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Chapter Text

Hermione had a lot of drive.

She wanted to do good in the world. Later, she wanted to save it. To grab it from the clutches of Voldemort and shape it into the loving one she’d known growing up. More than anything, she wanted to be a part of it. To claim the magic that flowed through her veins. 

Fighting in the war had challenged everything she knew. All the dark and evil and despicable things she’d seen— and done— and still, she knew there was worse out there. That another would rise from the ashes of Voldemort. They’d learn from his mistakes and be stronger. Smarter, even.

She’d become very powerful through the war. Dredged up ancient bits of magic that the wizarding world had forced away. That fear from Grindelwald had long buried. It surged through her in a way that made her old magic pitiable. 

All this, because of her drive.

And how fucking ironic was it, that her drive had gotten her to the very end? That she’d made it— sacrificed so many pieces of herself to get there. 

Victory. 

Just to fucking be transported back in time the second the fighting stopped.

1944. In Hogwarts.

It broke her. 

All her friends were gone. The smattering ashes that had been floating around her disappeared and a much more put together castle appeared in its place. 

A new start , Dumbledore had said. Our secret , he’d promised. She just needed to get through the school year quietly— undetected— and if he hadn’t figured out a solution by then then she could spend her time after graduation— far away from Hogwarts and most likely Britain all together— trying to find the pieces to the puzzle herself.

It was a fine plan.

Except Hermione had nothing left. No drive. No motivation to solve the riddle and make it back to a time that apparently did not want her. 

She felt hopelessly and permanently stuck.

And hopelessness— it was a funny thing. It could drag all the feeling out of Hermione’s fingertips and stifle her magic so that she was no longer able to cast a patronus. It could weigh her down and make her belly feel fuller than it had in months— enough so that she couldn’t eat. It kept her in bed on the weekends and made showering a chore.

But it could not stifle the need to replace the feeling with something else. Anything else. 

She found herself in the potions store room one day, looking for lacewing flies when an idea caught her. She grabbed up handfuls of supplies and tossed it in her beaded bag before common sense could catch up.

There was an abandoned classroom a few doors down from the potion’s lab. She couldn’t say why she decided to brew there. It would make more sense to take up in the room of requirement where no one could catch her. 

Only there was a large, sick part of her that wanted to be caught. And as she clanked and clattered in the room after curfew, brewing a potion so addictive that merely a few drops would get her high enough to see the stars, she grew frustrated at the lack of attention she was drawing. 

And that was unfair, wasn’t it? This was an abandoned classroom. In the dungeons. And she’d put in a bit of effort— threw up a silencing charm and disillusioned the door. But gods, she wanted so bad for someone to walk in, to see Hermione Granger, brightest witch of her age, brewing drugs.

But nobody came. Because she’d set herself up for failure. She was too good. Her spells were too strong, and the potion smelled maddeningly inviting. She couldn’t say if she had actually planned to try it before, but there were so many well thought out intentions that had blown up in her face and she could no longer rationalize thinking things through.

It was— more and less than she thought. It tasted like bubblegum medicine. Thick and chalky in a way that gagged her but she swallowed it down. 

She woke up five hours later three feet from where she’d started and with absolutely no memory of the night.

And still, the ache of hopelessness ran through her veins. 

So she packed up the potion in a huff, funneling it into a flask and placing it in her bag. She vanished the rest of the mess and stormed off to breakfast feeling angrier than she had in weeks.

Abraxas Malfoy’s fingers caressed her thigh right at the hem of her skirt as she walked by. Without thinking— without even realizing what was happening— she raised her hand and threw it across his face. Hard enough that she could see the outline of her fingers on his cheek. There was a dribble of blood at the corner of his mouth and her eyes followed it as it spilled off the edge of his chin. 

She breathed heavily and something strange fluttered in her stomach. It felt a little bit like nostalgia— painful and nagging. Reminding her of just how slappable all Malfoys must be.

She turned away without a word and fled to the nearest loo. Took the flask out with shaking hands and brought it to her lips. 

She missed hopelessness. It’s temporary absence had brought forth room for other emotions. Like sadness and anger and other things she couldn’t control. So she made a decision for herself. Chose to get high. Just not quite as high as the previous night.

And it was glorious, the way that day passed in a flurry of rainbow colors and beautiful, whimsical voices tickling her ears. She sat in the back of classrooms, as she always had and answered zero questions, just like normal. 

From her very first step into the Great Hall, all the way up until she closed the curtains on her bed in Gryffindor tower, not a single person noticed. No one thought to ask her if she was all right.

Hermione didn’t care to ponder on that. She just sipped from her flask and drifted to sleep.

---

She was back in the abandoned dungeons classroom, brewing more potion even though it’d be months before she needed any. The world teetered around her and she hummed a lovely melody to something she couldn’t recall ever hearing as she mindlessly chopped, stirred and bottled. 

She was just slipping the extra vials into her bag when the door was thrust open.

Tom Riddle had his lumos’d wand pointed at the center of her eyes and it burned. 

“Could you lower that, please?” She squinted against the light but it made her eyes water. 

He furrowed his brow but his wand did not waver. “It’s after curfew.”

Hermione rolled her eyes, gesturing to the classroom. “Obviously. Why do you think I disillusioned the door?”

Riddle stared at her, apparently at a loss for words. “I could give you detention for this, Miss Granger.”

Hermione waved her hand, trying to speed him along. “Well go on, then. Write the slip so I can leave.”

Something flashed in his eyes then, and if she’d been any bit sober she'd have had it in her to be worried. Because she went through an entire war under Moody’s tutelage and that meant she could identify the meaning of stuttering words or twitching hands. She knew of several different spells to cast to check if someone was lying and— even though she’d never used them— a slew of lessons on torture without using the cruciatus. Spells that put the unforgivables to shame. 

Hermione was a master at reading body language.

And had she been in her right mind as she stormed out with her detention slip in hand— she’d have recognized the spark of interest in Tom Riddle’s eye.

---

Four days later, Hermione was back in the dungeons. Not brewing this time, just… laying on the ground, twirling her wand between her fingers. 

She’d served a single night of detention where she wouldn’t let herself under the influence of the potion because Dumbeldore had a much too keen eye and, even if he didn’t know exactly what, would probably realize something was off.

And since then she’d delegated herself to classes, the Great Hall and her bed hangings. She glanced over at her bag, where a pile of unfinished homework sat inside, but couldn't find it in herself to care about fucking— fucking History of Magic— when the most dangerous wizard sat three seats down and all she could think about was how much history was still to come, how much death and devastation a single person with a smart mouth could—

She sat up and threw her head in her hands. It didn’t matter. It did not matter because this was not her time and those were not her worries. Future Hermione— or past, depending on how you looked at it— had helped to take him down. Current Hermione just had to sit here and pretend to give a damn about her failing grades.

Which she didn’t. She’d learned well past N.E.W.T level Defense and Transfiguration and Charms and Potions— not to mention the ancient magic she’d saturated herself with— in the war years and anything else— well she didn’t care. She hadn’t survived a four year long war, underground and sneak attacking and fucking frightened, just to be put back into school and forced to pretend as if she was less skilled than she actually was. 

So no, Hermione didn’t care about her school work, in this fake time where nothing actually mattered and her energy was much better spent doing this.

The door opened just as Hermione had laid back down and closed her eyes, head turned away from the incoming light.

“Granger. Again?”

“Riddle, is that you?” she asked, eyes still closed and voice light. “It’s been ages, how are you on this beautiful night?”

“Are you a glutton for punishment?”

She shrugged, shoulders dragging against the cobblestone. “You’d be the one to decide that.” She gestured her hand at his Head Boy badge. “Being the one doling out the punishments.”

He shifted from foot to foot impatiently. Hermione could practically hear his temper running up. “Why are you in here?”

She opened her eyes and turned towards him, cheek falling flat against the ground. He stood a few feet in front of her, eyes cast down disapprovingly and temper evident.

“Waiting for you, clearly.”

“That’s supposed to be clear?”

“You’re the only one patrolling the dungeons.”

He clenched his jaw. Spoke through his teeth. “And why would you want to see me?”

She smiled at him, brazen and absolutely fearless. “When else would I get the pleasure of annoying the Head Boy?”

His arm snatched out to grab her by the elbow and pull her to her feet. The world tilted on its axis and she grabbed onto his shoulder to steady herself. 

Riddle glared at her, confusion barely hidden. “Are you drunk?” 

Hermione, balance restored, threw her arms out wide. “Search me if you must.” Her beaded bag was glamoured against even the sharpest of eyes. Tom Riddle was not stronger than her. Not at this point, at least.

His eyes roved her, hand twitching at his side as if considering it, before he shook his head. “I’ll not deign to search you without anyone else around.”

Hermione rolled her eyes. His voice breezed through her mind like wind chimes. “Such a gentleman. I suppose the rumors are true.”

“And clearly, you are intoxicated.”

“I’m not drunk,” she insisted.

Riddle grabbed her by the wrist and tugged forward, walking towards the door. “I’ll walk you back to Gryffindor tower. I fear you might not make it back otherwise.”

“You underestimate my ability,” she said, tripping at the speed he’d set. 

His eyes stayed pinned ahead. “I will find out what you’re up to.”

Hermione only realized the next morning at breakfast, as she forced food into her sloshing stomach, that he’d not issued her a detention. 

---

The third time she was in the dungeons after curfew, she could not deny it was about Tom Riddle.

She was much higher than normal. Pretending as if she wasn’t doing it just to press Riddle’s buttons. 

