Work Text:
Hermione Granger is working in her office late one summer evening when the earth shifts tentatively on its axis and everything changes.
The rest of the Unspeakable department have already left for the night, when there is a crackle of static that pierces through the air like an arrow in front of her desk, causing her to startle. She places her pen down on the desk, unsettled.
The amber light of the lamps dip faintly as an electric buzzing sears the pin drop silence, before they flare lightning bright, dazzling luminescent over her eyes. Temporarily blinded as the light distorts and dims, her hands come up to rub at the sockets of her eyes as the room descends into darkness.
The air feels thick, cloying at her bones, and a chill zips through her as she scrambles a hand on the desk to locate her wand. A quick whisper of Lumos and her eyes blink, adjusting to the light. There is a distinct burnt smell that permeates the room, like the crisp scorch of the earth during a thunderstorm.
Hermione slowly pushes herself to her feet, wand gripped tightly in hand, the terrifying feeling that she is no longer alone settling over her. Her chair scrapes back on the tiles with an audible squeak; she winces, eyes darting about her office, the low light of her wand picking out empty spaces.
Then… there.
Her wand movements light up the curve of an arm and follow the glare of a crisp white shirt up up up.
The bladed edge of a clenched jaw. Onyx hair mussed like he’s been thrown through a maelstrom of nebula. A flash of curious brown eyes.
Hermione can’t hold back the sharp intake of breath.
Tom Riddle stares back at her.
*******
Several things happen all at once.
He steps forward, the long, pale fingers of his right hand outstretching, reaching.
Hermione takes a large step in the opposite direction, colliding with her office chair and sending it careening into the desk.
And Tom Riddle says, “You.”
They still, a stand-off. A sizing up of each other, quickly cataloguing their entirety.
Hermione takes in the tall frame; the starched shirt; the smart fitted trousers; the black outer robes—although innocuous, they are not of this time nor place. They actually look to be of a similar age. His face is youthful, unmarked and unchanged by what would be his future endeavours. She never met this version of Tom Riddle, but Hermione knows it is him just as simply as she knows that the sky is blue and the grass green.
The unsettling thing is that Tom Riddle also seems to be looking at Hermione Granger as if he knows her, yet he isn’t supposed to have any knowledge of her for decades.
“It’s you.” His voice is surprisingly calm and smooth in tone, a babbling brook of water sliding over worn pebbles.
Racing thoughts dominate her mind. A past terrorist of the wizarding world in her office, in the form of who he was before. Before he shreds his soul completely and flings the pieces far and wide.
Tom Riddle. Here, in Hermione Granger’s office in 2008.
She does the first thing that comes to mind and whisks her wand in a shield. Not a protective charm over herself, but one that confines him to the corner where he stands. The wards around him shimmer, weaving golden strands of a taut magic barrier, and Hermione quickly whispers holding enchantments that will keep him at bay for at least a few days.
The inquisitive look on his face flashes a hint of surprise as his eyes track the edges of the enclosure from tiled floor to artex ceiling. When he looks back at her, she can’t shake the odd creeping sensation that he is taken aback by the fact that she has barricaded them apart.
A hand comes up slowly to the inside of the wards, testing. The hand shudders, the air around his skin vibrates, and she knows he will be able to feel the push of it in his bones, that slight sting biting the edges of his fingers as he presses just that bit too far. He clenches a fist and takes a step back, eyes slightly tense as they dart about her office.
“Hermione.”
He says it like he is testing her name out in his mouth, rolling it on his tongue, an undiscovered truth. She notices his line of sight, to the shelving above her desk where her framed Order of Merlin sits, to her full name penned on every accolade she has ever received.
She files it away under Interesting. So he might know her, but he hadn’t known her name until she’d handed it to him on a plate.
“Tom,” she says, forcing her voice even.
The slight twitch of the corner of his mouth is all she can notice. His chin dips, eyes still focused on her as she steps cautiously around the side of the desk, nearing the magical barrier.
“What are you doing here?”
“Where exactly is here?” He scans over her clothing again, nodding towards the navy trouser and waistcoat combination that had been revealed ten minutes prior to his arrival when she’d shucked off her Unspeakable robes. “When is here?”
Hermione considers his question, letting it hang over the room like a rain cloud, ready to burst. She finds no reason to lie and grants him a truth.
“It’s 2008.”
He doesn’t actually look surprised at this, apart from the minute flicker of an eyebrow. “I always knew you were from the future. You wouldn’t confirm it but…” He trails off and looks at her straight. The eye contact is intense, almost too much. “We haven’t met yet.”
“No.”
“Although you know who I am.”
“Yes.”
His head inclines towards the shimmering wards between them. “You do not trust me.”
Hermione snorts, she can’t help it. She is talking to The Dark Lord, afterall. “No, I don’t trust you.”
“And this place?”
“The Ministry.”
A little nod to himself. His hands go behind his back and he paces slowly, in the small space she has granted him. He is so poised, so perfectly graceful in his movements. Hermione can’t help but stare.
“How did you get here?” she asks.
Tom doesn’t stop his steps. “I’m not altogether sure.”
“You don’t have your wand.” He would’ve destroyed her wards in a second if he did. Probably destroyed her, too.
“Apparently not.” He slashes his hand in the air as he reaches the barrier, but doesn’t look surprised when his attempt at wandless magic has no effect, just turns on his heel and continues his pacing.
Hermione can hear a thud, a low bass echoing over and over again. For a moment she thinks it must be one of her colleagues next door, Moira Davids and one of her annoyingly loud experiments, and then she realises her hands are shaking and she is short of breath. Her heart threatens to pound out of her chest. She needs to get out of here, before she collapses at his feet.
Without saying anything to Tom, Hermione strides out of her office, slamming the door behind her and sagging on to the wooden door frame. She sucks in lungfuls of air, but it isn’t enough.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” she mutters, putting her hands on her knees and trying to calm her breathing as much as possible.
Tom Riddle is in her office.
What now?
*******
The next morning Hermione arrives at work even earlier than she normally does. She’s not sure what she was thinking, leaving the future Lord Voldemort locked here in her office, even if she had put extra security barriers on her door before she’d fled only a few hours previously.
