A few things ~ I am publishing this as a oneshot for now. I want to get more of a feel for writing tomione, and the best way for me to do that is as oneshots. It's something I want to continue, eventually.

So, just a few things to note: this is a Muggle AU ( wow, shocker, Mrs. Ren wrote another Muggle AU.) Tom Riddle is a serial killer (I am obsessed with them, and this is what happened.) Hermione Granger is a novelist who is famous due to her interviews that lead to full confessions of criminals. Whatever name I magically thought of is probably cliche and cheesy and will change. This is rated M because of what it will eventually contain.

There is a time skip in this, and it's where it says Forward. It's meant to be the forward of the book she writes and then it will cut to the timeskip.

Only warning I have is the discussion of violence, murder, and serial killers. Though they're not graphic yet.

Thank you, weestarmeggie for editing!

Collision

The high stone walls of Azkaban should have made her stomach turn, but they didn't. The darkened sky behind the prison, strategically built on an island where it perpetually stormed, should have instilled a sense of eeriness in her. Yet it didn't, and Hermione Granger shouldered her bag as she stared up in wonder at the structure before her and waited to be escorted inside.

A guard, his name didn't matter when they all looked the same, held a pale hand out for the strap of her leather messenger. Unceremoniously the man dumped out the contents. They ignored her snapping at them - "careful with all of that" - and several guards snickered at her. She turned her narrowed eyes upon them, bathed in the sallow light of the prison as they were.,

They watched her as if she were a wild animal, though she was anything but as her heels clicked against the tile. They expected her to a sense of self preservation to take a hold of her. They didn't expect her to merrily walk towards her meeting with the devil himself.

She could have laughed at them.

The promise of knowledge a meeting with Tom Riddle held was too alluring. No one knew how many crimes he had truly committed, and for him to say that he would detail a full confession - she'd known she was going as soon as the assignment had landed on her desk .

The fact that he had requested her. That just made it all the more alluring.

Still in the prime of his life, Riddle was a thirty one year old man. Only caught a year previously, and with the family's of his victims - known and unknown, found and missing - and the general public's outcry for answers - she could never have turned the request. Of course she wondered why? Why the most notorious serial killer Great Britain had requested her. How he even knew her name.

Hermione took her bag, its contents jumped inside of it as the guard had crammed everything back into it. Pulling her hair to one side, she squared her shoulders before following the guard through a large door that beeped as he slid his keycard through it.

It wasn't the first time she'd visited the prison. She'd made the trip several times, to interview different criminals, to understand the criminal mind. The author of multiple best sellers when it came to true crime, a genre in which she was on top, she supposed it was what drew his attention.

Arms strained to stretch out from the cells they passed, one prisoner managing to wrap a curl around his meaty finger. That one called out of how he'd like to spread her legs, and pump his thick cock into her.

Hermione glanced over her shoulder, her lip curling in disgust. "If only you could last longer than two pumps." She sneered, smirking at the laughter reverberating from the cells beside him.

"How 'bout that, Yaxley? Everyone knows you're called Two-Pump-Chump for a reason." The inmate cackled, grabbing the bars and rattling the door of his cell.

Hermione didn't so much as flinch as the guard slammed his baton on the man's fingers, a sickening crunch of his bones. Another thing to mention - the guards were just as cruel as the prisoners, perhaps even more so.

A guard positioned outside the door, standing ramrod straight against the concrete walls nodded to her, opening it and allowing her to step inside.

Hermione didn't falter as she walked toward the table. Setting her bag on the table, she took in the sight of Tom Riddle as she sat in the uncomfortable chair. "Do you mind if I record our sessions?"

He shook his head. "That was agreed upon, but they've got to go." Riddle jerked his head toward the guard, his chains rattling as he did so.

The guard blanched, his already pale face draining of colour. "Ma'am, I'm not to -"

"Leave." She said, anger creeping into her voice. "I have conducted all of my interviews alone."

The man shook his head. "This is -"

"The devil himself, I'm quite aware." She rolled her eyes, the corner of her lip quirking up as the man across from her snorted. "He's chained if you haven't noticed. Out you go." She left no room for argument, and though she had the stature of a small woman, he stepped out.

The lock clicked into place and she was left alone with what the world called a mad man. Only that wasn't quite true.

Hermione clasped her hands together on the table after pressing the button on the recorder. "I'm Hermione Granger." She introduced, shaking his hand even though he was chained. She cringed at the awkwardness. Prisoners really made for the worst interviewee's.

