Chapter Text
Peripety: (noun) A sudden and unexpected change of fortune or reverse of circumstances
Brick by brick, piece by piece, everything falls into place.
And yet, at the same time, it is all crumbling away, crashing in on itself. A wild cycle of thoughts and emotions, all bending and breaking, right inside of her.
For a moment, for just a beat, as the fire dies down in the hearth from Harry’s call, Hermione feels completely and utterly frozen. Her limbs are numb, her heart entirely silent, as if it has forgotten how to beat. And her mind, it has ground to a halt, allowing her no fully formed thoughts.
Nothing to lean on, rely on.
Then, everything blooms like a heavy, twisted explosion.
The clock on the wall begins to tick once more, the sound of it reverberating inside her head. Her limbs feel heavy, as does her chest. A burning feeling. Owing, she thinks, to the near-run she’d done in order to get here.
To learn the truth.
Or, at least some of it.
It’s this thought, this consideration, that has her pushing sharply to her feet.
Before her, Ginny is moving, attempting to hold her arm, her hand- Hermione doesn’t know, can’t be sure.
Answers.
That’s all she wants. All she wishes to seek.
She feels a sense of dread, of dizziness, of sickness, rolling through her stomach.
She ignores it.
And then, ignoring Ginny’s sharp pleas, she begins to run once more.
All the way to the edge of the Forbidden Forest.
As the setting sun dips lower in the sky, casting long, thick shadows across the Hogwarts grounds, Hermione sprints desperately, her robes flapping behind her. Almost, she thinks bitterly, frantically, like the wings of a wounded bird.
Her breaths come in ragged gasps, chest heaving with exhaustion.
As she is running, ignoring the Merlin-awful burning in her chest, her protesting lungs, she thinks.
Turns everything over in her mind.
Harry’s scar, Rita Skeeter, the continued accounts from the Death Eaters.
It all leads to one notion- that he, that Voldemort, is existing, somewhere.
That there is only one person, truly, that it could be-
And Hermione, she cannot bear to think it. Cannot bear to accept what the evidence is telling her.
That she-
Hermione gasps, stumbles, catches herself on the rough, sharp bricks on the side of the towering castle.
Beyond her, the sounds of the looming forest ahead are drowned out by the sound of her heart pounding in her ears, mirroring the pounding of her footsteps against the hard-packed earth.
The lush, verdant grounds are now shrouded in approaching darkness, an extension of her inner turmoil.
Leaves from the trees rustle with an eerie whisper, and the gnarled roots of the trees bordering the Forbidden Forest reach out with twisted fingers, beckoning her.
Toward insanity, toward realising her darkest fears.
The truth.
Her footsteps slow, her body protesting with each step. Legs feeling like lead, brain whirling, she tries to push on, her feet beginning to sore from pounding against the unforgiving ground.
Only a handful of times, has she felt so frantic, so ruined.
And both times, she realises, they encircle a wizard so filled to the brim with darkness that he overflows with it.
A wizard that she had gotten close to, that she had let touch her, that she is sure, had once tried to kill her friends. Had killed them.
Stomach rolling, sickness reaching an almighty peak, Hermione stumbles once more, managing to catch herself on the rough bark of a nearby tree. Bile burns her throat, and it all becomes far too much to bear.
The sound of her emptying what little she has left in her stomach fills the silence, and she winces through each heave.
Still, her mind races with a cacophony of thoughts, of feelings, of the horror at realising just who she has spent so much time around, none the wiser. What it all means.
Her breathing turns shallow, chest tightening with a sense of hopelessness.
The information, piecing itself together like a sick, twisted puzzle, weighs down on her, threatening to crush her spirit, crush her whole.
Questions rush to the forefront of her mind.
Why here? Why now?
Why her?
What, exactly, is his plan?
Another piece, sewn with bloodied nails, sinks into the rest. An almost whole picture made from puzzle pieces.
One that cuts, one that burns.
The Enneagram.
It’s prepared in the forest, and he-
Images of his face, so handsome, so ruining, fill her mind, and she has to swallow down another wave of sickness, of nausea.
He wants to use it, for some purpose-
She cannot let that happen.
It is dark now.
The forest looms in the distance, a cacophony of it. Trees and shrubs cast shadows across the clearing, bathing it in ashes.
Hermione tries to keep her breathing even, occluding so she might dampen her confusing, half debilitating emotions, and moves slowly, carefully through the forest.
Slipping her wand from her pocket, she clasps it in a tight, frenzied fist.
It feels, she finds, just a notch soothing.
A little more secure.
Then, because it would be an awfully stupid idea to give away her hand right off the bat, she tucks her wand up her sleeve.
Easy access, but hidden enough that she can let this play out.
After all, she is sure there are answers she doesn’t yet have. Things she must know, to finally have all of the pieces.
And, as much as she hates to admit it, a part of herself that wishes, that hopes, all of these deductions are nothing but illusions. That they are wrong. That she is wrong.
The feeling of security does not last long, as her very next step has her pressing her foot onto a branch, resulting in a loud, soul-shattering crack.
From the shadows, the darkness surrounding her in every direction, a figure appears.
Tall, broad.
Unmistakable.
Sickness and dread rolls through her like a tidal wave, followed by the sharp, painful thud of her heart.
The sharply defined edges of his face, his expression, are all masked by the shadows adorning them both. Like cloaks in the night, they camouflage his movements, his intentions.
It only serves to unnerve her more.
Has her heart beating harshly inside her throat.
And she doesn’t know, truly, what to do with herself.
Only that she wants answers. To stop him.
That she will get them.
“Hermione,” he says, his voice low. The sound of it snakes around her, lures her in. “Are you alright? You look as if you have seen a ghost.”
A crack in her composure, of what she is trying to hide beneath.
“I’m fine,” she says, desperately urging her voice into something compliant. Sure.
He tilts his head to the side, and although it is difficult to see his eyes, she knows he is observing her. Picking her facade apart.
“Feigning ignorance is unbecoming of you,” he says, after several, heavy beats of silence. “I see right through you.”
He steps forward, and Hermione stamps down the urge to retreat, to withdraw.
Instead, she slides the wand from her sleeve. Presses it against her side.
Knows from the intensity of his voice, that he knows.
“I see this facade is crumbling, Hermione,” he says, a charismatic curve to his lips, almost swallowed by the darkness, “I’m curious to know what you think.”
“You- Prof-” and the word is stuck in her throat, caught on her tongue.
Something in his dark gaze glints.
And she is sure he can see her wand, clasped so tightly in her hand. He must know-
In less than a beat, a single, terrifying second, her wand is snapped from her clutches. As her eyes just barely adjust to the darkness, she can see it held firmly in his own hand, now.
Wandless magic.
Of course-
He is upon her, then, as quick as a flash and before she can even think to move, his own wand is pressing sharply, painfully into her side.
And since he is so close, now, she can see him, truly.
From his immensely dark, dark gaze, to his sharp, handsome features.
She is both sick from his proximity, where his warmth bleeds into her own, and also burning.
Burning, why is she-
“I think we’re well-acquainted enough- call me Tom, love.”
His words are a low murmur on the air. A hazy sort of whisper, one that has her bones chilling.
Hermione feels sick, sick, sick.
All of it, from his words, his tone, to his inflections- it must all be to rile her, she is sure. Because it is as much confirmation as she needs, and he must know it.
“But you’re not Tom Rydell are you?”
The words are out of her mouth before she can stop them, a slice through the darkness and silence swallowing her whole.
And he laughs.
So low, so intense. Dark, crisp, and so very telling.
Disgust, and more rolls through her like a tidal wave, and she rears back. Only, he moves too, his expression lit only in the eerie, barely there light filtering from the castle grounds through the trees.
Then he tilts his head to the side, a movement that is so very- very him, very Professor Rydell, that it almost steals her breath away. That she might forget, for a second, that he is not that wizard, not a monster. That he is-
“You’ve gotten so very good, Hermione,” he hums, low in his throat, “I find myself rather irritated at being unable to so easily attain your thoughts.”
Attain her-
Hermione feels it, then, the soft, coaxing caress. The familiarity of the sensation, fluttering over her mind, the outside of her mind library. The walls keeping her thoughts locked away.
Attain her thoughts.
It hits her, like a bombarda to the face. What she’d learned about legilimency, that strong wizards might be able to-
“You’ve read my thoughts. Been able to hear them.”
Choked, her words are barely audible. Her throat feels like it’s closing in on itself.
