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Chapter Text

FRIDAY

“It’s called an Ever-Stuck Potion, Professor,” Tom Riddle said evenly from behind their shared lab table. He didn’t spare Hermione a glance even though she’d come up with half the elixir’s recipe. 

As seventh-year students, Slughorn had tasked them with creating a N.E.W.T.-level potion for fifty percent of their final grade. “Innovative and unusual, class! Delight me!” Slughorn had demanded at the start of the period, and as usual, paired the Head Girl and Head Boy together. 

Which was certainly unrelated to the fact that no one else would work with them—both being the sort of students who steamrolled anyone who couldn’t maintain their pace.

Tom Riddle, head prefect of Slytherin house, was the only one who could best Hermione in anything; and she was sorry to say that after seven long years of being an unwilling participant in the endless drudgery of respectful rivalry, she’d reached her limit.

Unfortunately, today, with their potion finished and offered up to Slughorn for inspection, she found out exactly what that limit looked like. 

“Well, well. Unique indeed! Very fine. And what’s that I smell? Muggle bubblegum? A remarkable touch. Playful, yet effective. Top marks to both of you!” The professor stroked his rotund belly as he peered over the cauldron and inhaled.

When he straightened, his gaze fell on Hermione.

“And your final essay, Miss Granger?” Slughorn asked with a twinkle in his eye.

Hermione reached for her pristine, twenty-eight inch essay on crisp parchment. The brittle papery smell cut through the cloying scent of the Ever-Stuck Potion.

“Of course, Professor.” She nodded, spinning the parchment in hand and presenting it. He took it with swollen fingers and peered over the end of his nose at it. “I hope you don’t mind, sir, but I expounded upon the virtues of substituting boneset for aerial hops in reconstituting out-of-date potions.”

He gave her a good-natured chuckle as Tom withdrew his own paper from his satchel in her periphery. “Not at all, not at all, my dear! I always enjoy the musings of my two most esteemed students!” Slughorn leaned in, and with a wink, said, “Congratulations, by the way, you’re second in your graduating class. They announced it during the all-staff meeting this morning. That’s no small feat, brilliant girl!”

“Professor! Neville’s dropped his toad into our Bog-Breath Draught!” Lee Jordan called from across the room, and Slughorn cast them a withering look before trudging over to their table.

But she hardly noticed his departure, because Hermione’s entire world had just turned into a glass bauble, then promptly shattered.

Second.

Second.

It didn’t make sense. She was first in Muggle Studies, first in Herbology, and a History of Magic, too, of course. Ancient Runes? Well, she’d gotten a one-hundred-and-sixteen-percent on the final. She was practically a shoo-in.

She cast Tom a dark look as he flattened his essay parchment against the lab table between them, readying it to hand to the professor when he returned.

Sure, Tom had outperformed her in several classes. Defense Against the Dark Arts, Transfiguration, Potions, and Charms—but that brought them neck-and-neck at the year’s end.

She wasn’t—she couldn’t be… second.

And—she huffed a harsh laugh—it wasn’t like either of them respected Divination enough to carry on with advanced studies.

She froze.

Then turned to Tom slowly. Suspicion turned to cold certainty and speared like an arrow through her chest.

“You took Divination behind my back, didn’t you?” she hissed in a low whisper.

Tom didn’t look up from his essay, glossy black waves catching the steam of the Ever-Stuck Potion and freezing in place. He pulled back, unaware of how far he’d leaned toward the cauldron during her discussion with Slughorn.

“What do you care what classes I take, Granger?” he asked, brushing the Ever-Stuck vapor away from his perfect hairline. “Last I checked, you only worried about yourself.”

“Worried about myself,” she sputtered. “That from a Slytherin whose head is so far up hi—”

“Ah ah, fellow prefect,” he tutted, rising to full height from where he bent over his essay. He turned to study her then. Hermione watched his thin, angular jawline tense into a swallow, contracting the slender line of muscles in his neck. His Adam’s apple bobbed with the motion, and something caught low in Hermione’s belly.

Wasn’t it bad enough that he bested her in half of their classes? And he looked like that to boot?

It was utterly unjust.

And if there was anything Gryffindors hated, it was the feeling of injustice.

Unfortunately, that was when events took a turn for the worse.

Slughorn rounded back to their table, interrupting what surely would have been a well-worded retort, when Tom turned his attention from her and shot their professor a glowing Head Boy smile. All white teeth, perfect posture, and a deferential head tilt.

Underneath the lab table, Hermione’s wand flicked in her hand.

If she hadn’t known the direction of her thoughts, she’d accuse it of acting without her guidance. But as it stood, in the span of the last thirty seconds, she had plotted seven ways to rid the world of Tom Riddle’s presence. And her wand—being the only clear-thinking thing currently attached to her body—decided to enact its own revenge on Hogwarts top student.

Pale pink sparks erupted from its tip, obfuscated by the table above it. Still, the spell’s essence hit its mark.

Hermione watched in sick fascination as a glob of the pale pink Ever-Stuck potion crested the lip of the cauldron and rolled down the side. 

With a gooey pink nub, it lifted the edge of Tom’s essay and wriggled inside—as if it were alive—wetting Tom’s tight script into garbled, marbled ribbons of ink.

“And you there, Tom!” Slughorn said, belly jiggling as he rested his hands on its rounded top. “Head Boy… and now Top Student.” The accompanying gleam made Hermione seethe. However, the Ever-Stuck charm had solidified inside the rolled parchment, and when Tom raised it, he stared down at it with the faintest hint of confusion.

It was harder than Hagrid’s treacle fudge.

And absolutely impossible to tease apart the pages.

There, Hermione watched, face blank with horror, guilt, and perhaps a secret bit of delight.

There was the other fifty-percent of Tom’s grade… reduced to stone in his hand.

“Ho ho! Tom, my boy, what’s this?” Slughorn said, examining the Ever-Stuck pages with a look of curiosity. “Some trick? You’ll do it back, won’t you, son?”

Tom looked at it with vague curiosity. Then, to Hermione’s horror, he bowed over the hard parchment and took a deep inhale.

Bubblegum.

She knew he’d smelled the faint scent of the Ever-Stuck potion wafting from it.

“No? Ah well, this might change things.” Slughorn shot a look between them. “Might change things, indeed. At least the potion looks good, Tom. You’ll both receive full marks on it. But this…” He lifted the hard block of illegible parchment and brought it to the table with an experimental tap. It sounded like rock when it struck the desk. Hermione winced. “This, I’m afraid, there’s no saving it.”

Tom met her gaze with one that chilled her to the very bone.

___________

She’d tried to flee from class as soon as the period ended. She truly had. It was just that her bag ripped, then her shoes came undone, followed by the most curious itch in the middle of her back that she couldn’t reach no matter what angle she came at it.

Hermione should have known then that something was amiss.

Tom Riddle had also hung back, cleaning their workstation with slow, methodical strokes of his hand. In no rush, it seemed, to be anywhere other than right here.

“Weekend plans, Granger? Hogsmeade with the rest of the school, perhaps?” he asked pleasantly as she tripped on a book at her feet and rammed a knee into her stool.

“Pants!” she swore, massaging the leg.

He’d never asked her about her after-school activities unless it was to poke fun at her endless library visits. As if she’d never seen him there at two in the morning on a Tuesday. ‘The difference, Granger, is that I’m here because I’m inquisitive. You’re here because you’re searching for approval,’ he’d said when she’d pressed him on it.

The arse. Honestly.

“Or, are you planning your big graduation speech? I should imagine my failing is your pathway forward, wouldn’t you say?” he crooned evenly.

It’s not like he could have known she was the one who ruined his essay. He may have suspected, naturally. But he hadn’t seen her cast the spell beneath the desk, ever-sticking the Ever-Stuck to his parchment. It was all speculation.

And yet the tone in his voice…

Someone tapped Hermione on the shoulder, but when she turned around, no one was there.

“That’s odd,” she said, whipping back to Tom, wondering if he’d seen it, too.

“Quite. Odd,” he agreed smoothly, with the faintest bite in his voice.

Hermione grabbed for her wand to discover it had moved. Her fingers landed on the cool surface of their work table, falling through empty air where her wand sat only moments before.

Ice trickled down her spine.

“So many odd things happening in this classroom today, wouldn’t you agree, Granger? First, my final essay splashed by the Ever-Stuck potion. Ruined beyond salvaging. Then, your bag, your shoes, your knee, your hair…”

“My hair? What’s wrong with my hair?” she asked, reaching for the long plait, to find it cut in half. She gasped, both hands covering her mouth.

“And now,” he continued, ignoring her. “Your wand has gone missing. It’s exceedingly strange.”

“Missing,” she echoed the word and looked around, ducking under the table to see if she’d dropped it. When she rose again, Tom had an unknowable look in his eyes.

“Fine, I’ll tell you.” He leaned forward as if letting her in on a secret. “I took it.”

She turned to him, incensed. He had what—

“You took my wand?” she balked. “Give it back this instant.”

“Oh, alright,” he agreed easily and pointed a slender finger to the far wall. “It’s just over there. You see, I thought perhaps you had a hand in sabotaging my paper. You didn’t, did you, Granger? You, a Gryffindor, wouldn’t be so backhanded to think you deserved top marks over me? Wouldn’t engage in such underhanded deceit to get it, right?”

Her gaze revolved to where Tom pointed. There, high on the wall, was her wand.

Stuck.

“You used the potion on it?” she snarled, realization crashing down on her. “That’s my wand!”

In a heartbeat, she sprinted to it, lifted onto her tiptoes, arched her back, and placed her hands against the wall to reach it—she’d pull it out with the wall attached if she must—except that was when something extraordinary happened.

Hermione Granger found she could no longer move.

She gasped, pulling at her hands, but they wouldn’t budge from the exposed stone.

Not only had Tom Riddle glued her wand to the wall, but it seemed he’d applied a thin veneer of the Ever-Stuck Potion to the portion beneath it. And when her hands scrabbled along it, reaching overhead, the potion had sealed her in place.

“And that’s my Top Student award you’ve stolen, Granger. Be glad I didn’t stuff you into the U-bend of the girls’ bathroom to never be heard from again. Because I knew immediately it was you. You can’t lie to save your life, and it may have just cost you it." Hermione stared, gobsmacked by his words. He continued, "So good luck this weekend, Granger. I hope you enjoy sleeping upright. I’d caution you to let the rest dry before you touch it, or you’ll truly have no way of moving.” He slung his bag over a shoulder and fired off a few spells from his wand. “I’m casting an aversion charm on the door so you won’t be disturbed until Monday. Oh, and don’t bother yelling, you’ll just wear your voice out. There’s an impenetrable silencing bubble set around the entire room. I’ll be in Hogsmeade with the other graduates, celebrating." He stopped with a hand on the door, then turned back to face her once more. "I’d bring you back something, but I suspect they’re fresh out of integrity. Goodbye, Mudblood. Enjoy payback.”

Hermione roared.

Chapter Text

SATURDAY

Hermione tried to recall every fact she knew about Tom Riddle. 

He was a swot. Swottier than her, most days.

He lived in the library, like her.