He is standing very still when she pushes her office door open very carefully and walks tentatively into the room. His hands are still clasped behind his back, yet his posture is not quite as perfectly linear as it was when she’d left. He looks at her with tired eyes, and she is struck by how human he looks.
He is human.
She places her bag down on her desk. Good morning seems absolutely the wrong thing to say.
“Good morning,” he says. “I hope you slept well.”
A laugh is right there, on the tip of her tongue, threatening at the incredulity of this whole situation.
“I did not sleep well,” he continues in his flat, even tone. “The bookshelf is rather sharp.”
She looks at the office furniture in that small corner of her office. A large, floor to ceiling bookshelf fills most of the space. There is a picture of Harry and Ron grinning widely just at Tom’s shoulder height.
“I suppose I didn’t exactly leave you with anywhere to sleep.”
“No,” he drawls. “You did not.”
With a wave of her wand the bookshelf is shoved more firmly into the corner, and Hermione transfigures a dark blue chaise longue out of a spare jacket hanging on the back of her door. She also places a discreet door in the wall that leads through to the tiny toilet at the very back of her office. Tom sits carefully down on the sofa, back straight, hands in his lap like he’s waiting for an appointment. He looks at her, watching. Waiting.
“What now?” he asks.
“I—” Hermione blows out a long exhale of air. What does she do now? “I work, I guess.”
“And I…” One eyebrow raises slightly, the hint of a question.
“You… think… about how you got here. How we might send you back.”
The other eyebrow raises. “I think,” he repeats, as if he’s never heard anything so stupid.
There is the briefest of seconds where she almost withers. Where she bursts into the frustrated tears that have been threatening since he arrived. Instead, she draws herself up tall, and nods firmly. “Yes, you do that. I have work to do.”
She leaves him in the office once again, wards it tight, and then stands in the corridor. The Unspeakable department is busy, the hum of a day's work permeating the air.
The door to the office opposite suddenly opens, and Draco Malfoy walks out, arms full with paperwork. “Morning, Granger,” he says, and then he stops suddenly, face falling into a frown. “Are you okay? You look a little… strange.”
Lord Voldemort is in my office
“I’m fine,” she says, but it is rather too quick for someone that is fine, and it only serves Draco’s brow to furrow further.
Somewhere under his robes is the faded echo of the Dark Mark. Hermione has seen it, exposed by a rolled sleeve many times. She ran her tongue over it once, during a drunken night of extremely good sex post-Christmas party six months ago.
“I’ve got some of those results back, I’ll bring them over to you later.”
In no way, shape or form can Draco Malfoy step into her office later.
“No,” she says firmly. “I’ll meet you at lunch, shall I?”
Draco shakes his head. “Not sure I’ll have time to stop for lunch today.”
“Not even if I buy you one of those white chocolate muffins?”
He makes a show of considering this, shifting the paperwork to one arm so that he can run a hand through long strands of silver blonde hair. “You do know how to tempt me, Granger.”
Hermione laughs lightly, trying to fall back into the pattern that the two of them have been finding themselves in lately. Flirty, casual. Normal. “Don’t get too excited over a muffin, Malfoy.”
He agrees to lunch, and then because she has no idea what else to do, Hermione steps back into her office.
Tom Riddle is asleep. He’s exactly where she left him, sat up on the chaise longue, but now his arms are folded across his broad chest and his head is tipped back. He is ever so still, just the slight rise and fall under white cotton the only indication that he’s alive.
Hermione quietly sits at her desk, watching. Waiting for something, maybe inspiration or a flicker of an idea that tells her what she should be doing in this situation. Observing him sleeping probably isn’t going to spark a thought, but she finds she can’t tear her eyes off of his peaceful form.
She puts her elbow on her desk, leans her head on her palm, and for a while it feels like there is no other world outside of this office.
*******
They spend the first few days in a strange sort of stand off. Hermione tries to keep on top of her work while also wondering what she is going to do about Tom, whilst Tom wanders around his corner, or sits on his chaise longue watching her work. He doesn’t speak much, just seems to be taking everything in.
She catches him staring at her a lot. He is very brazen about it, obviously not caring when she catches him in the act. He stays neutral, expression a blank canvas, as his eyes rove over every part of her. It is perturbing, to be observed like that, to have his calculating gaze categorising every inch of her. Like he’s seen her, like he knows her.
Sometimes he’ll ask a question about what she is working on, and she’ll give a quick, closed answer in order to shut off any further conversation. She can pretty much see the cogs constantly turning in his mind.
There are so many things she wants to ask, so many questions turning over and over in her head, yet she refrains from speaking them. She doesn’t know what she should give away, if he asks her a question, so it is easier if they just don’t speak at all.
There have been a few times when he is still asleep as she enters her office in a morning. She has grown braver, stepping closer and closer to the wards, her feet moving almost unconsciously across the tiles to get a better look at him.
There is something so intriguing about him, when he’s vulnerable like this. A few times she’s held her wand high, pointed it towards him, an Unforgivable playing on her lips. It would be so easy to end him before he begins. But playing with time is no simple feat, and she doesn’t want to think about what might happen if she changes history with just a flick of a wrist.
She knows he dies. She knows when he dies. She was there, and it has already happened. Yes she might be able to save people, if Lord Voldemort never exists. Harry’s parents. Fred. Sirius. So many names that could be present now. But at what cost? How might the trajectory of her own life differ, if the Dark Lord never goes to Godric’s Hollow that Halloween night?
One morning, four days since he arrived, when she is standing so close to the barrier that she can feel the thrum of magic through bones and sinew, Tom opens his eyes and stares straight back.
It rolls over her in a wave, a gentle force that tumbles over any shoddy defences she may have erected. Magic. His magic, whispering into her mind before she can look away.
The two of them, in a small, plain bedroom flooded with summer sunlight. He has her crowded against a desk, lips attached to her pulse point, fingers trapped in her curls. Her hands are needy, scrabbling at the buttons of his shirt and she is gasping, Tom—
Hermione heaves in a wrenching breath, stumbling back from the warded corner of her office. Tom’s expression doesn’t change, but he glides smoothly to his feet, still looking at her with hooded brown eyes.
