Breaking Hermione

To Begin Again

How happy is the blameless vestal's lot

The world forgetting, by the world forgot

Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind

Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd

Eloisa to Abelard
~ Alexander Pope

✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨

Tom Riddle P.O.V

The second I finished the incantation Hermione collapsed instantly, almost falling to the ground if I hadn't caught her. Blood from her hand against my own had sealed the curse. Things had gone to plan. We were binded, in dark magic that was much more advanced than any spoken curse before this.

The cut I had made in her hand was deep, and certainly the type that wouldn't heal over night. Dark crimson blood trickled down her pale wrist onto the ground. Within seconds I acted, securing the wound by tearing the sleeve of her own robe into a makeshift tourniquet and siphoning off all traces of blood off the ground beneath us. Simple clearing spells I had learnt years ago. This was just too easy. The ground lay bare as it once was, all traces of evidence of what I had done now destroyed.

I found my eyes drawn back to Hermione in my arms. She was unconscious. Her eyes were closed, her mouth slightly open. I walked her into the Common Room, becoming irritable as soon as I saw almost every Slytherin sitting in anticipation waiting for me. People scrambled out of the way as soon as they saw me approaching with her, keeping distance enough not to piss me off.

"What are you going to do with her now?" Xavier Malfoy approached, his light coloured eyes narrowing upon seeing her unconscious form. "It's going to look a bit suspicious to have another death just after that Ora girl."

"What makes you think I'm going to kill her?" I turned to look him dead in the face causing him to blanch.

"Nothing..."

There was a uninhabited sofa nearby, I lay Hermione down and stood back. She could've almost passed as dead if it weren't the fact her chest rose and fell periodically. She seemed more at peace now than she'd ever acted around me. She was quite pretty, even if her hair did resemble an abandoned birds nest. Looking at her at the mercy of the curse was making me feel strange feelings. She was going to finally be mine. With this curse over her life I could do whatever I liked with her. When she woke up she wouldn't even know herself. She'd be programmable. Easy.

"What did you do to her?" Jade Black had approached, looking from me to Hermione with looks of horror and shock. Jade was still friends with Hermione I knew, but Shalini was back on my side after I had manipulated her into thinking Hermione was in the wrong. It was just too easy with these stupid people. Jade was stubborn, but I knew I'd get to her in the end.

"This is what happens to troublemakers who don't heed warnings." I cautioned. I stepped over to her, very aware of how her huge dark eyes grew wide in fear.

"If I were you I would think twice about who I decide to befriend. Consider the past few weeks, Jade. Everything you have endured would not have even happened if it wasn't for Hermione. What's the value to a friendship like that?"

"A lot, actually." Jade's voice had an edge. I stared down at her, the familar feeling of rage building up inside me. Was she really trying to start this with me right now?

"I'm not going to have this pathetic conversation about friendship with you right now. As heartening as your loyalty toward Hermione appears to the School, I'm not so easily fooled. After all, if it wasn't for you I wouldn't have been aware she would be returning to Hogwarts today. You were the one who told me, meaning you could have spared her. Perhaps if you'd have waited a moment longer, she wouldn't be in this situation right now. But you were foolish and made the wrong choices. You only have yourself to blame."

Jade stepped away, my words clearly hitting home.

What did she think? She had done nothing to help Hermione so far. I wasn't going to pretend that she did, or entertain her bullshit about what I had done. What I did was no one else's business but my own. Other peoples limited perceptions of me wasn't my issue.

I looked at the students surrounding me. I didn't need to call a room to attention. My presence was enough.

"Under no circumstances," I said to them all, "is anyone in this room to reveal to Hermione anything about what has happened here." All faces paled as I addressed them, watching with either mild surprise or in Jade's case, a look of horror. This was important. Under no conditions did I want word of this getting out. Especially to Hermione. I didn't want for her to wake up and suddenly have people in her face telling her what I had done. Even though it would be more than easy to modify her mind afterwards I wanted to test the loyalty of those in Slytherin House. Two birds with one stone. I sat beside Hermione as she drifted, watching silently as the room emptied of people and knowing all the while she would awaken any time soon. In fact, any second now.

——————————

Hermione P.O.V

I blinked a couple of times, coming to my senses slowly. I felt calm. It was a weird sort of peace, like I was in a dream that I hadn't woken up from yet.

"Hermione." Tom Riddle was standing above me, incredibly tall, a picture of darkness with his pale skin and jet black hair.

"Get up." He said emotionlessly.

I slowly sat up. My hand was burning, like I'd seared it with hot wax. It was bandaged.

"My hand..."

"It's ok." Tom said to me. "You hurt your hand but you'll be ok now. I'm here."

I'm here.

But who was he? I thought back through my memories of him. Tom Riddle. Tall, his black hair carelessly kept at the moment but all I could remember of him was a deep sense of security. Nothing negative came to my mind at all. He must be someone I could trust. Or else I wouldn't feel this way, right?

Tom reached out a pale hand to me, and pulled me to my feet. "You have been sick lately. You might be confused for a while, but I'm here to help you."

"What happened to me?" I said slowly.

Maybe I was overthinking but the look Tom gave me was calculative.
"What do you remember?" He asked quietly.

"I remember you." I confessed.

Tom smirked slightly, "Anything else?"

"I remember starting at Hogwarts." I said, going through it all in my head. "I remember... the teachers. The School halls. The work. I can't really think of anything else. I'm not sure why."

I sat back down on the sofa, holding my head in my hands. I didn't feel so well.

"I think you should get some rest." Tom's suggestion sounded perfect. I'd go to sleep, and in the morning I would feel better.

"That's a brilliant idea." I stood up, suddenly confused.

"What's wrong?" Tom frowned, watching me intensively.

"Where.... do I sleep?"

"You don't remember?" Tom asked softly.

"No." I couldn't remember anything.

"You sleep in my room from now on. Follow me."