His lips upturn, a sick sort of grin that shakes her to her core.
“Plenty of them, but I’ve certainly taught you far too well, and I cannot see-”
His expression twists, becomes furious. Pain ricochets through her head.
It burns, aching endlessly, sharply, through her skull. The pressure, his magic, it presses down, crushing into her walls.
A brute force attempt into her mind.
It is blinding, the pain, and for a moment, Hermione cannot breathe- cannot think.
Somewhere, amidst it all, the pain, the intensity, her walls shudder.
But they do not crack. Do not break.
Anger and frustration wells up inside of her, desperation, confusion, the sick clarity of what he is, of who he is, of her feelings, it boils down, swarms into a determination so fierce, she feels she may explode.
With everything she has, with every fibre of her being, she launches her magic back.
It feels- odd.
Different.
It doesn’t feel quite like hers, not anymore. For a strange, mind-crumbling beat, it feels almost identical to the feeling she’d gotten during their sessions, when he’d grounded her-
The thought is cut sharply off as the force of her magic ricochets back, as it returns the wild, battering favour to its’ master.
Hermione is hurtled through more pain, and she blinks it all away.
Anger, she feels, battering against her own shields. But her eyes take in everything, and she gasps.
A lake. She’s standing before a lake.
Not the forest, not the gnarled, winding trees.
Dark and foreboding, the body of water lies amongst the shore. Surrounded by dark, twisted trees looming over it like skeletal hands, casting long, ominous shadows across the water’s surface.
A thick layer of mist creeps over the surface and at the edges of the trees.
It is dark, so very dark.
Opaque and murky, the water looks as if it is endless, bottomless.
A lake that Hermione has found herself to be very, very familiar with.
The black lake.
And the feeling, the pounding, it’s- it’s him, trying to keep her out. Trying, in all vanity, to pull her away from it.
Hermione is- she’s in his mind.
It feels different, here, than in her own mind. Her own occlusion, it’s so entirely her, and this-
Although it feels as if she is desperately intruding, the feeling that she is on the precipice of mortal danger, there is familiarity here, too.
One so startling, so unwanted, that Hermione wonders if she’s simply losing her mind. If somehow, he- he’d managed to crush his way through her mental shields and has destroyed her sanity in one fell swoop.
But no, the feel of his magic pushing against her, it's so very real. So very true.
Forceful, and wavering slightly. Almost as if he hadn’t expected this.
Almost as if he is astounded.
Before her, the lake stands, the surface rippling, dark and foreboding.
As much as she detests the water, the urge to wade into it is strong. Slowly, and ignoring the force of his magic on her, she edges the tip of her shoe toward the water.
Do not.
An echo of his voice, reverberating through her mind, the space, simultaneously. A cacophony of his strangled, desperate tone.
Do not.
Do not.
Do not.
DO NOT.
Hermione doesn’t listen, and against every part of her mind screeching for her to listen, to take heed, she continues edging her foot into the murky, dark water, until her entire foot is enveloped.
It doesn’t feel cold, as she’d expected.
In fact, she feels- nothing.
Nothing but emptiness.
Like his soul.
DO
NOT
Hermione sinks further into the lake, the water rippling from her movements. The magic, his- it’s desperate, a force of intensity thrashing against her body, her temples, trying to batter her away, out of his mind.
But she holds strong, keeps firmly pressing forward, clinging with her magic to that familiar sensation.
The swirling of their magic, how it filters through, tangling together.
And with it, that sensation, she lets herself be swallowed up by the bottomless, murky lake. By his memories.
It’s fuzzy, at first. Like water trickling from a tap, or an unstoppered bottle, the images flicker in and out of haziness, into clarity.
Hermione is moving through the carriages of the Hogwarts Express, greeted by the warm glow from inside. The warmth it always seems to exude.
Before her, he stands, expression carefully masked, controlled. His posture, as it always was, and always is, is perfectly held. Poised.
Inside, she feels a sense of intensity, of rage, and of determination- but not her own.
No, surely, as she has experienced before, she is getting snippets of the memory owner's feelings. Sensations.
This is all him. This feeling.
The walls are lined with deep maroon upholstery, an entirely too familiar section of carriage, and Hermione knows, then, what she will see as he clicks open the compartment door.
Herself, panicked and defensive, her wand already drawn and pointed toward his chest.
Curiosity trickles through the memory, a stream amongst the intensity.
That, and as she herself had guessed at the time, amusement.
It grows as she watches her own expression flicker, the light as it returns to her eyes. As she remembers herself.
Their first meeting.
If only she had known all she does now, if she had only noticed just who, exactly, she ends up sharing a carriage with, she-
The memory flickers, rolls out into faded waves. Just for a moment, but it’s enough to know that she must keep a hold of herself.
That she must, if she is to battle against his magic, keep her head straight. Not get caught up in what she has just learned. Not lose control.
Inhaling deeply- although she supposes she isn’t actually breathing, in here- she refocuses on the memory, coaxing it back into life.
Watches, most carefully, as they interact. Watches as they discuss his book.
The amusement grows, and that curiosity, too.
Amongst it, though, Hermione senses indignation. Confusion.
But why-
The images fade, rolling away like waves across the shore of the lake, and in its place, rolls another, barely there image. Once it comes into focus, Hermione finds herself transfixed, seeing a place she’s never been before, pop into existence.
A shack, of some kind.
The windows are boarded up, and there are trails of dust and dirt everywhere.
And through the memory, as if recalling her own, she hears his voice, clear as day.
“I’ve learnt over time that if you want something done properly, you must do it yourself.”
It fades out as the memory continues to play, as masked figures with hoods scramble about the little shack.
“-Evading us, it’s all her, my lord.”
A ripple through the room, the memory.
His mind.
Whatever this is, he doesn’t want her to see it.
Hermione finds herself, against all of her emotions, the sickness still grabbing at her stomach, she feels determined, now, to seek the answers for herself. And if he does not wish for her to see this, she’s going to be sure she will.
Clinging to the memory, she lets it spread out, unfolding until it is clear as day. As clear, as if it were real.
“Impossible.”
Anger, broiling and wild, slices through Hermione. And before her, stands a figure she’s come to know so very, awfully well.
Dressed in plain robes, feet bare, he is pacing.
Hands pressed politely behind his back, his face screwed up into something like thunderous hatred. Disgust.
“A mere child, a mudblood, orchestrating my demise?”
Across from him, the man he is questioning looks terrified, eyes widened and bulging.
If Hermione didn’t know any better, she’d think they were talking about-
“Ensuring Harry Potter succeeded?”
The man is trembling now, and Ryd-
Riddle, because Hermione cannot deny it a moment longer, cannot keep relinquishing the thought, as disgusted as she is by it. As horrified.
Riddle looks positively thunderous, more.
She has never seen his face, quite like this - pacing, back and forth, a blazing anger in his eyes.
“Speak up!”
“Y-yes, my lord. Make no mistake- she evaded us at every moment.”
Riddle comes to a stop before him, cowering on the ground.
“You disappoint me.”
“My lord, he’s not wrong-”
A sickened, twisted smile curves over Riddle’s face, and he sweeps across the room toward another masked wizard.
“You mean to tell me you cannot dispose of her? That you let them evade you, because of her?”
A head shaken, just barely, the followers hands tremble.
Tom Riddle laughs, then.
It is cutting, wild and unhinged, loud enough to have a tremor cascading amongst his followers.
“I see,” he says, teeth bared, “If I want something done, I must simply do it myself.”
“My Lord, as a spare, you do not have the strength to-”
Choking words, dying off. Into nothing.
Riddle, with his hand barely raised, his follower dead before him, for the moment, appears satisfied.
A spare.
Hermione finds herself coming full pelt to a stop.
She has never heard of this word before-
But Riddle, this one. The one that appears older than the one Harry had described seeing in the chamber, the one she is absolutely sure is the one she has come to know. Is a spare.
Whatever that means.
A flicker, and Hermione sees the great hall filtering into view, ripples like a wave crashing over the shore.
She recognises it almost immediately, based upon the full, hearty meals being served at the tables, and the first years, all excitedly greeting those at their tables.
The welcome feast, right at the start of the year.
Finds herself looking out over the full stretch of the tables, a position, if she recalls correctly, Riddle’s seat had been.
His head- hers, in this memory, turn to the side, to Professor Flitwick.
Conversing about the food. A pie, Flitwick is saying, the best he’s ever had.