She whirls away, back behind her desk. A barrier, of sorts, even though he can’t pass his own fencing. “What are you doing?”
“Showing you my past,” he says. “Your future.”
“No.” Her head shakes vehemently. She wouldn’t. Not when she knows who he is. What he is. “No, that won’t happen.”
“It’s already happened.”
“No,” she fumes, and she can feel her own magic coursing through her veins, incited. “It will not happen.”
Very slowly, the curl of a serpentine smirk is revealed. “If you say so, Hermione.”
*******
It takes two days before Hermione spends any length of time in her office again. She’s been going in briefly to send him food and water through the barrier, and then warding her office tightly before working elsewhere.
The memory he sent her plays in her mind like a loop. She can’t believe that was her… is her. Seeing herself like that with Tom Riddle seems too insane of a thought.
She visits Draco in his office, and he watches her curiously as she tries to engage in ridiculous small talk with him, pottering about his office so she doesn’t have to look at him. She never has been good at hiding things.
“What are you after, Granger?” He spins his wand absently through his fingers as he leans back in his chair.
“You're friends with Theo, aren’t you?”
“Nott? Yes.” He peers at her intently, as if he can spot her secrets through the mist of pretence. “Why?”
“Does he still dabble with time turners?”
Draco sits straight in his chair. “Why on earth do you want to know that?”
“I can’t tell you.”
He laughs, shaking his head wryly. “What the fuck are you up to?”
“I really cannot tell you. I just need to talk to Theo.”
He must sense her desperation. As an Unspeakable himself, he knows that sometimes there are things in their line of work that really live up to their job title. He doesn’t push further. “I’ll see what I can do. But you’ll owe me.”
Later that afternoon, there is a knock on her office door and Hermione only has five seconds to wave a disillusionment charm and a notice-me-not over Tom before Draco is striding inside.
He grins at her, leaning his hands on the back of the chair on the opposite side of her desk. “So, I spoke to Theo.”
Tom has risen to his feet and is right at the edge of the barrier, eyes fixed on the back of Draco’s head. Hermione tries to stop looking between the two of them, training her gaze on Draco so that he doesn’t notice anything amiss.
“You did?”
Draco nods, and then he is casually moving about her office in the same way that she was in his just that morning. “I said you wanted to meet with him about a top secret project.”
Tom’s eyebrows raise in intrigue.
“Okay,” Hermione says, purposefully not looking Tom’s way. “And what did he say?”
Draco fiddles with a plaque on her wall, straightening it. “He seems very interested, but then Theo is always very interested in secrets.”
He moves absentmindedly towards the bookshelf in Tom’s corner. The invisible barriers warp and hum but Draco has no idea they are even there. That he is now just inches away from the man who branded that Dark Mark lingering on his forearm. The very man who is staring at Draco, cataloguing his every feature, reaching a hand slowly out to—
Hermione stands abruptly, and the squeak of her chair makes both wizards turn towards her. Tom’s hand drops, clasping behind his back again.
“I can owl him then?” she says, moving around her desk to draw Draco back over towards her.
“Yes.” He wanders back, Tom observing every step. “Owl him and he’ll set up a time.” Draco stops very close to her, hands in the pockets of his robes.
“Great, thank you for that. I really appreciate the help.”
Draco tilts his head, smirking. “Just how appreciative are you, Granger?”
Behind him, Tom’s eyes narrow.
Hermione takes Draco’s arm, laughing lightly and towing him towards the door. “Ever so, honestly. I owe you, right?”
Draco’s eyes glint at the contact. “You do. I’ll start thinking about what it is I want from you.”
“You do that!” She whips the door open. “Let me know.” And Draco is chuckling as she pretty much shoves him over the threshold. “Sorry, I’m ever so busy!” The door is shut and locked behind him.
“A Malfoy,” Tom says evenly. “Not Abraxas in this time.”
“No, that’s Draco. Abraxas’ grandson.”
“And he likes you.”
Hermione huffs a laugh. “No, he’s just being silly. It’s just Malfoy.”
Tom’s expression darkens. “Don’t lie to me, Hermione.”
The whip snap of his words sees her stutter in the walk back to her desk.
“Have you fucked him?”
Now that makes her stumble. “What? You can’t ask me that.”
“Have you fucked the Malfoy boy, Hermione?”
The boy. Draco is probably the same age as Tom at the moment.
“It’s none of your business.”
Being the sole focus of Tom Riddle’s attention feels all consuming. He looks at her like he can see the very core of her, through skin and muscle and bone.
“I know you have.”
“Then why are you asking?”
There is a shiver to the air, as wordless and wandless magic pushes its way through her battlements.
This time, the memory he shows her has them tangled naked on that small bed. It is hard to see where he stops and she starts, their limbs are that entwined amongst the stark white linen. He is pushing into her, harsh thrusts that punctuate her breath, and her head is thrown back, neck elongated on the flat pillow. Hermione can feel it, the pressure building as pleasure courses through her blood, and in her office she is clutching at her stomach, pushing Tom out of her head.
“Don’t do that,” she snaps, trying to catch her breath, her abdominal muscles screaming.
“You asked why. That is why.”
Hermione’s entire body is shivering, a knot of pleasure and disgust as entwined as their breath in the balmy air of that bedroom. “Never,” she spits.
“It’s already done,” he says, and the confidence in his voice makes her want to scream.
*******
Harry’s body is crumpled at Lord Voldemort’s feet. It is almost deathly silent.
Hermione wrenches her hand out of Ron’s, taking one stumbling step forward over fragments of rock splashed with blood, her own burgundy runs in quiet rivulets down her temple. “Harry,” she whispers. He can’t be dead.
Lord Voldemort’s hollow eyes lift at her action, and they bore into her, seeing her, as if for the first time.
No. Not the first time.
The last time.
Hermione wakes with a gasp, the Battle of Hogwarts fading slowly from her mind. It’s not the first time her unconscious state has taken her back there, but it is the first time she’s ever noticed the flicker of change in how Lord Voldemort looked at her. Like he knew her.
It takes a long time to get back to sleep.
*******
“How long are you planning on keeping me here?”
