Falling apart. [Tomione]

7.

As soon as Hermione started to walk towards the castle, Tom reached her without saying a word. From time to time he laid eyes on her, she could sense them.
They walked through the main door together, leaving behind shocked faces and gazes full of jealousy.
Tom never walked with a girl in the corridors, and they weren't even fighting like always.
It was a really strange situation and it was different from what everyone was used to.
However, nobody got closer to them, nobody dared to break that sacred silence.
Once they arrived in the common room, he left giving her a simple nod. He had a thoughtful face.
Who was really Hermione Granger?
Why did she seems like she knew so many things?
Why did she seems like she was a mature and wise woman?
She said she had a lot of experiences in her short life, the war could be considered like the biggest physic and psychological experience that someone could ever live but there was something else. The boy felt there was so much more.
He saw her, during Defense Against Dark Arts, fighting her opponent with a disarming ease, like she had fight thousands times, like she knew in advance what charm will be use against her.
Every time she laid her eyes on him he felt judged, sometimes dispised.
She didn't treat him like every other girl in the school.
She never gave him an adoring look, never a gaze full of malice, never a beg for staying with him.
She seemed immune from every part of him, like she had put and unbreakable wall between them.
Hermione Granger was a mystery.
Hermione Granger was an enigma.
Still, not only she didn't feel even a little interest towards him, she didn't feel interest towards every boy in the school.
She talked often with Abraxas and with Weasley and Potter but Tom could feel from her eyes and her moves that she was just being friendly. Every male student of Hogwarts was falling for her and she didn't care.
What if she was involved with someone?
That would explain everything: when she spaced out during lunch and dinner, when she stayed up all night looking at the fire, the guilt Tom has seen in her eyes the morning after that night.
A sneer of disapproval appeared on  his face. If that was the real explanation to everything, Hermione would become less interesting to his eyes, because she didn't have any secret to hide.
The thought bugged him all day and all night without letting him sleep. How could he put aside a detail so important? He took it for granted, letting create in his mind a person that didn't exist.
Maybe.
"Are you engaged?"
Hermione froze.
"I beg you pardon?"
"Are you involved with someone?"
She was shocked by how he asked it so naturally; nothing different from a simple "how are you?".
But Tom Riddle didn't care how people were.
What was he planning?
"N...no."
"No?"
"Well... I was before running away from the war. We broke up a few days before I left. He didn't take it very well."
"And you?"
She didn't think Tom was so curious of her sentimental side and probably he wasn't.
"I've always thought that in that moment I felt so much pain because I lost one of my best friends, not because we broke up. But I will never be sure about this. From that day I've never heard about him anymore."
She had never seen Ron so angry, she didn't even think that a Weasley could get angry.
He had bloodshot eyes, his face full of tears, a painful expression, clenched fists while he looked down, his knuckles were white.
He shouted her to go away and she did. Staying in front of him would have get him angrier. So she went away hoping to see him during dinner or in the next day, but it didn't happen. Early in that morning , Albus Dumbledore showed up at Weasley's door.
It was time. Everybody knew of her departure but he didn't go out from his room to tell her goodbye. She tried to understand him but she couldn't. He knew what she was getting into. She would have deal with everything alone, including the future dark lord. Still, he decided not to show up.
She saw Tom nodding then he continued to read his book.
"What about you?"
She found herself asking.
"No."
"Oh."
"You seems disappointed."
His eyes left the book and started to look at her.
"Well, I thought you and Parkinson had something since she tell me everyday to stay away from you."
Again, his eyes were on the books, there was a long silence before he started to talk again.
"Me and Parkinson have something." A mischievous grin appeared on his face. "But she still think she is the only one for me."