Riddle smiles, and Hermione feels a rush of disdain, of boredom. An act he'd put on. For everyone.
Then his gaze, as if feeling eyes on him, turns toward the Gryffindor tables. Directly to her.
And she is seeing, then, herself. Through his eyes.
Reflected, a view she’d almost forgotten had existed. She looks exhausted, tired. And in this moment, as she herself recalls, immensely curious.
Through the hazy, liquid memory, she hears it.
Something that is both horrifying and giddying, all at once.
A result of something Professor Flitwick has said- Charismatic, bright-
It’s barely there. A small, insignificant little trail. Of something-
But she knows herself, and she knows her mind.
Stomach dropping, sinking, as she realises that Riddle- without her having been able to occlude, then, was able to see into her mind.
Easily, without trial. Without effort.
It is her own thought, she’d heard. Across the hall.
And she watches, as her face ripples. As that acknowledgement sinks in. As she sees the deadness in his eyes, for the first time.
How had she not seen-
How had she not held onto that notion? How easily had he been able to access her mind, and without her even noticing?
The feeling of weakness rolls over her, and for a moment, she lets it take hold.
A shuddering, in the lake, and she is almost thrust away from it.
Riddle’s magic, trying to force her away.
Do not lose sight of what is important, Hermione.
“Don’t let it happen again,” Riddle is saying. Words emanating from herself, but- from him.
His posture straightens, the feel of his hands moving behind his back.
“This is a place of learning, so if you could refrain from attempting to guess at my personal matters, you’ll find we’ll all get along just fine.”
There is a feeling, amongst his annoyance, she finds. A feeling of contempt, that slither of anger, and a ripple of curiosity.
She feels him smile, then. And she knows, in this moment, at this very time, she had not known why- but-
Without looking at her, she can sense him, opening up his mind, honing in on her, across the room. Her mind.
It might be disarming, if he didn’t have such a dark look on his face.
Her thoughts, again.
But why is he-
“Allow me to introduce myself formally,” he continues, stepping forth to the desk in front of the class, “I’m Professor Rydell.”
A lie.
In his peripheral- hers, she supposes, she sees herself, the flicker on her own face. The way she grips her quill tighter.
Recognition. Who-
“As unorthodox as this year will be for most of you,” he continues, words from her, his, a low rumble, “I hope you can dedicate yourself fully to this class, to the Defence Against the Dark Arts, and to your NEWTs.”
Perplexed. Perhaps I’ve seen him before, in Diagon Alley, maybe-
“As your new Professor in this NEWT level curriculum, I’d like to get a firm handle on your capabilities so far-”
-Or perhaps I’ve seen him on the streets of London, he’d said he had been running errands there before. But I’m good with faces, I’d know if I had seen him before. I would-
“I have no doubt that your experiences in the last year will have given you a distinct practical advantage. First however, we’re going to start with a quick verbal assessment.”
During it all, this moment, she feels an overwhelming sense of annoyance, of that unbridled rage sinking through Riddle. Something else, too. Amusement. The knowledge, that she is definitely looking. No, staring, at him.
I’m sure I’ve never seen this wizard, this man, before. So why- why in Merlin’s name am I experiencing such an intense familiarity-
And perhaps, she thinks. She had been so close, then. A hair's breadth away from the truth. And yet-
“You, Miss Granger,” he says, and his eyes snap to her. Beneath it, she feels something. Not quite worry. Not at all.
But something intense, confusion, nonetheless. Perhaps, she thinks, because he hadn’t expected her to see through him so easily.
To already be picking his presence apart.
Hermione, in this memory, sat at her desk, blinks furiously.
“Yes Sir?” She supplies quickly.
“Miss Granger, it is impolite to stare,” his voice is stern, as she had remembered it. Underneath, there is more. That same confusion, perplexion. That sense- wanting to pull apart. To destroy.
The amusement, she realises belatedly, that she had thought she’d seen on his face. In truth, it was his sick want to harm her.
“If you could kindly focus on the lesson like the rest of your peers, we can begin this verbal quiz I’ve prepared and then move onto the physical.”
She flips her book open and then her eyes widen.
“Professor -”
“Seeing as you keep interrupting, Miss Granger,” he says, jaw ticking. Annoyance trickles over her, “Why don’t you start by telling me which curse can be used to bewitch objects into multiplying repeatedly when touched.”
Riddle watches her, with ferocity, as a flush creeps over her cheeks. As she clears her throat. He watches intently as it bobs, satisfaction at having made her uncomfortable rolling in waves through the memory.
“The Gemino Curse, Sir,” she says briskly, not looking at him, “it can also be placed as a barrier on objects to counteract any attempts to banish them.”
“Wonderful,” Riddle says. The satisfaction increases upon seeing her face flicker.
It’s dismissive.
It is morning, Hermione surmises. If only because she knows exactly how the light looks as it pours through the windows of the castle at this time.
It appears cold outside, dreary. September, perhaps.
Riddle is stalking quickly, intently through the halls, a feeling of concentration flowing through the memory.
What she would give, she thinks, to see just exactly what he was thinking, in this moment.
Where he is heading, she cannot be sure.
That is, until he lands at McGonagall’s office.
Quickly, and with easy, precise steps, he mutters the password, stalking up the steps and enters the space, finding said aforementioned witch sitting at her desk.
She gazes up, like a shot, as if she had not been expecting company. Expecting him.
And in her gaze, although it takes a moment, she sees recognition filter through her eyes.
McGonagall shoots up from her seat.
“You-”
But Riddle, there is a sureness, a sameness, about his emotions, now, and Hermione knows before it happens, just what will occur.
That he will succeed.
He overcomes her, knocking her out, cold. Just as easily as breathing air.
Hermiones heart feels like it is in her throat, and a part of her wishes she had known, she had not been so foolish.
She had continued in her research, to discover what he had been doing, where he had been going during the mornings.
Because this, she realises, not a moment later, is exactly what he had been doing.
He draws his wand from his pocket, and mutters a memory altering charm.
A strong one.
One, that, as far as she is aware, is the most potent.
One that, she is resolutely sure, would span almost the entirety of this wing in the school. Perhaps further.
Light is filtering through the large, ancient windows, spilling into what Hermione recognises as the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom.
Riddle is sitting behind the desk, his eyes fixed on someone entering the room, the door creaking wide open, revealing someone wearing a student's uniform.
Aristocratic features, slate grey eyes and an intense flock of white blond hair.
Hermione has no time to be shocked, to even hear herself gasp at seeing Draco walking into the room.
He looks tired, as tired and empty as the day she’d seen him on the Hogwarts Express, eyes lifeless. Riddle gestures for him to take a seat.
“I need something from you, young Malfoy,” Riddle says, his expression firm, calm, “I need information on Hermione Granger.”
For a moment, just barely a second, Draco’s expression flickers, turns hesitant. And she sees the worry that had been there, the entire time.
“Why do you need information on her?” he asks, his eyebrows furrowing.
Riddle leans forward, expression turning severe, his face now close to Draco’s.
“That is none of your concern. I need you to get me the information I seek, and I need you to keep a close eye on her.”
Draco’s throat bobs.
“I don’t quite understand-”
Riddle’s expression darkens.
“Do not question me.”
He sharply stands, and Hermione does not miss the way Draco flinches. How his eyes, still deadened, flick down to where Riddle’s wand is, held in careful fingers.
“Need I remind you about your parents' failure?”
Draco’s gaze slides away, and he winces.
“No.”
“You are here to make amends for their transgressions. You do as I say, and you do not question. Failure to do so will result in severe punishment.”
Hermione wants to scream as she watches Draco’s face flicker, conflicted.
Her heart burns.
“I understand,” he finally replies, voice coming out quiet, “I’ll do as you ask.”
As if pulling on a string, thinking of Draco pulls forth other memories, ones that are worse.
Darker.
Upsetting.
Flickers of a darkened alley, somewhere in Knockturn Alley, she’s sure.
Riddle meeting with Draco, and-
An unbreakable vow.
“You cannot speak to anyone of who I truly am, you will not speak of my existence to anyone but those I trust.”
No-
Hermione, although she knows deep down it is useless, she flings herself forward, trying to stop it.
Put an end to it before it even-
Hermione is hurtled into another memory, ripples of vision dragging the darkened alley away.
She wants to scream, to fight her way back to that moment, the one that ensured Draco could tell her nothing of what he was experiencing-
A newspaper flickers into view, one placed onto Riddle’s desk in his office. His eyes, dark and brooding, are fixed on the newspaper.
