Jagged

I Never Had Much Sympathy

They stay like that for a long time. Far longer than can hold Tom's interest. The sun is setting out the window by the time someone else turns around the corner.
The sun— the sun is setting.
Tom isn't sure how much time has gone, but last he knew the full moon had only been a night away. Clearly at least a day has passed, and that would mean—
The panic threatens to choke him, and his eyes automatically land on Hermione, who's pulling away as a tall girl with dark hair runs up to her.
But Hermione has no stake in him anymore. She will not care.
"Abraxas."
He turns his head, blonde hair shining in the orange light of the sky. He looks a bit like royalty.
"The moon," Tom says, and it's enough. His eyes widen and panic and he does the thing Tom couldn't— wouldn't— and runs up to Hermione, frantically gesturing outside, arms flailing even as he keeps his voice low and quiet.
Hermione, with her logic and clear head, the aura around her that says she's seen everything and nothing can phase her— turns to her friends.
"What's the moon cycle?"
The one with curly hair freezes. "Moon cycle?" She begins unbuttoning Hermione's clothes with no regard for boundaries of civility, eyes roaming quickly. Unexplainable, near irrepressible rage rises in Tom. "Are you hurt? Who—"
Hermione pushes her hands away. "Not me. Please. If there's a full moon tonight—"
"Not tonight. Just happened a few days ago."
It's a good answer, and Tom feels the relief flow through him unbidden, even as he tells himself he was never fearful of it. Has never been afraid of cycles or transformations or the animal inside him.
Lies. Tom used to be good at lying. Now it all feels useless.
Despite the relief he feels, Hermione's body tenses up. Her fingers dig into the girl's dark skin and then she's speaking in soft tones. Abraxas is probably none the wiser, but Tom has yet to find a way to suppress his keen hearing.
"How much time has passed?" she asks.
"How much time do you think?" the girl with dark hair counters back.
Clever. Smarter than Tom would give her credit for, dressed with as much exposed skin as she is.
"I don't have time for riddles," Hermione snaps.
"And we know better than to feed any answers until we've confirmed it's really you."
The occlumency happens visually. Folds up her emotions into a box. The girl with dark hair seems much more put together, eyes narrowed and unsure. Suspicious. With a tap on the shoulder of the other one, they both rise and step away.
"Lavender." Hermione takes a step forward and Lavender takes a step back. There's a small smile on her face. It is warm and vulnerable, even after her feelings have clearly been packed away. She is not as good at keeping an even head as the other girl.
"Just for now," she soothes. "Precautions and all that. Once you're clear, we'll tell you everything."
That seems to soothe Hermione in a way Tom never could. He'd never tried— not really. Not with any true effort. He'd enjoyed Hermione's small vulnerabilities far too much to ever try and stop them.
But still, it bristles his nerves and he has to suppress the need to grab and tuck her into his chest. It is stupid and it is instinct and she is not his.
But the urge comes before the logic, and his feet stutter step as he comes to his senses.
"Okay." Hermione nods. "We'll go willingly."
Abraxas turns to Tom, as if waiting for him to object.
But Tom is on edge and out of his element and his thoughts are too scattered to have any real opinion when Hermione seems so comfortable. His skin itches and the animal in his brain screams at him.
There is too much exposed skin around him. Too many smells of clean hair and fresh cunts. Hermione's is the strongest— always the most potent— but his wolf has gone without for far too long and he's desperate to take what he can.
"We'll go."
So Abraxas goes.
---
If Tom had been paying more attention, he might have noticed the strange looks the girls— Cho and Lavender— were sending Abraxas. The way they sit and whisper in the small classroom they are brought to, turning around and examining.
But everyday closer to the full moon Tom grows less aware of the things that truly matter and more obsessed with the need to fuck and breed.
No. No. He will not go there.
The battle rages on as circular as the moon cycle. The room is tiny and he can smell the coffee scent of Abraxas' skin and Michael's stale blood on his hands. The other two girls' natural scents are covered up with perfume and Tom is grateful for small mercies.
He doesn't think about Hermione. If he starts now, he won't be able to stop until she is above him, riding him like she is fucking made to.
So her scent is nonexistent. If he doesn't acknowledge it, it isn't real.
Being a werewolf is shit. It's a hole in everything he has planned and manipulated for, but above all else, it is a distraction.
The girls are quiet and the staring is discreet, and Abraxas is oblivious. So Tom doesn't notice the looks.