Ten minutes after curfew he burst through the door. She was sitting against the wall, twiddling aimlessly with her wand. Colors ebbed and flowed around him, bouncing like little bunnies that made Hermione smile. 

It was only when he was squatting in front of her, mouth moving and no sound coming out that Hermione realized she was too gone to hear him.

He tilted his head curiously at her, and then his lips drew in, anger evident. He shook her violently after a few minutes.

Hermione merely shrugged.

When he realized there was no getting through to her, he looked her in the eyes and she felt a force pushing against her Occlumency walls.

She barked out a laugh and shut him out so forcefully he flew back from where he’d been squatted. 

He did not try to get into her mind again that night. Merely turned on his heel and disappeared out of the classroom.

The next morning, Hermione woke up in her bed, unsure how she got there.

---

He approached her in the library during her free period a few days later, sliding into the chair across from her. Hermione had been shunned there by her Head of House, insisting that she catch up on some of the work she’d been refusing.

Her Transfiguration book sat open in front of her, as well as blank parchment. She was poking into her skin with the sharp end of her quill, watching as it drew blood and then sewing it back up with a flick of her hand. 

“It’s a potion, isn’t it?”

Hermione did not look up to him. “What is?”

He lifted his hand up and down at her. “Whatever it is you’re pumping into your body. It can’t be muggle.”

She glanced up. “Why not?”

Riddle scoffed, apparently glowing in his first chance to one up her. “Smuggling in muggle drugs to a magic castle? During a war that has left the muggle world destitute?”

“Destitute people probably need it more than anyone.” The irony was painful. Her mouth watered for a sip from her flask. 

His head tilted, sharp mind missing nothing. Hermione wished she could forget how brilliant he was. Had always been. 

“I will find out what you’re hiding.”

She wasn’t sure he was still talking about drugs. “You do not frighten me.”

“I am not trying to.”

She tilted her head. “Aren’t you? Isn’t that your thing? Scaring people into submission.”

On the desk, his fingers dug into the wood hard enough to whiten the tips. He leaned forward until his elbows were splayed out, nearly touching her.

“What are you playing at?”

The clock overhead chimed the hour. Hermione began packing away her things.

“I’m off to Herbology. See you, Tom.” She stood without waiting for a response.

“Will I see you tonight?” His back was towards her now. Her hand tightened on Her bag strap.

“I’ve got detention with Merryweather.”

He did not respond this time.

---

Hermione had let several weeks go by high, at this point. Spending more time on the potion than off, by a large margin. She woke to shakes and nausea and headaches, reaching for her flask before whatever was sitting in her stomach could come up. After her second class of the day she would slip into the loo and reinvigorate, and it would be glorious, much better than the first.

Dinner would come, and sometimes she’d allow herself to indulge, but mostly she held back and waited. The wait was always worth it.

The nights without detention were the best. She could sit in the dungeons and take as much as she wanted. Too much, sometimes. She’d wake and find large sections of her night completely missing. Unsure where she was or how she got there. More than once Riddle had approached her with questions of her strange behavior the night prior, and she’d have no idea he’d even visited her. 

It was frightening, to have huge chunks of time missing. But it was better than the latter. Which was being off the potion— feeling the withdrawal and reintroduction of emotions she’d staved off for so long. 

Riddle came in just as the flask brushed her lips, the potion barely grazing her tongue when his eyes landed on it with a winning grin. 

His hand was snatching the flask away before her drugged brain could process what had happened. He brought it to his nose and sniffed, before letting out a deep, guttural cough.

“Salazar, Granger, are you drinking straight petrol?”

Hermione barked out a laugh. “Funny, how you say Salazar Slytherin’s name and reference muggle fuel in the same sentence.”

She reached for the flask and he snatched it back, raising his arm above his head in a strangely teasing motion. 

“Give it back,” she demanded. Now it was his turn to laugh.

“You are in no position to make demands. Now tell me what this is.”

“Or you’ll kill me?”

Riddle stiffened. His arm dropped slightly, but his grip remained white knuckled. 

“I’ve no reason to kill you.”

Hermione raised her eyebrows, aware that she was taunting the most dangerous wizard to date but unable to care. He was not Voldemort. Not yet. And he was not stronger or more capable than her. Not at this time. 

“But you’ve killed for less,” Hermione stood and began circling him, twirling her wand carelessly. “Haven’t you?”

Riddle was an excellent Occlumens. His mind was utterly silent, even as she seeped in undetected. Soaked through the minor cracks in his walls he didn’t even know were there. She withdrew, uninterested in seeing any of his horrid thoughts. Just happy to know she was capable.

But his body language could use some work. Even if she hadn’t known about Myrtle and his father, she’d have been sure now.

“What are you saying?” His voice was eerily calm and even. Like the ocean before a great storm.

“Nothing,” she answered lightly, sticking her palm out. “If you give me my flask back.”

Their eyes met and she felt a hard push against her mind. She narrowed her eyes. Her walls did not budge. 

“That’s not how you’ll get my secrets, Riddle.”

He was silent for a moment, eyes roving her face with a calculating stare. He handed her back the flask.

“No,” he said slowly. “I suppose not.”

---

At the end of November, sticky, soft snow began to fall. Hermione could not look at it without picturing dead bodies— blood soaking into the white and dying it pink. Christmas trees torn down as safe houses were exposed. Condolences instead of gifts.

She spent the first week of December almost completely out of sight. Most of her time during these days would never be able to be recalled. Not even with a pensieve. 

But still, Hermione continued on attending classes. Because she still cared, on some inexplicable level that she could not voice. She longed for it to dry up, to disappear like everything else had. 

She could not get high enough to escape it. The responsibility she had to keep up a facade. If not for herself, then for the future that had fallen into her palms. 

And she wanted to— gods, how she longed for the ability to drown out that last piece of noise. To just be able to sit in her dorm room, absolutely mindless and uncaring, letting the passage of time keep onward until the school year ended or she was kicked out into the streets. 

It never came. Even as she sat in her classes so high she could not wiggle her fingertips. Could not think or feel. She moved with her peers, doing the bare minimum even though it was more than she wanted to give.

She was feeling especially bad for herself on that particular December night. Her flask too heavy in her grip, her mind too fried to listen to the signals it was trying to send to her hand, to lift, because she was not there yet, she could still feel—

The door cracked open. Riddle came in with a paper bag in his hands. 

He sat down beside her without a word and dropped the bag onto her lap.

Her head was thrown against the flagstone wall and she merely shifted her eyes to him. “What is this?”

“Do you remember the last time you ate?”

She pursed her lips in thought. Surely she’d had breakfast this morning? No, she’d chosen a lie in. Well, for sure yesterday—

“Three days, by my count.” He upturned the contents of the bag onto her lap. Two warm, gooey cinnamon rolls fell out, leaking sugar into her skirt. “Eat it.”

Hermione snorted. “Are you worried about me, Riddle?”

“It is my job as Head Boy to make sure all students are properly taken care of.” His voice was most official. A fine impersonation of Percy, in her opinion.

“Shouldn’t that mean reporting drug use to the Headmaster?” She reached for the cinnamon roll. Funny, how her hands worked for food, but not for her potion.

“The Headmaster does not have the time or patience to deal with your situation properly.”

“Meaning he’d throw me to the streets. And you’re preventing that?”

Riddle shifted next to her as she placed a bite onto her tongue. “The year is nearly half over. Surely you could keep it together for the next six months?”

The taste of warm cinnamon sugar was the first burst of pleasure she’d felt in ages. She savored it, her eyes closed, chewing slowly.

“I do not wish to keep it together. I’d like to fall apart something spectacular. Maybe large enough to take others down with me. Like a cosmo at the end of its life.”

“You are not a cosmo and no downfalls are beautiful. They are hard to watch and embarrassing.”

Hermione shrugged. “You’ve never been on the winning side if you believe that.”

“I’m not on anyone’s side. Are we talking about stars or wars?”

She wrinkled her nose. “Wars, ugh. Please no. I’ve had enough of those for a lifetime.”

Riddle laughed. It sounded genuine enough that Hermione felt a wisp of sobriety tingling at the brink of her mind. 

“Between the muggles and Grindelwald, I expect many feel the same.”

“But not you.”

Riddle turned to face her. “Pardon?”

“You’ll start a war for what you want.”

She was dangerously close to unspoken territory. To ruining everything just because she needed to feel superior to this version of Voldemort. 

“And what do you think it is that I want?”

She pursed her lips. Actually considered it because— “I expect I don’t know. But you ooze of Dark Magic and power. By themselves, they are anxiety inducing, but mostly harmless. Put them together though…”

Riddle bristled, leaning forward off the wall and meeting her eyes. His were serious and threatening. She’d be scared, if she hadn’t spent the last three years elbow deep in a war and come out as one of the strongest fighters. 

“You cannot sense dark magic.”

He was right— in a sense. A normal person, with a normal level of magic, would never be able to merely feel magic’s aura.

But someone like Hermione, who had spent six months underground, studying the ancient ways of witches— the methods that had gotten them burned at the stake and practically eradicated from society— had unlocked levels unimaginable for most. 

“If that’s true, why are you so nervous? Why not just refute the claim?”

His spine straightened. “You think you’ve got me all figured out—”

“I have,” she interrupted. “Oh great Heir of Slytherin, shall I bow to you—”

His wand was pointed at her throat, jabbing into her pulse point. Blood thrummed alive in her veins and magic crackled at her fingertips. She longed to show him what she was capable of. 

“You cannot take me.” She would love to be the one to humble a young and arrogant Tom Riddle, but it was only fair she warned him first.