It is quiet, unendingly so, save for the sound of the pages rustling as Riddle begins to turn the pages.
He’s reading, pages upon pages, his expression stoic and impassive. As if every single notion is of little importance to him.
Then he stops, pauses. Gazes more intently at the paper. At the article.
And his hands, having been holding the newspaper so carefully, half crumples it as they turn to stiff fists.
Hermione reads the title, and she is not at all surprised at what she finds.
It’s the article that had been on her loss of control. The incident in the classroom, when she’d hurt Neville.
Something awfully unnerving crosses over his expression. Almost, she thinks, like satisfaction-
“The news has spread, My Lord,” a crony is saying, their face flickering in and out-
And Hermione wonders if he’s regaining control, if she’s being ripped away from his thoughts.
She clings on tighter, pulsing her magic into his mind, sinking the sharp edges of it deeper into the lake.
“It was unintentional, but it seems to be affecting her more than she’s letting on.”
More flickers of the faces, the nameless Death Eaters heeding his every word.
“Enough that it might help us bend things into our favour.”
“Miss Granger, an almost perfect peccant enneagram you’ve got there.”
The memory filters in like a wave, stronger, now.
“Almost perfect?” she is questioning, watching herself through this memory.
Amusement trickles through it all, and something more.
It feels like anticipation, and a slice of satisfaction.
“Yes,” he says, leaning over the circle examining her work, “I do believe one of your Lumos runes is incorrect.”
Her thoughts cut sharply through the memory, and she watches herself, in the past, from Riddle’s view.
How she had frowned down at the summoning circle, the dejection and turmoil evident on her own features. An open book, as readable as printed paper.
And Riddle, he moves along, that sick satisfaction rising to an almighty level.
In this moment, she knows- his actions were deliberate.
They all were. Must have been.
Must be.
Because when she hears her own thoughts trickle through his memory, where he is listening to her, she hears the sting of failure, the want to succeed grow more. And his anticipation grows in response.
“What of your plans, my lord?”
“You will see, soon enough.”
Riddle stands before McGonagall, on the other side of her desk in her office. His wand is held carefully in his hand, and Hermione scrambles to understand, to decipher-
With a barely there flick of his wand, he’s cast the imperius curse on her.
Uselessly, with no way of helping, Hermione watches as the older witch stands frozen in place, her eyes half glazed over. Watching as Tom Riddle takes over her mind.
Unsure of why, unsure of what-
“Headmistress,” he says, his voice devoid of feeling, commanding, “I have made a particularly unfortunate transgression, and I need your help to get back on track.”
Hermione’s mind is whirling, not understanding, because-
“You will do as I say, without question.”
McGonagall’s body is trembling under the curse, as if she is angry and trying to break it with everything she has. It breaks Hermione’s heart into two.
But the older witch remains under his control, her head nodding stiffly in agreement, her eyes still vacant and entirely lifeless.
“I need you to speak to a student, Hermione Granger. You see, I had a lapse in judgement, and now she’s… suspicious. I can’t have that, not if I am to succeed. You must speak with her.”
Sickness rolls through Hermione’s stomach, and she knows, she knows-
McGonagall nods stiffly again, like a puppet caught on a string.
And satisfaction, dark and turbulent, it trickles through the memory, through Riddle.
He smiles, his dark eyes glinting with malice, “thank you, Headmistress. Your cooperation has been most helpful.”
“They think Her-Granger is getting in the way of my ‘task’,” Draco is saying, his voice half distant until the memory flickers into detail.
Riddle’s smile wavers, if only for a second.
And through the memory, as Hermione watches, fury, unbridled and chaotic, rushes from him.
“Is that so?” he asks, smoothing his posture, his expression, “which of your peers is under this belief?”
Draco’s slate grey eyes flicker, straying away from Riddle.
He doesn’t want to say, she realises.
For fear for whomever, for himself-
“Tell me!”
The fury is back with vengeance, and it has Hermione’s stomach tumbling.
Draco flinches.
“Pansy Parkinson,” he says through gritted teeth, “and Blaise Zabini.”
Riddle hums, low in his throat. A sound Hermione is most familiar with, one that somehow, still, has a shiver running down her spine.
It only serves to upset her more, to make her feel the full force of this sickness.
“Send them to me,” he says, his tone cunning, careful. For a moment, Draco looks as if he might argue, might try to go against Riddle’s request.
“Of course-” and there is something significant in his tone, in Riddle’s expression as he continues, “My Lord.”
The Leaky Cauldron trickles into view, as does Riddle.
He’s sitting in a dark corner, his eyes scanning the room.
On the other side of the space, Hermione recognises the witch instantly, from her overly intense fashion to the glasses perched on her face.
Rita Skeeter.
The latter spots Riddle, and immediately makes a beeline for the table he’s sat at.
A grin, one that, to Hermione looks decidedly sly, downright wrong, appears on his face.
“Good evening, Rita,” he says, his voice smooth, confident. It makes Hermione’s stomach lurch, “may I join you?”
Skeeter looks up, her eyes half widening in surprise, but beneath the facade, she smiles. Knowingly.
This meeting was arranged, orchestrated by Riddle.
“Of course,” she says.
Riddle’s smile grows disarming.
And Hermione wonders, then, how in Merlin’s name had she missed it-
How had she been put under his spell just as the others, just as Skeeter is being, currently.
Rage blisters through her, threatening to put an end to the hold she has on Riddle’s mind. Cursing herself, her emotions, she seeks to regain control of it, forcing more of her magic into his mind, feeling it tangle with his own.
Perplexing-
“I have a job for you, if you’re interested,” and then, as if to punctuate his words, “I know you’ve gotten your hands on a potential story, but I’ve got an idea that will make your entire career.”
“What kind of job?”
To Hermione’s horror, which is only half surprising, Rita Skeeter looks interested, eyebrow raised.
Realisation dawns on Hermione before the memory continues, before Riddle even has to respond.
He leans in, closer, his voice dropping to a low, low murmur, “I need you to do something for me. Organise an interview with that Weasley you’ve been pestering. I’ll have something sent to you, so you can get all of the information you want from him.”
Her eyes gleam with excitement.
“And what’s in it for me?”
That disarming smile of his, it’s gone in an instant, sharply. Cuttingly.
“Let’s just say, Rita, that if you refuse, you may just regret it.”
Skeeter pales slightly.
“I can offer you a great many things in return for your service, Miss Skeeter. But first, you must do this job for me, equipment provided, of course.”
Surprisingly, Skeeter hesitates.
And for the briefest of moments, she looks as if she is unsure of the offer.
“Fine,” she says, “I’ll do it. But you had better deliver.”
As the memory fades away, trickling like water through a pipe, Hermione knows, then, exactly where Rita Skeeter got the idea to give Ron the truth potion.
“With respect Professor I-”
“This is not something to be arguing with me about, Mr Malfoy,” Riddle is cutting in harshly, “Go back to the classroom, we will discuss this debacle after.”
Through the memory is anger, resentment, more.
Hermione can’t quite place it, but it feels rather like jealousy. Grows worse and more intense as Riddle’s eyes flicker from Draco to her, where she watches herself slumped on the ground, pressed to the wall.
Watches as Draco rises into a standing position, and her own gaze, in this memory, follows.
From a different angle, it all looks so different.
So raw, so-
Obvious.
Draco’s expression flickers, anger welling up beside other, entirely nameless things. He looks as if he’s about to argue.
Tension stifles the air, and Hermione, this time entirely awake, full of emotion and observing, watches the moment again.
As Riddle looks at Draco, as Draco stares with intensity, with defiance, back.
She sees it, this time.
The moment that Riddle’s hand, just barely moves. Aimed towards Draco’s arm.
How his face flickers, burns.
She sees it, the moment that Riddle uses his will over the Dark Mark. The moment he hurts Draco.
Had done, right in front of her, and she-
She’d not even noticed, not seen. Because she-
Guilt, worse, more, all flushes through her system at once, and she has to remind herself to keep control. She hasn’t had all of her answers yet.
Riddle’s attempts to brute force her from his mind have not yet wavered, a battering ram against her magic, overflowing with his rage.
She’s going to keep this control on his memories, his mind, for as long as she can, for fear of what will happen, what he will do once she loses it.
Riddle’s rage tugs forward more memories.
But these, they flicker, flashes of things from the past. Moments of his blistering anger.
There are screams.