Until it's too late.
A man walks into the room. Scrawny and tall. The first thing Tom notices about him is the slashes across his face. Slashes he is all too familiar with— that match up with the ones across his back from the night he got bit.
It catches his attention just as much as the feral look in his eyes. The way he enters the room as a predator disguised as prey. There is a defeated slump to his shoulders and an air of exhaustion around him, but try as he might, he cannot hide the truth.
Tom feels it deep inside of himself. The presence of another werewolf.
He wants to attack. He wants to growl and bark and stake his claim on the area as if he has any right.
He's almost able to hold back. Talking himself out of violent urges has been something he's done for years, and he only got better at it after he was bitten. It's second nature.
But then the man turns towards Hermione, and his jaw drops open. Hermione looks like she is bracing herself. She looks frightened.
And Tom has never seen Hermione fear anyone.
He's out of his chair before logical thought hits. It hits the ground with a bang behind him, and suddenly everyone but Abraxas is on their feet.
The man behind Hermione doesn't move, but he stands up straighter, teeth bared.
Lavender and Cho have knives in their hands, but he's not sure where they pulled them from. Neither of them are wearing enough clothes to fit it in their pockets, and Tom wonders why they aren't going for their wands first.
But Hermione is quickest, and she is at the front of the group, hands raised fearlessly at him, eyes wide in a way that makes her look innocent and confident and all the things he fucking hates. He hates it all. He hates her.
"Tom," she says softly. "It's okay. Remus isn't going to hurt me."
"Remus." He rolls the name around on his tongue. It tastes like poison. Like a threat.
"Yes. Remus is a friend of mine."
It feels like a punch to the stomach, and Hermione realizes right away how wrong that must be, because she steps closer and takes his face between her hands.
And Tom hates it. He hates the way it immediately calms him— how he glances over at Remus with narrowed, gloating eyes, as if bragging that she did not  pick him.
"Tom." His gaze snaps back to hers. Deep and dark and looking at him as if she might actually care. He wants that. He wants that so bad. "My parents aren't around. Remus helped raise me."
That snaps Tom out of it. He steps back, shaking his head, dismissing all the crazy thoughts. Hermione does not care about him, and he does not want her to.
"Your parents sent you to Hogwarts from France," he says, but even as he speaks absurdity fills him.
He had never believed that. Not really. Hermione's story was vague and uninteresting. Everything she isn't. He knew there had to be more to it. One day he would figure it out. She would tell him willingly.
"Sit down." She picks up the chair he'd knocked over. Nobody else moves.
He looks at Remus and is upset to find the anger is gone. Lack of sexual interest or fear is enough to subdue the beast, apparently.
He sits down. Hermione smiles. His heart beats quicker and he misses his Occlumency almost as much as he misses her touch.
Instead of heading back to her friends, she pulls up a chair and sits in between Tom and Abraxas. When she lifts a hand to tuck a curl behind her ear, it shakes.
Tom does not reach out to console her. His throat aches.
"What you're about to hear might be hard to accept. But it's the truth." She turns and speaks directly to Abraxas. "I'm sorry you're finding out like this. There were many times where I almost told you. But—" She presses her lips together and shrugs. "But the timing never seemed right."
She lifts her head and gestures to the others to join. Cho and Lavender take seats across from them at the table, and Remus stays standing, leaning against a desk behind. The high ground.
Tom hates it.
"I don't know where to start." Hermione folds her hands in her lap. Anxiety flows off her in waves. "So I'll just say it." She pauses.
Abraxas leans in. Tom pretends as if his interest isn't piqued.
"We're in the year 1998."
It doesn't process.
Not really. Not at all. No jaws drop. No one gasps. Abraxas' brow furrows in confusion and the others seem unsure why she'd even mention that, but Hermione continues on, eyes jumping between Lavender and Cho.
"And I've just spent the past eleven months in the year 1944."
Hermione's friends are much more theatrical. Lavender reaches a hand out, wrapping it around Hermione's. Cho places her head in her palms, expression unreadable but panic evident.
Remus is the only one that seems capable of speaking.
"Who is the Draco look alike?"
Draco.
Hermione tenses up at the name, and Tom cannot explain how he knows that this Draco has done vile things. To Hermione.
But he is sure. And someone will pay for it.
"This is Abraxas." Hermione places a hand on his forearm.
Remus shoots up, relaxed posture and uncaring demeanor long forgotten. "Abraxas Malfoy?"