The pressure on his wand did not let up. “What do you know?”

“I know that I do not want to be a part of this!” she exclaimed, anger climbing up her spine so suddenly that it actually burned. “I did not ask you to come down here night after night. To take me to my room or investigate my potion or— or bring me fucking food when I clearly have no worry for myself.”

She was breathing heavy by the end of it. Her anger was so absorbing that she had not noticed the absence of his wand. It hung limply at his side. 

She could see the fury in his eyes now, practically unhinged, and if he’d figured out how to tap into his magical reserves by now then she could be dead with a simple flip of his hand. But this was seventh year Tom Riddle and he still had several years before he disappeared to learn the ancient ways that ran through her blood. 

To her surprise, he stepped back, face blank. He swept his arm to the door. 

“Leave then. Get yourself back to your dorm, now, or spend a week polishing trophies with Pringle.”

And it wasn’t a choice, not really, but she still stood for a second longer than she should have just to prove a point.

---

He did not come and see her for three nights. The stone felt especially cold during his absence.

She had her first bad trip while he was gone.

Visions and images of Harry’s hanging upside down and dead. Ron being slowly dismembered by Dolohov. Bellatrix torturing Ginny in the corner. All of them— even the dead Harry— called out to Hermione. Begged her for help. 

She sat, frozen on the ground with tears staining her cheeks. The visions did not fade until the sun began to peak above the tree lines.

When he arrived the next night, she was trying her hand at sobriety. A withdrawal potion sloshed around in her flask, and she’d been drinking steadily from it all day.

She missed the drugs. But she feared them more. 

He stopped short when he walked in, staring at her calculatingly. 

“You look different,” he said eventually, tone oddly placating.

Hermione pursed her lips. “A new shade of lipstick, perhaps?”

“You do not wear lipstick.”

Hermione hummed, fingers playing with her hair. “Huh. Not sure then.”

Riddle held his hand out for the flask and Hermione handed it to him without a fight. If he’d kept the drugs a secret, there really wasn’t much else she needed to hide.

Besides the obvious.

“You’re sober.”

“You recognize that potion?”

He shook his head. “But I know the addictive smells of inebriation potions.”

She held out a shaking hand and reached for the flask. “This one’s not very well heard of, but it comes in handy to fight the worst of withdrawal symptoms. Vomiting and sweats and the shakes. Mostly.”

He nodded, eyes thoughtful before saying, “I want to know how to make it.”

He did not ask. And for some reason, this inclined Hermione more than anything.

“What interest do you have for a potion like this?”

“Knowledge is power. I would like to collect as much as I can.”

Hermione stared at him with a furrowed brow. “Huh.”

Riddle tilted his head. “You won’t teach me.”

“No.” Hermione shook her head. “No, I will. It’s just— I once knew a girl who felt the same way.”

“Knew?”

Hermione’s throat felt dry and her eyes burned. So she simply nodded.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” he answered without a hint of emotion. Hermione waved him off.

“Hers was not the greatest. I daresay it was a blessing in its own way. She would not survive this world.”

Riddle deigned not to question her. Instead, he turned to her, almost hesitant, with his mouth opened slightly.

“It’s— you’re traumatized, aren’t you?”

“...what?” Her pulse lept into high gear beneath her skin. 

“The substance use should have been the thing that tipped me off, but unfortunately I’d never paid close enough attention before, to see if you’ve been like this your entire time at Hogwarts. But I’ve seen enough war torn soldiers in the streets of muggle London to recognize it. Though it wasn’t until your outburst the other night that I actually saw it.”

He looked at her. Inside, her lungs were shriveling because she simply could not breathe.

“Fear. I had threatened you and instantly you shifted into attack mode. Your eyes even glazed over. As if you were a different person.”

Hermione pulled her knees to her chest and shook her head. “You know nothing about me.”

“You talk often of war. And you’re familiar with Dark Magic.”

She scoffed. She could not hold it back, too irritable and impatient without the effects of her potion to smooth out her edges. 

His eyes searched her face, though he did not try to invade her mind again. 

“I do not wish to discuss my past with you. Not with anyone, actually.” Her tone was firm. Dismissive.

But this was Tom Riddle, and he did not let anything go so easily. 

“I will put your pieces together eventually, Hermione.”

“I should sincerely hope not.”

---

The next night Hermione stayed frustratingly sober as she demonstrated the brew for the Withdrawal Draught.

Riddle watched her with an expert eye, but did not take notes. She had no doubt he’d be able to replicate it flawlessly. 

His eyes travelled up to study her face after a while, as she mindlessly stirred.

“You’re quite good at this.”

Hermione nodded. She was two days off her potion and was likely to chew off his head if too much conversation was made. 

“Your movements and knowledge are well above that of a student. You could probably brew circles around Slughorn.”

The chopped sheep’s stomach went in next. She concentrated, mouthing the numbers as she spun the ladle slowly. 

He was insistent. “Why do you not brew like this in class? You’re scraping the bottom of the barrel when you could easily be at the top.” Above him. Though he did not say so.

“School is pointless. It cannot teach me anything that real life has not already forced down my throat. I’m merely here because there is no other option for a witch my age.”

“Are your options much better if you fail to pass any of your classes?”

The potion began to bubble and she cut off the flame beneath with a wave of her hand. The nonverbal, wandless magic did not go unnoticed by Riddle.

“I would expect a man like you would understand the merits of exploring magic outside of the constraints of a Ministry career.” She funneled the potion into two vials with a wave of her fingers. Riddle watched with a concentrated expression. It was the first time intrigue had ever won out over the blank expression he normally dawned. 

He sat back on the floor, arms coming to support behind his back. “A lovely secretary position seems right up your alley,” he said lightly. 

Was he teasing her?

“Settle in, search for a nice husband,” he continued, eyes sliding over her face, “and then, after popping out your first kid of many, you’ll take your proper place as a housewife.”

Hermione pursed her lips. “Is that how you see women, Riddle?”

“That is the expectation, is it not? How society says it should be?”

Hermione scoffed, handing him one of the vials as she filled her flask with the other. “It has been years since I have regarded society’s expectations of me.”

He brought the vial up to the moon light, turning it sideways. Studying the thickness. “Where did you learn to make such potions? This one and the drugs.”

He was fishing and she knew that. But he’d already assumed she had participated in Grindelwald’s war in some capacity, so she let the truth leak out.

“A favorite form of collecting intel on my side was to use this—“ she shook the addicting potion at him, “—for weeks. Months, perhaps if they were strong willed. We would then withdrawal them. And the withdrawal off this particular brew is dreadful. It lasts for twice as long as any muggle drug on the street.” She pocketed it back into her robe. “And it is not uncommon to die from it.”

Riddle smiled at her— an evil, knowing grin that sent goosebumps across her shoulders. For a moment, she’d forgotten. They were just two students, exploring potions together. 

“So you’d offer them a reprieve. For information?”

“For whatever we needed.”

“Did it work?” He sounded hungry. Not just for the information, but the story. Listening to torture was fun. 

“Most of the time,” she allowed. “But you cannot torture information out of the most loyal of followers.” It was a lesson in disguise, for him. Because Death Eaters, when captured, were often weak minded and soft willed. It did not take much to get what The Order needed. 

The Order, on the other hand, had a much tighter seal. Very few of their secrets leaked due to torture of captured members. 

Riddle, of course, would lack the capacity to understand this. That frightening and beating people into submission could only get him so far.

Hermione met his eyes and her breath caught. Because she had never seen a look like that on his face before. Like— like she was the second coming and he had been an avid follower his entire life. Plans flashed behind his eyes and her stomach twisted in anxiety. 

Bad trips all of the sudden seemed the least of her worries. 

And suddenly the absurdity of it all hit her. 

She had spent more hours with Riddle than anyone else in this time. 

Riddle— who never gave more than polite conversation and dazzling, fake smiles. Never personally connected with anyone. Not even his knights. Had she seen him laugh before? 

She had not realized the danger before. Had not allowed herself to think about the consequences of what exactly she was doing by teasing Riddle. By shrouding herself in a mystery that might eventually lead him to discover the truth underneath. 

But now she knew. 

And she did not know what to do about it.

---

He did not say anything when he came in the next night and Hermione was humming happily and swaying to music that did not play. Did not question her sudden lapse in sobriety. 

He sat beside her and pulled out his History of Magic text, along with parchment and quill. 

“We have an essay due on Friday.”

Hermione did not look up from where her eyes glued to the crescent moon. “I thought I told you how I feel about school.” 

“Are you going to spend the rest of your life only doing things you want?”

Her eyes jerked to him, sharp and seething. “You’ve no idea what I’ve sacrificed for the ability to sit here and ignore my work.” 

He did not flinch under her scrutiny, and it was odd, the way she’d gotten used to the reputation she’d had as an Order Member. A commanding presence that demanded attention and did not budge. 

“And yet the war carries on.”

For the first time, Hermione stood to leave first. She grappled for her bag and walked to the door, turning her head over her shoulder and saying, “you have no idea.”

---

Tom Riddle’s eyes were unlike anything she’d ever seen. On first look, they seemed black, or perhaps even a very dark brown. 

But upon closer inspection, they were actually blue. A deep blue, like the depths of the ocean yet to be explored. 

She thought it was a good metaphor, so she told him. 

He laughed, and she might have thought it was because he was uncomfortable, but she watched several girls flirt, touch and preen on him daily and he was never dismissive. 

So she was forced to accept it might be genuine. She wanted to do it again, if for no other reason than to test the theory. 

