Hogwarts Station was the final stop on the railway that ran from Kings Cross St Pancras, outside of London, across the Scottish countryside. The second-to-last-stop on the line was at a tiny town called Hogsmead, populated by only a few hundred, and adjacent to a thick wall of trees. It was a two hour train ride through dense forests between Hogsmead and Hogwarts, the train didn't run at night and during the winter there were frequent delays or even cancellations when trying to get a train out or into Hogwarts Station. This train was the only way to get into the town surrounded on all sides with dense forestry, so the little station on the edge of town saw an enormous amount of traffic.

The town of Hogwarts itself was a breathtaking sight. The first part of the town to greet you was Diagon Alley, which ran from the station down the center of town until it reached the Black Lake, a huge, breathtaking body of water lined by decks filled with tourists or fishermen or families feeding the ducks and the fish. Knockturn Alley was a less than favorable sector of the town, which branched off from Diagon Alley just before it reached the lake. It was cluttered with broken down shop fronts and litter on the streets, but due to recent attempts at improvement there were small pup-up shops, independently owned cafes, and on every Saturday they held a market that stretched across the entire street that allowed for anyone to set up their tables to sell anything from brick-n-brack to secondhand designer clothing to their home-grown produce.

The rest of the town was largely residential, peppered by little shops and little independent restaurants, all housed in pretty old buildings made of stone and brick. But on the other side of the lake, accessible by a ferry that ran back and forth from the dock near Diagon Alley to the other side of the body of water, was Hogwarts University.

The University, housed in a castle, was not only the highest achieving university in all of Scotland, but was among the top ten Universities in the world. It was frightfully difficult to get into, with a selection process that involved numerous references, incredible competitive applications, as well as up to three interviews. It was true that the university tended to offer priority to those who lived in the town, or those who had parents that attended the university, but nonetheless the students who attended Hogwarts University were the absolute highest achieving students the world had to offer.

The town of Hogwarts, with its wealth of independent businesses, the lively people who lived there, the thick wall of trees that surrounded the town on all side, was a darling of the Scottish countryside and of the United Kingdom in general. People came from all over whether they were interested in attending the University at all. Some people came just to sit on the dock at the end of Diagon Alley with a pint in hand and watch the way the sunset looks behind the Castle until the sun disappears behind the wall of trees and the sky goes black. To the tourists, Hogwarts was a town that was nothing less than magical.

It was the residents, those who lived within those forest walls, who knew the difference.

There was something deeply wrong with Hogwarts. Something that couldn't be seen save for the Missing Person's Wall in the local police department.

If one knew where to look, off the beaten nature trails in the forests where the tree trunks are wider than the sailboats on the Black Lake and the sky is unseeable past the thick leaves, in a large cabin that looked like a mansion, there's a garden.

Thirty-two faces are hidden beneath the dirt that feeds the flowerbeds in the backyard of this hidden cabin.

It is here that Hermione Granger's hand breaks through the patch of dirt beside the rose beds and she breathes again.

—

Hermione doesn't know where she is when she wakes up. She doesn't know what time it is, what happened before she fell asleep—did she fall asleep?—she doesn't know anything except that she can't move.

And she can't breathe.

The only thing she can move is her right arm, and when she does the sensation is familiar, something moving against her arm, moving around her body. She feels a horrible, horrible weight on her chest, crushing, that's why she can't breathe, she realizes, but there's also something against her mouth, and she can only barely move her head and when she does there's that same sensation. Something moving around her, surrounding her like—

Like dirt.

When she moves her arm the dirt shifts around her torso and she can barely shift her hips. She wiggles, her lungs burning for air, her chest feeling like an elephant is sat upon it, and she wiggles and wiggles around because its all she can do and she thinks this must be some kind of nightmare. The last thing she can remember is—

But she can't remember anything, really. And even if she could, she wouldn't have time to focus on it now.

It feels, for a moment, like such a hopeless venture, like she should just lay back and give up and die. How deep is she, she wonders? Has she even moved upwards at all, or is she just shifting dirt around in her grave? But the dirt feels looser now, and she clings to the hope of escape harder than she's clung to anything her entire life, until—

Her hand breaks through first, she knows because suddenly the dirt falls around her wrist and she can wiggle her fingers. She slaps her hand down on the earth and uses it to pull herself up, pressing her fingers against the earth and straining her muscles and digging her fingernails into the earth until finally—finally— dirt falls around her face and she can open her mouth and—

She breathes.

She pulls in breath after gasping breath. Tears spring to her eyes and she finds herself sobbing, struggling to pull the rest of her body out of the dirt, sobbing and wheezing and her chest still hurts, it hurts so bad, and she can barely feel her legs and has to drag herself out of the dirt by her arms but she's out, she can breathe, she's—

Where is she?

She looks around herself. First she sees flowers, a breathtaking array of them, painstakingly organized, there have to be about thirty different kinds. She sees the trees next, looming over her in a perfect arc. Behind her, she sees a house—its huge and all wood, nothing like the buildings she's used to seeing in Hogwarts, where everything almost looks like an extension of the Castle—

And just like that, she remembers.

She remembers the way the cobblestone pathways looked against her black tennis shoes, her fingers curled around the spine of her textbook, she glanced up and squinted her eyes against the light of the sun to see there wasn't a cloud in the sky and despite the chill, the day was lovely, she figured by the time she cross the lake on the ferry the dock would be crammed with people waiting for the sunset and she remembered a voice.

"Excuse me," The voice said, "Have you—"

"—seen this girl recently?"

Hermione looked ahead of herself, blinking away the sunlight and jumping when she realized how close the stranger was to her.

He was tall and pale, with a shock of ginger hair on his head and freckles across his cheeks and forehead and his hands, which were holding a stack of papers in front of his chest.

