Thankful that she hadn't been noticed by the other two occupants in the room who were otherwise distracted, Hermione began to take a step back.

Her escape however, was hindered when Hermione's foot hit the bathroom door, causing it to click shut.

Loudly.

Whipping her head up Hermione found herself caught in the smirking gaze of Tom Riddle.

~.~

It was official. She was in Dante's Inferno. She had died during the battle at Hogwarts and was in hell, her own personal hell devised for the sole purpose of making her life, or death, shit.

With a capital S.

She was standing in a bath towel, her skin glistening with the remnants of her shower and her hair imitating that of an electric shock victim while she watched Tom Riddle receive a blow job from the future Mrs. Malfoy.

These events might have been bearable if she could have slipped from the room unnoticed, leaving her dignity intact. However, fate, it appeared, was having a good laugh at her expense.

Again.

~.~

The click of the bathroom door sounded like a shot of gunfire to Hermione's oversensitive ears. Her whole body tensed as her hazel eyes slowly travelled towards the pair directly opposite her on the sofa. If fate was kind, she reasoned, the couple would be too caught up in one another to have noticed the click of the door. Praying that the power of positive thinking wasn't just a myth, Hermione summoned her Gryffindor courage and looked up.

The moment the warm hazel of Hermione's eyes passed over the bobbing form of Brunhilda (thankfully facing away from Hermione) and connected with the dark eyes of Tom Marvolo Riddle, Hermione knew that fate was a bitch and her mother had lied when she said "positive thinking can change a predicament."

The bastard was looking at her and smirking. He was smirking, he was enjoying, no revelling, in the burning discomfort that was enveloping her body in the form of an all over blush.

His expression changed then, an almost imperceptible darkening of his eyes as his face morphed from malicious amusement to that of a challenging smirk. He was daring her, daring her to shy away from the primal act to which she was a voyeur and skulk, humiliated, back into the bathroom.

But she would not. She was Hermione Granger, a member of Gryffindor, a house where the brave of heart lay and fearless resided. It was beside the point that Riddle was not privy to that particular fact.

Thrusting her chin up (and closing her mouth which had been doing a very good impression of a fish at feeding time) Hermione attempted to walk indifferently towards the green-tinged door that lead to the blessed safety of her equally green-tinged quarters. However, the physical force of Riddle's gaze battering against her towel clad form was making it very hard for her to act as if seeing someone go down on the Dark Lord was an every day occurrence in her life.

Hermione's mind, which was usually a whirlwind of ideas, fact and theories, had stuttered and died the moment she stepped out of the bathroom. Subsequently, the only though that her usually ingenious mind was capable of comprehending, was disbelief. She couldn't believe it, she simply couldn't believe that Tom Riddle, Lord-Freaking-Voldermort, was receiving a blow job in front of her.

From Draco's granny!

Dumbledore had always led the trio to believe that, while he was charming, Riddle shied away from the female population in 'that way,' choosing instead to focus on plans for mass murder and total world domination or whatever else schizophrenic psychopaths did with their spare time.

As Hermione continued to walk, in what she hoped was a casual manner, across the dark carpet, she sent up a silent prayer of thanks that Brunhilda was in such a position, both geographically and physically, that she was unable to take note of the other presence in the room.

As her hand, finally, reached the ornate handle of her bedroom door, Hermione made the monumental error of peeking over her shoulder at the couple behind her. While Brunhilda continued to vigorously bob up and down, her flaxen hair thankfully covering everything Hermione did not want to see, Tom Riddle remained stoic and unaffected. He stared up at Hermione from his seated position on, incidentally, the same armchair he had threatened her from the night before. Smirking as if she had made a particularly stupid or obvious observation and Brunhilda was simply kneeling down to tie up her shoe lace. In another part of Britain.

Enraged that Riddle was, correctly, insinuating she was unable to handle the situation she currently found herself in, Hermione couldn't prevent herself from leaving without the parting insult: "you really ought to be careful you know, one can never quite be sure what they'll pick up when the cavort with ... the likes of him."

The finality of her bedroom door clicking shut could not have signalled her victory better if she'd stuck her head out the door and shouted "I win this round you bastard" before doing a victory dance on the coffee table.

~.~

While livid was a strong word, one that implied fury, anger and hate in extreme levels, Tom Riddle still did not think that livid was an adjective strong enough to aptly describe his current state of mind. However, unable to pluck a more suitable descriptive word from the vast category that made up his mental dictionary, livid would have to suffice. He believed the creation of nonsensical words to fit the desired purpose to be the pass time of pathetic first years. Or Gryffindors.

After he had, quite literally, thrown Hilda from the Head's Common room, gaining more satisfaction from this action than what she had been doing with her mouth, Tom Riddle had stalked back into the living area.

No-one, and he meant no-one, ever talked to him, Lord Voldermort, heir of Salazar Slytherin, like that.

Fighting the urge to blast the chit's door of its hinges, Tom Riddle relaxed into one of the chairs near the fire place, knowing that, even if he did send the door to kingdom come he wouldn't be able to enter her rooms - the result of several wards put in place after Head Boys and Girls took the job of 'joining the houses' too literally.

Pulling his wand out from trouser pocket, Tom Riddle began to twirl it in his right hand, a habit, he realised that was developing whenever furry became his paramount emotion. Funny, how it only occurred when 'she' opened her mouth.

Bringing him back to cause of his anger: Hermione Vergessen.

During their first conversation, she had managed to make him drop his 'perfect student' act, for that was all it was: an act. In the hours following that conversation she had called him a sociopath, indescribably stupid, arrogant and pig headed. And now, now she had insinuated that he contained more infectious diseases than "Isaac Irwin's 1001 incurable infections."