He took his studies very seriously, like her.

He had a gang of Slytherins who worshipped the ground he walked on despite his well-known half-blood status. Very unlike her.

And she knew they had a rivalry that chafed at times—but it had always been respectful. An uneasy alliance between two formidable opponents. The atmosphere was more like a muggle chess-match, where opponents shook hands and went their separate ways in the end, rather than the wizard version where loss of life and limb were expected.

That was until she sabotaged his Merlin-damned essay.

Alright, then. Maybe she deserved this fate.

The night passed in waves of agony. She’d nod off between her palms, forehead smashed against the wall, neck cricked at an awkward angle, only to jolt awake from discomfort in her shoulders, her back, and even the damned arches of her feet!

Off and on, she cried a little.

And when morning light cracked through the top windows of the lab, it was with pure exhaustion that Hermione lifted her head and blearily assessed her predicament.

She could comfortably say she’d now experienced the worst night of sleep of her life. Blood had drained from her hands; they’d gone entirely numb three hours ago, tingling like Filibuster Fireworks while she contracted and released the muscles to encourage circulation.

Oh, she’d screamed, too, on the off-chance he’d forgotten to cast the silencing charm. But no one came.

In fact, she didn’t hear a soul, not even the occasional footstep through the corridor or the whispers of the castle’s ghosts.

Last night, minutes faded into hours, and with it went her hopes of rescue. Was she truly stuck here until Monday when the final week of exams began? How would she eat? Sleep? Hydrate? Bloody hell, how would she pee?

Another problem with this situation was that the antidote to the Ever-Stuck potion didn’t exist. They hadn’t come up with one. 

Worse, they hadn’t intended to.

“Help!” she shouted again, but only her voice echoed back.

Thankfully, there was one bit of good news. When she awoke, the rest of the potion had solidified, and she could now rest her forehead against the uneven rock wall to relax. 

This was fine, she told herself. Someone would come. Someone would help, she thought. 

They had to, at least, eventually.

‘CLICK’

The door opened.

“Oh Merlin—help! You’ve got to help me!” she started, but turned to find Tom Riddle striding toward their shared lab table, a smirk playing on his lips as he examined her distressed form. “Oh,” she muttered, body swinging limply on her tiptoes. “It’s you.”

He didn’t dignify her with a response. 

He sat at their lab table and conjured up a deep blue fire on the burner. Tom withdrew his standard-issue iron cauldron from his bag, and Hermione couldn’t help but lean backward to watch his fine movements—elegant and purposeful, if somehow relaxed. The balls of her feet protested the twisted position, but she stuffed down the complaint in order to study him.

“Funny how you never whip out your gold or silver cauldron,” she quipped. “Most Slytherins can’t help but show off their parents’ wealth. I suppose you think it’s impressive, do you, that you’re above peacocking?” She couldn’t stop herself. They came second-nature after that horrific night’s sleep.

Tom didn’t glance up. He bowed over the burner and adjusted the flames so they glowed white.

Merlin, that looked hot. Fear prickled down her spine in sudden realization of her precarity.

Oh gods, he could burn her. Torture her. 

And no one would hear… for DAYS.

“Sorry,” she followed up, nervously. “It was a bad night of sleep. I’m, erm, not at my best.”

Tom, once more, paid no attention to her ramblings. And instead withdrew a set of herbs from his satchel. All of them sealed with the ouroboros crest of the Knockturn Alley Apothecary Shoppe in Diagon Alley.

Hermione gave a snort.

Of course, the bloke was ducking about in dodgy back alleys to find potion ingredients. He couldn’t be bothered with something as plebeian as a reputable potion’s dealer, could he? 

“I can hear you,” he said, finally breaking his silence, fussing more with the fire’s flames until they were tri-colored—yellow tipped, white middled, and deep blue-purple at the base. 

“I beg your pardon? I didn’t say anything.” She hadn’t, had she? Maybe the lack of sleep affected her more than she realized.

“Your thoughts, I mean.” He shot her a straightforward look, then turned back to assess his stocks. “I’m a natural Legilimins.”

He said it as if he were telling her about the weather.

“You’re—” That was… unheard of.

“Yes, it’s quite rare,” he noted blandly. “In fact, I’ve never told anyone that before. But your thoughts are so bloody loud, and you’ve ground them into my skull now for the past seven years, I thought you at least deserve to know how incorrigibly inescapable I find you.”

She made a sound of mock offense.

“Me?” she asked. “You!” she accused. “You’re the one reading my mind, and you have the audacity to tell me I’m the problem?”

Tom measured out a thimbleful of threaded widow’s web, worrying himself over the precise measurement for nearly five minutes before Hermione snapped.

“It’s correct!” she shouted from over her shoulder. “The millimeter difference in the thread will not affect whatever you’re doing. Merlin burn me, just put the bloody ingredient in already!”

“Granger,” Tom said evenly, dithering at the end of the spider’s webbing, shaving an infinitesimal amount against a sharp blade. “This is why you had to sabotage me to get ahead. You don’t possess the same patience, the attention to detail that I do. You like to rush when you think you’re right.” Her ears pulled backward at the affront. “And you might mind your tongue, as I’m formulating this antidote to unstick you.”

“You’re—” Well, she didn’t expect that.

“Yes,” he agreed. “Turns out I’ve had a change of heart. Oh, nothing to do with you really, but I believe I see a way to get my Top Marks award back, and I don’t fancy having your—” He glanced up, drawing down the stretched lines of her body. “Situation marked against me.”

She sighed. Well, at least he was going to let her down from this damned wall. Who cared if it was for honorable reasons or not?

“Honorable.” Tom laughed dryly. “Coming from you…”

Ouch. Point taken.

She supposed there was no reason to deny what she’d done now, not when he’d bloody well read her mind as she did it.

Hermione’s forehead fell to the wall with an audible thump, and she struggled to throw up a mental defense to his intrusion. It felt like trudging through mud in her current state.

“Don’t bother. Not even Headmaster Dumbledore can keep me out, and he’s been trying for years.” Tom finally dumped the webbing into the cauldron. Over her shoulder, she saw the base solution turn the pale color of lilacs. “And if I had a silver cauldron, I would use it. But I don’t, so this one must suffice.”

Her brows knit together. What did that mean? Certainly he had the money for one. Slytherins were loaded as a general rule, having come from long lines of the wizarding elite.

“Well, I’m not,” he answered her thoughts. “Loaded, that is. I do come from wizarding nobility, however. I’m just not…” He gazed up at her, a thin note of shame laced his words. “I’m not well-off, Granger.”

“Oh,” she said, cataloguing the implications of that. “That must be difficult. Not being poor in general, but being poor in Slytherin house.”

He shrugged indifferently. “It’s fine.”

She suddenly had a million more questions. Who were his parents? Where had he come from? How had he come to be so intelligent? From whom did he inherit that face? But she caught herself, jolting out of her reverie. He could bloody well hear her.

She needed to mind her thoughts.

“You’re not the first witch to wonder,” he said, lips twitched upward for the barest moment. “Just the first one I’ve captured.”

“Captured momentarily,” she countered. “Until you make the potion and release me.” Wouldn’t want your precious Head Boy honor called into question, would you? she thought toward him.

Tom let out a prolonged sigh, lifting his cutting blade and pointing it at her. “The problem with you, Granger…”

“Just one?” she taunted.

“The problem,” he began again, “is that you have no patience. You are a slave to instant gratification. You cannot wait to get what you want. You lack forward thinking and temporal investment.” He shook his head over the chopped ingredients. “You’re utterly bereft of the long-game, in other words.”

She smiled tartly then lost her footing, thumping against the wall. “That was far more than one problem.”

“So while being an insufferable know-it-all, you’re also a praise-seeking, results-driven, mind-numbingly-maundering witch whose sole desire is to best everyone else.”

“Oh, don’t bother denying you don’t want top marks, too, Tom,” she snarled. “You’ve just said you’re out for the award yourself.”

“I want it because I’m the best, Granger. Not because it’s a feather in my cap. I sometimes wonder if you truly care about the magic you study, or if it’s all just a means to an Exceeds Expectations for you?”

“Of course, I care! I care about a lot of things.”

“Like what, exactly?” He set his knife down roughly and stared up at her, arms folded—waiting.

“House-elf rights, for one.” She registered his distaste in the slight curl of his lip. “I DO!”

“I’m not doubting you do, only that, for someone so brilliant, it’s remarkable to me you’d waste your time saving a population that doesn’t want to be saved.” He tilted his head as if seeing her for the first time. “Or maybe that’s it. Do you like playing the savior, Granger? Is that just one more way to earn the recognition you so deeply crave? To signal to others that your morality is unerring?”

“You know it isn’t,” she hissed. “Since you’ve listened to my bloody thoughts for the better part of a decade!”

“Right, well, excuse me for doubting your intentions after you sabotaged my final essay.”

She swallowed. Fair enough, she thought. Gods, she had to pee. But damn her if she’d ask Tom for help with that. She bounced on the balls of her feet, shifting her weight in her hips.

Tom measured out an inch of mandrake slurry and watched as it congealed in the glass decanter, forming a sticky paste.

She wrinkled her nose. “I’m beginning to doubt your intentions now. You’ve added nothing but gummy solvents to the cauldron. If you’re attempting to make me more stuck, Tom Riddle, I’ll—”

“Salazar, save me from this witch’s internal monologue. Like dissolves like. Potions 101, Granger.”

“I have to pee!” she shouted suddenly, before she could stop herself. And as if to drive the point home, her knees rattled beneath her, trying to distract herself from the knife-like pressure shooting into her bladder.

“Well, I’m certainly not going to stop you,” Tom said smoothly, sprinkling what looked like Gillyweed slime onto the cauldron’s softly bubbling surface.

“Can’t you just, I don’t know, wave your wand and transfigure a loo for me?”

He frowned. “Of course I could.”

“Oh, thank Merl—”

“But I won’t.”

“What!”

“You need to learn patience, Granger. You need to figure out what it is about you that demands everything be rushed to the point of disinterest. So, if you don’t want to wet yourself, you’ll have hold it. Perhaps this will teach you some restraint.” Then in an aside, he muttered. “But I doubt it.”

Her mouth snapped shut, and what followed was a series of the crudest swear words she’d ever thought before. And she did think them. 

Loudly.

If he was listening, he didn’t react. He bowed over a sliver of elder tree sap, then tilted his wrist so the thick-tarry substance slid uneasily from the back of his knife into the solution.

“Ungh,” she grunted, crossing her legs. A shiver went through her. She would not piss herself in front of Tom Riddle. She would not. The humiliation alone.

A mortar and pestle clunked onto the lab table.

Tom split a bezoar with a hard pound of his knife handle and tossed the halves inside the porous basin, where he ground them. Each movement was slow, precise, methodical. If he wasn’t always this exact with his potions, she would suspect he was doing it specifically to annoy her. 

Hermione turned away from him, hissing through her teeth as she focused on pumping her legs. Her entire body hummed with need.

“Listen,” she said, when the silence stretched overlong. “What do I have to do to get some human decency?”

