Breaking Hermione

This Present Evil

I didn't get far. I was only half way down the spiral staircase outside Headmaster Dippet's office before the door opened and Tom Riddle came out. Tall, mutinous, and yet somehow poised as a cobra ready to strike
his dark eyes widened at the sight of me trying to make a run for it.

"Do you think that's a good idea?" He descended the stairs slowly, a wide grin on his wretched face. He appeared to all the world infuriatingly delighted at having gotten me in trouble.

"How could you do that?" I demanded, charging down the remaining stairs and coming to a halt beside the stone gargoyles. "How could you frame me for something you did?"

"Oh, spare me the dramatics." Tom said nastily. "How about I ask you a question." He came up to me, standing in such close proximity I could see his face in clear detail. The flush in his pale cheeks. His dark eyes, and within them my shell shocked, straggly haired reflection staring straight back at me.

"Why were you spying on me outside the library?" He said softly. "I saw you. In fact, I knew you were there the entire time."

"I wanted to know what you were doing." I lied.

"That makes sense." Tom said sarcastically. "If you really wanted to know, you could've just walked into the library like any other person. Instead, you preferred to stand outside the door not only to lurk but to eavesdrop. Can you explain why that is?"

I became silent. I wanted to frame Tom the way he had framed me. But the difference was, he had beat me to it. He had succeeded in doing what I wanted. And what's more, I couldn't just tell him that.

"Just what I thought. You don't have an excuse." Tom snickered. "You probably wanted to get me in trouble. Is that right?" He watched me, laughing softly while I struggled to maintain myself.

"Why did you follow me out here?" I snapped, deciding to steer us both off the subject. "Was there a reason for that? Since you seem so pissed off at me and all."

"I only came out to pass a message on." Tom snapped back to his serious self unnervingly fast. "Our dear friend Dippet said to tell you this. You're getting away with a warning because according to him, there wasn't sufficient evidence to point the blame at you."

"Damn straight there wasn't!" I agreed, my anger getting the better of me. "And for the record that was a rather poor attempt of framing me, Tom."

"Dippet is a fool. Not even I could have foreseen that he would apply his mind logically to piece the situation together and realise there was no hard evidence to use against you." He retaliated.

I frowned. In a matter of moments Tom's face suddenly morphed into a disarming smile. "You got away from me again, Hermione." He said coldly. "I bet you think that it wasn't a fluke. That you won this by sheer skill, or something equally delusional."

"Dippet snapping to his senses isn't what I would consider a personal victory." I snapped. "Speaking of which, did he want me to come back into his office or not?"

"No." Tom answered swiftly. "He felt that you would come back when you were ready."

I could tell by the sort of tone Tom was using that he thought of this entire thing as some kind of joke. It wasn't funny at all. Well, at least not to me.

"Well, I'm going to get lunch." I started walking away, only realizing after a few passing moments that a certain tall dark someone was keeping pace with me easily.

"Can I help you?" I snapped, spinning on my heel to face him.

"I'm going to go with you. How else am I supposed to maintain my sexy physique if I don't eat?" He gestured with one slender hand at his lean figure.