Missing, they said, and under a photo of a pretty girl with caramel skin and light hair the name was printed, Lavender Brown.

"Another missing person?" Hermione asked, her forehead wrinkling with concern as she took one of the papers form his hands.

"Yeah," The boy said, "Have you seen her anywhere?"

Regretfully, Hermione shook her head. He looked familiar, she thought as he sighed long and tired and nodded in acceptance and resignation. "Thanks anyway. Ask around, yeah?" He said, and as he turned to leave she remembered.

"Ginny," She said suddenly. He jumped at the name, turned and stared at her with wide, blue eyes. "Sorry, I just—you were passing out fliers for her when I visited the university in July."

He clenched his jaw, and Hermione felt like she shouldn't have brought it up at all.

"Yeah." He said, his voice low and angry. "I was."

Hermione hesitated, unsure what to say but knowing she had already said the wrong thing. "Sorry." She said at last.

He shrugged. "Yeah," He said again. "My numbers there so, if you see anything."

She looked back down at the paper in her hands. "Of course." She agreed.

He walked away. She watched him intercept another persons pathway, shoving the flier in their face in much the same way he had for her, then she looked back down at the flier.

Contact Ronald Weasley if you have any information.

Then his number

"Hey!" She called after the person had taken a flier and moved on, "Ronald!"

"It's Ron," He said in what seemed like a habit, and turned back to her, "What is it?"

"Why don't you say to contact the police?" She asked, brandishing the flier in question, "Isn't this something they should be handling?"

He scrunched up his features in what was almost a sneer, and at first she thought she had angered him. But he didn't sound angry when he spoke, or if he was, it wasn't directed at her. "You haven't been here long, have you?" He asked.

She faltered, not expecting that answer. "No," She said slowly, "This is my first week of classes."

He nodded, "Yeah, makes sense." He said, then stopped to step in front of a student with his flier, "Have you seen this girl? No? Just take the flier then, my number is on there, let me know if you see anything." He looked back at her. "Police have enough of this shit to deal with," He answered her, "If I left it to them, Lav would just be left on the back burner." There was a pause, "Just like Ginny."

Hermione didn't know what to say. They stood there for a moment in silence, Hermione quietly examining the profile of his face, before he shot off to step in front of another stranger and shove a flier in their face.

Hermione turned and made her way to the ferry, Lavender's photo folded up and tucked in her backpack. But she memorized his number before she tucked it away, just in case she saw anything.

The dock was just as crowded as she expected, but the excitement that she had felt for it originally had wilted. It was barely a conversation, the words she had exchanged with Ronald Weasley, but it had left her with a disconcerting sort of feeling. She felt, for the first time since she left home, uncomfortable with her isolation.

Growing up in her home in Hertfordshire, she had always been a lonesome child. It had always been her and her parents, with minimal—if any—school friendships. The fact of the matter was Hermione had always been a bit difficult to get along with. She believed the term that had been used was a 'swotty know-it-all.' So she had set her sights on something that came quite a bit easier to her, and that was academics.

Specifically, she set her sights on Hogwarts.

From the time she was eleven years old, she dedicated all her time and attention on creating an application that would be sure to get her accepted to Hogwarts University. She couldn't describe the feeling that she felt coiling in her chest when she traveled with her mother to Hogwarts in July for her final interview, the feeling of everything she wanted just barely brushing against her fingertips. And the feeling when she cam there alone, dragged her suitcase into her room and sat on her bed and stared out her window and knew she had finally, finally achieved her dream.

Friends weren't really a necessity, though she thought if she was ever going to meet one it would be here. She just hadn't gotten around to it yet, only two weeks into the year. It didn't bug her really.

Until now.

She felt her lonesomeness like a weight around her shoulders, like she was lit up for every danger to see. The way Ron had said it, so casually as if he was used to it by now, the way he had looked at her when she mentioned the police like he had never heard anything more ridiculous. She thought, for the first time, that maybe there was more to Hogwarts than just the magical town with the award-winning university of her dreams. She looked around at the people on the ferry with a wariness she hadn't possessed before. She wondered how many of them lost people like Ron Weasley had, how many left it to the police only to have the people who were supposed to help them simply forget all about them when the next one goes missing. She wondered how many of them lost multiple people, how many knew where they went.

She wondered how many of the people she could see on that ferry were responsible.

She was being ridiculous. But Ronald Weasley had lost two people in the span of three months and still scoffed at the idea of involving the police.

She pulled out her phone and punched in the number she had memorized from the flier under the name Ronald Weasley.

—

The evening wasn't the first sunset at the dock she had attended, but it was the first one of this caliber.

It was the first Friday of the month, and therefore the dock was packed with people from all over the town and throughout the university. A small kiosk sat at the end of the dock offering hot drinks and hot food to aid people through the cold night. The ferry was still running back and forth from the University—it wouldn't stop until midnight—and some people were taking the ferry back and forth across the water while others lingered on the dock and wandered through tents of food and drink.

Her class had been passing out fliers and sending out emails all week welcoming new students to attend the Friday event, and sure enough Hermione could make out plenty of familiar faces in the crowd. Some people had wandered away from the main dock, taken a boat out onto the water or set up a place to sit on the shore. Hermione sat alone on the edge of the dock just beside the busy kiosk selling copious amounts of hot chocolate and coffee—during the winter they sell mulled wine and hot cider, Hermione is told, but that won't start until mid-November—listening to the excited chatter of the people.

September is always the biggest month of the year when it comes to these sunset socials, all the newcomers to the university crowding the dock to see the famed sunset backdrop to the Castle where they would begin their journey into higher education. Each month would be less and less, and during the cold winter nights it would only be small crowds of people bundled up in coats and scarves and gloves sipping at mulled wine and waiting for the Christmas lights to turn on after sunset. Hermione looked forward to those nights, sitting by perhaps a friend or two, maybe something more, enduring the cold Scotland weather to enjoy a beautiful sunset with people she cared about, all red noses and pink cheeks and laughter.