A wicked grin curled his lips. "Adorable. Tom Riddle, but we already know each other's names." He replied. "I imagine you want to know why I contacted you?"

She shrugged, leaning back in her chair and tapping her ballpoint pen against the tabletop. It wouldn't do for him to see just how hungry she was to learn all about him. "I assumed it was due to my massive audience. Is there any other reason?"

"I read your books." He said offhandedly, peering at her curiously.

She felt like an animal that was being stalked with the way the hair on the back of her neck stood up. His gaze raked over her body, sizing her up, and she realized he must have known several things in a minute: the best way to kill her if he had to, fuck if he wanted to, the best way to dispose of her body if he weren't in prison.

Probably making her disappear, though she didn't know how it would be done. She'd like to find out, but preferably not from personal experience.

"Did you find them interesting?"

His eyes flicked toward her lips, and she was sure he'd done it just to unnerve her. "The criminals you covered were spineless, but you couldn't help the subject matter. You have a way with words, Miss Granger."

She arched an eyebrow. "Oh?"

Tom Riddle was as charming as he was attractive. In the photos of his arrest, of his surrender she corrected herself, he was perfectly kept. Dressed in a well tailored suit that she knew held two different guns, and a long dagger in a pocket on the right hand side. "Antonin Dolohov, you've met with him?"

Hermione nodded, crossing one leg over the other. "In the spring." She admitted, clicking her pen. "You knew him?"

"I'm the one who tipped the police to his capture." Tom shrugged, the curve of his lips nearly feral. "He had to go."

"Why is that?" She asked him, pulling a notebook from her bag. "You don't mind if I take notes, do you?"

"Will you let me read them?" Riddle asked her, lacing his long fingers together. "I won't destroy them if that's your concern."

"Even if my opinion upsets you?" Hermione challenged, titling the page Tom Riddle - Day One. "You strike me as the sort of person who would cut anyone down who said something he didn't like." Her heart pounding erratically as he grinned. The sight of him smiling was unnerving. "That must be because that's exactly what you did, Tom."

Clasping his hands together, and then unclasping them, he watched her. As if she was the one chained and he was the one who held all of the power. "What's your first question, Miss Granger?"

"Was Tom Riddle Sr. your first victim?" She asked, her voice a steady calm even as his eyes narrowed.

"I thought the police already released that information." He snarled, his fist coming down on the table.

It didn't rattle her. Riddle was a large man, could beat her to death if he was loose, and she didn't believe he was truly chained up.

One tap, two taps, and three taps of her pen against the metal table. It was a dangerous game, she very well knew, sitting across from a killer while playing a game of wits. "Because Tom, Mrs. Cole died under extremely mysterious circumstances when you were sixteen years old. You can't expect me to believe you didn't go for her first. What with how she abused you, beat you with anything she could get her hands on - no one would blame you. You were only a child."

He sneered at her, but she saw it. It was only a flash of something to go off of. "What makes you think I killed her?"

Hermione leaned forward on the table. "No one else would be smart enough to shoot air into her veins between her toes. The medical examiner wasn't able to prove it then either, Tom."

Forward

In truth, Tom Riddle is undoubtedly the most brilliant man I've ever met in my life. The most unnerving thing about him is that he's still a human being. That's what makes him frightening.

Using his looks, and intelligence to lure his victim into his web - they believed he was harmless, he turned murder into a career. Parts of London became his hunting grounds, and to have stood in the places he stood, is the most chilling thing of all.

The world has never seen anything like him.

Truth is - they've never imagined anything like him either. Not even their worst nightmares could have conjured him.

The excerpt from her novel was displayed on every television in England. She stood, clad in black, with her fingers brushing her lips. Wide-eyed, she knew her life had well and truly spiraled out of control. Her mother used to warn her that hopping into the rabbit hole of true crime would lead to nowhere good.

She couldn't bring herself to regret it though as the man behind her brushed her hair to the side, and began to kiss down her neck. He pressed a knife into her hand, the weight heavy in the handle and she turned it over between her fingers. "They're hunting us." He murmured, and she could hear the cruelty in his voice.

"Pity for them," she said, kissing his cheek as she flipped the knife and she turned to face the woman who was tied to the chair. Beaten bloody, she still spat on Hermione. "Oh, Bella," Hermione muttered, stressing her name and wiping the bloody spit of their victim from her cheek. "You really shouldn't have done that, love."