Hermione doesn’t actually have an answer. She’s obviously hoping Theo can help, but if not… she hasn’t thought that far ahead just yet. She chooses not to respond to his question.
“Who are they?”
Hermione looks up from her parchment to see Tom is now holding aloft the small frame of Harry and Ron from her bookshelf.
“My friends,” she says.
The wizard who ends you for good.
“They don’t come by here?”
“They’re Aurors. They’re busy.”
She’s also been avoiding them, unsure how she can face the two of them with Tom locked in her office. If they knew… she’s not sure what would happen.
Tom looks down at the picture again. “You’ve fucked them too?”
“Christ.” She drops her quill. “For fucks sake, no.”
“Just Abraxas’ progeny then.”
He sounds amused, the quirk of a grin on his lips as he looks at her, and she feels her own look of indignation crumbling. It’s so easy to forget, when he looks like this, when his humanity is so obvious. He looks light, his normal stoic poise replaced with this youthful energy. This knocks her for six just as equally as when he is harsh and cold.
Tom places the picture carefully back on the shelf. “I would like to request something.”
He is a prisoner. Sometimes she forgets. She indicates he should continue.
“I do not feel very clean. Your scourgify’s only do so much. I’d like to request a shower.”
“A shower,” she echoes in disbelief. “The staff showers are at the other end of the corridor. I can’t just waltz you through the Ministry.”
“I will not try anything.” That casual lopsided smile flickers across his face again. “I’ll be good.”
Hermione blinks at him, refusing to be drawn in by this magnetic difference. He knows what he is doing, how to use his attractiveness as a weapon. She wonders what else he has gained from using it, how wide his spider's web has cast in the past. What happened to his prey once they were tangled in his grasp.
“I’ll think about it.”
He seems satisfied with this answer, and settles back on to his chaise longue, crossing one long leg over the other.
Hermione thinks for a moment, and then she is drawing her wand through the air, pulling at the magic of the barriers and stretching the golden threads that little bit wider.
“There,” she says. “A little more space.”
A compromise, for the time being.
*******
Theo Nott looks absolutely thrilled. “When Draco told me you wanted to meet, I think it made my year.”
They are in the sitting room at Nott House. It is a cavernous room of dark greys, cold and muted. The complete opposite of her host, who radiates an infectious sunshine. Theo smiles widely at her, showcasing identical dimples in each cheek.
“Why is that?” Hermione asks.
“He said you’re being secretive.”
“That’s because it is a sensitive subject. It’s for work, you see.”
Theo raises an eyebrow at her. “Come on, Hermione. I’m not stupid. You have a time room in your department. If you needed a time turner I’m sure you could get your hands on one. You need to come to me because whatever it is you’re doing is not Ministry sanctioned.”
He’s right. She’d considered borrowing a time turner from the Unspeakables department, but the risk of being caught seemed too great. She wanted it unofficial, off the record.
“I asked Malfoy about you because I thought you could be discreet.”
He snorts. “I am discreet, don’t you worry about that. I just find it interesting, that's all.” He looks at her curiously. “What is it that Hermione Granger could need a time turner for?”
She raises her eyebrows back at him, silent.
“Want to re-do your NEWTs? Have another crack at a relationship with Weasley?”
She still doesn’t answer.
“Save someone?”
She tries to keep her face impassive, but Theo notices something.
“Oh, really.” He nods, brown curls falling in his face. “I get the impulse.”
Hermione sighs, pushing to her feet. “Can you do it or not?”
He grins. “Of course.”
“Okay. Thank you.”
Just before she leaves through the Floo, there is something that occurs to her. A spark of a thought. “Theo,” she says, turning back to him. “There’s just one more thing I need to ask.”
*******
“I’m trying to arrange a time turner.”
Tom has been leafing through a book from her shelves, sitting in his usual statued position on his small sofa. He looks rumpled today, like he’s lacking in sleep, the collar of his shirt slightly off centre. His dark hair has grown longer this past fortnight, curling slightly around his ears and falling forward over his eyes. He constantly has to brush it back with long, graceful fingers.
“From whoever Theo is,” Tom replies.
“Yes. The secret that Malfoy was talking about.”
“Then I can return.”
“Hopefully. You don’t belong here.”
She’d meant this time, this year, but Tom’s eyes track the golden threads of his cage. “No, I do not.”
They go back to silence. Hermione tries to focus on the complicated runes she is trying to translate, but she just can’t seem to keep her mind on them. She blows out a long breath, rubbing her eyes.
“What are you working on?”
“Translations.”
“Let me see.”
Hermione takes the parchment over to him, and he rises from his seat to stand at the barrier. She hesitates, wondering how to get the paper to him, and then she thinks fuck it, and pushes her arm through the wards. They tingle at her touch, little electrical currents zipping over her skin.
Tom reaches out to take the paper, but he slides his palm fully over her hand as he does so. She expects his touch to feel cold, a winter’s frost, but his fingers spread heat where they linger.
“Thank you.” His voice is a caress as he drops her hand, and she pulls it quickly back through the barrier, resisting the urge to shake the feeling away. He turns and sits down with her work, brow furrowing as he casts his gaze over it.
“Do you have a quill?”
She wonders how much damage he could do with a quill. He couldn’t send it through the wards, at least. He couldn’t stab her with it, end her there and then with a pointed feather. She Accio’s one through to him, and straight away he starts scribbling notes over her work.
“Here, this rune is the wrong translation. I’ve spent some time on the continent.”
Her ears prick at this. She’s never bought up the subject of Horcruxes, or where he might be in his life, back in his real timeline. She hasn’t wanted to encourage any thought, or even give away something that he might not know yet. So hearing that he’s already been travelling around Europe links him to a certain place in the past.
He spends ten minutes writing some other notes, and then he passes her work back to her. “That should help.”
It does, of course. He’s solved the whole conundrum.
“Have you got anything else?” he asks, a keen look on his face.
He’s missed this, she realises. Using his brain, solving a problem. She sends more of her work through the barrier and soon he has parchment spread all around him, quill working furiously, concentration etching his features.
It is very late when they finish, and Hermione watches as Tom stands and stretches. Lean muscles work under the fabric of his shirt. She looks away.