Screams of the nameless, the faceless, those of which she has never met, and likely never will.
His followers, broken and bloody, beneath his feet.
Those that had chased her, Harry and Ron, those that had almost caught them several times over.
Then, as if wishing to torment her further, to draw forth more guilt, more horror, memories filter through, a head of impeccably bright blond.
Draco.
His piercing grey eyes are dull, his face marred with pain. His usual, confident posture is now slumped, and he’s hugging his arm limply against his chest.
Blood stains his clothes, and Hermione’s heart lurches at the sight.
Helplessness mingles with her rising anger, her rising hurt, and she desperately wants to reach out, to comfort him. But she is only an observer here, in this memory, she cannot do anything but watch in anguish as the rest of it unfolds.
Riddle is stood across from him, wand held in an impossibly tight fist. His expression, usually built of charismatic smiles and defined edges, is twisted into a demented sneer, eyes blazing.
As Draco’s screams fill her mind, Hermione can feel his pain as if it is her own, chest constricting with each cry of agony he lets out.
Tears blur her vision, but here, in this corporeal form, they do not run, do not drop from her eyes.
The images, memories, begin to slice together, moments from days, weeks apart, Riddle’s consistent, hidden rage burning as he hurts Draco over and over again.
It all blends together, his cries, his screams, the tears streaming down his pale face. With each slice of memory, Hermione’s heart cracks open, threatens to spill.
Then, a memory bleeds through, one where Draco is taking the crucio in silence. Where his lips barely move, barely waver. Where he stares, as if at nothing, as if this- this has happened time and time again, and he has become accustomed to it.
Accepted it.
The sight of Draco, like that. Hurt.
It overwhelms her, and like tugging on a string, it lulls forth more of Riddle’s memories. Flickers, ripples like a stone skipped across the surface of a lake, they appear and fade away, like inhales, exhales.
One snags, though, gets caught. Lingers.
Memories, within memories.
Viewing her own memory, as seen from his perspective.
Working with Draco in potions, his expression. The Prophet, the articles, how he had been sitting beside the lake when she’d first found him there.
The way he had leaned in toward her, his hand clutched to the tree, head dipped. The heat that had seeped across the space, the look in his piercing, grey eyes.
Through the memory, she does not feel her own frantic emotions, the embarrassment, the turmoil. No.
She feels unbidden, furious rage, feels confusion. Feels jealousy.
It is both surprising and unnerving all at once.
And Hermione, she cannot help it- she tugs on it. The smouldering feeling of jealousy.
Like crashing waves across a rocky shore, the memories come heavily, intensely.
“Show me.”
There is an air of finality about Riddle’s voice. It is not a question.
Across from him, Draco’s face flickers, his jaw ticking.
In his eyes, pale, slate grey, Hermione sees the worry, the confusion, the fear.
“My lord-”
“Do not make me repeat myself.”
Draco’s face falters, and that same acceptance snaps into place. His resignation to his fate.
Hermione is thrust almost immediately into his mind, where Riddle has entered. Where the memory leads.
Draco’s hand lingering by the side of her face, watching herself in this moment, as the Halloween mask falls away, dropping her costume immediately.
His knuckles curled, brushing against the top of her cheek. Moving to her jaw, the curve of her neck. His lips pressed to the column of her throat.
The jealousy through this memory, it is broiling, a dam breaking. The emotion is so raw, and so intense that Hermione almost loses herself, loses the grip she has on Riddle’s mind.
“How did you do it?”
Draco has the sense to look confused. Thrown.
“What do you-”
Riddle is up like a shot and pacing across the room, his face twisted.
“How did you manage to break the imperius?”
He does not wait for Draco’s answer.
The memory is sliced away, just as Draco’s screams slice right through her chest.
The memory flickers into focus, but it’s not at all what Hermione is expecting.
She cannot see anything. Cannot see more than a few inches in front of her face.
“I was walking among the fires of hell, delighted with the enjoyments of genius; which to angels look like torment and insanity.”
Words, low and half gruff rumbles through the air. Close.
And Hermione knows, then, what she is seeing. Where the memory has led.
Overwhelmingly, there is a feeling, burning through the memory.
One that isn’t hers-
Want.
Watches as Riddle steps away from her, the barest flicker through the smoke.
Want.
It aches, burns, feels so intense that Hermione is half gasping.
The want she’d been feeling, over and over again, always in his proximity, it’s-
It’s his feeling, she’d had. She’d been reacting to it, without even knowing.
The thought has her mind straying, thinking of every single time she’d felt that want, that desire course through her-
And she finds, to her horror, her mortification, the memories like trickles of light through a stream, being pulled forth.
They fade in and out at a fast, unending pace.
Every moment they’d been alone, when he’d touched her, how awfully intense it had been. How he had kissed her in the library, the desire that had flowed through them both. How it felt as if she could not stop. How he had wanted her, long before she’d even-
The moment he’d pinned her to the wall outside of Slughorn’s party-
Yes.
The thought makes her dizzy.
Another shiver cascades over her spine. The weight of him pressing into her, so heatedly, so furiously, it sets her pulse ablaze. A roaring inferno that has something tightening inside of her.
One distinct feeling presides above all others.
Want.
Even as his face is an inch from hers, even as his eyes lock with hers, jet black on honeyed brown, even as desire courses through her in a broken rhythm, breath shallow.
Even as the bottom of his lip just barely, barely grazes over hers-
How angry he had been, at her kissing Draco.
Which, she has no doubt about, now, was his idea, an orchestration he’d enabled-
Through the din of her peers, the murmurs and casting of magical spells, she watches as her eyes meet Riddle’s.
The flicker on her face, the disappointment, the turmoil.
Upset, her face is an open book, stung.
And she knows where this memory is from, what is happening-
Watches as she gazes down at her textbook, flipped open to the peccant enneagram.
And Riddle, he is watching her.
He is pleased, unwaveringly so, satisfaction trickling through the memory, through him.
Because this- her wanting to please, succeed, he’d wanted it all.
Wanted her to pick the enneagram as her project.
And she- she’d given him exactly as he’d wanted.
Hermione has never seen Rita Skeeter look worse.
With her hair wild and matted, her face and skin slick with dirt and sweat, the witch looks as if she has been through hell and back.
And, well, considering what Hermione knows now-
It falls into place.
Riddle stands before her, his obsidian eyes intense. He raises his wand in lithe fingers, emanating an aura of darkness that seems to suck all the light from the space around them.
Skeeter wriggles against the binds holding her still, her muffled cries going unanswered.
The wand in Riddle’s hand pulses with a wicked, dark magic, and his voice, it echoes venomously, laced with malice.
A sound that pierces right through Hermione’s soul.
As Riddle slashes through the air, completing the incantation, a black mist snakes out of the end of his wand.
The sight of it, of his words, has Hermione gasping. And she knows, immediately, what it is.
What curse, it is.
The mist, blackened like death incarnate, swirls around Skeeter with a suffocating grip. It clings to her like a malevolent shroud, seeping into her being, even as she struggles. Even as she tries to get away.
But her cries, they are no more.
Her voice, once filled with intensity, with sharpness, is now silenced forever.
Her lips move, but no sound emerges. It is as if her very voice has been swallowed by the void, stolen away by Riddle’s dark curse.
The Praeligo curse.
Skeeter’s eyes widen in horror, but no scream escapes her lips.
Silence, deafening, remains, and her anguish is palpable.
Riddle’s laughter cuts through the silence, a sinister, yet entirely charming sound that sends chills down Hermione’s spine.
“Your hands, Miss Granger.”
Riddle’s voice is pure liquid, commanding, and Hermione watches herself as she immediately heeds his words, as his hands envelop her own.
“A grounding enneagram is a quick working summoning circle, meaning this won’t take very long.”
Oh, how she had clung to his every word.
“Although I daresay we may need to enact it a few times for the effects to truly stick.”
A thrumming begins, deep rooted and reverberating through the space, the classroom. Riddle pushes his magic, his power, into the enneagram. The chalk lights up, burning white.
Sliced through, the memory snaps back and forth, refocusing on the moment their magics tangle.
How they blended together, the feeling as it tingled through her skin, her fingertips.
More.
Feeling the magic pushing back through her, swirling through her system. Tethering her to the circle.
To him.
The realisation is like a sick, twisted knife, cutting right through her.
It feels forceful, she remembers, and still somewhat pleasant.
The way he had watched her, so intensely. She watches him, now, Riddle, where he watches her. His eyes, as dark as the depths of the black lake, are filled with emotion.