“Why are you laughing at me?”

A smile still lingered at the edge of his lips, and his head tossed back gently like he knew a secret she hadn’t yet puzzled out. 

“You’re funny when you aren’t talking in strange riddles.”

She snorted. “Riddle. That’s a good one.”

He rolled his eyes, but another breath of laugh escaped before he turned back to his essay. 

She spent the rest of the night wondering why it felt so good to have that ability. 

---

It took Hermione seconds too long to realize he’d been staring at her mouth. 

Perhaps it was because she was Hermione, and she’d spent the majority of her teenage years wrapped up in a war bigger than anything else. She’d lost her womanhood to a Death Eater in exchange for vital information that had rescued Ginny from her capture three days prior. 

She had not reacted well when she caught Harry staring at her chest, or when Ron had pecked her under the mistletoe. Her body was a weapon, not made for pleasure ogling. She’d told the boys as much. 

Or perhaps it was because this was Voldemort, and the thought of him lusting after any person was almost laughable. Her and Ginny had once spent a half hour debating if his regenerated body even had a cock. 

Even before then, it was hard to imagine. That image was further solidified as Hermione watched Tom Riddle at school. Girls practically spread their legs at him, and he turned a blind eye, utterly unenthused. It was clear to see that sex was not on his radar. 

But he was staring at her lips with dilated pupils and the air charged with something so familiar. But she had never wanted it before— had never been a willing participant in anything except acceptance for doing what she needed to save the wizarding world. 

But to be the focus of Tom Riddle’s attention was much like curtain call at the end of the play. And Hermione was the lead. They all bowed together, but eventually everyone else would step back. They would stretch their arms out at her and the crowd would stand, cheering extra hard as she took her final bow, with all eyes on her—

Hermione had not calculated for it. She had not thought him capable, so she had never tried to prepare herself. How the hand suddenly cupping her cheek felt like heroine injected straight into her bloodstream. Cleared her mind of the potions effects and brought forward an intoxication twice as deadly. More addicting than anything she’d ever try. 

So she did not fight it when his lips brushed gently against hers. She did not stand a chance. Not when she’d been here, alone, seen only by the one man she’d truly wanted to stay away from. Who had taken her parents and her friends and her professors—

She could not think about it. Even if she wanted to, the pressure of his lips was building as his confidence increased and it was getting harder to pull rational thought from her mucked up mind. 

So she kissed Tom Riddle with everything she had. It was not much, not with the effects of her drugs peaking and the absolute mess of a mental state she was always in. Mostly she followed his lead. Opened her mouth when his tongue licked at her lips. Sucked on his when it entered her mouth. Threw her hands into his hair when his smoothed down her arms. 

When she pulled away, minutes later panting hard it was not for lack of want. He was a dedicated learner, fast to recognize what she liked. 

Knowledge was power. She wondered if she’d just opened the door to Voldemort weaponizing sex the same way she had. 

She could not feed him anymore information. There was only so much vulnerability she was willing to give. 

Beside her, Tom’s hands still gripped at her arms and his head rested on her shoulder as he pulled in mouthfuls of air. 

She had done that. To Tom Riddle. 

It felt like power. Hermione had not had that in a long time.

---

She was pushed up against the rough stone wall and Riddle’s hand was slowly making its way from the confines of her hair, down the slope of her spine, to grip her arse. His tongue was in her mouth, tasting and making a mess of any sense the potion had not forcefully dragged from her. 

It was nearing Christmas break and she had managed to avoid any major breakdowns, but as the holidays drew closer her mental state became frail, and she was forced to accept that the healing she had planned on post war had not happened. She had not allowed it. 

And it was a hell of her own making which found her back in the past, addicted to a potion in which odds say she would never overcome. She was well and truly hopeless. 

She had been avoiding Riddle for over a week. Not appearing in the dungeons or the library. Not anywhere where he’d approach her. 

But earlier he’d held her eyes from across the Great Hall, and she’d spent hours realizing how greatly she’d fucked herself up— so why not a bit more?

Her hands threaded through his hair and she bucked her hips against his, feeling his hardness— proof of the man that still was, that he was human and felt urges just like anyone else. 

He froze against the feeling. Pulled back and stared at Hermione questioningly. 

“It’s a hard on, Tom. Surely you’ve had one before?”

“Have you ever been with anyone?”

She fought to roll her eyes. Realized he might be quite fragile in this state. “Don’t ask questions you don’t want answers to.” She tried to pull him forward for another kiss, but he stepped back, amused. 

“You fear me.”

Her defenses rose immediately. “I do not—”

“It’s in your eyes. Like you can see something no one else does. And you hate it. Being afraid.”

She spoke through clenched teeth. “I am not afraid of you.”

“I should have seen it sooner,” and he was smiling, enjoying this. “Very Gryffindor of you to face me head on like this.”

Anger licked at the edges of her pleasant high. Threatened to kill her good mood all together. 

“So bold of you to assume I am afraid, when I am clearly stronger.” He pressed his lips together. “You cannot even get into my mind.”

“Is this the part where you brag about being a child soldier?” he taunted, and she wondered why he did not refute her claim. Why he did not seem insulted. “Tell me Granger, were you born with the specific purpose of decimating war torn villages?”

An awful, frozen wave of sadness washed over her. She pushed it away and grappled after the anger that had been so hot a moment ago. 

“I did not kill for pleasure. Can you say the same?”

His hand was at her throat then. She expected it, waited for the adrenaline of battle to make itself known, but instead an absurd, confusing arousal stood in its place. 

She gasped. His pupils dilated and breathing stuttered. 

“What do you think you know?” he asked, and there was more curiosity than anger in his voice now. His other hand had come to her thigh, sliding up and under her skirt. 

“Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answer to,” she repeated. 

She pulled at his tie and yanked him in, lips landing on his, tongue licking at the seams of his mouth. 

It was a distraction, more than anything. A Hail Mary because she was not ready to confront him. She knew it was a matter of time, that she was on his radar and her secrets did not stand a chance. Her life was as good as gone, the least she could do was try and enjoy these last few moments. 

Except… except it was working. His hesitation had lasted only a moment before the taunting hand at her thigh began clutching, desperately grabbing. Before his lips responded against hers in earnest and she could feel his cock hardening once more. 

She did not wait. She’d spent three months with Lavender Brown learning the act of seduction under Tonks. How to pull at a cock. The best ways to blow a man. The perfect moans at the perfect intervals for the perfect deception. 

Men with inhibitions were weak. 

And Tom Riddle had so rarely shown this side. It was as much of a turn on as it was an advantage. 

His tie was off and shirt unbuttoned before he’d managed to yank her underwear down to her knees. 

His touch was inexperienced but by no means shy. He found her center in no time, circling outside of it before dipping a finger on, letting a shuddering breath out at the feel as her head fell back against the wall. 

His thumb circled her clit, at first with too much pressure but he learned like no one else she’d ever known and soon she was trembling, moaning with sincerity she’d never experienced. 

He was thrusting into her hip, uncontrolled and uninhibited like the teenage boy he was. As she came undone around his fingers, she relished in the feeling of power once more. Of a solid distraction for the most focused boy she’d ever known. Of her first orgasm not done by her own hands. 

She undid his belt and shoved down his pants, beckoning his hips forward before she’d fully came down. He hesitated for a moment, back straight and face unsure. 

Hermione thought he’d caught up. That he’d take out his wand and start pressing her for answers. 

But she looked into his eyes and— and he was nervous, she realized. He was a man that had known nothing but taking the lead and he did not know how to proceed. 

Her eyes softened and she grabbed his cock— basking in the way his eyes squeezed shut at the contact— and guided him into her center. 

She did not move slow, did not flinch the way he probably thought she would. She had no maidenhood to break. 

Once he was all the way inside, her legs came up to curl around his back and his hands cupped under her thighs. His head came to rest at the nape of her neck, and his shoulders stiffened as he took a moment to gather himself. 

“It’s good, isn’t it?” she whispered. “Can you believe you waited this long to give it a shot?”

He let out a muffled groan at her words and bucked instinctively. Hermione squeezed her eyes shut and moaned and then he was off, thrusting in and out, letting human instinct take over as his control slipped from his fingers like smoke. 

He was strangely quiet. Hermione had thought he would be a dirty talker. 

But his focus seemed to be elsewhere. She could feel his release building as his hands tightened on her thighs and his shoulders drew closer together. 

She urged him on, meeting his hips with tiny thrusts of her own and moaning directly into his ear. Her thighs tightened around him until her ankles locked behind his back and they were connected in more places than not. 

He came with a groan that when straight to her core, breath fanning out against her neck and tongue laving at the hollow of her throat. He was completely mindless. 

They stood like that for a moment longer than was necessary. Hermione could feel him packing away his thoughts and emotions. Occluding away the afterglow. 

Eventually, he stepped back. Cleared his throat as he buttoned his pants. Hermione bit back a smile at his discomfort. 

He left the room without another word. 

It should have stung. But it merely added to the element of power. 

---

The rest of the semester passed without a visit from Riddle. 

There was fear in the way he’d lost himself to baser urges he’d recently considered himself stronger than.

The distance might have hurt, had she not been so observant.

He could stay away, but he could not help his eyes. The way his gaze carried towards her during classes. How she could tell he’d noticed she’d shortened her skirt an extra inch, eyes roving the bare skin of her thighs with emotions that could not— would not be Occluded away. 

He licked his lips once, as she worked beside him in Potions and bent over to pick up a scrap of parchment that had fallen off the desk. He’d had to sit there after class let out— out of the ordinary for the studious boy that was often eager to rush off to his next class. 