“The showers should be empty,” she says, and his eyes snap to hers.
She makes him wait while she ensures the Unspeakable department is empty, and then she casts a disillusionment over him. Whisking her wand in a circle over herself, she replicates the barrier he is trapped in. It creates a small circumference around her entirety that no one can cross.
Her wand is pointed his way. “Don’t even think about trying anything.”
Tom looks at her very intently. “I won’t. You have my word.”
Hermione’s not sure that helps, but she takes a deep breath, and drops the barriers. He doesn’t rush through them, just waits for her to lead the way out of her door and into the corridor. Her wand is pointing at him, just in case, but he is obedient in how he walks that half-step behind her, lingering on her left side. It is disconcerting, having him so close, feeling the warmth of him permeating every stride forwards. The corridor has never stretched so far.
Inside the staff changing rooms Hermione pulls out a towel and directs him to the shower stalls. He disappears behind the wall, and she hears the shower start up and the change in cadence as he steps underneath.
Hermione waits, and she laughs internally at the ridiculousness of this situation. Is she being stupid, letting him wander the Ministry? He hasn’t a wand, it’s not like he can do much damage, surely?
She’s so busy reeling inside her head that she doesn’t realise the shower has turned off until Tom is standing there in nothing but a white towel and a cloud of steam. It’s surreal seeing him like this. Water drips slowly from his damp hair, small rivers that glide over smooth skin and softly sculpted muscle. He smiles as he steps towards her, casting that web.
Her barrier stops him half a metre away.
“Clever,” he says, using a hand to test the ward. It swirls under his touch, the hidden threads of magic interrupted. He tries to take another step and Hermione moves backwards, even though she knows he can’t actually get to her.
“Where are your clothes?”
“I need new ones.”
She sighs, turning to find Draco’s locker and digging out a new shirt and trousers. Luckily they’re of a similar size. Tom’s eyes glint as she hands over the clothes and she turns away as his hands drop to the edge of his towel.
When he is dressed, Hermione gets him back into the safety of her office as quickly as possible. She’s just about to leave for the night when a question crosses her mind that she just needs to know the answer to.
“When did you first meet me?”
His gaze is full of intrigue as he stops just short of the wards that will imprison him back in his corner. “When I was seventeen.” His eyes run the entirety of her. “But you were older than you are now. Your hair was shorter.”
Hermione can’t stop her jaw from gaping open. “Seventeen. So you were at school.”
“Yes. You appeared right in the middle of my dorm room.”
It seems so impossible. “And the second time?”
“Just before I graduated.”
“How many times have you seen me so far?”
He tilts his head to consider this. “Ten, maybe.”
Ten. Ten. That’s all it took for her to be wrapped up so intimately with him. She is literally lost for words.
“It was actually the eighth time, for me. A year ago.” A smirk plays on his lips. “I’m not sure what time for you, seeing as this has been your first.”
She closes her eyes. “Get out of my head.”
When she opens them, he has moved back towards her, close enough to touch. He looks down at her, yet makes no movement to reach out.
“Eight times, Hermione.” His voice is low as he bends closer. Her barrier shivers. She shivers. “Eight meetings was all it took for you to be screaming my name. And let me tell you that you were not shy. It was you who started it all.”
Suddenly his hand snaps forwards, and her wards scream at the intrusion. They are both forced backwards, propelled away from each other, staggering across the tiles. Hermione can feel the vibration in her bones, and her teeth chatter violently. She slashes her wand, forcing the threads of the wards to enclose themselves around him once more.
His fist meets the magic, a punch of frustration that sends a loud tumult echoing across the silence.
*******
Tom Riddle has followed her into the stacks, his Head Boy badge glinting in the shadows of the restricted section.
“I need to get to Potions. We shouldn’t be here,” she whispers. “We’ll be caught.”
“We won’t,” he says, and with a push her back hits the shelving. It hurts, the edge of the wood digging into her shoulders. “Not if you’re quiet.”
His fingers skim up her leg, hitching the fabric of her school skirt higher and higher until he is sliding carefully across the soft skin of her inner thigh.
“Tom—”
“Either tell me to stop or be quiet.”
But his hand doesn’t stop, and she doesn’t tell him to. He cups his hand directly over the centre of her, where she is already wet and wanting through black cotton.
“Eight times.” His voice is amused against the hollow of her throat as a long finger strokes over her.
Her eyes squeeze close and he moves his hand under her waistband.
“Eight times, Hermione.”
Two fingers are shoved into her cunt. She gasps loudly, and his other palm covers her mouth.
Hermione wakes, duvet thrown on the ground, ice running through her veins.
*******
She can’t help but wonder about all the times he’s met her before.
Every night Hermione dreams of him so vividly in oneiric hues. He’s consuming her, haunting her, and she’s never sure if it is just her imagination creating all of this in slumber, or if these are images that are doomed to play out in her future.
She is desperate to ask, inquisitive by nature, and the fact that he has knowledge that she doesn’t makes her itch with curiosity.
Complicated runic translations are passed over the barrier to keep him busy, and so that she can use it as a distraction while they talk. She doesn’t want him too focused on their conversation, knowing that he will more than likely take advantage of her interest.
She sees he is right in the middle of a particularly tricky translation when she casually says, “It must be strange for you—for me to not know who you are.”
He has a quill between his teeth, and he pulls it out to say, “But you do know me. You wouldn’t have locked me away otherwise.”
Okay, so maybe she’s underestimating his perceptiveness. It’s difficult to have a conversation when every word feels like the calculated move of a chess piece. Regardless, she needs to veer him away from any talk of what she knows of him.
“When was the third time you met me?”
He jots something down on the parchment in front of him. “When I was twenty. Just as I’d closed up the shop for the night.”
She knows he means Borgin and Burkes, and she also knows that in any normal conversation the next reply would be “What shop?”, so really it is her own error when she simply says, “Oh. Right. What do we talk about?”
“You’re very mysterious. Won’t tell me your name. Ask a lot of questions. Or, you used to, before that eighth time.” The quill is placed down and he turns to face her, a charming face of faux innocence. “Why is it you ask, Hermione?”