“Do?” he asked as if the concept were novel, he stared toward Slughorn’s desk, pausing in his work. “You’ve already done quite enough, I assure you. And what you have done cannot be undone. Unless you have that handy time-turner you used back in third year.”

Hermione gaped. “How did you know—” She stopped. Legilimens. Right. Her toes kicked at the floor in frustration.

Tom turned back to his work.

“Please,” she said when the need grew too great. She didn’t look up from her feet. “If I don’t… if you don’t…” She couldn’t finish the sentence. “Just… please, Tom.”

A soft thump collided with the wall to her right. Tom leaned a shoulder against it, head tilted to examine her. He had a slice of orange on the edge of his potion knife and held it to his mouth. Her stomach panged uncomfortably, another need rising to the top of the list.

Merlin.

He scanned her shaking body, where her arms were white with lack of blood flow, how her teeth ground in frustration. Half of her hair had fallen from the cut plait during the night.His eyes skimmed over it. She was sure she looked dreadful.

Not that she cared, particularly. Her only desires now were when she could pee and how good that orange would taste. Maybe he’d give her a slice if she asked nicely.

It slid past his lips. She watched his narrow jaw work, his fox-like face tearing slowly through the ripe piece of fruit. She imagined juice bursting between his molars until he’d separated all the sweetness from the pith.

Patience, his every action seemed to say.

“How long will the antidote take?” she asked, eyes following each flex of his jaw.

He pulled another slice into his mouth. Chewed. His eyes cut to hers.

“Til tomorrow.”

“TOMORROW!” she cried. “I can’t wait that long. I’m thirsty, Tom. I’m tired. I can’t feel my arms. I’m hungry. And I have to bloody pee!”

Another slice.

“Tomorrow,” he added, “if you’re very lucky and I’m very attentive—” The eyebrow under his perfect wave of dark hair rose a millimeter. “To the potion.”

Her spirit broke.

“What do I have to do?” Because there had to be a way to fix this. “I’ll rewrite your final essay, Tom. I’ll withdraw mine. Either. Both. Whatever you want.”

“Hmm.” He stared at her. His coal-black eyes caught the morning light. Then his fingers came up, sweet with the smell of orange, and dusted along the cut edge of her severed locks. She froze. That was going to take years to grow out, she thought. 

“If I let you grow it back out.”

Her eyes went wide.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

Both of his shoulders fell back to the wall, and he gazed out over the potions lab in his detached way.

“Well, it’s just… I own you now, don’t I?”

Hermione’s heart dropped into the pit of her stomach. “Excuse me.”

“Let’s see.” He brought his fingers up to count them one-by-one. “I control whether you eat, whether you drink. I control whether you piss. I alone can free you from the Ever-Stuck potion. Your entire world is wholly reliant on… me.” His eyes found hers then darted away again. His expression cool and vacant. “I own you, Granger.”

“You don’t own me.” Her face twisted. “I’m human. Wizards don’t own other wizards.”

Tom Riddle laughed as if she’d just told a terribly funny joke. She hated how it sounded like bells. He pulled another orange slice between his potion’s blade and his thumb, then brought it to his mouth, tucking the other half into his robes for later. He tapped the hilt of the blade against her nose once. Twice. Three times.

The smell of orange wafting off of it was incredible. Her mouth pooled.

“Fine,” he said absently when he finished chewing and eased the knife inside a pocket. “If you can’t control your most human urges, I’ll help you.”

“Oh, thank Merlin, I—”

But instead of transfiguring a loo, Tom walked behind her, fingertips trailing her waistline. Her entire body tightened at the light touch, sending shockwaves through her. She whipped her head around to glare at him, recalling that no one would hear her if she screamed.

This wasn’t an innocent touch. It felt premonitory.

She shivered against his fingers, tensing into the wall.

“Sometimes, the easiest way to forget about your bodily needs is to distract yourself with a different one,” he said, the bridge of his nose brushing her shoulder. His hands centered over her hip bones, wrapping around to the front—fingertips brushing over her lower belly.

“Tom—” she warned. “What are you—”

“Distracting you,” he answered easily, shifting a hand to the waistband of her pleated school skirt.

She sucked in an audible breath when they dipped beneath it.

“Wait—”

But he ignored her, plunging inside her panties, and finding—

“Oh, Granger.” His fingers teased her lips apart, rolling over the slickness he found there. “For me? You shouldn’t have.”

Mortification punched through, and she pulled against her stuck hands, happy to rip them off the wall if it meant she could escape this psychopath. But her thumb tore free first, and she yelped as the top layer of her skin flayed open.

Blood trickled down her forearm.

Her head dropped back at the pain. “Godric-damn, that hurts!”

“Ah, that’s better,” he said into her ear. She hadn’t noticed how close he’d gotten when she’d flailed. Her thumb stung with the lancing pain. “Not the distraction I had in mind, but this one works all the same. Hm, this position is all wrong, though,” he added. “Maybe it’d be better if we—”

A short platform popped into existence beneath her feet, and she sank against Tom’s body as her legs relaxed for the first time in a dozen hours. She could even bend her elbows a bit now. Sweeping relief rushed through her.

“See what happens when you have a little patience?” His hand was still moving between her legs, but now with the rush of blood into her arms, it felt good. Her forehead turned and met his. Her eyelids fluttered closed as his arm muscles strained, teasing her clit until it swelled against his fingers. “You’re so high-strung, Granger.” His voice was gravelled. “I sometimes wonder how much good a hard fuck would do you.”

She groaned, breathing in the scent of citrus on his breath. The blood prickled her upper arms,

“I don’t want this, Tom. You need to stop.”

Ignoring her, he placed a leg up on the dais, knee bent, and lifted her leg to drape over his thigh. She offered little resistance. It felt unimaginable to be able to rest one of her legs. Her foot floated freely in the air, almost as if she were sitting. And that stretch in her groin—gods.

“You forget I can read your mind. Try to deny it all you want, Mudblood. Because your cunt is wet for this. It has been for months now. And you’re going to let me do whatever I want to it, huh? To this tightly wound body? Aren’t you? Open your pussy for me, Granger, so I can slip my finger inside. Go ahead,” he coaxed.

She made a choked noise in her throat, and her traitorous body tucked her hips so that her leg opened further, notching her knee into his hip crease. He pinned it there with his elbow while his fingers rolled from her clit down to her entrance.

Hermione was convinced she’d turned from solid to a liquid. Drowsy arousal combed through her basic need for sleep, drowning out that acute need with something else.

“It’s lovely how quick you are to listen, Granger. I’ve got to admit, I thought it would be harder. One night of mild discomfort was all it took? I should have done this at the start of term.” He laughed dryly. “I’d have had you on your knees begging to swallow my cock between classes.” He shook his head. “All that wasted time. No matter—”

He eased inside her. Her arousal clung to him as one finger taunted her entrance. An inch. He’d only pressed an inch inside.

Hermione’s chin dropped to her chest.

Merlin.

“I don’t—”

“You don’t want this,” he stole the words from her head. “Go ahead, say it again. With feeling this time, Granger.”

Another inch.

“I don’t—Oh, God.” 

He began to pump that single digit. “Salazar, you’re tight. It’s just a finger, Granger. Loosen up on me. You’ll never fit my bloody cock in there like this. Ah well, maybe you truly don’t care about getting out of here.”

“Wha—what do you mean by that? I’m doing everything you asked me,” she started, jerking her hands against the wall as fresh pain surged back into her arms. She hadn’t noticed it as much when Tom was handling her body.

“I told you to open up, Granger. And you didn’t, so.” He withdrew his hand, dropped her leg back onto the platform and walked back to the smoking cauldron.

“Tom—” Her head whipped behind her to watch him withdraw.

“I have work to do,” he cut her off with a dismissive wave of his hand.

She ground her jaw but remained silent.

Fine, if this was the type of treatment she was going to receive she’d just stay quiet.

And damn him, because while she still needed to pee, she was far too aroused now to do anything about it. 

Tom’s intentions became clear; he wasn’t going to give her anything she wanted if she didn’t cooperate with his every command.

But once she’d gone quiet and let him touch her, he’d rewarded her with this platform.

Sure, it wasn’t much. But it soothed the arches of her feet and allowed her arms to bend. She could feel them slowly regaining feeling, and even though it was uncomfortable—and her thumb was a bloody mess—it was far better than what she dealt with last night.

__________

They stayed that way—in the quiet company of each other—for the next few hours as Tom worked on the antidote. Which must mean, Hermione guessed, that he hadn’t given up on her yet.

But once more, her body’s needs overrode her patience.

Her stomach grumbled audibly, and the last dregs of arousal fled her in favor of the now imminent need to relieve herself.

Still, she remained quiet, chewing on her cheek, and sucking down saliva as if it would slake her thirst.

The next rumble from her belly sounded like thunder, and Tom dropped his knife onto his cooled dittany sap with a grunt of frustration.

Hermione bit her lip to keep quiet as he strode over on sure feet.

“Here.” He held up a slice of orange. It looked so appealing that Hermione’s dry mouth pricked with saliva. Before she knew it, her head snapped forward to yank it from his hand.

But she wasn’t fast enough. And when she met his eyes next, he was already wedging it past his teeth. A small dribble of juice ran down his chin as she made a sharp noise of betrayal.

“Mm,” he said when he finished. “That’s really nice.”

“You—”

Tom interrupted her, ducking his head and threading himself between her arms, rising to his full height so that her wrists landed on the tops of his shoulders.

“Oh!” she yelped.

Her chest pressed against his own as his legs spread to lower himself to her eye-level.

There was no way to escape. If anyone were to walk in now, it would look like she was embracing him.

“You want it that badly?” he murmured, eyes cool on hers, as if he were asking if she had a spare quill, not teasing her about starving. His slender form felt unjustly perfect beneath her. It would be so easy to hitch her leg and…

But then the maddening sweetness of his breath hit her and she groaned.

“Here you go.” He lifted another slice in front of her mouth. This time, she knew better than to snap at it. “Hold it. On your tongue. For—” He glanced at the clock. “An hour. If you can do that without swallowing, I’ll let you piss.”

Her eyes pricked as she slowly nodded—hesitant to appear over-eager—and opened her mouth for him to place it inside.

It brushed against her top lip first, and her eyes shuttered. He moved to the bottom next, while painting it with the fragrant citrus. Her knee shook slightly in anticipation until he dragged it across the expanse of her tongue. Horrified, a small bead of saliva fell from the valley between her plump lower lip, dropping onto Tom’s chest. Her eyes flared open in alarm, and the rest of her body locked down with fear.

But he only smirked. Delighted by the lost look in her eyes, looking to him for the consequence.

See? I’m your whole world now, his expression conveyed.

“You’re doing well,” he said, and she hated how much she enjoyed hearing those words from his mouth. “You’re such a quick learner, Granger. Now close up.”

He tapped her lower jaw with the pad of his index finger, and she eased it shut, savoring the sweetness of the orange slice saturating every inch of her tastebuds. Her mouth flooded, and her body reacted on its own. It was almost impossible to keep from swallowing, but she managed. Concentrating on the dripping fruit in her mouth, she slid boneless across his chest as her body responded to the treat. He smelled of oranges himself and something else distinctly masculine. She wanted to tuck inside his cloak and sleep for an eternity—safe, protected.