His cheeks were flushed and his hands carded through his hair, frustrated. It injected confidence and happiness to her veins. She walked with an extra bounce in her step the rest of the day, feeling bold enough to toss him a wink when she felt his hungry stare on her during dinner. 

Three days into holiday break, she was in the dungeons classroom, laid back on the ground and flicking her wand in the shapes of runes.

He stormed in, a man on a mission and stood inches from her, glaring down.

“You did not cast a contraceptive spell on yourself.” His tone was cold. Demanding. 

Pushing up to her elbows, Hermione pointed her wand at him— not dangerously, more of an accusation than a threat.

“I was not aware I was the only one with a wand that night. You should have told me about your temporary lapse in your ability to cast magic.”

His fists tightened and for a moment she wondered if he would hit her. It seemed like a man with as much prejudice as Tom Riddle to swear off such muggle bouts of violence, but she did not know. 

“Are you trying to ruin me?” he asked, tone impatient and barely containing anger. “To seduce me and get yourself pregnant?”

Hermione laughed— an uncontrolled lapse of sanity breaking through her at the absurdity because—

“Would that have worked? You’d abandon all your work so far— all your plans for the future to settle down and become a father?”

His wand hand had been tapping out a dangerous pattern against his thigh— the only outward sign of his irritation— but at her statement he stilled. Furrowed his brow as if actually considering it.

“No,” he eventually said. “But I’d have to deal with you, and that could prove to be quite messy.”

Hermione rolled her eyes. “You could not kill me, Tom.”

“You did not cast a contraceptive spell,” he repeated, insistent this time. Ignoring her taunting.

“I do not need to cast a contraceptive spell, Tom.”

It was weird, how confused he looked over something she thought would be so obvious for a mind as quick as his. But everyone had their deficits, and besides the lack of moral code and his pension for killing, Tom seemed to be severely lacking in sexual awareness.

“Do you really think they’d let a child soldier walk around with the ability to procreate?” She asked, brazen because there was no delicate way to describe the way her tubes had been severed magically for the greater good. Even if there was, she had no intention to be anything other than crass with him.

He stood silent shifting from foot to foot, and for an awful moment Hermione thought he pitied her. And gods, she did not want to live in a world where that existed. Where he was capable.

“I want proof.”

Of course— of course that was what this had been about. Him standing there, poking holes into her trauma until it could suit his vision that everyone was against him and his insane idea of what the future should look like.

She reached for her wand and waved it angrily. A pregnancy scan appeared above her, red and blatantly negative and she felt angry in the absence of something she never wanted. 

“Satisfied?” Rage barely controlled, she tossed her wand down, watching as it bounced against the flagstone. “I have no interest in any plans to take you down. Not here, not now. And I would never willingly carry your spawn, even if I thought it was a plausible plan of action. If somehow, I had accidentally ended up pregnant, I would have rather you followed through with your plan to kill me.”

“Killing you would be too messy.”

“What would you have planned then?”

“An abortion potion and Obliviation.”

It was so simple in his head. She stared, dumbfounded. Glad there were drugs flowing through her blood or else she might actually try and duel him.

“Of course. How easy you make it seem.”

“You are adamant to argue about something in which we are agreed upon.”

“Because you would take away my choice on the matter for your own selfish reasons.” He was a monster. She didn’t know why she needed a reminder of that. 

“You sit here, high on potions and speaking strange stories about your tortured past. You are in no way fit to be a mother.”

She was standing then, poking her wand threateningly into his chest, hard enough to leave a dent in his perfectly pressed robes. 

“Who are you to make a decision about that? Someone who has never even known a mother’s touch.”

His hand was at her throat and she saw stars as her head collided with the wall, pressure building as he lifted her off her feet and held her with one arm. Hard enough to crush her windpipe, to stop air from entering her lungs. 

“This will be the last time I ask nicely,” he hissed through clenched teeth. “What do you think you know?”

Tiny spots dotted her vision and her hands came up to grab his arm reflexively. Pulling at it slightly so she could respond. 

“Your walls are not as strong as you think.”

His lips crushed against hers, all teeth and violence and she was not sure where the urge had come from, how he had gone from killing intent to rock hard and desperate. Except Voldemort had always liked power, craved it in the same way one might chips or chocolate. 

She’d just never thought— always assumed he’d be threatened by those around him that were shrouded in it much like himself. 

Perhaps he’d never deemed anyone worthy. Surely Bellatrix had tried, but no matter how formidable she’d been in a duel, she did not possess the finesse or intelligence to yield it in the most effective manner. Voldemort had stood in a world of his own.

So no, maybe she was not surprised to see that he not only wanted power— but was attracted to it, enamored by her because she was stronger. That he might like to have her as much as he wanted to kill her because of it. 

Her lower lip was bleeding and he sucked it into his mouth greedily, pressure on her throat barely receding enough for her to revel in it. 

There was a single, lone desk in the corner. His hands moved down to her back and as her legs wrapped around his waist, he carried her towards it, setting her down and bending her over until her chest was pressed firmly against the surface. 

“This is how I think I’ll like you best,” he said, belt buckle clinking as it fell open. “No silly expressions to watch, hands nowhere near me.”

Hermione moaned as her skirt flipped up and he sank one finger inside of her, crooking it slowly. 

“I do not care if you are stronger than me right now,” he whispered, front coming to cover her back, cock teasing against her clit as he thrust it slowly against her. “I will be the strongest wizard ever. I will take the world and bend it to my will. That includes you.”

He entered her then, punctuating his words with a groan of his own. 

“You’re nothing but a witch that was granted more experience than me. Trained in magic undiscoverable in my circumstances.” 

He unraveled more as lust overtook his brain. Speaking more truths that became less threatening and more intoxicating. 

His hands grabbed at her hips, pulling her back against him. She felt him in her stomach, nearly flinching away from the invasion but keening against it all the same. Searching for more even as the pain brought tears to her eyes. She tightened on him and his rhythm stuttered for a moment, stopping altogether when his breathing became ragged. 

She pushed back, desperate for the release that had suddenly shouted its need. 

“You do not get this,” he bit, frustration coloring his voice. “You do not get to control me like this. When we are like this, I decide. We stop when I want, flip over when I tell you so, and you do not get to finish unless I make it so.”

It was odd, the way he demanded control over a situation in which he’d already lost. Because Hermione had been the one calling the shots the entire time, even if he did not see it that way. 

She had spent too long studying the art of seduction to not know how to use it as an advantage. 

And if she enjoyed the way Tom commanded her— it was just an added benefit. 

He bent down and kissed down her back, tongue licking up her spine until he sank his teeth into the skin at her shoulder as he began moving again. 

He was murmuring against her— nasty, nonsensical things that were nothing more than curses strung together when she broke them down in her head. She swore a word or two was spoken in parseltongue. 

His hand snaked around her waist and he fingered lightly at her clit— so delicately that it almost hurt, to be so stimulated on one side and have that feather light touch teasing. She sighed, frustrated and he liked that, she thought, because the hand at her hip tightened enough that it stung and she could practically feel the bruises blossoming. 

“I could make you beg for it, I think.” His voice was husky and deep, vibrating against her back. 

“If I beg it’s only because I want to,” she panted, and then he pinched her and she was toppling, unsure if the cosmos she saw behind her eyes were because of her high or the new levels of orgasm he’d brought her to. 

She did not feel him stutter against her, but when her senses slowly drifted back, he was draped over her back, breathing heavy and his soft cock slipped out. 

He did not storm away this time, but arranged himself gracefully in a seated position against the wall. 

“Tell me how you’ve infiltrated my mind.”

Hermione righted her skirt. “No.”

“I’m hesitant to even believe you’ve made it in.”

“Then why bother asking how?”

He clenched his jaw but said nothing. He summoned his bag and began working on his Potion’s essay. 

“My Occlumency instructor invaded my mind until I vomited, until I was on the floor begging for release. He told me,” she licked her lips, “he told me to remember the pain and humiliation. To never let myself be that exposed ever again. And I never was.”

He seemed to be considering what she said, but in the end did not respond to it. 

“You will take this opportunity to better your school work.”

She grabbed her own bag and searched for a quill, unsure if she wanted to push him further tonight. Figured she could not completely dismantle his element of control if she did not want an immediate siege on her mind. 

She would most likely be able to fight it, sober. On the potion, there was no such guarantee. 

---

Riddle had a surprising, yet pleasant bias towards cunnilingus. 

He was excellent, even on the first try and she’d known how talented his tongue had been in her mouth, but to feel it on her cunt. 

He would moan upon first taste, lap her up like an animal to water, fingers working expertly inside of her, until she was desperate, bucking against the hold on her hips and she actually did beg, though he’d only been able to pull a please or two out of her before he couldn’t hold himself back, had to make her come because—

Because Tom Riddle loved giving her orgasms. It was control in its own way, but to have a man like him bestow pleasure on her, even if it was an exercise of bending her to his will— it was unexpected. Pleasant, but unsettling when she thought about it. 

She was spread out on the desk one night before the other students would return back to Hogwarts, completely naked, legs thrown over his shoulders and quivering under his ministrations when he told her: 

“No more potions.” Followed by a filthy, wet lick up her cunt. 

And she was nodding, because she was puddy in his hands this close to an orgasm and he knew it. 

“I’m taking the flask with me when I leave. I have the vial of withdrawal draught in my bag. You’ll take that instead.”

His fingers sped up, thrusting in and out and curling just right against that damned spot that seemed to suck all sense out of her, and then she was screaming his name, watching as his dark, hazed stare ate it all up hungrily. 