One she can now feel.
He is pleased. Ecstatic, even.
And now, now she most definitely knows why.
Bonding is sync’d with an offering of care. Once completed between wielders, a shared offering of magical intent, they would share drink and food, a celebration of the ritual. Food and drink is shortly followed by the bonding itself, a close physical connection that we have seen in our time here thus creates a heightened magic and furthers affect’d bonds.
The words she’d read, contained within her learnings from this year, flow back through her mind, stitching yet more of those torn, muddled pieces together.
Falling into place. Half what this grounding truly is, was. What it means.
Offering of care.
The pendant hanging from her neck almost burns her flesh, the memory so tender, so significant.
Shared offering of magical intent.
The sessions in which Riddle’s magic was flowing amidst her own, connecting.
A close physical connection.
Hermione’s unease reaches an almighty peak, rushed over the edge by the memory, just barely a few hours ago, when he’d moved them-
To the middle of the Enneagram.
How it makes sense, now, why she was so easily able to gain access to his thoughts. Why it feels so familiar, here. Why she half feels comforted by it.
He has bonded her to him, in ways she cannot fathom.
Cannot pick apart. Layers, upon layers of ancient magical bonding.
He skims his lips across her cheek, up to her temple, then to her ear, each touch of his skin to hers sending shivers coasting over her skin.
A praise, she realises, a physical praise.
“Good,” he murmurs into her ear, and she finds herself gripping his chest with her hands in response, “there is plenty more that I want to do to you, Hermione.”
His gaze is entirely liquid, now, burning and dark, so immensely dark.
“What things?” she asks, unable to halt her curiosity, the desire.
He smiles, and it is positively devilish.
“I suppose you’ll find out soon enough.”
“Your mind,” he murmurs, almost as if to himself, “I cannot get enough.”
Hermione cannot bear to tear her eyes away, and yet it is killing her to watch. To witness herself melt into Riddle’s touch, unaware of who he truly is, of what danger she is in.
The Hermione in this memory, she presses a little onto her toes, and presses a kiss to his lips.
Even in this form, her stomach lurches, recoils.
His taste floods her mind, how he had felt, how giddy she had been.
It’s nothing too intense, not too needing, not at all as harsh as some of their kisses had been.
Riddle is unmoving, completely frozen under the touch of her lips to his.
But here, seeing the memory, feeling his- his emotions, it hits like a tidal wave. A crashing of intensity, of want and desire, a heady fireball of it all, swirling. Woven between them, is a feeling she has not quite felt, not from Riddle. Not in any memory, but this.
Helplessness.
As if he is losing some kind of battle.
And regardless of how she feels, knowing now, who he is, what she has done, there is still something, buried deep inside her chest, that constricts for him.
Something that is threatening to drown her.
Another woven emotion, surprise. It bleeds into the want, driving his desire to a peak.
A blazing fire.
He is kissing her, then, with a ferocity, a potency. With want.
And his taste, the scent of him, it bleeds through her mind, her own memories.
Desperation, a turbulent mix of Riddle’s from this memory, and her own in the present, threaten to have her hold on his mind broken.
He lifts her in a quick movement, depositing her onto his desk. Her backside hits the cold, hard wood with a loud thunk.
Hermione watches this moment, this memory of his, stricken.
Remembers vividly how his skin had felt against her own, how she had let him take her, so entirely. Right here.
How badly she had wanted it. Wanted him.
More, she can see, without Riddle’s intrusion, his denial, that somehow, he had felt something equally as in tense. Had wanted her just as badly.
Such a thought is one she wishes she didn’t have to bear, because it makes him seem almost human.
The black stone in the middle, it seems to gleam in the light, warmth spreading through her hands at where it touches her. She half frowns, even through the haze in her head, the ebbing pleasure, the odd, slightly sore sensation between her legs.
It’s as if she’s seen it before.
“What-”
Hermione watches as Riddle presses his lips to hers again, claiming and deep, stealing her words, her breath. Watches herself as she is lost to him, lost to the moment, the necklace entirely forgotten.
Now, seeing it all occur again, she stares, transfixed, onto the pendant. Where it dangles between them, an omen.
Remembering how it had looked against his own skin-
“It seems fitting, doesn’t it?” Riddle is asking, twirling the pendant between his fingers, the contrast of the blackened stone against his skin. Beyond him, Draco Malfoy stands, his face impassive, his fists clenched. “To give it to her, when it is what it is.”
Riddle pauses, and clear satisfaction ripples through the memory, a sense of smugness, at seeing Draco’s expression flicker, at noting the way his fists clench even tighter.
“What is it?” The blond asks, diverting attention from the mention of herself.
Riddle’s lips curve up, a smile.
“The thing that gave me life,” he replies clinically, his expression morphing into a sneer, “when the rest of me was destroyed.”
“A Horcrux?” Draco asks, staring with more intensity at the pendant dangling in the air between Riddle’s fingers.
The dark haired wizard’s responding smirk fades out, as a new memory trickles in.
“Focus,” Riddle is saying.
His eyes, in this moment, are unwavering as he looks at her, in this memory.
A grounding session, her hands in his.
Once more, the feelings bleeding through the waves of the memories, a sick, twisted satisfaction, blending almost wondrously with the heated desire she knows she’d seen in his impossibly dark eyes.
Tethering them, as she is coming to realise, together.
The memories, they are flowing in quick bursts, now. Almost, she thinks, as if he is regaining control. As if she is losing her grip.
Images flicker through, one after another, mostly indiscernible, now, until one holds, for a few barely there ticks.
“I can assure you,” Riddle is saying, voice a notch softer, as Hermione recalls only hearing it such a way a handful of times, “Mr McLaggen has earned his comeuppance and is being seen to as he rightfully should be.”
The memory flicks away, crashing into another.
It is dark, incredibly so, and the wind sings with fervent cold. From Riddle’s position, in this memory, Hermione can just make out the figures beyond.
On the ice.
The black lake.
It’s McLaggen, and he’s about to-
Several flashes of light, of nonverbal spells. Streaming out from Riddle, from his barely raised hand. The streams, like daggers, stab right through McLaggen. It bursts between the muddled figures of herself and McLaggen, hurtling him off of her.
Her fingers, she can see, are crackling, but unused.
The magic has not been spent.
The memory drops away, just as she watches herself drop into the Black Lake.
McLaggen’s face is pale, and the side of his face is black, black and bloody.
Hermione remembers, wondering if she had-
A fist crunching into a jaw.
Magic permeating the air, volatile and hostile.
Blisteringly furious.
More.
Blood splattering across the hard, frozen ground.
Gurgles, a broken plea.
McLaggen’s voice.
“Please-”
Watching as Riddle raises a fist toward McLaggen, and his bones break.
Snap.
Crunch, after crunch.
Sick, twisted satisfaction. Excitement mixed with fury.
It permeates the memory, and Hermione doubles over, stomach twisting at the sight.
Riddle is smiling, his inky black eyes lit with an inferno.
His body, it looks broken. Like a doll that has been bent into odd angles.
His clothes- they’re just as bloody, too.
His skin, it’s so immensely pale that she-
“Did I-”
“It’s not your fault,” Rydell replies sharply.
“He was jinxed,” she hears herself saying, words trembling, broken, “someone did something to him- and he was-”
A low hum, drawing her eyes in the past, and the present, directly to Riddle.
“We’ll investigate,” he says, “I will find answers.”
“Who was it?!”
Never before, even through all of these memories, has Hermione heard his voice quite so-
So violent.
Riddle’s teeth are grit together harshly, his posture entirely rigid. His fury is barely contained, bursting at the seams.
Draco flinches, his eyes snapping toward Riddle’s seething features.
“Pansy.”
“I can assure you, Mr McLaggen has earned his comeuppance and is being seen to as he rightfully should be.”
Quicker, now, the memories are just slices across her vision, her grip on the magic is waning.
Hermione doesn’t want to face it.
To learn what will happen when he regains control.
The killing curse, and a muttered “Avada Kedavra”, low, poisonous. Light blooms, green. Bright.
“One day, you are going to scream my name, and I am going to thoroughly enjoy every single second of it.”
“My Lord, as a spare, you do not have the strength to-”
Choking words, dying off. Into nothing.
The remnants of the memories, they filter away, a river bending, easing across the land, slowly ebbing from her.
A spare, the Horcrux’, the bonding.
When Hermione blinks her eyes open, she finds herself locking eyes with Riddle.