"I found him in 1944."
"And decided to collect him and take him back with you?"
Her grip on Abraxas tightens enough to make him flinch. "I had no choice of when or who was being sent back. I told you. Eleven months have come and gone. I had—" Her voice cuts off, breath panting and eyes glued to the table. "I didn't think I was coming back. I'd made plans. I was going to start a life."
Hermione is telling them too much. Tom realizes quite suddenly that she trusts these people. That she sees no reason to hold back.
And with that is the awful realization that she'd never been like this with anyone else. Not even Abraxas.
"1998?" Tom asks. His voice is steady and he keeps waiting for the shock to hit, but all he feels is a tense dislike at never having figured it out himself.
"Yes." Hermione won't meet his eyes. "Imagine my surprise."
Remus chucks his chin at Tom. "Who is he?"
Hermione doesn't answer. Perhaps she is waiting for Tom to do it himself, but Remus is not his father figure, and even if he were, Tom hates fathers. He owes this man no explanation.
"Let me explain, first." Her voice is strained and desperate and for an awful moment he thinks she might cry.
"Hermione." Remus is tight and authoritative, but Hermione doesn't flinch. Tom does not understand. He doesn't talk to her like Abraxas' father speaks to him. He sounds like a commander, and Hermione seems used to it.
"If I give you the name and no context, bad things will happen." She looks at Remus with a narrowed stare, all fierce protectiveness and no regard for consequences.
"Give me the name, or we take him away." He chucks his chin to the left. "Him and Abraxas."
"The timeline is different," Hermione begins, standing up and leaning over the table. Begging. "There are things that happened there that change everything."
Remus waves his wand and a corporeal patronus appears. A wolf. Tom rolls his eyes.
"Send for Moody," he says, and Hermione screams in disapproval.
"Let me explain! You owe me the benefit of the doubt here."
With that, Remus seems to lose all bit of composure. The chairs behind him fly backwards with accidental magic and he charges at Hermione, who does not back down.
"I have half a mind to assume you aren't even Hermione. The Hermione I know— she would understand that there's a reason we do things this way."
And Hermione— fiery Hermione, who never gave him room for any excuses, who put him on his knees and made him smell her cunt as she got off— Hermione, the girl that figured out his lycanthropy like it was a puzzle instead of a problem— she relents.
Sits down in her chair with her head hung.
"Tom," she whispers, voice so soft they must lean in. "Tom Riddle."
---
They seize him quickly after that. A dozen other people flood the room and he is magically bound before he can react.
He watches from the floor as Abraxas is cuffed with his hands behind his back. The people over Tom yank at him aggressively, but he makes no show of the pain.
He will bide his time the same way he always has.
Waiting. Studying. Completely unbothered even as the anger threatens to eat him alive.
He tries to pull on the magic that rests deep within his wolf subconscious, but it's silent and empty. They must have found a way to repress his magic.
Hermione is taken from the room before he can even look her way.
They apparate him away and lock him in a room deep underground. No windows. Just the single, heavily warded door.
No way out. Not yet.
So he sits.
The pieces aren't incredibly difficult to put together.
They're in the year 1998, in a Hogwarts that looked like a bomb had just been dropped on it. The moment Hermione said his name, all hell broke loose.
So Tom had done— something. Something... bad? For Hermione's side, at least.
He's not sure how successful he is. Hermione spoke of war like it was a close friend. As if she had unfinished business with it. Is he still fighting for control? Is he winning?
Hermione's side has control of Hogwarts, and Tom cannot think of any timeline where he would let that happen. Hogwarts would be a fight to the death.
But dying is not that simple. Not for Tom. Do they know that? Perhaps Lord Voldemort is just biding his time, waiting for a recharge before he makes his next move.
The wards at the door ripple, and Hermione stands in front of him, flanked by two other men.
Her hair is pulled back into two tight braids and she's changed out of the outfit she arrived in.
She enjoys his misery, of that he's sure. At every turn she taunted him like he wasn't on the brink of insanity. Her shortened skirts and garter stocking felt like they might push him over the edge, even on the best of days.
But this— the skirt she wears now is much shorter than anything he'd ever seen back at school. The top is tight enough to form to her skin, leaving nothing to his imagination. There is a black necklace wrapped tight around her throat and he watches her pulse jumping against it. He can even see his teeth marks on her collarbone. The sight makes his mouth water.