He did not wait for her to come down. Did not remove his pants for the sex that was apparently not happening. 

Just strode towards where the flask sat abandoned on the floor, grabbed it, dropped the withdrawal draught into her palm and left. 

---

Even with the draught, the withdrawal was nearly unbearable. 

It could get rid of most of the physical ailments, but it did nothing to stave off the craving. How frail her mentality had become in its dependence on it. 

It was like nothing she’d ever imagined. She wanted it more than food or water, wanted it deep in her bones. Felt like a limb had been chopped off. 

Tom was more than happy to distract her. Kissing her dizzy in the halls before class, holding her back after lessons to get her off with his fingers, fucking her in broom closets during free periods. 

He also kept her busy with schoolwork, convincing professors to let her make up assignments under his careful watch. Spending hours in the library helping her construct essay after pointless essay until that old crave for knowledge flickered back to life. Until she was looking through books for her own interest, writing essays longer than the minimum required length, raising her hand to answer questions. 

At night, after he deemed an appropriate amount of work had been completed, they’d sneak into their classroom, sometimes to fuck, but often they talked. 

He asked questions she could not answer truthfully, and the Gryffindor in her bristled at the need for lies. 

“Can you teach me about the magic that shows aura?” he asked, playing with her fingers. 

“No. But you will learn.” 

“All this stuff you know about me, you really pulled it from my mind?”

She hesitated this time, because lying would be easier, but she found she did not want to. 

“No. But I will not tell you what my source is.”

Some nights, he’d try to guess with his face between her thighs, because her tongue was loosest then. 

“You’re a seer and you’re feeding me prophecies.”

His lips sucked on her clit and her toes curled. 

“Yes, Divination is my strongest source of magic,” she replied around a moan. 

One day, when his hand was wrapped around her throat and she was teetering on the edge, he locked onto her gaze and asked:

“Will I have to kill you to get what I want?”

And it shouldn’t have brought on her orgasm. It shouldn’t have.

But she screamed out his name nonetheless. Hoped he didn’t notice it was the one question she hadn’t answered.

---

He had expressed wonder that they had never fucked on a bed. 

She could not help the weakness she felt at the hunger in his eyes. She was in too deep. 

She showed him the room of requirement, set with a bed and several couches, and he vowed to take her on every available surface before the night was over. 

She fell asleep after, semen still leaking from between her thighs. 

When she was jerked awake, her throat felt raw. Her chest heaved. Her wand was in her hand and pointed at Tom before she could realize what had happened. 

“You were having a nightmare,” he said, and his own eyes looked heavy with sleep and she could not think— could not fathom what it meant that he had fallen asleep with her. 

“I’m sorry,” she breathed out, because he seemed unsettled and the instinct to soothe him was overbearing. 

But he did not calm. Seemed more distant than he had in weeks. Suspicion dripped off his expression. 

“You… you said my name.”  He spoke clearly. Crisply. Enunciated each syllable like it was an accusation. 

But Hermione had not dreamt of Tom. She was in the throes of battle, duelling against Death Eaters, coming face to face with—

Oh. 

She scrambled for something to say— a way to justify how she knew of Voldemort after swearing for months she had not actually infiltrated his mind. 

So she was either lying… or.

The quiet had stretched for too long and he was scrambling off the bed, anger coming off him in waves and she reached for him, stuttering nonsense and begging him to stay because if she could just explain—

The door slammed shut. 

She was alone. 

Chapter Text

The next day he asked her to meet him at the room of requirement, and she’d just turned the corner, had only a second to process the wand pointed at her before blackness came over. 

---

There was no way to tell for sure but she knew hours had passed when she was rennervated. 

A nauseating, dull pulse resided in her temples and at the back of her skull. It was all too familiar in its siege. 

She turned to him, betrayal that she was not sure she had earned evident in her tone. 

“You’ve assaulted me.”

An assault on her mind felt more personal than any other type. She’d been beaten and people had put their hands on her without permission. 

But this. The invasion of her most precious possession had been something she’d coveted. 

“You left me with no other choice.” His tone did not leave room for an argument. 

“No choice?” she whispered, voice heavy with disdain. “I think the time spent in my memories would truly show you what no choice is.”

He was standing by the bed she’d woken up on, turned away from her. His hands shook with anger but she could see the betrayal underneath too, and she was not sure when she’d gained the ability to do that. To take trust from Tom Riddle and tear it up like parchment. 

“I watched you whore your way through a war for which you were most unprepared for. Watched you take in magic that you are unworthy of, that does not deserve to flow through your meek veins.”

She stood then, stormed over to him, wand drawn and pointed at his chest. 

“Is that why you attacked me while I was unarmed? Because I am not worthy of the magic that makes me more formidable than you?”

He raised his hand and threw it across her face. She let her head hang there for a moment, turned sideways, hair covering where there was surely a bruise forming on her cheek. Her chest heaved and she fought back awful, surprising tears. 

“You mean to belittle me?” She turned towards him, eyes wide and disbelieving. Her jaw ached. Her tone was sad. She could not hold it back. 

“You’ve played me for a fool this whole time.” But she saw the flicker of remorse. Couldn’t help but wonder what it meant. What, in the scale of awful things he’d just seen, that he’d want to take back. 

“You say that, yet I have done nothing to stop this path already carved out in front of you.” She gestured at the ring on his finger. “I could have easily knocked you unconscious and destroyed that. I could have gone to Dumbledore and confirmed his suspicions about the heir of Slytherin. But I have done nothing to stop the awful future you’ve spent so much energy planning.”

“No, you simply opened your legs for that which you deemed untouchable.” His tone was icy and it slid up her spine unpleasantly. 

Her jaw dropped. Felt her mouth water uncomfortably as emotions flew from behind her Occlumency walls, forced down against her will. Not yet built up after the assault. 

“I spent weeks away from you before you found me in that classroom. You kept returning, seeking me out at the library and staring at me across the Great Hall. You kissed me. I did not ask for any of that, and had you read my memories and thoughts as expertly as you claim then you’d know that.”

He did not reply but it did not matter, because Hermione was turning and leaving. Fleeing had never been a choice before and she basked in the option. Walked out of the door and wished he would call her back. 

He did not. 

---

He did not seek her out after that. 

It hurt, even though the expectation had never been anything else. 

She was back on the drugs within two days. 

About a week in she was stumbling around in the dungeons classroom, shooting spells at every surface area where she remembered being touched by him. The door opened, and she did not need to turn and see him. The heavy gaze on the back of her head was all she needed. 

She did not move. 

“You are weak without me,” he spat. All hatred and no lies. 

Hermione wanted to correct him. Tell him that she was strong because of him. 

But she did not, because time still carried on and he would figure it out himself. 

---

This time, thanks to Tom, her teachers took notice of her missing work, absent stare and lack of enthusiasm in class. 

Three weeks after their blowout in the Room of Requirement, in the middle of May, she was brought to Dumbeldore’s office. 

She broke down into tears for the first time in years. 

Confessed of her drug use. Told him all the horrors from the future she’d been facing since she was twelve. 

Explained who they were fighting. Even if she knew better than to meddle with time. 

Mind healers were brought in to assess her, and eventually she was flooed to St. Mungos, where she underwent an exhausting detox that lasted another two weeks. 

Long, arduous rehab was in her near future, but she’d already missed so much school and her grades were precarious as is. 

The head healer gave her permission to go back to Hogwarts to finish her studies, with the promise of biweekly check ins and therapy sessions until graduation. Then, she would be back in the hospital for rehabilitation and intensive mind healing that needed close monitoring. 

She returned with a fresh mindset and immediately headed to Dumbledore’s office. 

She had ruined her timeline. That much was obvious. 

The two of them were up until dawn, writing down the series of events, deciding things that would probably not be changed— such as Tom’s off years, where he’d spent time dredging up ancient and dark magic. Power, Hermione explained, she was most familiar with. 

“He’ll be stronger than me in just a few years.”

“Perhaps in your time, Miss Granger. But you already have a lead here. Why should you have to give any leeway?”

Hermione’s hands fiddled in her lap nervously. “I am not willing to taint myself with anymore Dark Magic.”

Dumbledore merely shook his head. “Where there is strong dark, there is equally as brilliant light. We need only find it.”

Without permission, Hermione had purpose once more. 

---

He approached her two days before the end of the school year. She was five weeks clean off potions. 

She was in the dungeons classroom, saying her last goodbyes to a place that had both healed and hurt her. Thought it deserved a proper apology for all the hell she’d made down here. 

She hadn’t heard him enter, but dark magic came off him in violent waves seconds before and she thought of his eyes, of oceans unexplored and times when that felt poetic and not painful. 

“Haven't killed anyone today, have we, Tom?”

She did not face him. Try as she might, she did not feel ready to part with this piece. Was not confident in her ability to stay sober if she confronted him. 

“You’d know better than anyone when my next kill is, wouldn’t you?”

She shrugged. “The lost years are fast approaching. I’m sure you wreaked havoc even if we have no documentation of it.”

He stepped up behind her, close enough that she could feel his body heat. Was bold enough to cup a hand on her shoulder. She flinched against the contact. The desire to be touched by him was nonexistent. 

“You will not defeat me a second time.” It was deadly in its delivery. An oath. 

Hers was just as promising. 

“Time will tell.”

“You are not strong enough to take me down. Not mentally. I bet you’ll run back to your potions as soon as things get too hard. As soon as I show you what I’m capable of. Because I know what you can do.”