For now she was content to sit and listen. She didn't trust herself to simply approach one of her classmates just yet. She would wait until she met someone she trusted to be able to withstand some of her more irritating quirks.

Strangely, she thought of that ginger boy with the fliers. She thought of Lavender Brown, with her pretty smile plastered on posters around the town.

She turned from her seat, her legs dangling off the dock, half hidden by the kiosk and the lines of people waiting for something warm to put in their stomachs, and she could see him. Stood at the place where the dock met the land, still handing out fliers. There's another boy beside him, shorter with a mess of dark hair on his head.

She considered walking over. She could help them pass out fliers.

But she didn't have the chance. A pair of long, lean legs blocked her vision, and she looked up to squint at the man who stood behind her.

"You ought to be careful," He said pleasantly. He was english, his voice soft but still distinguishable above the rabble of the crowds, "Someone might push you in."

"I swim quite well." She replied. "I think I'd be alright."

He smiled. "Are you new to the university?" He asked, stepping forward so that he was by her side and then lowering himself to mimic her position perched on the edge of the dock. He was handsome, she realized when he was at her level and she could examine him more closely, extremely so. He was pale, but with a warmth to his skin that suggested good health. He had an unusual sort of face, indisputably handsome, but full of sharp angles and contrasting features. Soft lips, sharp cheeks, dark eyes with long lashes, thick eyebrows that turn down in the center but laugh lines around his eyes. His hair was thick, dark, glossy curls that fell upon his forehead in effortlessly beautiful waves. Beautiful, she thought. That was a good word for him.

"I am," She answered, "Is that obvious?"

He laughed. It was a nice sound. "No, of course not," He said, "But about eighty percent of the people in attendance tonight are new to the university, so I thought it was a safe guess."

"Well, you were correct." She smiled. "Are you?"

"Oh, no," He smiled fully while he spoke, and when he did thick lines appeared around his mouth in the hollows of his cheeks. It was a very nice smile, one that showed a row of straight, white teeth. "I'm a professor of Psychology at the university. I was practically born in that university."

"Really?"

"There was an orphanage," He said casually, and gestured down to the other end of the lake where the town ended and the forest began. She had to turn away fro him to see. "Over there. They had a program for promising students to be tutored by university students. I was one of them."

"The orphanage," Hermione asked, "Is it still there?"

"No." He said, "It's that burnt out shell of a thing, now."

She could see it, right at the edge of the forest, a slight distance away from the other buildings—houses, she thought, they looked residential—and nothing more than a skeleton of what it once was. She felt something cold curl in her belly at the sight of it, at the casual way he referenced it, and she didn't know why.

"How did it burn down?" She asked.

He hummed in thought, "Electrical fire, I believe. I had long since left when it happened."

Hermione turned back to face him and was surprised to see his eyes fixed on her. She shouldn't have been, really. They were having a conversation, it was natural for him to be watching her while he spoke. But there was something strange about the way he regarded her, intensely, as if examining her.

"What is your course?" He asked her.

She faltered, for some reason. The change in subject seemed startling, though it wasn't really that much of a shift. She swallowed. "Political Science."

"Ah," A sardonic sort of smile played on his lips, "Social Sciences."

"Is there something wrong with that?" She asked.

"No," He said pleasantly, "But I am curious to know—as a sociologist," He said the term in such a way that she had to roll her eyes, like he was mocking her, "What is your opinion on Psychology."

"I think that, like everything else, there has to be a balance." She said. His expression quieted, the mocking tilt of his lips faded away and his eyes changed, shifted in some way she couldn't describe. "You can examine the mind, but you have to take into account the social experiences of an individual as well."

"Like everything else." He echoed, "What else?"

She wrinkled her nose—it was an odd question—and answered, "Everything, I suppose. You can't have education without ignorance. You can't have innocence without evil."

"For life, there must be death."

Hermione paused. She hadn't realized how close they were sitting—had they always been this close?—but she made no move to scoot away. He was staring at her in a very strange way now, intense and overwhelming and maybe even hungry.

"I think Sociology and Psychology are equally important professions and neither refutes the other." She said finally, because she felt like they had drifted off topic, somehow.

He smiled.

"I'm sorry," He said, "I never even introduced myself." He held his hand out between them, which only served to illustrate how close they really are. "I'm Tom Riddle."

Hermione had to hold her arm at a funny angle to shake his hand while he was so close, but she did it anyway. "Hermione Granger."

"I am," He paused, a funny little pause that made her feel like she was missing something, like something went unsaid, "So happy to have met you, Miss Granger."

She didn't know what to say, but she felt faintly warmed by the sentiment all the same.

His hand felt cold in hers.

She never made it home that night

—

Her head is pounding.

The last thing she can remember is sitting on that dock with Tom Riddle, the strange feeling that settled in her stomach like she was both excited and afraid. But something else had happened, hadn't it? Something else had happened, something important, if she can just remember—

God, her head is pounding.

She pushes herself up on shaky arms, tucks her legs underneath her body so she can raise herself to her knees. Her whole body aches, not just her head, her whole body feels like she's been thrown around in a pinball machine and really, maybe thats just what it feels like to be buried alive.

There's narrow pathways between the different flowers in the garden, meticulously crafted so that one can wander through the garden at will. There's at least thirty breeds, and the whole backyard is nearly completely filled with different flowers. None of them are the same, or if they are, they differ in color. She can see red roses across the garden, but next to her (grave, Jesus fucking Christ, her grave) she can see white ones, and on the other side she can see yellow daffodils. Most of the flowers she doesn't even know the name of.

She wonders, why was she buried here? Who buried her? What happened after sunset?