It feels like punishment. Cosmic justice, perhaps, because Hermione is never wrong and every time she's punished him, he has deserved it.
He'd be a fool to think this time is any different.
She does not speak to him. There are bags under her eyes and her head is bent in defeat. She is quiet and ashamed and everything he knows her not to be.
"Identify him."
Remus looks down at a parchment in his hands, gesturing out with one hand at the other boy.
The boy approaches Tom. He is younger than Remus, closer in age to Tom and Hermione. His hair is black and messy and he is as scrawny as he is awkward.
He steps forward slowly, as if Tom is an easily spooked animal.
His circle glasses look ridiculous, Tom thinks. Fashion at this time is nothing short of jarring.
He looks Tom up and down slowly, inspecting him. His eyes linger longest on Tom's face.
Eventually, he turns away with a shrug.
"Well?" Remus asks.
"Yeah, I suppose it's him. But Hermione's right. He's different."
Hermione doesn't react at all. It's like looking at a stone wall.
Remus plucks a quill from behind his ear. "Different how?"
"Taller," the boy says immediately. "Several inches. A bit more filled out than he'd been in the memories as well."
Remus doesn't raise his eyes. "What else?"
This time, he hesitates. Looks back at Tom as if he's unsure if it should be said out loud.
Perhaps it shouldn't. Tom has probably killed for less in this world.
"His eyes." The answer throws Tom off. "In the memories they were dark. Closed off. Empty."
Remus notes it down. "And now?"
He shrugs. "I don't know. They're just different. Noticeably so."
Remus heaves a sigh. "Fine."
"I want to go," he says, hands in fists at his sides.
"Dismissed."
Remus drops the wards and follows him out, looking over his shoulder at Hermione.
"I want to stay."
Remus raises his brows, but she stands her ground this time.
"I took the veritaserum. I answered all the questions you asked."
"I'm not fool enough to believe a person such as yourself hasn't found a way around veritaserum."
"It was a courtesy I did for you." She lifts her chin. "I've never lied to you. Can you say the same?"
Remus doesn't answer, but he doesn't stay either. "We have a briefing in half an hour."
Hermione gives no reaction. But she can't smell the guilt on him like Tom can.
She pulls up a chair and sits, legs crossed primly underneath. He desperately wishes she was wearing trousers. Or that the room had better ventilation.
"I suppose you have some questions you want to ask me."
"How many of them can you answer?"
"None about yourself." She pulls her sleeves down over the tips of her fingers, and he thinks of the ugly jagged letters carved into her arm. "But I'll do my best to answer about myself."
"You spoke of a war."
"Yes."
"Did you win?"
"That's not about me. If you keep pushing me I'll leave and next time Remus comes he will interrogate you with torture like they'd planned to before."
Tom grits his teeth. "Threats of torture don't scare me."
"They're not trying to scare you, Tom. They're trying to hurt you."
Conflicted. That's the best way to sum up Tom's feelings for Hermione. He has wanted her more than he has ever wanted anything and despised her in ways he has never experienced. His tongue craves her cunt and blood and sweat equally, even when he knows he's not willing to pay the price to have it. He worships her, yet he wants to be the one to cut down her pedestal.
The truth is that Tom had been much too focused on conquering the Hermione standing in front of him to think much about her past. Yes, she is broken and traumatized— but who isn't?
He didn't see it when she and Abraxas tortured Michael, merely thought that Hermione was cut from the same cloth as them.
When she pulled magic from the earth with nothing but the tips of her fingers, he was too amazed to truly see what an oddity it was. She spoke of war, vaguely, and Tom had watched enough bombs be dropped on muggle London that he had no interest in discussing the topic further. Life without occlumency is hard, and those memories seem to be the trickiest to dismiss.
He does not know what she speaks of. How she got to be where she is now. But he is locked up as a prisoner and Hermione has lost her shine.
So yes, he has questions.
"What role do you play?"
"An important one."
"That's dismissive."
She nods. "I have no loyalty to you. Any question of yours is a mercy I grant. Take it as it is."
He does. He always has.
"What did you lose?"
She tilts her head. "During the war?"
"Because of the war."
It's a mean question. He knows it is. But Hermione is strong and untouchable and Tom is trapped in a prison cell with repressed magic. He wants to hurt her.
But when her eyes don't flash, when she simply stands and leaves with a simple, "We'll try this again tomorrow," he is as relieved as he is disappointed.
He thinks Hermione's suffering might run even deeper than his.