She turned her head over her shoulder, meeting his eyes. It burned to see them so cold and distant, but she would not react. Would not give him the satisfaction. 

“Are you proud of me, Tom?” she asked lightly, almost flirtatiously. “You worked so hard to help me off them the first time around.”

His hand tightened on her, and for the first time she feared this version of Tom Riddle. Already he was becoming unhinged, losing his sanity to whatever dark rituals he’d gotten up to in her absence. She had not realized it would happen so early— figured the horcruxes were his undoing. 

But his eyes were uneasy; angrier than she’d ever seen as they traveled over her face. She ached for the man that had thrown his head back in laughter, that had brought her food and distracted her when she could find no solace in her own company. 

That was not the man in front of her. This one— he had hit her, had belittled her. 

They were the same. She could not understand that yet. But she could acknowledge it as the truth. 

“You will not be able to resist. Weak minded and broken. They should have disposed of you long before you ever had the chance to make it back here.”

His robes ruffled as he reached into his pocket. Handed her a vial. 

Her breath caught in her throat. Shook her head and pushed it back towards him. 

“You were extra high the night you showed me how to make this. Slurring your words and laughing, dancing around like a fool. But your knife was steady and the brew was perfect. I didn’t think you remembered, but the look on your face,” he let out a cruel laugh that sent shivers down her spine. “Look at you. Afraid to touch the vial.”

And that more than anything— it shut off all sense in her mind as anger took over and she so desperately wanted him to feel small. She wanted him to feel as embarrassed and out of control as she did. 

So she twisted around to face him, grabbing at the lapels of his robes and pulling him in, lips falling on his before he could react. 

For a moment, he fought it. Lips hardening against hers and hands coming to her shoulders to push her away. 

But she was insistent, fingers coming around his neck to play with the hair at his nape, tongue licking at the seams of his lips. It did not take long until his body was relaxing against hers. Until they were chest to chest and his hands were wandering, so familiar in their path. 

And oh, it was lovely. To have him back, for a moment. To pretend as if he was solely the man that loved to dole out orgasms and made sure her grades matched her intelligence. 

She pulled away before his hands could delve under her skirt. Wasn’t sure if she’d have the power to say no after that. 

She had decided, weeks ago, that she was not willing to go back down that path with him. Though she had offered herself as a spy. She would always do what she needed to. 

For the greater good.  

He was breathing heavy and his pupils were wide and hungry. 

“Thank you for helping me through what was undoubtedly the toughest time in my life. I wish…” she straightened out his robes in lieu of looking him in his eyes. Did not think she could handle his expression. “I wish you had the capability of seeing what love could do for you. But until then, your biggest fear will be me. What I did was scary. I’m not sure you’re able to care for another human, but I got closer than anyone else. And that frightens you.”

She pulled away and did not turn back. Even if his eyes were glued on her form and she had shocked him silent. 

---

She started up the Order of the Phoenix much earlier than the previous timeline. At first it was just her and Dumbledore as people were lulled into contentment by Grindelwald’s defeat. But as the years went on and rumors began to spread about a great wizard and his pension for dark magic, recruits slowly trickled in. 

She spent a great deal of the 1950’s immersed in alchemy. Searched down Nicholas Flamel and demanded to study under him. 

Made her own Sorcerer’s Stone because it felt like her own way to stick it to Tom. 

She stopped aging at twenty six. Wanted to feel young and fresh as she watched herself grow up. 

1961 saw their first reunion since school. He was moving much faster this time around. Gaining power and followers quicker. 

She’d been deep in the study of arcane magic when an alert came through in the shape of a Prewett Patronus. 

An attack in Diagon Alley. 

She apparated away immediately. This was the first reported attack. 

Several stores burned and the area was covered in smoke. She hurried along, putting out fires with a flick of her hand and trying to get a visual on the source. 

Around her, others in the Order were calming and healing nervous shop owners and patrons. 

She was by herself, however, when he appeared in front of her. Out of thin air. 

He looked human, still. With the same handsome face and tall, lithe body. 

It was not the same man though. 

His eyes held no light and his presence spoke of torture and foreboding. 

“Tom,” she greeted, hands in the pockets of her muggle skirt. The pockets were of her own doing. She quite liked the long skirts of the fifties and sixties, though they weren’t always practical. 

He tilted his head to the side, an evil smirk growing. “Still alive, I see. The potions didn’t do you in?”

“Sixteen years sober and counting. I never did go back. Guess I should have taken that bet.”

It was funny, how her mind and body could still miss something that had never really been hers. How her fingers longed to run through his hair— longer than she remembered, and flecked with greys that contrasted his youthful face. 

His face contorted and he— he laughed. The same one she’s heard all those years before. The one that had flushed her skin and put power back into her system. 

“You’ve been busy,” she said. 

“As have you. Albania treat you well?”

“I was under the impression you thought me dead.”

His grin dropped. And then—

A flash of purple. She blocked it with a nonverbal shield. 

It was their first battle of three. In the end, he’d apparated away with a singed arm, the smell of burning flesh filling the air. 

She’d collapsed to the cobblestones and not woken up for three days. 

---

A year later, she was pondering his followers and thinking about Abraxas. How nasty Lucius and Draco had been— how it must have been a product of the Malfoy wencironment. But she remembered their faces during battles. How worn and shameful they’d looked by the end of it. How loyal all of the Malfoy’s were to only each other. 

Wondered if there wasn’t some room in there to convince Abraxas to switch. 

---

Their final duel happened in 1973. It had lasted nearly two hours, with battle going on around them but no one interfering between them. 

She was exhausted and shaking and her leg was oozing green from a hex he’d thrown. 

But she was still standing, limping her way to his crumpled form. 

His eyes were closed in pain and he was curled in on himself. Blood pooled around him from a slashing hex across his midsection. 

He was still so beautiful. Wearing less of his evidence of dark magic than she suspected. She wondered if he’d been able to create any more horcruxes, or if he’d abandoned that idea wholly to gather power faster. 

“How did you know we’d be here?” Blood gurgled in the back of his throat but his words were strong. 

She bent down, squatting over his prone form. 

“I told you the secret all those years ago. But you couldn’t help to try and beat your followers into submission, could you? It’s not my fault they crumbled so easily when we offered them safety and amnesty.”

He might have replied, had the aurors not closed in then.

---

He was sentenced to Azkaban.  

He was a dark wizard, but not the god he’d set out to be. There was not enough evidence of his crimes to sentence him to death. The kiss of death, perhaps, but even that could not be considered until his horcruxes were procured and destroyed. 

Hermione was not sure where he might have hidden them. Did not know if she wanted to be a part of the recovery team or not. 

---

It was 1976 and she was visiting him for the first time. 

His horcruxes had never been recovered and his mind healing sessions were making slow progress, if any at all. 

Words like sociopath had been thrown around initially, but eventually dismissed once they broke past his Occlumency and dove into his actual psyche. 

“He’s capable of emotion,” was all the healers would tell her. She was not the head auror on his case and any information they gave her was out of respect for all she’d done and sacrificed. 

She had avoided him for a while. Took extra care of her sobriety in the weeks leading up to her scheduled visit because his words from the dungeon still haunted her. Knew that if anyone could turn her back to the darkness and desperation she’d felt back then it was him. 

He sat across from her with his arms folded over his chest and eyes looking anywhere but at her. 

He did not want to be there. Had told her as much. 

“No love for your old schoolmate?” she teased. 

“Was I stronger in your time?” 

It was abrupt, but not surprising. She had been prepared for this. 

“Yes. But you were also older and more experienced. Less in control though. I think someone of your current mental state could have destroyed Voldemort of the future. You… you’re smarter than him the way you are now. You would have outmaneuvered him. He— he was angry. Let that take over a lot.”

He seemed to consider that, sitting silent and she thought about just up and leaving. Placed her hands on the table to do so when he spoke again. 

“But he was stronger than you?”

“Stronger than all of us. But he still lost.”

“How?”

“Because it’s not only about strength. I did not beat you in that final duel because I am better than you, Tom.”

He met her eyes for the first time and they looked so tired. Dark circles underneath. He had never looked more human. Frail and showing no signs of aging. Hardly older than their first battle in 1967. His grey hairs were even gone. 

He shifted uncomfortably. “Then I do not understand.”

She reached out and put a hand on his arm. He stiffened but did not throw off the contact. 

“One day I hope you will.”

“I will not tell you where my horcruxes are.”

She shook her head. “That’s not why I came. I just wanted to see you.”

His eyebrows furrowed and he truly did not understand what it was to have loved a man like him. To still want to see the good in him even now, when he had done his best to prove he had nothing but fire and rage. 

She left not long afterwards, closing her office door at work and sobbing. 

---

She watched herself grow up closely. Had work in Hogwarts that allowed her to visit and observe under a glamour. Same for Harry and Ron. Wanted to make sure they all made their way safely to where they deserved. 

She was still sorted Gryffindor, and though she had a propensity for books, she seemed more adventurous this time. Less desperate for knowledge. Perhaps even a bit mischievous. She was still best friends with Harry and Ron, and then Ginny when she came along, but she was friendlier this time around. Laughed with Parvati and Lavender. Kissed Seamus Finnegan in fourth year and actually dated Viktor Krum for four months of teenage bliss. 

She showed no interest in Ron, which still stung even if she had long hung up that dream. 

When a blonde boy in green robes began studying with her in fifth year, she practically ran to Abraxas to tell him.

And they laughed together, much as they had in the years past. Only this time it was a new Hermione and Malfoy and they could not wait to see how it played out. 