Why did she remember Tom? Why did she remember Ron, with his fliers of Lavender Brown, 'Missing' plastered along the bottom of every one, why—

Why can't she fucking remember?

She pushes herself to her feet, wavers for a moment, but then rights herself enough to limp and stumble toward the house. She pauses, wondering if whoever buried her is still here, and then makes a concerted effort to move quieter, creeping through the narrow pathways until she made it to the backdoor. She didn't approach it, instead nearing the window beside it and peering in.

It was a huge room. Nearest to her looks like a living room, but there are no walls to separate the living room from what appeared to be a dining room, and then perpendicular to that, a kitchen. She can see a set of stairs near the front door across the house, and on the table nearest to her, the one that sits between the couch and an expensive looking television, she sees her cell phone. She pulls away from the window to peer up at the second story.

She has no way of knowing if they are up there, whoever was responsible for this, but she needs that phone.

She moves to the back door as quickly and quietly as she can and turns the knob. She lets out a relieved rush of air when it's unlocked. She tip-toes inside, shutting it just as quietly as she had opened it. She looks around the room, feeling jumpy and afraid as if whoever had done this to her will jump out at any moments notice, or she's turn around and they'll be there, ready to finish the job. She moves quickly toward the table.

Something makes her stop.

There is a mirror that hangs on the wall beside the back door that she had entered, and she catches sight of her reflection as she passes it. She's just as dirty as she might've expected, but more shocking than that is something that doesn't look like dirt or mud at all. Its fresh, it makes the dirt stick to the area around her throat in thick clumps, but she can still see it there. Red.

Blood?

She moves slowly closer, her heart slamming against her ribcage, pounding in her ears. ITs blood, definitely, caked around her throat and running down her chest. She lifts her hand and tries to wipe it away but only smears the dirt around with her equally dirty hand. The blood is dry enough that it doesn't smear, but rather flakes.

When she examines herself closer, she can see blood on her head, too, particularly her forehead. And her shirt is ripped and soaked in blood, something she hadn't noticed because she hadn't even really looked down at herself since she crawled out of that hole.

She searches herself for any cuts, but she has none. So where did the blood come from?

She moves away from the mirror, still confused and afraid, but desperate to get out of this fucking house. She moves to the table and picks up her phone.

There's no service.

She swears under he breath, but pockets the phone anyway. Once she gets out of this house and closer to the town she'll have service, and she can use it then. She quickly stands, too quickly, because when she steps back away from the table she steps back too far and knocks into the side table that is pressed against the window she had been peering in earlier. She knocks a potted plant to the floor and it shatters, but more jarring than that is the small, rectangular radio that tumbles off and starts playing music.

"—Make me feel so young—"

Hermione swears under her breath, bending down to pick the radio up with shaking hands.

"—Make me feel so spring has sprung—"

She turns the radio twice in her hands looking for the off switch, her heart pounding. If anyone is in this house, they will have heard her by now. She's dead if anyones here.

"—Every time I see you grin I'm such—"

She switches it off, and Sinatra's voice is gone.

Its silent. Hermione's hands are till shaking and her heart is still pounding but theres no other sound in the house, no one coming for her. But something is stirring in her mind.

"…Such a happy individual," She sings quietly, tunelessly, and she can remember, barely, its just there on the tip of her tongue, "The moment—

—

—That you speak…" Hermione groaned lowly, her head throbbed and the music wasn't helping. "I wanna go play hide-and-seek…" She tried to lift her hand to rub at her temples to try and massage her headache away so she could snap at whoever was playing music to shut the fuck up, but her hand stopped after an inch. Or rather, something stopped her hand.

She felt groggy, and she squeezed her eyes shut simply to try and will herself to open them, similar to the way someone will tense their muscles first to get them to relax. She managed to lift her eyelids, though they were heavy and her head was pounding still.

"—wanna go and bounce the moon, just like…"

She didn't know where she was. It was a small room, one window which was covered by something, too dark to tell what exactly. The floor had a heavy tarp covering every inch like when a room is being painted. There was no furniture. The only thing in the room, in fact, was her, and she realized belatedly that the music was muffled, coming form somewhere outside the room.

"…a toy balloon…"

She tried to sit up, because she was laying on the ground, but when she went to use her arms, she couldn't.

Something tied them behind her back, and when she pulled it didn't feel like rope, something thinner and strong that cut against her wrist when she pulled. A zip-tie, maybe, and when she looked down she could see her ankles were tied, too, with the same thing.

"What the fuck…" She croaked. What happened? Where was she?

She remembered the sunset, how beautiful it had looked. She remembered Tom Riddle, sitting beside her on the dock, talking to her. He left before sunset happened, and she sat alone until the sun had long since set and it was dark and people were steadily disappearing into their homes. When she walked home it was dark and chilly but beautiful, the quiet cobblestone streets under her feet, the sound of chatter through open windows. And then…

Then nothing. She never made it home.

"…Just a couple of tots…"

She used her shoulder to push herself up, using her abdominal muscles to pull herself up the rest of the way so she was sitting up. There was one door, and though the room she was in was dark—overwhelmingly so—she could see light filtering in through the crack at the bottom of the door. She could move toward the door, but whoever was playing the music would likely be waiting right outside, and—

She didn't have time to think any further, because the door suddenly burst open. And it truly did burst, opening so quickly that it slammed against the wall beside it with a bang, and light filled the room so suddenly that Hermione had to screw her eyes shut. The music was louder now with the door open, and she heard someone singing along. A man.

But it was too bright to open her eyes yet. She heard loud footsteps on the tarp as she tried to open her eyes and hands seized her ankles and pulled her harshly so she was sprawled out on the ground again.

"Picking up lots of forget-me-nots…" A voice sang quietly along with the sound of the music.

