried they won't survive. That, the anniversary of my dog's death, my birthday being associated with more grief, meds messing up... I've been pretty depressed. I wrote 350 words last month and just started writing this month.

I'm trying to do things to combat the depression, but I'm a disabled person on fixed income who can only exercise so much. Too cold to swim currently. The kittens were actually part of working on my mental health, but that backfired terribly. I'm trying to convince myself to write by rewarding myself with chocolate or something whenever I do.

We'll see how it works.

For writing: I have an HP commission in a darker AU that I'm pretty excited about. It's why I started writing again this month.

As a brain-dump, I'm working on an MHA fic that's even darker than Transference. I also have written a little of a sequel to Cat's Cradle, though that won't come out until Dog Strangling Cage is done (by BlueFireShrine). I need to work on TTV more. I'm up to Chapter 77, but stopped there. It's all posted in sneak peeks and I feel bad there isn't more.

I'm trying to find more ways to motivate myself to write. I'm open to ideas. What motivates you?

Anyway, hopefully I pick back up and can get this finished soon.