Honeyed brown on shaded black.
A smirk, carefully hiding that intense rage of his, is tugging the corners of his lips up.
She is horrified, sure it is bleeding across her features.
The information is dizzying, astounding.
“What?” he asks pointedly, chuckling low, dark. “Did you think I wouldn’t have a failsafe in place?”
The depths of his eyes seek to draw her in, ruin her, and she finds, after everything she has learned, so starkly, so raw, she cannot bear to look at him.
She tries to break the contact, to look elsewhere, but his hand, none to gently grips her chin in a vice-like grip, drawing her head back to face him.
“There are far more ancient, powerful, world changing pieces of magic out there, love.”
His own words are spoken just as low, with well practised ease. And her response, it spills out from her lips before she can contain them.
“Like the bonding-”
“Yes.” he says, eyes gleaming like raw obsidian, “is it not brilliant? You are tied to me in every way known. From the Horcrux against your throat to the ancient magic now binding us for eternity.”
And more, Hermione knows. Including-
“Her magic-”
His expression flickers, sharp.
“That was unintentional. I did not know you had used her wand,” he tilts his head to the side, curled hair brushing across his forehead, “both a blessing and a curse because I cannot truly know how much you feel for me.”
“I feel nothing for you.”
The word is spit from her mouth, venomous.
“A lie.” he snipes, a cruel smirk overtaking his face, his hand gripping her face almost painfully, now, “you care for me, Hermione. I’ll prove it to you.”
Then his expression turns serious once more.
“First, though, you’re going to assist me in enacting the enneagram,” he says, his thumb stroking across her skin, his torso brushing against hers, “once it is completed, you will be tied to me with a magic that is unbreakable. Layers of it.”
It burns, where he touches her, just as it feels coaxing.
And for a moment, Hermione considers.
Turns everything she has learnt over in her mind, as dizzying, as overwhelming as it is.
If they are truly bonded, irrevocably, he cannot kill her without putting himself in danger. Perhaps, then, she can simply refuse to do as he asks-
“I do not need access to your mind to know what you are thinking, you know.” he says, words entirely serious. “There are Death Eaters crawling all over this place, including some of your young peers. Disobey me, love, and I will kill everyone you care about-”
And then, his carefully constructed expression crumbles, and the fury streams out.
“-Including Draco Malfoy.”
Hermione’s breath is sucked from her lungs, just as Riddle’s grip tightens.
“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say that filthy traitor developed feelings for you.”
Knuckles ghosting across the side of her cheek, she shivers against the sensation.
“Get moving.”
Hermione inhales a deep breath, letting the cold air of the night rush through her lungs. Behind her, so very close, is Tom Riddle, his wand pressed firmly into her back.
With a hand that is shaking just barely, she begins to lay out the usual pattern of the Enneagram, as she has done several times over by now.
Natural soil. Place of significance-
It occurs to her, then, that this spot, inside the Forbidden Forest, is a place of significance for them both.
Riddle, because- well, she cannot be entirely sure, but she is almost certain this was the spot that-
That he’d- that Voldemort had ‘killed’ Harry.
And for her, well-
She is reminded, rather sharply, of what she’d- what they’d done here, not a few hours ago.
That an emotional connection would be more than enough to be considered significant.
Her stomach lurches, and yet, with the promise of threat looming not far behind, her hands continue their work.
Once she’s done lining out the details of the enneagram, the circle with the nine points, she sets herself before it.
It crosses her mind several times, to deliberately ruin the process, to ensure it fails. But she knows, with a roiling sickness and certainty, that he would not let such an act slide.
That her friends, Ginny, Harry, all of the other students contained within Hogwarts halls, are all in danger. That they are on the line.
Still, she ponders, takes her time with the lining.
Thinks.
Tries to figure out a way to get out of this, to get away from- away from him.
Vials are shoved crudely under her nose, and she is broken from her reverie.
“Come now, Hermione, we can’t be wasting precious time, can we?”
Riddle’s tone is sharp, cutting, and entirely impatient.
The tip of his wand presses harshly into the tender flesh of her back, and she winces, snatching up the vials from him.
She sets about placing a vial of each potion onto each of the nine points.
With careful ease, Riddle slinks down onto the enneagram, across from her.
“You have outdone yourself, Hermione,” he says, as his every-dark eyes take in her handiwork, “I’m quite impressed.”
A dark curl of sickness runs over her spine, and yet- yet somewhere, attached to this bond, she is sure, there is satisfaction at his words.
Anger rises to meet it, attempting to snuff out the feelings. To ignore what they are, what they mean.
Riddle holds out a hand toward her, and she is reminded, rather stupidly, rather awfully, of how she had felt when he’d held her hands before. How she had longed for it, wanted more.
Hermione hesitates, her hands trembling like never before.
Riddle, his expression flickers, the intense smile of his dropping.
“Fine.” He hisses, “I don’t need you to do this willingly.”
Then, just as she has seen him do so before, he pushes his magic into the enneagram, and the lines light up almost instantly. A brilliant, bright white.
Unlike the other times, the other enactments, this time- this time as his magic flows into the circle like a steady stream, she feels it.
A tug, a pull, one she cannot stop.
And she watches, with horror, with abject terror, as her magic begins to spill from her fingertips, as it flows as if it no longer belongs to her, directly into the enneagram.
“Perfect,” Riddle says, that smug smirk of his back.
With the power, the magic flowing, it pulses through everything, through her entire being.
The ground beneath them trembles, and a gust of wind billows through the dense forest, whipping around the small clearing bracketed by trees, howling like a tormented animal.
This time, it’s all so very, inescapably different.
Magic, hers, his, both natural and made, it all flows through the enneagram. Hermione can feel it, pulsing, heightened, until it reaches an almighty crescendo.
It curls around Riddle, sinking through his flesh until it reaches his heart, and somewhere she cannot see. Somewhere deeper, where his soul might be found.
Bright white, it is almost blinding.
But Hermione cannot look away, cannot bring herself to avert her gaze.
The light illuminates him, from inside out.
With their magic tethered, so bonded, she feels it.
The moment the magic holds. The moment it clicks into place.
The moment it restores Tom Riddle to his true power.
Burning hot, the white light dies down, fades as if it is dispersing into the air.
Riddle exhales, the first sound he has made since he’d enacted the enneagram, his magic pulsing, emanating.
It is stronger, debilitatingly so.
His eyes open, meeting hers immediately. They are just as dark as before, but now- now it is as if he is seeing once more, with everything.
Whole.
He is back.
Voldemort is back.
The words resounding in her head do not convey just how sick, how disturbed Hermione feels.
Sickness threatens to have the remnants of her last meal returning, and she can’t think, cannot-
Fight or flight kicks in, and Hermione finds herself flinging herself to her feet.
A smile curves over his lips. Twisted.
The one she remembers, the one she has seen on Voldemort's own mottled, ruined face.
Only, only it’s the face of a man she-
She’d been falling for.
“Do you not feel it?” he asks, his steps matching hers, walking her backwards at a quick, threatening pace, “it’s never felt so good to be whole.”
Hermione tries to move further away, to get a good distance between them, but her back meets one of the trees, and she finds herself trapped.
"Why?" she asks, the wild curiosity spilling over, even in this moment.
"Why?" he returns, cocking his head to the side, "why what?"
"Why did you- why curate all of this? What purpose does it serve?"
"The purpose it serves, as you so kindly put it, is simple," he replies, voice a low, reverberating murmur, "it ensures I cannot be stopped this time."
"How-"
Riddle's face turns severe, dark eyes like a brand to her skin.
"You are the sole reason Harry Potter lived." his words are weighted, heavy, and yet hissed from his lips as if they weigh nothing, "without you, there is simply nothing they can do."
He steps closer, and Hermione's next words are cut off.
"They will not trust you, not with these bonds linking us so closely together. Not when they draw the truth from your lips with Veritaserum. You will give into me, Hermione. One way or another."
“So you aren't going to use the Praeligo curse on me?” she questions, unable to stop herself, “like you did with Skeeter?”
“No,” he says easily, as if such an answer is very much obvious, “why would I ever silence you?”
“Because I could tell everyone-”
“That what?” he says, lips curving up into a smirk, “that you let me in? That you helped me? That you let me go?”
His words are like sharp slaps to the face, unbidden, intense. Hermione’s hands, her chest, are shaking like one of the leaves on the rustling trees. Because he’s-
“I’m not going to-”
Riddle is closer now, so very, very close.