"Stop!" Hermione cried, still trying to open her eyes against the light. She realized not only had the light flooded in from the hall but they had turned on the lights in the room, bright fluorescent bulbs that made everything blurry and horrendously bright. "Get off of me—"

He laughed, whoever this was, And she felt a strong hand grip her jaw to stop her from thrashing her head while she was trying to escape his grasp. She finally managed to blink her eyes open against the light, and could barely make out—

"Tom?"

He smiled, Tom Riddle, perched above her on his knees with his fingers bruising her cheeks and smiling just like he had on the dock, a friendly sort of smile. There was nothing depraved about the way his lips curled over white teeth, and it was that fact which made it all the more discomforting to see. "I'm sorry to have kept you waiting." He told her, "Were you awake long?"

"What the fuck—" She started, and he used his hand to tilt her chin up at an almost painful angle, his eyes falling down to her throat. "What are you—what is going on? Let me go—"

He shushed her, not at all gently. In fact the harsh way he spat out a 'shh' between his teeth was quite rude, as if he was annoyed.

"Please untie me," She tried, gentler, quieter, "Tom."

He smiled again, a slow, gentle thing, and he released the force where he was gripping her jaw so her chin could rest at a more natural angle. "You look…" He began quietly, "So beautiful when afraid." His thump swept across her cheek in a calming gesture, "But then I already knew you would."

Hermione didn't know what to say, but even if she did, when she opened her mouth to say something, anything, the words got caught in her throat. She was so caught off guard, so completely floored—he had seemed normal. There had been an intensity about him, but Hermione had brushed it off as a side-effect of his intelligence, of his good looks, like there would naturally be something a bit intimidating about a man that had everything. But this—

What was this?

"What—what do you want?" She asked, "If you just untie me, we can talk, we—"

Her first assumption was that maybe it was sex. The way he loomed over her, his knees on either side of her hips, the hungry way his eyes moved over her while she was tied up and helpless beneath him. She thought that this was something sexual, so she thought—if she could just convince him she wanted it. If she could get him to untie her because he thought she would reciprocate, maybe she could get him off of her and just—

The second assumption, quieter and riddled with fear, was that maybe it wasn't sex. Maybe it was something worse. Something dark.

"Please just untie me." She begged, "Please—please untie me. Tom? You don't really want to do this. Just untie me and we can talk."

He frowned, looking suddenly so desperately disappointed. He took his hand away from her face so that he could lay his hands on his thighs, and he moved back, so that he was sitting upon her thighs. He was heavy, and it hurt, but she didn't say anything. She kept her eyes on him.

"You are so quick to beg." He began quietly. Hermione didn't dare move or speak, "The others screamed first," Ice settled in Hermione's veins, "Then fought. They didn't beg until the end." End echoed in her mind over and over and over.

She realized then the music was still playing.

"…You make me feel so young…You make me—"

"Tom." She said again, quietly, as if approaching a wild animal which, more or less, she was.

He moved so quickly that it actually wrenched a scream out of her, short and quickly choked back, but it was ripped from her chest nonetheless. His hands slammed against the door by her head and he loomed over her again. He looked satisfied, like he wanted too scare her.

"Have I misjudged you?" He spoke quietly. He didn't so much loom over her as he did hover, like a lover would in bed, his body hanging over hers so closely she could feel his breath on her cheek. "Hermione?" His nose trailed along her cheek, "Tell me you won't disappoint me."

She didn't see the point of being pointlessly difficult, not now while she was tied up and underneath him in an unfamiliar house, so she did as he asked. "I—I won't disappoint you." She assured him.

He paused, then sighed heavily against her cheek like that was the wrong thing to say. "Boring," He muttered under his breath, and shifted, reaching into his pocket to retrieve something, "Boring, boring, boring."

He pulled something from his pocket, and with a flick of his wrist, there was suddenly a pocket knife pressed against Hermione's jugular. She jumped, trying to move away from the blade.

"Stop, stop, what are you—"

"You know the thing about power, Hermione," He started, the hand not holding the knife pinned her hip to the floor. It was painful, both because of the pressure on her hip and the way it trapped her hands against her lower back and the floor. "Is that it isn't worth it if its just handed to you. You might appreciate, as a sociologist, that power doesn't ever really exist without some degree of resistance,"

"Foucault." She breathed, her eyes moving form his face to the part of his arm she could see that was pressing a knife against her throat. She could feel the sharpness of the blade, and she tried to move back, but she couldn't.

"Foucault," He agreed, something like a smile playing on his lips. "What's the point of killing you if you just lie there and take it?"

"I'm not going to fight you just to give you a satisfying kill you sick bastard," She spat, and he laughed.

"No, I suppose not," He trailed the knife down her throat, but she didn't feel the sting of it breaking skin. He wasn't killing her yet. "The last one," He said, "She thrashed and screamed the whole time. It was beautiful."

Hermione hesitated, and when she felt the sting of his place pressing against her collarbone she realized she was meant to respond. "The last one," She said, her mind whirling, and she wondered—"Lavender Brown?"

He paused, then laughed, a youthful, hiccuping sound that seemed strangely joyful coming from with a knife against her skin.

"You're not the only one to lie there and take it," He told her. His knife had lowered to press against her diaphragm, but it didn't puncture her skin. The only place he had cut was a small, stinging slice against her collarbone. "But you are the only one that I expected more out of."

She didn't answer. There was a stretch of silence that seemed to last forever before his knife sunk into her skin, and she choked back a scream. He dragged his knife through her shirt and through her skin in an arc above her bellybutton before pulling his knife back, and Hermione realized she had started crying.

"I usually wait," He told her, moving his knife to press beneath her belly button, at the waistband of her jeans, "But I found you so enthralling," He carved again, and this time as much as she tried to choke back her scream it spilled out of her throat anyway. "I saw you walking home and I couldn't—I couldn't let you go." She let out a wet sob when he pulled his knife away again, and he finally cut through the fabric of her shirt up to her chest and then stopped, moving the flaps of fabric away to press his hand against her abdomen. It stung and burned, and she groaned.