“No reason,” she says, far too quickly, and it only serves to encourage a smirk to dance across his lips.
She busies herself with her work yet she feels the intense heat of his stare on her for a good few minutes. She shouldn’t have said anything, because now he is thinking, and it’s dangerous to give Tom ammunition for his thinking. More distractions are necessary, so she shoves a pile of paperwork through the wards to pull his thoughts away from what she’d said.
His eyes never stop falling back to her the entire afternoon.
*******
On Thursday morning, Hermione realises there is a book on the shelf inside Tom’s confines that details the horcrux hunt. It’s been a decade since the war ended, but there are multiple informational books and fact files on Hermione, Harry and Ron, and this is one that had been sent to her a few years ago. Her heart threatens to beat out of her chest when she suddenly remembers it is there, right in his reach, and she instantly starts catastrophising. The last thing she wants him to do is to read a book about those events of her past.
Her attempt at a covert Accio doesn’t work—apparently she can only send items in through the wards and cannot conjure them out.
She has a lunch meeting that she cannot avoid going to, and when she returns to her office Tom is on his little sofa, head tilted back, fast asleep. Thanking every god both magical and muggle she can think of, Hermione cautiously edges up to the barrier. She checks he is actually asleep by making a little coughing sound, and when he doesn’t stir at her noise, she slips soundlessly through the wards.
The book is located quickly on the shelf, hiding behind a large spider plant, and she quickly turns to hurry back to the safety of her desk.
She is just about to step through, when Tom’s strong arm loops around her waist, holding her firm against his chest.
“What are you doing?” His mouth is at her temple, his hand flexing on her stomach.
“Just getting a book,” she says, willing her heart to stop beating so wildly.
“To help with the runes?”
His other arm comes around her to grab at the book, so she does the only thing she can think of at that moment. She throws it outside of the barrier, and they both watch as it arcs a ripple through the magic threads and then lands with a thud on the floor next to her desk.
Tom’s arm tightens around her waist. “Now, why might you have just thrown that book away from me?” His other hand brushes a curl away from her ear. “What is it you don’t want me to see, Hermione?”
“It’s nothing. Just a book.”
“I do not think you’d go to such lengths to hide just a book from me.”
The hand on her stomach moves very quickly, up and over her sternum, until his fingers are wrapped loosely but firmly at the bottom of her throat. Tom uses it to walk them both backwards, until he turns her so she is pressed against the shelving she’s just tiptoed away from. He doesn’t grip, doesn’t hurt, but the silent acknowledgment of his power and strength is there for her to feel.
They are pressed against each other, perfectly aligned, and he gives her throat the lightest of squeezes. “What is in the book?”
She looks up at him, knowing the precarious knife edge she balances upon. He could potentially do her some damage here, could tighten that grip until her life ebbs away there and then.
“It’s a book about me.”
This piques his interest. “Why is there a book about you?”
“It’s just a book about Unspeakables,” she lies. “It’s embarrassing, is all. I didn’t want you to read the ridiculous interview I had to do.”
He doesn’t look convinced, although his hand leaves her throat to move around the side of her skull, his thumb sliding across her jaw. She paints her expression as virtuous and a little doe-eyed, trying to wield what might possibly attract him.
“You don’t need to read a book about me, do you, Tom?” Her own hands land on his chest in the small gap between them. “You already know a lot about me, don’t you?”
She pictures the memory he’d sent of them, of them tangled together, him pushing inside of her. She screams it, loud and clear in technicolour inside of her mind, and his attention snags on it. He’s compelled to look closer, she can feel the icy probe of his magic in her head.
Hermione focuses on the minute details of the memory. The pinch of skin as he grips at her waist, the slide of his lips up the column of her throat. Their shredded groans, mixing in the hazy sunlight.
In her office, against the bookshelf, Tom’s thigh moves in between her own, and her focus wobbles, the memory distorting for a moment inside her head.
His magic clings to it, adds colour and sound back in, and because he’s the only one of them that has actually experienced this moment in time it feels like a bomb has detonated in her brain. It is so vivid, so real, and now it is him that is pinpointing minutiae. The scrape of her fingernails across his chest, the clench of her legs around his waist. The breathy moans as he starts to push inside her.
She is moving on top of his thigh, sliding herself needily along the fabric of his trousers, without even realising. The control she thought she had has slipped away like grains of sand caught in the wind, as he assaults her thoughts with everything he does know about her. Every sense is on fire.
In her mind, his hips snap against hers and it is just enough to reanimate her, to have her slam her mind shut and to grapple in the pocket of her trousers for her wand. She sends a stinging hex at his feet and it sends him quickly moving away from her.
Hermione scurries out of the wards, chest heaving and her cunt absolutely throbbing with need.
The ache—the want—does not leave her until she is under her duvet that night, thinking about how he didn’t even go for her wand. He could have so easily disarmed her, snatched it right from her pocket. She resorts to swirling her own desperate fingers between her legs, both her cognisant and unconscious mind once again dominated by Tom Riddle.
*******
She only left the office for four minutes. She didn’t ward the door.
Four minutes.
Draco is leaning against her desk, looking straight at Tom. He is trying to act casual, but she knows Draco well by now, and she sees the line of tension rippling through his body.
Tom actually looks nonchalant for once, sitting on his chaise longue. But his back is straight, as if he’s trying to make himself as tall as possible.
A frost permeates the air.
“Granger,” Draco says. “I was just chatting with—” He pauses. “What did you say your name was again?”
“I didn’t.” Tom glances at her. “Hello, Hermione.”
At the sound of her first name on Tom’s lips, Draco’s eyes flash. A slight, almost imperceptible smirk flickers over Tom’s face. Hermione thinks maybe she should just walk out.
“Malfoy, what are you doing here?”
“I just thought I’d come by and see how you’re getting on with that top secret mission of yours.” He stands upright, wandering over to her. Tom’s eyes follow him, but he doesn’t move from his chair.
“Theo says he is still working on it.”
“Fancy telling me all about it over lunch?”
Hermione opens her mouth to answer but of course, Tom beats her to it.