She continued to visit Tom, sparsely. Told him about what she saw. Watched him roll his eyes as she talked about her new friends. Laughed at his obvious jealousy when she talked about romantic relationships. Kept all names out of the mix.

“She’s not me,” Hermione said. 

“She’s all you,” he disagreed tersely. “You if you were able to just live your life. You without the trauma or drugs.”

It was as close to guilt as he’d ever gotten. 

“I am not me without my past. I don’t— I’ve made peace with all of that. Including the different parts of you.”

He asked her to leave after that, and she did. 

---

She was helping Abraxas plan Draco and current Hermione’s wedding when a floo call came in from the auror’s office. 

She left immediately.  

The news she got was enough to send her falling into a chair. 

“Release. Why would they ever release him? They have my memories. They know what he’s capable of.”

Kingsley Shackelbolt was one of the few people that had not been around in the forties and fifties that she had trusted with her time travel past. 

One day, she would tell Harry. She would tell all of them, because time travel laws had proved to be barmy and they deserved to know just as much as she deserved to tell. 

“Of course, and that timeline is still out there, Hermione. You did not erase it, just shifted the trajectory of this time. Think about it, there are unlimited possibilities out there. If someone came from a time where Grindelwald had won and the wizarding population was wiped out, would we have to live by their standards too?”

“But he did unspeakable things in this time as well,” she insisted, desperate this time.

“The world forged in absence of his corruption and power is much more forgiving. Willing to give second chances. Plus, four of the five healers have approved this decision.”

Panic filled her chest. For the first time in years, she craved a vial of mind numbing potion. 

“What has he done to deserve this second chance?”

Kingsley hesitated. “There’s a lot, of course. But this is the big one.” 

Kingsley paused. Hermione waited. 

“He’s promised to give us the hiding spots of his horcruxes.”

Hermione’s breath stuttered. The world went black for a moment and her head fell into her palms. A hand was on her shoulder. 

“He said he would only tell you. That we had to agree that you’d be the one to destroy them.”

---

She was not allowed to speak to him. Not yet. Merely watched him through magicked glass as he wrote down instructions and directions. Slipped it through a hole into her waiting palm. 

She turned and walked away, pretending she wasn’t about to collapse. 

---

She did not leave her apartment for two weeks after the horcruxes were destroyed. 

A very young, very inexperienced auror Harry was sent to her apartment to fetch her. It threw her off enough that she actually listened. Had to shake off his stuttered shock and questions. Insisted they would talk about it later. 

Abraxas was at the jail, waiting for her. Slipped his palm into hers when she approached. 

“I can’t believe he wanted me here. As what? His first kill fresh out of prison?”

Hermione laughed, and she could not remember the last time she’d done so. Her arms wrapped around Abraxas. As rocky of a start as they had, she was thankful to have him. He’d kept her afloat for so many years after Tom’s arrest. 

And the suddenly he was there, being brought out in magically bound handcuffs and surrounded by aurors and dementors and it looked—

“I can’t tell if this is frightening or poetic,” Abraxas muttered. 

Because he looked like an angel from hell. Like he rose from his own ashes and had not yet decided what path he would take in this life. 

It was both terrifying and encouraging. To see they had not sucked all character out of him. 

“Tom,” she greeted, and he nodded at both of them. 

It was a quick exchange. Hermione apparated both Abraxas and Tom over to the house they’d set up for parole— which, honestly was little more than a glorified prison cell in itself. He would have around the clock supervision, would not be able to leave without an entourage of at least six people and perhaps most pressing of all— he’d agreed to have his magical core bound. 

He could not perform magic. And he’d done that. Willingly. 

Hermione’s stomach twisted. There had to be a sinister plan at work. 

---

Tom did not say much as she walked him around. She had been a part of the team to plot the house and set up the wards. Anyone below her magical capability would not be able to break them. Would be stuck here for eternity. 

The problem was, she was no longer sure where he ranked. He’d spent over thirty years in prison with nothing but time to plot. The things he could have thought of— the damage he could do. She made herself sick thinking about it that first week he was out. 

She put herself on his patrol roster. Could not fight the need to keep an eye on him. 

He didn’t seek her out, but when they crossed paths he was polite. Gave her a wave or asked how she was. 

Most of his time was spent reading. Magical and muggle texts alike. Almost all of it consisted of nonfiction, but she’d caught him reading Sylvia Plath late one night as she headed to the kitchen to make a cup of coffee. 

The light had flicked on and he’d stuffed the book into the couch cushions and— and it was funny. The laugh that fell from her lips was absolutely accidental. Not meant for his ears. 

His head shot up then, eyes full of mirth and lips quirked down and it was so juvenile that she laughed harder, until she was bent at the waist, elbows on her knees and tears leaking from her eyes. 

“It’s quite rude to laugh at other people.”

Hair tumbled over into her eyes as her head shook, hand in the air as if asking him to wait. 

“You just— you have to realize the absurdity of this. Biding your time with poetry? What are you trying to prove?”

He opened the book again, eyes drifting down to the pages before shrugging. 

“There were no books in Azkaban. I missed reading.”

“But muggle books?”

Another shrug, and this one was irritating, so she turned and left. 

---

“I’m not planning anything, you know.”

It had been five weeks since his release and Hermione found herself taking more and more patrols. Waiting for the other shoe to drop— for his grand escape or detonation or whatever it was.

Her eyes were circled in purple from the amount of sleep she lost thinking about it.

“So if that’s why you’re here, you can leave. I know you’ve spent enough of your life focusing on me.”

Her back was towards him as she checked and rechecked the wards. “I’m sure you won’t be offended if I don’t take your word for it.”

“I was the model prisoner, you know.”

“Did you get Head Boy there too?”

“Showed up to all my mind healing appointments on time as well.”

“Is there still a mind left up there to heal? Thought you’d put that brain of yours into a locket.”

Having her back exposed to him suddenly felt very dangerous, so she turned to see his lips pressed together. Frustration was evident on his face and it suddenly dawned on her.

“No magic means no Occlumency. How long have you been dealing with that?”

There had been bigger things to worry about for so long, and it had been years until the healers were able to crack his natural Occlumency walls. They’d never given in depth reports about what they’d found or if any substantial progress had been made towards healing. The damage from the horcruxes must have been extensive, and then there was all the trauma.

“Years, but it never bothered me. Not really, not until I came here.”

“What is it about being here that makes it harder?”

His eyes snapped up to hers, intense midnight stormy skies that she flinched against.  

“I cannot escape you here. In prison, it was easy. To pretend like you had deserved everything that had happened to you, that you were a product of your own environment, not just of me—”

He cut off, breathing heavy, shoulders slumped. 

“There were rumors, even in prison. Of a Malfoy boy and a muggleborn. For the first time in history. And it was such a fascinating topic that it spread like wildfire— not much to do in prison besides gossip, you see— and eventually someone got a hold of a name. Hermione Granger.”

“She’s not me,” Hermione blurted. “She doesn’t even know I exist. I’ve never met her.”

“But Abraxas has,” Tom cut in.

“Yes,” Hermione replied slowly. “He’s helping to plan their wedding.”

Tom wrinkled his nose. “Suddenly, just weeks before I was to be granted release, you were everywhere. I could not leave my cell without hearing your name, how brilliant you were, next Minister for Magic, probably. Youngest ever, if they had to guess. And— and I just had to know.”

Ice flowed through her veins. “What did you do?”

“The mind healers saw my plans to write to her before I was able. They talked me down, convinced me the answers I got from her wouldn’t be worth the confusion I would bestow upon her.”

She breathed out a sigh. 

“But Abraxas had met her.”

Realization dawned. “You asked him to be there, the day you got out.”

“And I was able to convince him to show me several memories. Of her.”

Hermione shook her head. “You shouldn’t have done that. She is not me.”

He dropped his eyes to his hands and he looked guilty.

“She is so much you that I almost could not watch. She speaks with the same intonations and walks with the same confidence. Has the same brilliant mind, even if it has not been applied the way yours has.”

“Abraxas has told me. I’ve not seen her much lately, but I hear she’s happy.”

“She’s so happy, Hermione.” He sounded partially mad, like a detective on a cold case. “It shines in her eyes and oozes out of her skin. She bounces around like their is nothing to fear and she can conquer anything— and she can, I’ve seen a different version of her prove that but—”

A choke sound escaped his throat and gods, it was heart wrenching, so hard to see emotion displayed on his face so clearly. She sat down on the couch beside him before she could rationalize it. 

“But I look at her and I remember a girl that stumbled around Hogwarts addicted to drugs because reality had broken her and she was so far from whole— had given herself not once, but twice to save the world from someone who never thought her worthy. And I look at you, and I look at the girl and they are the same—”

“I am happy with how my life turned out,” she interrupted, desperate because she did not think she could hear anymore without breaking down. How often had she thought about this herself? Weeks of therapy had been spent rationalizing her guilt at hating that version of herself— the one that did not need to give everything for the greater good, the person who was simply allowed to be. 

“They are the same, with the exception of me. I am the undoing of you.”

And then she was kissing him with the same desperation she’d felt in Hogwarts. Like there were two versions of him as well, because things were the same but they were different—

His hands threaded through her hair and her lips parted and she was in his lap, tearing his clothes off, searching for what no one had been able to give her since.

“I’m sorry,” he breathed between kisses. “I do not deserve this,” he said, licking down her neck. “You’re worth more than anything I have ever given you,” whispered between her thighs. 

After, he sat and held her. He was stiff and a bit awkward, but she could feel it. 

And it was enough.