"I expected more fight," He told her, "But maybe you simply understand." He pressed his knife against her stomach again and her please went ignored, "The balance."

"You're a sick fucking creep," She forced out through gritted teeth. "You fucked up psycho—"

"Your anger," He told her, "It's breathtaking."

His knife sunk into her stomach again, made a strange curling shape in her lower abdomen, and she realized he wasn't trying to kill her, not yet. He was carving something into her.

The music was still playing.

"I've got you under my skin…" She let out a startled laugh at the irony of the music, and he paused in his ministrations before continuing as if she had never made a peculiar noise at all. Her stomach felt on fire, and she could feel blood running over her skin and dipping into the waistband of her jeans.

"…tried so not to give in…" He sat back on her legs again as he worked, and she felt her legs slowly going numb. She was openly sobbing against the pain, and he was humming along to the music under his breath. "…said to myself, this affair never will go so well…"

"Turn it off," She garbled through her tears, but she went unheard.

"…try to resist—"

"Turn the fucking music off!" She snapped, her voice high and shrill. This time he stopped, and she watched his face shift from peaceful concentration to a hard, stoney sort of quietness.

"…I've got you under my skin…"

He broke, his mouth splitting into a wide grin as laughter bubbled out of his chest. He leaned forward suddenly, and she could feel her body twitching with the aftershocks of pain. He pressed his face at the junction of her neck and shoulder while he laughed, and Hermione arched her back to try and let some of the weight off of her wrists. "Oh how terrible ironic," He muttered against her skin. She cringed, but couldn't shy away. "I didn't even realize."

He pulled back, coming off of her entirely, sitting beside her on the floor with his knife in his hands, blood dripping off the tip and falling to the tarp on the ground. She was panting, her stomach hurt worse than anything she had ever felt, but she didn't dare look at it. She just watched him, and listened to the sound of her breathing and hiss quiet contemplation and the music filtering in.

"…don't you know, little fool, you can never win…"

"It isn't usually like this." He told her, his voice solemn and quiet, "You, of all people, deserve better than this."

Better than what, you fucking psycho, she wanted to say, but she bit the words back. She tried to regulate her breathing so she didn't sound so panicked.

He stood and strode out of the room.

She didn't want another second. She pushed herself up to a sitting position, her abdominal muscles screaming at the movement. She let out a guttural cry and a sob, but still puled herself up. She looked down—

And that was a mistake. He had carved some complicated design on her stomach, but she could just make out a skull, something curving around it and through it but she wasn't sure what. She was bleeding too much to be certain.

Christ, she was bleeding a lot.

They were all shallow cuts, mostly superficial, they must be because she hadn't bled out yet, but the knowledge that this didn't necessarily have to be fatal did nothing to calm her down. She leaned forward to dry heave to her right, and then quickly collected herself, pulling her bound feet beneath her so she's sitting on her legs.

"Make me stop before I begi—"

The music abruptly ended.

She was panting, both from pain and fear, but she still leaned forward and drew her hands back, clutched into fists, and brought them down against her lower back once, twice—

On the third strike the zip tie broke. She threw it to the side and heard footsteps approaching, so she slid her hands underneath her back and laid down again just as he reentered the room. She was panting, desperately trying to regulate her breathing as he stood and observed her from the doorway.

She thought for a single terrifying moment that he knew what she had done, and she knew if he did then she was done for. The element of surprise was all she had. She couldn't overpower him, not in this state and not even if she was unharmed. He knew, she thought, he knew and all he had to do was catch her arms when she tried anything and pin her down and kill her, he—

"I shouldn't blame you," He said suddenly, and then didn't elaborate. Hermione watched him, her heart in her throat, and forced herself to respond, knowing that was what he expected.

"What do you mean?" She asked.

"I've done this all wrong," He said. He began twirling his knife between his fingers. "I know it all seems rather rushed and a bit haphazard, but there is a process to this. One I have all but abandoned," He stepped forward, and Hermione clenched her fists and pressed her wrists together behind her back, "There was something about you," He told her, "Something that made me think…"

He trailed off, and somehow Hermione knew he meant for her to speak.

"Where are we?" She asked. His lips quirked up into a smile, and he went down on one knee, then two, straddling her like he had before but not hurting her, not yet. He didn't put any weight on her legs, kept himself held above her, her legs between his.

"My father's house." He answered easily.

"Did you kill him?" She asked. The hand that wasn't holding a knife lifted to cradle her face, his bloody thumb sweeping across her cheek.

"I did."

"How many?" She pressed. He smiled, but didn't answer. She swallowed thickly and said, "And now you're going to kill me, too."

"I would have waited," He said, his hand still cradling her face and his other hand hovering at her side with the knife. "Tracked you down. Found out what made you tick," He leaned forward until his face was by her neck. Hermione arched her back to take the weight off of her hands, but waited. Not yet. "Found out what made you afraid," He ran his nose up the column of her throat and breathed in. "You were so perfect," He continued, "Sitting on that dock all alone, just waiting for me to find you. And when I did, you were so…"

"What?" She asked, desperate to keep him talking, "What am I?"

"It doesn't matter." He told her, "Perhaps I was wrong."

"It does matter," She insisted.

He sighed, and pulled his head back. His face was a more or less emotionless mask now, and he lifted his hand that was holding the knife, the hand at her face shifting to force her to bear her throat. "What you are now," He said, and Hermione knew he meant to slit her throat, "Is a disappointment."

Hermione reached for the knife at the same time as she bent her knees and drove one knee as hard as she could up between his legs. He grunted and doubled over on top of her, so she did it again, and once more in quick succession until he finally let go of the knife. She clutched it in her fists, dimly aware that she was only half holding on to the handle and half on the blade, she drew back her fist while her other hand shoved his shoulder and she punched him as hard as she could in the face, her knuckles landing in his eye socket.