“Actually, we have a lunch meeting, don’t we, Hermione?” he drawls. He rises to his feet, but can only walk as far as the invisible barrier will let him. He doesn’t test it, obviously unwilling to show Draco that he is incarcerated in the office.
“We do, I’m afraid. Sorry, Malfoy.”
Draco nods. “You’re going to Jenkins’ retirement party tonight, aren’t you? I can escort you, if you’d like.”
Over Draco’s shoulder, Hermione can see Tom rolling his neck, patience growing thin.
“I am, but I’ll probably be arriving late. I’ll just see you there, okay?”
Draco looks like he wants to say more, but a glance over at Tom halts him in his path. Hermione can see the grind of his jaw as he bids her goodbye and strides out of her office.
Tom looks smug. “Told you he wants to fuck you.”
She can’t stop the roll of her eyes. “You’re ridiculous.”
“If you let him lay a finger on you—”
Hermione snorts. “You’ll do what, from behind there? Glare through the wall?”
The picture of Harry and Ron is hurled towards her, but it just hits the wards and the magic tingles, upset, as it crashes to the floor.
“You will not,” he states.
“Maybe I will.”
And she wants to now—wants to storm over to Draco’s office and fuck him on top of his desk, just to spite Tom. She’d leave both their office doors wide open, so that Tom Riddle and the whole Unspeakable department can hear the groans and the moans and know that Draco fucks her so, so well.
She leaves her mind wide open, and his face twists at what he sees.
“I don’t belong to you,” she says.
His laugh is ice. “You will.”
*******
That night she wears a small, black party dress, and she stops by her office, just so he can see what he is missing.
The silence is heavy as he studies her.
“Come closer. Let me see you.”
She stands at the barrier, letting him have his fill, and something ripples through the air. Danger, a warning. She should listen to it.
He surveys her bare skin, dips his eyes to the exposed swell of her breasts above midnight fabric, lingers at the short hem of the dress.
“Is this for him?”
“No, it’s for me,” she says.
“Show me.”
She draws her wand and places it on a shelf away from the wards. Then, she steps through the golden threads, face to face with nothing in between them for the first time.
His first touch is to her collarbone, the slightest of brushes along to the thin straps of her dress. With a pinch of two fingers a strap is slowly pulled down her arm, and her breast threatens to spill out from its confines.
“It is a lovely dress,” Tom says. “Malfoy wouldn’t have been able to contain himself.”
“He’ll see it,” she replies. “Later.”
The other strap is torn down at her words, and cool air hits her already pebbled nipples. His long fingers drop down to circle each one, his touch confident and sure.
“He wouldn’t know what to do with you.”
Hermione fists a hand into his crisp white shirt and draws him closer, meeting his mouth as his chin dips.
He tastes like the stars, and there is a familiarity to his kiss that has her blood pounding. She knows this—her future, his past, and the collision course they are on. She can see it now, as clear as day.
She pulls at him, wrenches buttons out of their holes, and slides her hands across his bare skin. She needs to feel him, where he’s real beneath his clothes. Warm and alive and how? How is he here? Her nails leave half moons in his skin, imprints in his perfect body, unmarked by battle or by soul splitting but marked wholly by her.
Tom is just as greedy, yanking at the fabric of her dress until it is above her hips, a useless belt in the middle of her body. His hands don’t stop touching her, mapping her everywhere, until she is melting into his touch. She wants and that is the scariest part of it all.
They stumble against the bookshelf, sending it rattling and the picture of Harry and Ron tumbling over. Hermione has his shirt off and trousers open, reaching inside to slide a palm over the hot, hard length of him. He jerks into her, and she revels in the power of having him at her mercy. She wants him begging.
Before she can think of how to exact that outcome, she is spun, her back pressed against the shelving, and he stills the hand on his cock with a palm of his own. The wood bites into vertebrae, unforgiving. His mouth envelops a nipple, and his fingers find the wet heat of her cunt.
Her head hits the shelves with a thunk as she groans uncontrollably. His eyes are black, focused on her mouth, and she wants to tear the sound out of the air, stuff it back inside, hide it away.
“Don’t hold back, Hermione,” he murmurs against her breast, moving up to lick a path to the hollow of her throat. His low voice vibrates against her skin and her control is slipping, the moan tumbling as he slides a finger inside of her. “Let me hear you.”
She doesn’t have the energy to hold anything back anymore. Fighting the gravitational pull of him for all of these weeks has left her drained. She is loud as he adds another finger, roughly squeezing at her breast with his other hand. She is obscenely wet, and he touches her with an adept precision, exactly how she likes. He knows her—her body—so well.
Her underwear is ripped away, one thigh shoved out and open, and then Tom Riddle is inside of her with one harsh thrust.
With her own hands she claws at him, gouges stripes out of his flawless skin as he starts to move. It feels good, too good, and she hates every second of it. How can it be him who can do this to her, make her feel like her heart has been wrenched upside down in her chest.
“I hate you,” she whispers, but he bottoms out inside of her and it is punctuated with a moan that has her eyes fluttering shut in twisted pleasure.
“Good,” he says, scraping his teeth at her pulse point. “You’ll never forget this.”
His thrusts quicken, deep and hard and now the stars are behind her eyelids as he engulfs her everywhere. It’s too much. There is no way she can hold back her release as she shatters against him. She is a speck in the cosmos, dust floating towards an infinite black hole.
“You’re mine,” he says, and he floods inside of her with a deep rumble from his chest.
Hermione shoves him away, pulling her dress up with one hand and down with the other, quickly covering herself back up. She can feel his spend running down her thighs.
Tom is the most dishevelled she’s ever seen him. Bare chest, trousers open, hair falling over his face. The tips of his cheeks are pink, and she can hear the ragged sounds of his breath as she turns away from him, desperately trying to control her own.
The clink of his belt being re-threaded sees her spin back to face him. He shrugs his shirt back on, making quick work of the buttons, watching as she smoothes her hair back into place.
A hand comes out to grab her wrist as she steps towards the wards. She side-steps him, safe and sound on the other side of the barrier before he can have her in his grasp once more.
“Do not go to him.” His voice is a command.
She grabs her wand, weaving magic around her body that irons out the creases of her dress and re-touches the make up on her face.