Tom’s hands ran up and down the sides of her ribs in a soothing pattern until he forced her off him. He tapped her mouth once, full of saliva and orange juice. A reminder.

“One hour.”

Then, he was gone.

______________

“Mm.” He peered inside her mouth, hand framing her jaw, which she had turned upwards like a cup to prevent spit from falling out. It was well-past an hour, and the sun was high in the sky when he finally returned from tending the potion. But she didn’t mention it. And the orange was still intact.

Hermione’s heart leapt. He’d said, “Mm,” and instead of sounding like detached appraisal, it sounded a lot like a groan.

“Spit it out.”

From the corner of her eye, Hermione stole a look at his angular form leaning against the wall and did as he asked. Because that was the way he liked it. And if she did what he told her, he would take care of her.

Besides, the pressure between her legs now seemed like a medical emergency.

So she spat the orange slice to the floor and gazed back into his iron-black eyes. They swam with barely concealed delight.

“I like when you do as you’re told,” he admitted as if it perplexed him. His pupils flared as his thumb swept a bit of pulp from her chin. “More than I thought I would. I’ll admit, I was hoping you’d keep saying no… but having you entirely at my mercy and willing to spread your legs for me is a real fucking delight.”

He took a step, circling toward her back. She twisted her neck to watch him.

“But it wouldn’t really matter if you said no, Granger.” Tom’s thumb found the sensitive spot just below her ear, and he applied pressure, a gentle control. “Because I listened to every depraved thought you’ve had about me. In-between checklists and study anxiety, you’d think about my cock. Seven years of filth, Granger. And you’ve never even stopped to analyze those thoughts, have you? Until this moment.”

He was right. She’d known subconsciously he was attractive, and she lusted after his competence of all things. But she’d never given herself the space between her studies to actually consider it might be something worth pursuing.

She gasped when his free hand brushed the tops of her thighs, then reached beneath her skirt. Tom lifted the back of it until her ass was exposed and hooked his thumb into the side of her panties, slowly peeling them down her body. They stuck to her lips where her arousal thickened from earlier, and Tom laughed cruelly when he found it.

With a last tug, they dropped to her ankles, and the chill in the air hit her core. She bit down hard on her lower lip to stop from wetting herself.

“Almost there.” He knelt on the ground and wrapped his slender fingers around each ankle, nudging them to lift. Hermione craned her neck as he dragged her underwear out from beneath her feet and pocketed them.

She didn’t protest when the bridge of his nose found her bottom and he bit the rounded flesh there. But a moan shot past her teeth when he did the same to the other side. He sucked lazily, sliding a hand between her thighs, and finding her bare clit again.

He rubbed her achingly slowly, kneading the nerves against the flats of his fingers as his mouth worked love bites across the surface of her ass. Hermione felt blood pooling, and she knew she wouldn’t be able to take communal showers for the foreseeable future.

Then, as she began to relax against his hand, arms straightening so she could lower into his palm, Tom Riddle stood.

She clamped down hard on her mental outrage and breathed through it.

He appeared on her right once more and conjured a metal basin with two concave sides, perfect for slipping between her…

He held it aloft, clinking his nails over the bottom. A lazy smile rolled over his lips.

No, she thought, legs locking.

She wasn’t going to piss while he held a bucket between her legs.

She wanted privacy.

Tom scoffed.

“Privacy… is earned. Besides, you’ve barely scratched the surface of apologizing to me. The audacity to think you deserve privacy.”

She hissed, oscillating between annoyance and terror that he’d withdraw this reward if she didn’t perform as asked.

“No one asked you to think, Granger,” he instructed, wedging her thighs further apart. “Just do it.”

She couldn’t not think. That was who she was: ninety percent racing thoughts, and ten percent hair. 

Shifting between them, he held the basin for her, flipping up her skirt to wedge it between her legs. Humiliated, it took her a long moment to relax enough to pee. But when she did, it rushed from her, pinging across the metallic like rapids. She dropped her head and let out a long, relieved groan.

Hermione wasn’t sure she’d ever felt so simultaneously humiliated and overjoyed at the same time. She felt her body relaxing its overtight muscles. The tight grip on her control seemed to seep from her with the long release of fluid. Her forehead dropped forward until it rested against the wall.

It lasted minutes, she thought. Until finally, it stopped, and she felt vacuous, hollow, relaxed, languid, exhausted. The adrenaline of holding onto that need, tempering it, sitting with it for hours, and then letting it go was an altogether religious experience. And Tom Riddle was her deity.

“See how good you are for me, Granger?” he asked as he vanished the basin in a sharp wand flick. “What else do you need, baby?”

Her heart flew into her throat. His eyes tightened imperceptibly as if fighting off a laugh at her reaction. She knew her thoughts were alight with confusion and disgust and desire. They were a storm of knives, every thought threatening to cut her to the quick and expose her true feelings—which he could very much read and which she had very much avoided facing.

“I need,” she swallowed thickly. To eat, to sleep, to drink. Now. Not later. Not whenever the mood struck Tom. She felt nearly faint from the lack of food in her bloodstream.

The thoughts bubbled up unbidden.

“Ah, you’re still being dramatic. Very well then,” was all he said as he pushed away from the wall and strode from her.

“I’m not,” she called. “I didn’t say it aloud! I just thought it. I can’t control my thoughts, can I?”

He let out a dark laugh. “You can, and you must if you want food and water, Granger. Now quiet while I reduce the dragon’s blood. If I burn it, I’ll have to start the entire potion over.”

Hermione fell motionless, commanding even her thoughts to stillness.

_____________

She must have fallen asleep, because when she awoke again, the sun was low in the sky. Evening, she realized. It had been a full twenty-four hours now stuck to this damn wall, and she—

Kisses rolled down her neck, and instinctively she tried to thread her hands through this dream man’s hair, but when she reached back to grab him, she found her hands stuck.

“Shhh, baby. Hush,” Tom’s voice rolled over her in a hum as he sucked on her throat. “You can stay asleep, just listen to me, alright?”

She must have nodded, but she couldn’t be sure. All she knew was that she was going to stay asleep if that’s what he wanted. So she walked the knife’s edge between awake and dreaming as his hands unbuttoned her blouse and palmed her tight breasts. They felt so heavy in his hands as he weighed them, squeezing each in turn, then tugging each nipple until a sharp keen clipped from her mouth.

“Hush,” she heard him say. “Second chance, baby. Are you going to open up for me?”

From deep within her dream, she muttered a slurred, “Yes, sir,” and received a dark laugh in response.

She felt his hips beneath hers. He was sitting, she realized. He must have transfigured a chair. He spread her legs over his lap so that he stared down at her arched back and ass.

He groaned, palming her ass cheeks, slapping one so that she jerked awake.

“Back to sleep, lovely. I’ve got you. Alright?” he soothed.

“Alright, Tom,” she murmured, nodding off once more.

It felt so good when one finger slid inside. Her mind dreamt up images of vast landscapes and warm fires. She dreamed of cloudless skies and bottomless oceans. Then she wrapped them all inside of her and opened for him. She tensed only slightly when his second finger slid in, and he didn’t stop her when her hips twitched on top of his lap.

She heard his soft praise. “You love this, baby. You love it. You open up for me so easily.”

She rolled against him, with less restraint, and he softly clapped her ass. Palms pinking the skin as she moaned in her dreamscape. Hermione felt his erection dig between her cheeks from within his robes, suffusing warmth into her as she ground against him.

“Fuck, Granger,” he guttered out, reaching forward with the other hand and stroking deep circles across her clit.

“Oh,” she moaned.

“Quiet now,” he instructed, and she fell silent once again, letting him manipulate her body exactly how he wanted to.

It was when he slid three fingers inside that her eyes fluttered open, and she looked back to find he was staring directly at her. His eyes were so intense she almost broke contact, but she knew he wanted her looking at him like this.

I’m going to come, she thought at him.

He shook his head. No. So she hid her next moan in the swell of her shoulder, mouth biting into the thin muscle she found there. Her legs trembled around his waist.

No, you’re not.

Somehow his words appeared in her head, and she blinked back her surprise.

But she really was going to. And he wasn’t slowing. In fact, his steady rhythm within her was only coiling her tighter. Her low belly hollowed as the muscles contracted. She was going to…

No. You’re. Not, he commanded again, holding her gaze like he could reach into her body and direct her like a marionette. The sounds coming from her now were filthy and half-asleep. And try as she might, she couldn’t stop them. It was the only pressure release she had to prevent herself from orgasming, and thankfully Tom allowed it.

They rocked together, Tom’s hips pumping into her own, pressing his covered cock between her ass, allowing her to grind down on his hand.

“You’re going to let me fuck you, huh, baby?” His voice was in her ear as he pulled his fingers free and clutched onto her hips. He guided her over his length again and again and again, while her clit rubbed against the fabric of his robes, cock threading between her sticky lips.

She nodded as he slowed to a stop, knowing better than to protest the treatment. She would wait, be patient, and she’d get it.

“Say, ‘Yes, Tom. You can fuck me.’”

“You can fuck me, Tom. Yes, please.”

“No denials?”

She would have laughed if she weren’t mostly asleep.

“Right.” His hips slowed to a halt, and he guided her legs closed between his. “Well, I’m adding the last ingredient, and then it needs to simmer overnight.”

She didn’t react to the dismissal, trusting in the process. “Okay, Tom.”

He stood then, vanishing the stool, and her legs straightened down to the raised platform. Before he walked away though, he held a single slice of orange to her lips.

Teasing? she wondered.

His black eyes drank her in as he shook his head minutely. Not teasing, they seemed to say.

She took a tentative bite. The flavors exploded on her tongue, and she swallowed.

“Thank you, Tom.”

Chapter Text

SUNDAY

The clock had just ticked past midnight when Tom finished the potion and set the fire to simmer beneath it. It was officially Sunday, and Hermione had now entered her second day hanging from the wall of the potions lab, unable to move her arms or take a step.

Hunger twisted in her gut. The single slice of orange she’d eaten hours ago somehow made the need more acute. And despite the small amount of water inside the fruit, her mouth was as dry as brittle parchment. 

She coughed weakly. Her nap had done her body some good, but waking up to Tom edging her had brought up so many repressed feelings.

For so long, she’d let his academic prowess cloud her thoughts. Their simple, albeit unceasing, rivalry stood at the forefront of her mind whenever she’d considered him.

But was it possible this had been a one-sided rivalry all along?

Despite the coercive treatment, she felt—more than anything—that Tom Riddle wanted her honesty more than her cooperation throughout this strange, sticky power struggle.

And she couldn’t deny how unexpectedly thrilling it felt to wake up with his fingers inside her, spreading her open to make room for himself. So hot, she’d forgotten how to breathe. She felt desirable and feminine, two concepts she’d given very little thought to these last seven years.

His rules and discipline felt good, she admitted. Reliquishing control of her actions felt like sinking into a hot bath at the end of a long day.