He rolled to the side, and she used her knees to push him the rest of the way. She sat up, adrenaline pumping through her veins and masking her pain, and quickly used the knife to slice through the ziplock around her ankles. Tom's hand circled around her arm before she could pull herself to her feet, so she jammed the knife into his wrist. He does his arm back with a cry, and though she tried to keep the knife in her grip, she only managed to haphazardly pull it back out of his arm before it clattered to the ground.

She didn't try to fumble for it. She got to her legs and made for the door. Her knees buckled at first, but she pulled herself back up and stumbled toward the door and out into the hall. Her head rushed once she made it out into the hall and she stumbled forward, had to catch herself on her hands and push herself back up. It was a narrow corridor, but not long. There was a hall table with nothing but a potted plant and a picture frame and halfway down the hall to her right she could see a staircase. She made her way toward it, and as she did she heard Tom curse and then came the sound of fast approaching, thundering footsteps.

Hands seized her by the arms, turning her around and pinning her against the hall table. She cried out, the edge of the table digging into her lower back. Tom's face was murderous, a truly horrible thing, his fingernails biting into her arms, the flat of his knife pressed against her bicep. "You shouldn't have—"

Her fingers scrambled around the hall table behind her, and before he could finish speaking she had the potted plant in her hand and bashed him over the side of the head with it. He howled in pain, the force of the blow shoved him to the side and ripped her from his grip. She ran toward the stairs, but he recovered quickly, rushing after her and curling one hand into her hair and the other around one arm.

He tried to pull her back, but as he did she tried to turn around to loosen his hold on her hair. Her foot struck his ankle, made her loose her balance, and Tom's feet lost their grip and suddenly she was falling backwards, both of them were she realized, when his hands didn't leave her just because the ground did.

She hit the ground first, her back slamming into the stairs, and instinctually she clutched at the body in front of her. They summersaulted down the stairs, his body hitting the ground next, and she whacked her head into his at some point in their descent, a tangle of limbs tumbling down the staircase. The hardest blow was when they hit the bottom of the staircase, both of them crashing down with an audible thump. She had landed less than a foot away from him on the floor. He was clutching at his arm, but already struggling to his feet. Hermione only cast him a glance before pushing to her feet before he could get his hands on her.

It was an open floor plan, and she could see the kitchen, and on the counter she saw a cooking knife set. She made a beeline for that, didn't even turn around to see if Tom was behind her or not, just clutched at her stomach and ignored her light-headedness until she curled her hand around the hilt of the biggest knife and pulled it out.

When she turned around, brandishing her knife in front of her, Tom was only three feet away, his switchblade held in his hands but his hands held in front of him in a peaceful gesture.

"Drop it." She ordered. He looked down at her knife, then back up at her, as if calculating how easy it would be to wrestle it from her, or perhaps debating if she really intended to use it. "Drop the knife!"

He didn't. Instead he narrowed his eyes for a moment, and then, after a horrendously long moment of silence, he began to laugh. It bubbled up in his throat in a way that sounded slightly manic, like he couldn't have held it back even if he wanted to. "Oh Hermione," He crowed, "Am I meant to believe you plan to use that on me, then?"

He was mocking her, but she didn't rise to the bait.

"Oh, you are impeccable," He murmured.

"Don't come any closer," She warned him. He bit his lip around a smile.

"Oh, I won't," He said quietly, "I'm enjoying this far too much."

"You're a disgusting human being." She spat, and he grinned. He lifted his switchblade in the air, as if to say 'here it is,' then he carefully set it on the kitchen counter, and pushed it toward her. It slid across the marble and stopped about six inches away from her.

"Are you dizzy, love?" He asked as she reached for the switchblade pushed it further along the counter until it was behind her. She didn't dare take her eyes off of him, even for a moment. "You've lost a lot of blood."

She hesitated, trying to figure out what her next course of action was. He was unarmed, but the moment she moved around him to try to leave he could grab one of the multitude of knives behind her and come after her, or he could simply run after her and wrestle the knife from her. She wasn't confident she could win against him if it came to combat, especially if it happened while she was running away. Not to mention she had no idea where she was.

If she could find a way to knock him out, somehow, then she could make an escape, but her paranoid mind kept coming up with all the ways he could use that against her. He could pretend to be unconscious, wait for her to let her guard down, and then strike. Or he could wake after she left and come after her, and he would have the upper hand since he knew where they were and she had no idea. She imagined countless scenarios of escape and every single one ended with her death by his hands.

Unless she killed him, first.

"What next, sweetheart?" He asked, smiling like she was a particularly amusing child throwing a tantrum, like he thought her little act of defiance was endearing somehow. He lifted his hands in the air like he was surrendering, "I'm dying to see what you have planned."

She hesitated. She thought of how the only time she ever had the upper hand for even a moment was when she acted in a way he didn't expect. Her hand shook, and she lowered the knife by an inch before raising it again, "Why me?" She asked, her voice shaking, and his smile faltered, but didn't fall, "Why am I…what is your obsession with me?"

He was quiet for a moment, his eyes narrowed as he watched her. He looked utterly baffled, like the last thing he had expected was a conversation. He stared at her in rapt wonderment for a moment, then blinked, his lips twitched upward for a tick before it was gone, and he still didn't answer.

"You—You keep talking and talking about me being special, well if I'm so special—" She started herself by sobbing once, before viciously continuing, "—If I'm so special, then why are you doing this, why are you doing this to me—"

He made a cooing sort of noise, like one would to a baby crying, and shushed her repeatedly, kindly, the way someone does when they're trying to comfort someone. "You're crying," He said, his eyebrows pinched together in a mockery of concern, "Don't, sweetheart—" He stepped toward her, his hands lifted, reaching for her.