Hermione doesn’t look back at him as she storms out of the room. The furious shout of her name echoes around the corridor as the door slams behind her.
*******
Desperate fingers grapple at the desk top, looking for purchase as her hips bones slam against the wooden edge.
“Harder,” she grits out, teeth firmly clenched.
He curses, pulling back and then surging forwards, pressing bruises into her skin with every snap of his hips. She welcomes them, absorbs his aching touch, wanting to be able to press the proving purple with her own finger tips tomorrow.
Her back arches and one of his hands grabs at her hair, pulling roughly as he leans down over her to murmur right into her ear.
“Did Malfoy get a good look at you?” Another harsh thrust that has her gasping. “Did he know I was dripping from you the whole night?”
“No. He said he loved my dress.” The tight tug of her curls is just on the edge of being too painful. “More,” she groans.
“Not until you say it.” He pushes her head back to the desk, releasing her hair to graze a hand up every bump in her spine.
Hermione presses her lips firmly closed as he fucks into her, the desk rattling across the tiles.
“Say it,” he seethes. “Admit you’re mine.”
She tries to push back into him as her hand drops to swirl at her clit. One quick touch is all she manages before he notices and grabs her hand, clenching his fist over it and pinning it back to the desk. His movements slow, punishing her with the delicious lazy glide of his cock.
“More,” she cries, and then shoves her other hand into her mouth as please dances along the very tip of her tongue. She will not say that word to him. Never. She bites down so hard that she is sure she can taste copper.
“Say it, Hermione.”
He keeps her there, dragging in and out, drawing out every purposeful movement as she writhes and wriggles beneath him.
She cannot take it.
It is too much. It is not enough.
“Yours,” she breathes into her palm, and although her words are muffled it is all he needs to re-start his quick thrusts, fucking into her in earnest.
“Never forget it,” he says, and she tumbles over the edge into darkness.
*******
“What happens to me?”
Hermione looks up from behind her desk. Tom is sitting on his chaise longue, one foot on the opposite knee, a strong arm stretched out along the backrest. He looks so attractive that for a moment, all she can do is stare at him. “What? When?”
“What happens to me? In the future.”
“The past, you mean—What’s happened to you.”
“In my future, what happens to me?”
She’s still debating killing him. A quick Avada and it is all done, his future wiped out in a whisper of a spell.
“You get what you want,” she says.
He nods to himself, ever so slowly. “Yet I’m not here, in this time, am I?”
“No, you’re not.”
“Tell me what happened.”
She will not do that. She won’t risk him succeeding, of Harry being dead any longer than he was. She will not tell him anything that could matter.
“No,” she says.
This frustrates him, has him striding around his cage muttering and cursing. It extends further into her office now, and he can almost reach her desk.
“I see you, you know. You are not as innocent as you like to pretend.” Rage rolls from him, off every perfectly pressed edge. “I have seen the future you. I could tell you things that will haunt you.”
She has wondered what version of herself has visited him all those times. He’d said she was older, hair shorter, just the small physical changes of ageing. As they’d dressed the previous day he’d moved a slow finger over her heart and said “No scar, yet,” and she hadn’t wanted to ask what he’d meant.
She knows what becomes of him. What she doesn’t know is what becomes of her.
*******
Theo is delivering the time turner tomorrow morning.
“It is your last night,” she says after she’s packed away her paperwork late in the evening. He has helped, and her jobs list was completed much quicker than normal. She almost laments the loss of an extra pair of hands. “Any last requests?”
He thinks for a moment. “A walk.”
So she casts her camouflaging charms and tethers them together with magic so that he can’t go anywhere, and she walks him around the Ministry.
“It’s not changed much,” he says, eyes flickering over the decor on every level.
In the atrium he looks at where the fountain of Magical Brethren used to sit, until his future duel with Dumbledore smashed it into smithereens. “This is different.”
“Yes, the fountain you remember was destroyed.”
He leans forwards to inspect what is in its place. It’s a memorial to those lost in the war now, a tranquil pool with the names of the fallen inscribed around the edge. There is a smaller plaque, a thank you, with three names etched in glimmering gold.
“Hermione Granger,” he mutters. He looks back up at her. “What did you do to deserve this?”
She takes him in, standing there next to the names of those whose death he causes. That he has caused.
“I helped save the world.”
*******
Theo’s tawny owl delivers a weighty brown package at 9am. Out spills a small, golden time turner, glittering under the low light of the Unspeakable department.
“It’s time,” she says, and he looks up from his book sharply.
The office door is locked from the inside, and then she tears down the humming threads of the wards that have kept him contained all these weeks. He doesn’t step out of them, so she walks up to him.
“I would say you should kiss me goodbye but I am positive this is not the last time we will meet.”
Hermione drinks him in, this wizard—this human— standing in front of her. She could almost pretend he is someone else. Maybe she has been all along, so she pushes up on to her tip toes and presses a quick kiss to his cheek.
Tom’s eyes flicker over the entirety of her. He takes the collar of her pale pink blouse in between two fingers, rubbing at the silk.
“The eighth time we met, you looked like this,” he says. “This is what you were wearing.”
Hermione places the time turner around his neck, and he takes it into his palm. He crooks a smile at her. “Hermione.”
“Tom.”
“I could stay.”
Hermione would be lying if she says this hadn’t crossed her mind. What would happen to the line of time if she kept him in this year? What would happen to them, if he was perpetually by her side?
“No. You don’t want to stay, anyway.”
There is a suggestion of mirth in dark brown eyes. “You’re right. I have plans. Wish me luck?”
“Never.”
And with a spin of the time turner, he is gone. Just like that, popping out of existence almost too quickly. Hermione blinks at the spot where he was just there, like he might reappear again immediately.
He doesn’t.
Hermione walks back to her desk, picking up the brown envelope. She tips it, and another identical time turner slides out onto the wood.
Theo has delivered.
The blue chaise longue is soft under her thighs as she sits down, the time turner heavy in her hand.
Carefully, she loops the time turner around her neck. With a deep breath she closes her eyes, turns the hourglass, and that is that. It’s done.
She disappears into Tom Riddle’s past, to the eighth time he met Hermione Granger.
Her future.