She’d been white-knuckling her studies, her grades, her whole fucking life for so long now she forgot how sweet a simple orange slice could be until she’d licked it from his fingers.

Even now, as the school year rounded to a close, all of her thoughts centered on securing the Top Marks award and the graduation speech that followed. Then on to her post-Hogwarts career. Bloody hell, ruining Tom’s essay hadn’t even been a conscious decision. She simply cast the magic and moved on.

Now, stuck to this wall, everything came back into focus. She was a comet careening through the atmosphere, unable to halt her trajectory—forward, onward, to the next thing, and the next, and the next.

Until now.

Hermione heard his demand ring through her mind: “Say, ‘Yes, Tom. You can fuck me’.” He’d stated it plainly, holding her gaze. His eyes—those two wet pools of tar—followed her every expression just as his mind tracked her every thought. He was outside her, inside her, and buried in her head now. And while her body remained at his disposal, it was all so unexpectedly comforting.

He’d driven her to her limits, yes, but he hadn’t yet pushed past them. 

And, despite this involuntary confinement, Tom Riddle made it feel safe to slow down. He had forced her to a jarring stop. And sitting still with her reality—giving her the space to reexamine her actions—her head hung heavy with shame.

She opened her mouth to speak. To apologize.

“I hear you,” Tom said, cutting her off before she could utter a single word.

She turned to find him scribbling in a journal stoically, head bowed over their lab table, that perfect black curl catching the firelight in a glossy flash.

He wasn’t going to force her apology.

Hermione’s breath huffed out in disbelief. That was unexpectedly kind.

Tom rose and strode to her with a vial of shimmering purple potion. It swirled fluidly in the glass flask.

“Oh, thank Merlin,” she murmured as he approached.

He twisted it once, looping it through long fingers—index to pinky finger and back again—and vanished it as if he were a Muggle magician. “Wait, what—” she cried.

“Oops,” he said innocently, reaching his now empty fingers to brush her hair away from her face. She swallowed hard before he tucked the wild curls behind her ears.

It was then that she began to hyperventilate.

“Relax, baby,” he crooned, rounding to her back where she stood. He lifted her skirt high, cupping her ass. She felt him grow hard as his hips pressed behind her. “Mm, still red from earlier. I was thinking about taking you here.” His finger dipped between her cheeks as she tensed. “But it’s alright, I can get creative.”

She whined as he came back to the front and lifted his wand to her mouth.

“Open. Up, Granger.”

Her mouth popped into an ‘o’, and Tom’s smooth yew wand pushed inside. He moved it in and out in a pumping motion as he studied her cheeks hollowing around it.

“Now, that’s something,” he said, eyes following as her swollen lips closed over the wood.

Suddenly, her mouth flooded, and she coughed, choking up fluid. She panicked at first, thinking it was a potion or worse, but when she pulled back, she saw Tom had cast an augamente charm. Cold, fresh water rushed from the wand tip, cascading down her front, soaking her chin, throat, and breasts all the way through until she shivered.

She yelped in a mixture of shock and deep yearning as he held her eye and lazily brought it back to her lips. 

Hermione drank for what felt like minutes, gulping down every drop he gave her, feeling every cell in her body celebrate. But the water stopped before she was ready, and Tom pulled the wand tip smoothly away.

“Go slowly, or you’ll be sick.” Tom reached forward, and with one long finger, wiped a drop from her lip. Her tongue darted out as he did so and swept across his fingertip, tasting the salt of his skin and the herbs of the potion mixed there.

He stilled, statuesque save for the twitch at the corner of his mouth.

“You’re tempting me, Granger.”

Her thoughts were a jumble, floating high from the water, and she choked out a soggy, “I don’t mean to.”

“Yes, you do,” he corrected quickly, and alright, he had a point.

She wanted to say, ‘So do it,’ but it would prolong her time against the wall.

“And you’ve earned it,” he continued, sizing her up from her feet to her hands stretched high toward the ceiling. “You’ve been so patient. Apologetic even.”

Something dark pooled in her core, and she shifted on the balls of her feet. She wanted him all over her; she wanted to open for him.

But she would have to wait.

He ducked under her arms once more until they were nose-to-nose again.

Oh, she thought. Oh.

This. This pressing closeness, where he forced her body against his own.

The last time she was flustered and so hungry she hadn’t truly observed him. But now as her systems calmed, more at ease, she took the time to examine him.

“Your eyes are actually deep blue,” she said aloud without meaning to.

His brows flashed upwards before settling.

“Yes, they are.”

“I always thought they were black,” she said. “And you have the smallest freckle high on your cheekbone.” She wanted to touch it. The smell of his skin was intoxicating. She pulled great lungfuls of it into her chest.

Her gaze dropped to his mouth, and she couldn’t stop her breath from hitching.

Lips shouldn’t look like that. Pouty even when unbitten.

She hadn’t realized she’d leaned forward, tempted to trace all the contours of his face, from his narrow jaw to his hollowed cheeks, with nothing but the tip of her nose.

But he was breathing into her mouth, and he wasn’t pushing her away this time. Agonizing moments passed between them where neither moved. A stalemate, she thought.

No, realization struck her. No, this was Muggle chess. And he was waiting for her to join the game.

Hermione closed her eyes and became deathly still. Minutes passed between them, the only motion was their rising and falling chests against one another. The long-game.

It was as equally agonizing as it was dangerously addictive.

She felt his penetrating gaze, felt him creeping around the recesses of her mind. And she let him, offering access to memory after memory she’d never given thought to before.

Opening entirely for him.

It was the day before the Dark Arts mid-terms, and Tom strode into class one person ahead of her. She watched his robes dust the ground, and he tossed her a blank look as he took the seat beside her. Goyle typically sat there, and she dithered at her chair, unsure whether to sit. But Tom merely glanced up at her with that competitive gleam in his eye. The same one he used before every test where he outshone her. And it enraged her. She always told herself how much she hated it. But the memory sharpened, and she felt the way her stomach fluttered. She’d put it off to nerves at the time. But it wasn’t. Now she saw it wasn’t.

From behind closed eyes, Hermione felt Tom open her wet blouse. She squeezed them shut harder so as not to ruin the moment. He peeled her bra down, so her breasts propped up on the underwire.

“Have I ever told you how many times I’ve jerked off thinking about your tits in my mouth, Granger?”

Oh… fuck.

Tom brought another memory to the surface.

It was autumn fourth year, and Tom strode across the courtyard followed by his gaggle of Slytherin sycophants. But he saw her under the eaves of the old stone portico, studying. She’d just lifted her head when he caught her gaze. His hair looked windswept as if he’d been flying. Suddenly a compulsion overcame her, to rise and run her hands through those dark, roguish waves. She looked at him too long, thinking what it might feel like threaded between her fingers—clutching it while he…

Tom's mouth closed over her nipple, and he flicked it with his tongue, causing her core to ache. Her breasts were so tender in the back half of her cycle, the nipples already overstimulated, and Tom used it to his advantage. Once he released his mouth, both hands worked the nipples, rolling and teasing them between his long fingers until she unconsciously placed a foot on the outside of his leg.

She caught the movement and forced herself back to stillness.

“Boomslang skin,” she said, hand shooting up in Lupin’s class. Fifth year.

“It’s Blind-worm’s sting, Hermione,” Tom whispered. His hand went to her knee to get her attention. She didn’t notice the touch or the use of her first name, however, because he was right.

“Erm, sorry, Professor Lupin,” she corrected. “I meant Blind-worm’s sting!”

“Ten points to Gryffindor,” Remus called with a careless wand flick.

When Hermione turned back at Tom, he was scribbling in his journal. The only evidence of his aid, a warm imprint where his palm had rested on her leg.

His robes fell at her feet, and it took everything inside her not to look.

“I didn’t remember you touching me like that,” she admitted. “You helped me.”

Tom in the present laughed darkly.

Fifth year again, and Tom sat across from her in the library, a book whose spine she couldn’t decipher held loosely in his slender hands. She should be studying Ancient Runes—she had an exam tomorrow—but Tom was smiling over something he read. It was such a private thing, she couldn’t turn away. Hermione spent the next several days replaying that look in her mind.

“It wasn’t the book, Granger,” Tom said in her ear, almost teasing. His belt slid smoothly through the buckles. “It was just after potions, and you had a bit of dried kelp in your hair.”

Hermione gasped, “I did not!” This time she opened her eyes—just a smidge—and saw that same grin plastered on his face. And also that he’d removed his shirt.

“Closed,” he instructed—firm but not unkind—and they snapped shut again.

His belt wrapped around her middle and tugged her flush against his warm body. Her breasts skated against his chest, nipples brushing along the heated expanse of skin she found there.

Seventh year. They’d been arguing over the finer details of the Goblin Rebellion of 1462, and he’d held the door open for her. Absentmindedly. As if he hadn’t realized he was doing it.

He was naked. She knew it like she knew her assignment schedule. Knew it like she knew how to ace her exams.

And when he sank away from her against the wall, she had to stop from calling out. But not even a second later, and his hands were on her hips, guiding her across his lap—he must have summoned a stool—separating her legs so that she—

She felt everything.

Despite her elbows straightening slightly overhead, and the intensity of the stretch in her shoulders, she wriggled across him like a cat lying in a stream of sunlight.

The cauldron simmered unevenly. Hermione stirred the potion for the seventh time when it exploded. Sludgey streams of mashed flobberworm shot into the air as Tom cast a spell, halting the explosion from hitting him. Hermione blinked, frozen in shock, goo dripping from her lashes, and gazed at him.

“It was six stirs, Granger,” he said with a self-righteous purse of his lips.

Hermione swiped at her face and sneered at him, somehow looking perfect in every respect, except for the large flobberworm tentacle in the curl above his brow. 

It gave Tom a sharp tap on the forehead, and Hermione burst into laughter.

“Well, at least your hair finally looks imperfect,” she snorted.

Tom groaned, chucking the gooey appendage toward Crabb’s desk, before catching her eye. Hermione’s mirth, it seemed, was infectious, because Tom Riddle cracked. 

He began to laugh. And when he laughed, Hermione doubled-over, clutching her stomach, because she’d never seen Tom Riddle laughing. For a long moment they couldn’t look at each other, because it would start the process anew. It was so genuine and unguarded and rare that Hermione couldn’t help but fall in love with the sound of it.

“Sit still,” he commanded. Long fingers wrapped around the small of her waist. The head of his cock pushed against her clit, rolling it back and forth, while his other hand pushed into her core open to take him. “Remember what I said, baby?”

“Sit still, stay open,” she said as if in a dream.

“Yeah. And that you deserve a hard fuck. You want that, Hermione?”

Her name. Merlin, her Godric-damned name. 

It sounded so good from his filthy mouth. And because she was paying attention to him now, she heard how his breath caught when he asked the question. She could feel him beneath her, the warmth of his skin seeping into her own. 

She whimpered in reply.

“One more, then. To jog your memory of how much you wanted this.”

They were in the library again. In the very recent past. Tom sat down at her desk with a flourish of his robes, surprising her. But she remained silent, preoccupied with her finals workload. He unfolded his Advanced Potions book to write his essay. The one worth fifty percent of their grade.