"No, no—No, stay the fuck away from me!" She snapped, advanced on him with the knife held tightly in her hand. She stopped after only one step. It scared her, how in that brief moment her hand wasn't shaking, and she hadn't felt afraid, and she had really, truly felt ready and able to drive that knife right into his throat.

He stopped, but didn't move back. He was close enough now that she was within his reach, but he didn't try. "You're afraid," He observed, and the way he observed her looked almost tender, "And you're hurt,"

She gritted her teeth. Her hand shook.

"You are every bit as exquisite as I expected," He told her, and he laughed shortly, a short, breathy sort of sound, "I knew from the moment I saw you. There is a connection between you and I, can't you feel it?"

She took a step away. He took a step forward.

"You have fought so hard," He said, and smiled "You've done so well."

She felt a rope around her lungs pull tight, like the ends were tied to the corners of his mouth and the bigger he smiled the tighter they pulled. She realized she was crying again, silently, and she blinked away the tears so she could see but they couldn't stop coming.

"Don't you think you've fought enough?" He asked her.

She had. God, she had. She felt lightheaded and terrified and so, so tired, she had wanted this all to be over from the moment it started. She felt a swell of emotion well up in her so strongly it overwhelmed her but she couldn't discern what it was—sadness, anger, fear. Nothing fit. But it quickened her breath, made her heart pound in her chest, made her lightheaded.

"Yeah," She cried, softly, and she felt like maybe she was giving up, or giving in. He was so close now, and she still hadn't moved. Everywhere her mind turned ended in her losing. She could try to run, he would catch her. She could keep him talking, until she could no longer keep him entertained, until he had enough and just killed her. She could…

"I know, love," He cooed, "And i've kept you waiting for so long, now. I drew it out too long, I know, I just—I wanted to see you."

She felt helpless, and the world spun for a single moment.

"And what a sight it is," He breathed.

His hands settled on her arms and she jolted.

She drove the knife into his chest, her mouth formed around a soundless cry. Hermione had a moment to think that it was a strange sensation, the way a knife felt sliding through flesh. For a moment she imagined she could feel what he felt, and she felt a barbaric sort of satisfaction knowing that she was repaying the pain he had dealt to her. And when he screamed, she felt power course through her veins and she felt drunk with it.

He tried to step back, but his foot slipped and he fell to one knee. The movement tilted the knife embedded into his chest, as her hand still remained on the handle. She pulled it out, and blood seeped out of the wound and soaked into his shirt and she remembered—she would always remember—the way it looked when it melded with the blood that was already on his shirt, the blood that was hers. His own blood spread and spread and spread, and she knew that if she left him there, if he bled out, his own blood would continue to spread until it covered all evidence of hers, and she suddenly felt giddy with the thought that sh could in some small way rase what he had done.

He was on the floor, and in her hand she held the knife covered in his blood, and he looked up at her for a moment before she moved again. He looked up at her wide-eyed, slack-jawed, pupils-blown, like he was on his knees in benediction. She drove her knee up hard, caught him under the chin, and it sent him backwards so he was sprawled out on the floor.

She followed him.

She straddled him, just like he had done to her, her knees on either side of his torso. She lifted the knife in both hands and drove it into his chest again, and his whole body convulsed with it. She did it again, this time in the throat, and again, somewhere else on his chest. His hands settled on her thighs, his long-fingers stretched so that they nearly brushed her hips, a parody of a lover's embrace.

He smiled again. Disgust and fury and rage curled in her chest, but it was fear that drove her to bring the knife down a final time. She sunk it into his eye-socket, and he went still.

—

hi im a piece of shit what else is new

LMAOOOOOO I KNO I HAVE LIKE 5 OTHER THINGS I SHOULD BE UPDATING BUT LMAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO IM A FUCKIN MESS YALL

i cant help myself I'm literally writing everything except for what I should be writing and like still posting shit without proof reading which i should really sSTOP doing but here i am again y'all and guess the fuck what i DID NOT PROOFREAD

im so sORRY ahahhahahh

this is something that for sure will be only a two-shot but y'all know what a goddamn mess i am so i'll probably end up like….who fucking knows. maybe it'll be five chapters. maybe it'll be 20. maybe it'll stay on one chapter forever because i cant focus enough to write a second chapter for it (coughlurkingcough) I KNOW I HATE MYSELF ITS OK

anyway i hope u kind of like it? its a mess. this was supposed to be a one shot so if u read this and ur like 'honeslty what the fuck' like me too bitch tf but basically there is a reason and idk is tom dead? who knows bitch he's one slimy mothrfucker so who knows

i knows. he's not dead. surprise surprise this is tagged romance so wutchuu think bitch I'm just gonna kill her man? nah

LET ME KNOW WHAT U THINK. SORRY IM TRASH AND I CANT STICK TO AN UPDATE SCHEDULE OR FOCUS ON A FUCKING SINGLE STORY. I HAVE BEEN TRYING BUT MY BRAIN HAS SELECTIVE WRITERS BLOCK SO HERE I AM BEING A FUCKING MESS AS PER USUAL THANKS EVERYBODY FOR READING MY TRASH IF U GOT THROUG H THIS WHOLE CLUSTERFUCK OF A FIC WITH LITTLE TO NO TOMIONE INTERACTION THAT ISN'T VIOLENCE BUT LET ME TELL U BITCH this whole pic is violence. but….there is no but. theres a lot of violence and murder.

anyway soz once again lemme know what u think cuz i like 2 HEAR so

anyway bye. I LOVE U. bye. sorry i didn't proofread but by now i feel like thats my trademark. all my typos that i could have easily caught if i just read my own shit.

OK BYE FOR REAL WOW I TALK TOO MUCH BYE. LOVE U. BYE.

BYE.