The heat of him bleeds through the cold, chilled air, causing her skin to goosebump.
His obsidian black eyes are trained to her, and in them- in them she finds something softer than she is expecting.
Something that throws her off the edge of the cliff, plummeting.
His fingers curl under her chin, tilting her head upwards.
And this movement, this view, the feel of the hard planes of his chest pressing to her own-
Hermione is very aware, then, just what tree she is pressed against. The one he had taken against, the one she had-
“I am truly sorry, Hermione,” and the words are shocking, directly to the core of her sensibilities, “it had to be done this way. You’d never accept such terms if you’d known.”
His breath ghosts across her skin, heated and intense.
“I’d meant to kill you, in the end,” he says, matter-of-fact, “but I severely underestimated the effect you would have on me.”
A low, barely there hum escapes his parted lips, one she has heard many times over. One that still, somehow, sends a dizzying sensation hurtling through her. It mixes with her fear, heightens her senses.
With intent, dark eyes bleeding into the shadows behind him, Riddle leans in.
His lips graze against hers, just barely. The ghost of a kiss.
A shiver that is a tumultuous mix of shock, terror and worse- want, it rises over her spine. A sharp exhale escapes her, one she’d meant to keep in check.
She tells herself the unwanted reaction from her body is the bonding, the tethers that Riddle has orchestrated. That it is Lestrange’s magic.
Beneath it all, she knows it is a lie.
When his lips press to hers again, she allows the lie to blanket her, to cushion the impending doom she feels lingering just below the surface.
It is a kiss that is both careful and contained, and entirely wild, all at once. Made of the shadows he is carved in, bleeding a deadly, poisonous sort of heat, as if his lips might kill her slowly.
Like the dark magic corrupting the user, his kiss burns her inside out.
Stealing her breath away, singing her lungs.
The turbulent emotions, swirling like a tidal wave, have her trembling.
Hatred, horror, rage, lust.
She wants to scream. To hurt him, just as he has her. Just as he has lied to her, ruined her. Destroyed everything in barely enough time to exhale.
“This is not a farewell,” he whispers against her parted, swollen lips, “you will come to me, soon enough.”
Riddle’s hand finds hers, where it is digging painfully into the rough ridges of the tree bark beside her, all in the vanity of not touching him, as they have itched to.
To not punch him, slap him, curse him, as she should.
To not caress his face, not feel the heat of his skin beneath her fingers, not tangle them in his immaculate hair, as she wants to.
“You looked perfect pressed against this tree, you know.”
For a moment, she is frozen, his words halting her thoughts, until she feels a weight in her palm, and Riddle is letting go, the heat of him retreating.
Standing back a pace or two.
His seamless, dark eyes glimmer in the light.
The weight in her palm, it’s-
Her wand.
Smooth, intricate, pressing against her skin, tingling. She can feel the magic, the electrified sensation of it, an undeniable connection.
“I didn’t kill him, for you.”
Hermione does not need an explanation, to know just who, exactly, he is meaning.
For a second, his words distract her, but the thought is back, almost as quickly. Her wand is raised, and trained on his chest in barely an instant. The tip of it presses to his chest. The thought that she could easily-
Somewhere in the distance, there are footsteps, pounding against the hard-packed earth. It seems to echo through the trees, the small clearing, rising between the two of them like an invisible wall.
Hermione knows, the desperation burning inside her veins, that she has only a few moments to make a decision, to fire a spell.
Their eyes meet, depthless black on honeyed brown. His lips, still reddened from their kiss, are curved into a smirk. Almost as if he knows exactly where her thoughts have gone.
It would be easy.
Simple.
She could fire a spell at him, disarm him. Stop him here and now, before he gets away.
It shouldn’t be a decision, she knows. It should not be this hard.
“Do it,” he says, voice low, a barely there murmur across the short space between them.
There is right and wrong, and she should already know the answer.
She can see it, in his eyes, the way they gleam, that he knows-
As does she.
After everything, their every conversation about corruption, right and wrong, what he has become. As she looks at him, features sculpted from shadows, the defined lines of his face, the memories bleeding into her mind, the way her heart constricts, falters-
Hermione’s arm loosens, drops. Her hand, still clutching her wand, goes limp by her side.
-she cannot do it.
Does not do it.
As her world begins to crumble, to fall around her, turmoil spilling forth like a tidal wave, Riddle’s smirk widens, as if he had expected as such all along.
He melts away, long-languid steps carrying him with ease through the forest, until the view of him bleeds away into nothing.
The steps sound closer and closer, and Hermione, she is unable to move.
Spent, ruined, turmoiled by her own decisions, her own inaction.
Through the trees, a flash of bright light filters through.
It takes Hermione a few seconds to place it as a person, a head of hair that is so blond, it almost looks like strands of light amongst the dark.
Draco Malfoy’s robes, usually so immaculate, are now tattered and dirt-streaked. His expression is both grave and panicked, eyebrows pulled downward into a frown.
Hermione’s heart clenches with an overflowing mixture of relief and anguish as he rushes to her side in several long, feverish strides.
He drops to his knees a beat later, his own hand, shaking almost as much as hers are, moves to cup her cheek.
She doesn’t know when she’d collapsed onto her knees beside the tree, only that she is unable to stand.
“Draco.” Hermione’s voice is barely above a whisper, eyes wide and brimming with tears threatening to spill.
Everything feels wrong. So wrong.
Breathing coming in shallow gasps, her body wracks with shivers.
Draco’s face, sculpted and aristocratic, is a mosaic of worry and anger, his piercing grey eyes dulled with concern.
His hand on her face is warming, a comforting, gentle beacon of light amongst the darkness of the forest.
“What did he do to you?”
His voice, it breaks mid-sentence, laced with urgency, and his eyes-
They are quick, fervent as they scan over her form. Frustrated.
By his side, the hand clutching his own wand tightens, knuckles turning white, his jaw clenching. Almost as if he is trying to keep his emotions in check.
It hurts, knowing he is helping her, caring about her still, when she’d betrayed him in ways that cannot be undone.
Hermione tries to respond, really, she does, but her voice gets caught in her throat.
Instead of any words, everything she so desperately wishes to say, to exclaim for him, all she can manage is a choked sob.
It wracks through her chest, body shaking violently, as if it is unable to contain the sheer magnitude of the hurt and turmoil she is experiencing. Has experienced.
Draco’s brow furrows, and he curses under his breath.
“Shit,” he breathes, his jaw working.
He sounds, she thinks belatedly, the most angry she has ever heard him.
Behind them, in the distance where Draco had come, the castle peaking out above the treeline, there are crunches, the sounds of several pairs of rushed feet heading their way.
Hermione scrambles back, away from the sound, Riddle’s words reverberating in her mind.
“Draco-”
“It’s okay,” he says, voice a notch softer, now, “it’s just the aurors-”
And somehow, even through the panic, Hermione’s sense of dread only worsens.
With a tenderness that Hermione cannot understand, Draco pulls her into his arms, cradling her against his chest. She does not deserve his touch, she thinks, does not deserve his kindness.
Not after she-
His touch and warmth, the familiar scent of him is a guiding light in the darkness that envelopes them both, grounding her in ways she cannot fathom.
Underneath it all, there is a feeling-
One of wrongness, of something not- not being quite right.
And it terrifies Hermione more than anything else has. Because she knows- she knows deep down, that it has everything to do with Riddle.
Lights appear through the rough trees, the crunching heavy steps growing, until there are cloaked figures approaching.
Hermione doesn’t know what will happen, what will happen to her, not with her actions, not with what she has done-
What she does know, is that when she had started this year, she had vowed to complete her studies, to overcome the broken, shattered pieces of herself and succeed.
Instead, so suddenly, everything is crumbling away.
She is just as broken, she thinks, as ruined as before.
Auror’s, including Harry, have begun to question her, and she knows, that all of Riddle’s plans, they are about to fall directly into place. As he had planned, as he had meant for them to.
She will not be trusted. Can already see the filtering of distrust in their eyes, in Harry's. Hermione Granger began this year hailed a hero, a trusted ally of wizarding society. Now, she realises as the questions keep coming, as Draco Malfoy comforts her in front of everyone, she has no escape from her fate. From the things she will be seen as, from just who she is tied to.
And when it’s all over, boiled down to the bones of consequence, Hermione knows the truth. That when Tom Riddle had first stepped foot into her cabin on the Hogwarts express, he had done so with peripety in mind.