The one she’d destroyed with the Ever-Stuck potion.

Her quill worked over her parchment. Inch after inch scratched into the deepening silence between them, but neither spared a glance each other’s way. Students came and went, but no one interrupted them. It felt companionable. As if this shared silence were deliberate. She found herself thinking she’d be happy to be quiet near him, sharing a space, if it always felt like this.

“There. Now stop thinking, Granger, and let me fuck you how I’ve imagined.”

He didn’t wait. His cock notched at her slick entrance. One hand guided her lower back while the other steadied his shaft, lowering her until—

“Fuck,” he gasped into her collarbone as the head of his cock thrust past her tight entrance and lodged inside. He grunted in the back of his throat and swallowed thickly. “You’ll come on my cock, won’t you, baby?”

Her eyes were still closed, every fiber of her body tried to spread itself open for Tom, but he was thick inside her thighs—and progress was slow.

He dragged in and out of her mere centimeters, allowing her arousal to coat him before he pushed further past her guard.

Hermione couldn’t control how he used her body except for tightening her legs around his hips to control the intrusion.

“No, baby,” he scolded gently yet firmly. “I told you to open up. Not to squeeze your legs.”

His cock pushed in another inch, and her legs shook around the invasion, struggling terribly not to tense up. It burned a little, but Hermione moaned around the stretch, unable to stay quiet any longer.

“A little more, I know you can take it, Hermione,” he coached.

And she did. His shaft sank inside her another inch, and Hermione’s head dropped backward as Tom laved her nipple with his tongue, teasing the other with slender fingertips until her lower belly contracted around his cock.

“Salazar,” he hissed like it stung. “You like my cock more than you expected, huh?”

“Tom.” There it was, his name. Like he’d branded her from the inside out in the span of two short days. Nothing else in the world existed except him. And maybe it didn’t anymore, because her body unfolded around his name, and the inch he’d fought so hard for became two… then three… then four… then more.

She felt her thighs shiver as she spread them farther apart to accommodate however much he wanted to give. Which was apparently… all of it.

His hot breath hit her neck, and she sat fully on top of him, nothing separating their hips except the thin gloss of arousal. It wasn’t fair how easily he’d done this to her. How she’d turned from victim to full-participant with the ring of her name on his tongue. And his on hers.

Merlin, he hadn’t even kissed her yet. And she was here, hands bound, achingly wide for him. It was quickly approaching unjust.

“Look at your body, Hermione.” Her eyes flashed open. Finally. FINALLY.

But instead of devouring Tom Riddle’s form with her eyes, they snapped down to gaze at herself. Her breasts were full in his mouth. He’d sucked them until they were pink and puffy. And the stretch of her hands overhead elongated her rib cage into something terribly elegant. Her waist and navel were a small loop that Tom’s hand encircled, sending his fingertips skittering across the sensitive skin he found there.

“You look like you want to get fucked, don’t you?” he laughed darkly. “And you look like you want me to do it.”

Gods, yes, was her only thought as she studied where he sank into her.

His hands found the two swells of her ass, and he rolled her hips forward while she watched. Forward, then back again. Forward, then back again. Three glistening inches of his shaft dragged from her sticky heat before plunging back inside. She watched with rapt attention.

“Back here, baby,” he called, and her eyes locked on his, filtering out everything instantly, until there was only him. His long fingers reached up and grasped her chin between his index and thumb, lifting her head slowly and bringing his mouth down towards hers.

Her heart beat like mad.

“What do you need to do, baby?”

“Sit still, stay open,” she breathed it like a litany.

His lips dusted over her own and pulled back just as quickly. Tom’s hands moved from the curve of her ass to cup her cheek and the back of her head, burrowing his fingers into the dense curls he found there.

And then he kissed her.

Hermione didn’t notice that he’d stopped thrusting. She felt only his warm mouth crushed against her own, sending the breath straight from her chest. She recalled every time she’d watched his lips form a hard line—in discontent, boredom, indifference—and she could barely fathom how soft they actually were. That coldness, his chill aloofness, was nowhere to be found.

At the urge of his hands digging into her spine, her chest pulled flush against his own, cementing their bodies together as his tongue swept out to taste her lower lip.

She groaned at the feel of how hot his mouth was. He groaned at her noise.

Relief, like the platform under her feet, flowed through her. Relief, like the slosh of water in her belly. Relief, to find he tasted like oranges.

Her eyes pricked with desire. The urge to consume him and be consumed by him warred in equal parts inside her as their mouths clashed.

Tom Riddle kissed her like he’d shed every ounce of his rigidity. Hermione’s body arched, angling her spine, so that his cock dragged through her wet heat without intention.

“Gah,” he growled, not losing his place in her mouth, but his hands tugged her hair backward to deepen his access. He gave an unconscious thrust that seemed to unlock something inside her.

Where everything had been tight and achy, the stretch of him burning through her, it was now fluid. He glided inside her, parting her like ripe oranges. Sliding himself in and out with an ease that left her breath shuddering.

She struggled to remain passive and focused on simply receiving the pleasure he gave. To take everything his mouth offered. He grunted into her like he was hungry, thirsty—like he was fulfilling his every need—and she stretched her knees farther, opening into a delicious, deep stretch as he pumped his hips.

Her entire existence was between when Tom filled her and when he withdrew.

Little staccatos of protests bubbled up from her mouth anytime he drew his hips back, unable to feel him filling her, then he’d advance and the world would right itself once more.

For seven years she’d gone without Tom Riddle, and now him being inches from her felt like a devastating loss.

His breath was harsh and unregulated against her mouth, her cheek, her neck as he roved and devoured her, seeming to decide he would touch every inch of her skin. Roughly here. Gently there. Always testing her reaction. His white-knuckles gripping her soft, rolling curves.

Hermione’s lips found that freckle high on his cheekbone, kissing it with adoration while he sucked in a ragged breath. She was extraordinarily aware of his stomach’s lithe muscles contracting and releasing as he fucked into her receptive body.

His mouth was clean with the scent of citrus, but his words were filthy.

Hers was open, panting, crying ‘yes’s’ and ‘please’s’ and ‘I’m going to’s.’

His was full of ‘not until I say’s’ and ‘wait's’ and ‘take this hard cock, Hermione. Take all of it.’

She didn’t want to lose this. Not ever.

Their bodies rubbed against one another feverishly, as if neither could get close enough. The ache in her shoulders spiked and released with each powerful thrust of his hips, but the rest of her coiled as pressure built in her core.

Everything felt warmer; sweat pricked along her neck, running down a line of her curls. His cock thickened within her, well past anything she’d experienced before, and his forehead hit her chest where he took jagged, panting gasps.

He was losing control.

And it thrilled her.

“I’m there,” she whispered. Oh god, this was it. She couldn’t stop it.

And neither could he.

His teeth sank into the soft flesh just above her breast, securing her against the brutal snap of his hips. Holding her, claiming her, then coating her from the inside in hot, sticky ropes of cum.

“Hermione,” he grunted, the top line of his teeth scraping the flesh and peppering her with just enough sting to make her muscles contract around him.

She convulsed as her orgasm punched through her, distinctly sharp, slightly painful, and unendingly pleasurable. Her head floated while her body sank down onto him time and again. The weight of their combined arousal gushed between them as she keened, then cooed, then sobbed against his forehead.

His fox-line eyes watched her, thrusting long after she came down from her high and he from his, sending darting echoes of her orgasm shuddering through her like aftershocks.

It was only when he began to twitch—jaw flexed around the overstimulation—that he finally slowed.

Finally stopped.

Their breathing was so loud, rapid as he cleaned the sweat from her neck with his tongue.

They passed the minutes in silence as Tom continued to twist her nipples and give half-conscious thrusts inside of her. 

When their breathing evened, and they both drew back to read each other’s eyes, he said...

“Tell me, Hermione.”

She didn’t wait as the words flowed out of her. “I want you. I’ve wanted you. I’m sorry.”

________________

Hermione rubbed her hands as they pulled free of the wall. Blood rushed into them and painted her veins in bright, static zaps of pain.

He was dressed now. She was dressed now.

Although she didn’t ask for her underwear back.

“So,” she said, looking at him awkwardly as he cleaned up the Never-Stuck potion, capping it and putting it on Slughorn’s desk. Hermione rubbed at her arms, her shoulders. The atmosphere had changed after he’d lowered her back to her feet. It was charged now with expectation. Friday’s events stuck thickly in her throat.

Tom glanced up at the word, turning to face her as he strode back to their lab table.

“So,” she began again, “I will withdraw my paper.”

Tom frowned. A slight shake of his head.

She took a tentative step forward.

“No?”

“No, Hermione.”

A shiver went through her hearing her first name while they weren’t, well, together.

He extended his palm as she drew near, sensitivity brushing between her thighs with every step.

His long fingers encircled hers as she placed her palm into his own.

“Your essay was better than mine,” he sighed, as if it pained him. “I read it while you wrote it in the library.”

“Oh.” Her brows lifted, searching his midnight blue depths. “So, you want me to…”

“Write the best graduation speech,” he said, a corner of his lip curling. “And let me fuck you raw afterward.”

Hermione bit her lip to stop from smiling. “Deal.” 

She tugged her hand from his own and offered it to shake.

“Come on,” he said, knocking her hand aside and sweeping an arm over her shoulder. "Let's get something to eat, I'm starving."

He pressed a kiss to her temple as they walked out of the lab.

Chapter Text

Graduation

“And as a final farewell to our generous school—”

‘Salazar, the mouth on you,’ Tom thought into her head where she stood in full Gryffindor regalia, speaking on behalf of the entire school during their graduation ceremony.

She stuttered, surprised by Tom’s mental intrusion during one of the most important speeches of her life.

“I, erm.” She frowned down at the notes. It’s not as if she needed them. She’d memorized them a dozen times before. “I’d like to offer a heartfelt congratulations to every member of our graduating class for—”

‘Why don’t you stop for a second, baby.’

Hermione swallowed hard, scanning the sea of people in the Great Hall, hundreds of eyes tuned in to her. But only one midnight-blue pair stood out. In the far back. The last row.

They danced with delight when she found him.

‘Good listening, Hermione. You may continue.’

She cleared her throat and shifted at the podium, knuckles going white around her cue cards. It’s not like she needed his permission. He’d just interrupted her. “Sorry, um, something in my... Anyway, as I was saying, congratulations on your achievements the last seven years—”

‘Have you been thinking about how hard you’re getting fucked after this?’

Hermione hissed a sharp breath and looked up, seeing wry amusement in the curve of his lips though his face was cast in shadow. She scowled and endeavored to soldier on. “—you’ve achieved more than any graduating class before you. Who could forget the mountain troll during Halloween our first year—”

‘Or are you back to pretending this isn’t happening? Gotten lost again in a world full of award speeches and career prospects?’

“I—” she stumbled. “Sorry, trolls. Right.” She flipped through a few cards. “Or, the alleged ‘flying car’ during second year—rumoured to still be roaming the Forbidden Forest.”

‘When are you planning on telling people about us, Hermione? I’ve been patient. For seven years. Actually, I think I’m starting to become IMpatient.’

“Third year.” She looked out over the audience, trying to push him from her mind. “One word—werewolves.”

A titter flowed through the crowd, and she smiled.

‘Maybe you’re just hoping I screw you hard enough to forget every single item on your checklist. So you can just be a pretty hole for me to fuck. So you don’t even have to think. Is that what you want?’

A clipped whimper escaped her, but it was a hundred times louder than she intended due to the sonorous charm. She buried it in a cough.

“And I probably don’t need to mention the merpeople, dragons, mazes, and the mysterious screaming eggs from fourth year?”

Her classmates hooted loudly.

‘I’ve got an idea, baby. Why don’t you use this opportunity to tell everyone right now about us? I mean, you owe me, right? For the trouble you caused in the potions lab?’

Hermione shifted on her feet, smiling tightly out at the laughing audience. Her head shook once to the right. Not the time, she tried to convey.

“Fifth year,” she leaned forward and whispered with a wink in her voice, “Ministry interference. Thank you, Headmaster Dumbledore, for sorting that out.”

Dumbledore clapped the back of his hand softly and nodded as the crowd applauded.

‘It wasn’t a question.’

Hermione scratched her temple and flared her nostrils. No. “Then… Slug Club parties, where many of us connected with our future employers and associates—”

‘Let me put it this way: Tell everyone we’re together—right now—or suffer afterward.’

‘Suffer how,’ she wondered. He didn’t answer.

“And this year—spent nose-down studying for NEWTS, taking advanced coursework, and preparing to leave this place that has come to feel more like home than the places we grew up. We have so many people to thank. Headmaster Dumbledore—” She waved a hand in the white-bearded wizard’s direction.

‘Hermione.’

“Our dedicated professors.”

‘Repeat after me: And I’d like to thank Tom Riddle.’

“And, of course, I’d be remiss if I didn’t include a group we can all stand for and applaud—”

‘Who fucks me until I’m a sobbing mess.’

“Who works tirelessly on our behalf—unseen and unnoticed.”

‘That’s not me, baby. Try harder. I’d like to thank Tom Riddle.’

“The house-elves on staff here!”

Everyone applauded as the house-elf crew apparated around the edges of the room and bowed.

‘I’d like to thank Tom Riddle.’ His tone was harsher now.

“And, erm, last. I’d like to thank…” She swallowed. Surely she wasn’t going to say it?

‘Tom Riddle.’

“Tom Riddle,” she said, registering a flare of shock through her mind.

‘My boyfriend.’

“My…” she stopped, looking out at the intrigued faces of the crowd, some frowning in confusion.

‘This is not a game, Hermione. Say the word: Boyfriend.’

“My… my academic rival—”

A beat of silence.

‘Oh, Hermione.’

She grasped then that she was well and truly fucked. Tom went silent in her head. Her heart trilled out a frantic rhythm.

“—without whom I wouldn’t have worked so hard. You challenged me in every class. And it’s clearly by some clerical error that I find myself at this podium today instead of you.”

Surprise registered in her mind.

Their gaze touched as the crowd turned and applauded him.

He gave a winning Head Boy nod, lifting a single finger in thanks—ever the humble prefect—but only Hermione heard the pointed threat in her head mirrored in his sharply focused eyes.

‘You’re going to let me do anything I want, Granger. Anything at all.’

___________________

She wasn’t blindfolded, but she wished she were.

Because the anticipation was making her shiver.

She’d done exactly as he’d instructed.

‘Go to the potions lab. Disrobe. Get on top of the desk. All fours. Forehead down. Hands bound behind you. Don’t lock the door and don’t move.’

It’d been hours. Her forehead hurt from the position she was in, but she refused to move and start the timer anew.

Because although Tom said this wasn’t a game—it was. It. Was.

Her ass pointed proudly in the air, and she’d tied her wrists together at her lower back, bound by the tassels of her graduation gown. Her knees and her neck were holding the brunt of her weight, and the exhaustion of maintaining such a pose made sweat trickle down her spine, pooling in the valley of her shoulders, diverging into two rivulets circling to the knot in her throat and then dripping from her chin.

If anyone walked in now, they’d see…

Merlin, she blushed and thanked every deity she knew no one had entered. Yet.

Her hips rotated slowly—imperceptibly—easing the tight muscles in her pelvis after holding the position so long.

By now, everyone would be celebrating on the great lawn with friends, family, and classmates.

Tom would be there, she thought, shivering at the idea of him rubbing elbows with Slughorn and Dumbledore while simultaneously getting off on knowing she was there waiting for him.

People would ask about her. Probably to him.

And he would probably say, ‘Oh, Granger? You know her; she’s probably run to the library to research the question she missed on the DADA final.’

The arse. Honestly.

For someone who could hardly move, her thighs squeezed together, and—to her horror—a drop of arousal bled between them.

Oh gods, not again. She whimpered, and it somehow sounded louder than the one she did in the Great Hall during her graduation speech. This waiting was intoxicating. Strenuous, anticipatory, and it completely fucking got her off—no matter how much her mind tried to convince itself she hated it.

Another hour passed without him.

And another.

She cried again and almost broke Tom’s instructions: the desire to stretch out her legs—one at a time, straightening them and rotating her ankles—burned through her. The urge to move, absent the Ever-Stuck potion’s hold, felt practically irresistible.

Her forehead slipped on sweat, and her shoulder dipped to the table’s surface before she caught herself.

“Fuck,” she hissed. A fresh wave of tears welled in her eyes as she froze back into place.

But that slip had done it.

The next time she blinked, a hand gripped her hair, and she gasped. It knotted in her curls, tightening past the point of comfort, and pulled her scalp taut.

Of course he’d been there. Merlin knew for how long, but she hadn’t registered the door clicking open or shut. It was possible he had been there before she even arrived.

With the way he held her, she couldn’t turn to look at him, but she listened as Tom’s feet stepped to the head of the table. Her eyes flickered up, seeing the thinnest slash of his school shirt tucked into his belt. His flat stomach. His quiet stance.

Pretty, she thought. So fucking gorgeous. Even just his waistline did it for her.

The fingers of his free hand drummed right beside her ear.

“So what are we doing here, Hermione?”

His voice was cool and aloof. The hand gripping her hair tightened.

It’d been barely a week since they had started whatever this was between them.

“We’re… getting to know each other,” she answered.

With her bare ass presented in such a lurid manner, even she knew she was entirely full of shit.

“You still won’t say it.”

She heaved a breath. It wasn’t that simple.

“It is that simple,” he said, reading her mind. He used the grip on her hair to turn her head sideways so that her right cheek was flush with the table. The relief in her neck felt like cool water over a wound.

But then his free hand covered her mouth.

“If you think it’s so difficult to speak a simple phrase here or there, then, Hermione, I’m going to show you a new definition of hard.”

“Please, Tom, I—” she said muffled.

“Baby?” he interrupted, but his inflection was false and inviting.

“Hm?” she said into his palm.

“Shut the fuck up.”

She flinched as if slapped.

“If you won’t admit what we are, you won’t speak until you’re ready to.”

One hand stayed braided through her hair as the other lifted from her lips. He walked around to her backside. He gave her head a sharp yank before releasing. She tried to yelp, she did, but nothing came out. He’d cast a nonverbal nonverbal spell on her.

Holy fuck.

He sighed with disappointment. “This was not how I intended to spend my day.”

What the bloody hell did that mean? He was upset that he had to do this to her? The hypocrisy!

“I had plans for us,” he said. “Plans that involved a much more pleasant iteration of this.”

Her brain did the equivalent of three exclamation marks.

“On a bed. In my room.” He laughed ironically. “I bought you fucking flowers.”

Hermione felt something in her chest break apart like tectonic plates beneath the ocean. He’d gotten her flowers. She sniffed silently.

“But here we are. Just two… academic rivals who fuck.” He spat the words, and she had the good sense to feel ashamed.

Why was it so hard to admit what he was to her?

The desk rocked as he sat beside her hips, throwing an arm around her waist and staring down at her ass. Her bound hands wedged under his elbow and straightened past the point of pain. She could only sneak peeks of his shoulders from this angle.

His free hand stroked her lower back rhythmically, avoiding her hands. His fingernails brushed her skin, sending goosebumps skittering along her spine, to the swell of her ass cheeks, down to her soaked core.

She tried to whimper. Nothing came out.

“So if I’m not your boyfriend, then I don’t get to do this, do I?”

He curled his fingers and swept his knuckles along the delicate skin holding her together. With one pass, two passes, three, he dragged her lips apart, coating himself in the sticky wetness he found there. Each knuckle thunkthunkthunk’ed against her clit, then his palm was there—cupping her heat. The warmth of it suffused through her.

“Do I?”

She couldn’t speak even if she wanted to.

“And if I’m not your boyfriend, I can’t do this either.”

He withdrew his hand, and stood, rounding on her and seizing the front of her thighs. His mouth met her, soft and wet, covering her cunt like hot water. With a ragged groan, Tom’s tongue swept between her lips, sucking each in turn, pinking them until they were swollen and tender.

Daring another glance backward, she watched him disrobe as he drank from her. His lips moved against her core as if he were truly kissing her. Fast, quick sucks followed by probing licks. Each pass was sensual and deliberate. His gaze was heavy, eyes half-hooded as he pushed his tongue harder—inside her.

Unable to help herself, she clenched around him as his nose grazed that spot that was neither here nor there, but the electric bridge between two places.

Hermione’s body jerked when he pulled back suddenly.

“But I’m not your boyfriend, so I’ll just give you what you expect from a quick fuck. Does that sound right, Granger?”

No, no, it doesn’t, she thought groggily, awareness of all her aches and pains settling back in. She desperately wanted to sink back and rest on her heels.

“Do you?” he taunted at her thought. “Go ahead then.”

His hands found her ass cheeks, fingers splaying open as they gripped the rounded flesh there and applied downward pressure. He groped the fullness in his hands while lowering her down until she stopped over her feet.

Her breasts pressed into the table, flattening against the cool surface, then her belly came next. She’d moved her knees wide enough that her abdomen sank between them, big toes just touching in the back. Her core rested hovering above her ankles. If she could only undo her hands and brace herself—

But Tom jerked her feet apart and sidled his hips between them as all wishes and hopes fled her.

“A quick fuck.” His palms pulled her cheeks together, then separated them. She couldn’t see his face, but she’d never been this exposed to anyone in her life. Every part of her flushed a brilliant red. “By someone you hardly know.” It sounded like he was reminding himself now instead of her. “That’s what she wants.”

She shivered at the emotion he swallowed back in his tone. But then he was flush against her. He guttered out a half-conscious grind of his hips between her ass, and she gave a low, silent moan.

On the list of Things Hermione Granger Shouldn’t Find Enjoyable But For Some Unknowable Reason Does, this may have taken the cake. Anything to do with Tom was there, really. But this… sod it all, she liked it.

“That’s right, baby. You’re just a hole to fuck.”

She felt more than saw the rapid, jerky movements behind her. Merlin, he was jerking off.

Not that she didn’t masturbate occasionally, but it was a secret, private thing. Yet Tom was bold with the stroke of his hands and the impersonal motion of his body as he stared down at her. Like she wasn’t real. Like she was just a moving photo posted above his four-poster. Or some errant fantasy he sought to excise with the brisk sweep of his hand. She grew wetter.

But then their eyes connected. He looked… pained. Guilt tore through her.

He used the flat of his palm to rub vigorous circles onto her ass cheeks, and then he clapped her… hard.

She almost jumped off the table, but he ground both hands against her flank to snap her back into position. Her entire backside hung just off the edge of the table. Her feet dangled freely.

“Tom,” she mouthed, but nothing came out.

“Shut the fuck up, Hermione,” he seethed, barely in control. He studied her body, stroking himself heavily again. The ridges of muscle above and below his collarbone flexed.

I’m sorry, she thought at him, willing every bit of mind magic to batter down his defenses to hear her. She couldn’t tell if he was occluding, because he dropped his head and rolled it from side to side.

Tom, I’m sorry. I should have told everyone, she tried again. Now she fully understood. This wasn’t about control or playing games at all.

She’d hurt him.

“Stop it,” he bit out. “Don’t pretend to appease me.”

I’m not.

“Stop it, Hermione!” he roared. “Let me give you what you want, and then we can go back to being nothing.”

I don’t want to be— she started, but Tom pressed a single digit inside her…

Not into her core. No.

Into a place she’d never felt before.

Oh, oh no.

A wandless spell heated her there, lubricating the intrusion while he backed in and out of her.

Words flowed from her mouth, nonsensical and pleading. Even with the addition of the spell, Tom’s finger working inside her felt unfamiliar and a little overwhelming. Her spine arched and stomach tightened protectively at the invasion. When the strong muscles of her ass narrowed around him, his head fell to the small of her back and he emitted a sound of sheer hunger.

That noise undid her.

Where she was once shocked and anxious at the prospect of trying something as novel as this, his raw sounds of pleasure melted her defenses. Now, she wanted to hear every sound her body could shake from him.

Except then he pushed an additional finger inside her, and the fullness burned.

No! she thought hard, and suddenly she was whirling through space.

She horse-kicked him without meaning to, and he grabbed her leg mid-air and forced her knee back to the table. But her other leg had already lifted, launching backward and connecting with his sternum with a powerful blow. He fell backward with a shocked expression on his face. And perhaps, Hermione noted, a little awe.

She spun around, freeing her hands with a hard twist, and sat naked on the edge of the desk, tensed to strike.

“Now you’ve done it,” he sneered and launched toward her.

She screamed silently, and lashed out with her fists, hammering his face and chest and head as he barrelled into her, hurtling her back down to the table.

You dick! she shouted into his mind.

His face floated over hers as he climbed onto the desk, knocking her legs apart and settling between her thighs. She hooked her ankles and constricted him as tightly as she could; her fists never pausing in their assault of his perfect face.

“Stop struggling! I’m giving you exactly what you want. No fucking strings attached, Hermione.” With two ironlike movements, he wrenched her wrists to her sides and held her there.

I don’t want that! she screamed in her head. I want you! I swear it. Not like this though!

“Liar!” he hissed. His face was so close to hers, she could bite him without moving. “You’re a dirty, fucking Mudblooded liar.”

“And you’re a half-blooded pain in my ass, Tom Riddle!” she said, and they both froze in surprise at her ability to speak, rearing back and releasing each other.

Whatever spell Tom had cast on her was gone. She scanned the previous moment, searching for clues: “If you won’t tell everyone about us, you won’t speak until you’re ready to,” he’d said.

She supposed she was ready now.

And the look in his eyes said that he knew it.

Hermione smirked, and, taking advantage of his shock, cracked her palm so hard across the cheek that his face contorted in rage.

Then he kissed her.

______________

The entire world’s gravitational field seemed to flip in that moment, because where she’d just kicked Tom away, now she was pulling him to her.

“I’m not above making you say it, Hermione,” he growled, pressing feverish, wet kisses across every inch of her skin.

It was a request this time, not a command.

Hermione wriggled to get closer to him.

They were already touching each other as if they’d been waiting for the anger to fade into this.

Her hands grappled the back of his neck, pulling his mouth down across her face, throat, and chest. He bit and nipped her, tugging blood to the surface again, unable to keep himself from marking her everywhere their skin met.

In return, her nails razored down the planes of his chest, drawing pinpricks of blood as they went. He arched down into it, urging her onward. Hurt me, his eyes demanded, with your hands from now on.

She nodded as he pulled back, looking from one eye to the next, cracking open all her thoughts and examining each in turn.

“I want to be your girlfriend,” she whispered.

His cock notched between her ass cheeks again, and he situated her knees wide, freezing them in place with a nonverbal spell.

The fear and vulnerability she felt moments before, melted into something else.

“Yeah,” he murmured, eyes dark as they studied every inch of her body, “Yeah, I know you do.”

She released a sob that turned into a laugh half-way out. Of course, he did. He knew her thoughts better than she did. Her fingers tangled in his rogue waves of black hair, and she leaned in, sighing into his mouth.

“So fuck me like I am,” she dared.

But Tom didn’t move. He simply looked down at her with an unreadable expression passing over his features.

“What?” she started, unsure if she’d said something wrong.

“I’ve never had one before,” he offered, squinting slightly. Hand still on the back half of his length. The other held her hip in place where he knelt above her.

She blinked, honored by the vulnerability behind his confession.

“And I’ve never done this before,” she offered, “so I suppose it’s only—”

The head of his cock pressed inside. She gasped and surged upward, losing all thought and reasoning, until she clutched onto the prominence of his shoulders for support.

It was all-consuming. It burned and seared as he forced its way deeper into her body. If her legs weren’t locked in place, she would have run.

“You should breathe if you want to stay conscious for this,” he reminded her, and her breath staggered in her chest. He eased in another half-inch, and despite the lubrication spell, it was still slow work. Agony almost.

Until she looked up into his eyes.

The gasp he released was husky and dark, and the look he gave her, searching her over, was grave and proprietary—covetous—worshipful.

She heard his reminder from their first time together: Stay open.

Her eyes closed, and she willed her entire body to relax.

He drove inside another inch, until reality sank in. He could really hurt her. If she said no, there was a chance he wouldn’t stop. Her breath quickened.

“Tom, I’m not sure I can handle—”

“Hermione,” his voice cracked, stopping her thoughts. “Who are you?”

“Your… girlfriend?” she asked.

“Hm,” he answered with a sharp bob of his head. “And would I risk the safety of the first person who’s ever gotten this fucking close to me? Who I’ve ever wanted this close to me?”

Her mouth opened. And closed. She licked her lips, which had become chapped from panting. Oh.

Maybe part of the fun of all this was the danger of Tom Riddle. But maybe a bigger part of it was knowing that he could have hurt her a dozen times over… killed her even… and he chose not to.

Somewhere, she felt like she’d known that all along—in the quiet moments of study in the library or the errant holding open of a door.

Merlin.

Tom Riddle loved her.

She paused with her mouth parted and stared up at him.

He shook his head at her sadly, and repeated, “I’m not above making you say it.”

Her voice was barely a vibration in the air. The equivalent of a thimbleful of liquid to a man dying of thirst. But it was a start.

“I think I could love you, too.”

His cock buried itself inside her, and she screamed.

_______________

She wasn’t broken or bleeding, but the spread of her body was unlike anything she’d experienced before.

“Tell me how much it hurts, baby,” he said, breathless in her ear, pumping in and out of her with small, quick thrusts.

She whimpered incoherently around the fullness, searching for an escape or something to—

“Bite me,” he commanded.

Bite. That was the word she was looking for. She picked his shoulder, because she was already arching upward and it was, well, there. As soon as her mouth closed around him, the pain lessened. She could focus on something external—the taste of his skin, the smell of him.

Tom peppered her with a constant stream of assurances: That’s it… here you go, love… look how full you are with my cock… you’re almost taking it all…

“There,” he said when he settled all the way inside of her. It had taken minutes to get there, with constant urging, warming spells, and half-moon teeth-marks up and down Tom’s arms. But now, fully seated, the burn began to fade and something like hot liquid unravelled in her belly.

Tom’s free hand reached between them, teasing her clit, rubbing the arousal he found there onto his fingertips, then darted down to her entrance.

“Here we go, baby,” he said, chin falling to his chest as two fingers sank inside.

Hermione dropped her head back against the table, boneless.

“Please, Tom.” Was she begging him to keep going or to stop? Discomfort and pleasure threaded together into something indistinguishable from arousal.

He snapped his hips forward, the motion thrusting his fingers into her deeper. She groaned at the indescribable fullness of it all. Each pump had her hips lifting off of the desk. Each withdrawal left her gasping and empty.

“Who are you, Hermione?” He reached out and grabbed her jaw, forcing her rolling eyes back to him.

“Your girlfriend.”

“And who are you going to fucking tell?” His pace was merciless and smooth now. A bead of sweat curled through the loop of hair over his eyebrow. Hermione bowed forward and licked it when it reached the tip.

“Everyone,” she said, his pupils swallowing the midnight blue of his irises.

“That’s my girl, now let me watch your face while you come on my cock.”

His chest lifted off her, so that he was perpendicular to the table. Her stare followed his willowy frame, gilded with hard planes of muscles—still trim and sinewy, but powerful now that they were fully engaged to bring her pleasure.

Tom’s eyes roved over her expression as her core fluttered against his fingers, bending inside her and pulling forward, bending and pulling forward. When the heel of his palm met her clit, everything went tight in her body. She squeezed his cock and his hand in tandem, pushing against him with every snap of his hips.

“There it is,” he said, registering the direction of her thoughts. And then her brain zeroed out, leaving nothing but the rough slapping sounds of Tom forcing out her hard orgasm. Warmth spread out from her clenched muscles, starting at her core and rolling through her chest, up the strained line of her throat, and cresting dizzily through her brain.

She lashed out, bracing her hands and elbows against the sides of the potions desk until they were white from the pressure. Her body gripped him like a vice, and his head shook, lips peeled back, hissing at the feeling of her squeezing every ounce of control from him.

“Tom!” she screamed as her orgasm climaxed.

“Fucking hell, Granger.” The grunt that followed left her breathless, and the echoing pulse of her core flared as he filled her deeply with cum. A firm hand found her breast, tugging a nipple upward and releasing it with a sharp sound of longing, watching her breasts bounce with each pump of his cock. He shuddered and fell forward, driving himself harder and deeper through the last thrusts, pushing inside her until he shook wildly, dragging out the stimulation as their bodies quaked with the aftershocks.

When it was over, they remained there, breaths ragged as they stared at each other.

“From now on, you’re mine?” It was a small and boyish question, but edged with a primal control that hinted at something darker underneath. His breath leveled as he slowly withdrew from her, and she flinched at the emptiness. With a slash of his wand, they were clean and new again, save for the memory of him inside her. That would never wash away.

She sat upright and nodded, pulling him forward and embracing him.

“Thank you for the flowers,” she murmured, giving Tom Riddle the first hug he’d possibly ever received.