So far, his master plan of frightening her into submission wasn't following its intended course. It was evident, Tom Riddle realised, as his fury began to abate slightly, that he had underestimated the little chit. A mistake he would not repeat in the future. She was, he summarised, not going to cave under threats that to her, unaware of his true power, must seem empty or idle.

Yes, he smirked, his mind flicking through endless possibilities, breaking her was going to be a very enjoyable pass time.

~.~

Hermione's elation at seeing the unrestrained shock on the usually impenetrable face of Lord Voldermort had died a long time ago. It had now finished digging its own grave and was moving onto carving its headstone.

Hermione was very close to following its example.

Sighing, Hermione morbidly pondered what would be written on her headstone, she could imagine it now:

Here lies Hermione Granger/Vergessen (circle as appropriate)

Born September 19th 1979

Died September 29th 1944

Murdered because she inferred that Lord Voldermort had AIDs

The laugh which escaped her lips sounded hysterical, even to her own ears.

Taking a deep breath Hermione forced all insecurities and unneeded emotion from her mind, focusing instead on irrefutable logic and facts. Dumbledore had told her that to get home she needed to get close to Riddle and gain as much information on him as she could. But to get close to riddle she needed to ... what did one need to connect with a murdering sociopath?

A love of blood?

Pain?

Torture?

Information on Horcruxes?

No.

Hermione didn't know how much or how little information Riddle had on Horcruxes, but she certainly wouldn't help him on his way to immortality. Besides, her chances of getting the Head Boy to spill all his secrets after calling him an indescribably stupid, arrogant pig with an incalculable amount of infectious diseases, were on the slim side of anorexic.

Thus bringing her back to the crux of her dilemma: she was going to die.

Painfully.

Realising she couldn't stay hidden in her green sanctuary forever, Hermione peeled herself off the double bed in search of clothes.

As Hermione tried, in vain, to find something that wouldn't made her look like the trussed up chicken she would enviably feel like, she remembered the advice her mother had given her when she was eight: nothing is ever as bad as it seems.

For a few minutes, Hermione felt lighter, until, that is, she remembered the last time she had used her mother's advice (the power of 'positive thinking,') and how well that had turned out for her.

Sighing for what felt like the thousandth time that day, Hermione resigned herself to the fact that when 'that man' was involved, nothing ever turned out the way she expected.

~.~

By the time dinner rolled around, Riddle had devised his plan to break the Vergessen chit into submission. All he needed to do now was ensure the Knights wouldn't get in the way; a talent all of them seemed to be extremely gifted with, and ensure the girl left her bloody room! She had been in there for half an hour already and showed no sign of leaving anytime soon.

Riddle tensed, he couldn't believe it, she wasn't even in the same room as him and he was getting angry!

~.~

Unsurprisingly, Hermione's courage, which had seemed unfailing when she was slipping into the crisp white button-up shirt and black pencil skirt, had disappeared the moment her hand touched the door handle. As cowardly as she knew it was, Hermione had taken extra care when dressing, hoping that the longer she stayed in her rooms the greater chance there was of Riddle leaving her in favour of dinner. However, it was nearing an hour since she had left the shower and, other than leaving to throw Burke out of the common room, Riddle, it appeared had not budged.

Nevertheless Hermione would not be fazed; she was a strong, independent witch who could take care of herself. She was the brains of the golden trio for goodness sake, she could take whatever threat or spell Riddle would throw at her.

She hoped.

Ignoring this last fleeting thought, Hermione violently twisted the door handle and threw open the door. Opposite her, no more than two meters from her position in the doorframe, was Riddle.

The low bang of the door being thrown open caused him to snap his head in her direction, mercifully putting an end to the catalogue Hermione had been making of his profile (for research purposes she told herself).

The charged atmosphere seemed to crackle with electricity as hazel stared into a green so deep it appeared black.

After several moments of this, Riddle made the first move.

"Miss Vergessen," he whispered in a low voice, the closest thing to a hiss she had heard from him since her arrival in 1944.

"It has become quite clear to me, that you do not fully understand the implications of my warning last night ..."

"House Unity"

Hermione nearly cried with relief. The signature Malfoy drawl, which Hermione had never welcomed, in any time period, suddenly gave her immeasurable joy.

She was saved!

Granted she would now have to spend time in the prejudiced prick's company, but, beggars couldn't be choosers.

~.~

As Abraxas entered the common room, dressed, in his opinion, very dashingly, he was met with a very peculiar sight. Miss Vergessen, or Hermione as she had bid him call her, was standing in the doorframe of the Head Girl's quarters, looking very fetching, while Riddle sat rigid and glaring in one of the armchairs.

The cause for peculiarity wasn't, however, the position of each party but rather the tension that radiated throughout the room.

Abraxas had felt tension like this before, though on a much smaller scale.

His parents, he remembered, had exuded it once during a particularly nasty fight when his mother, in a fit of jealousy over one of his father's many mistresses, had broken a priceless Malfoy heirloom.

The expression on Malfoy Seniors face, the one now be found of Riddle's face, had perplexed Abraxas for many weeks until he had finally plucked up the courage to question his father about it.

Malfoy Senior had then confided in his son, explaining that he was "deciding whether to kill the woman, or screw her senseless on the nearest available surface."

Clearly, this same scenario was being played out before his eyes again.

A/N: Hello! Yes surprise, surprise I am alive! First I better apologise

*throws self on ground* I am so sorry for not writing in ... close to a year, however 2011 was a hectic year full of major exams, assignments and EARTHQUAKES!

Now that the grovelling is done, I want to say a FREAKING HUGE thank you to 'e97852,' you were the one who motivated me to get working on this chapter, I'm not even kidding here, I read your review at 2 am and was so touched that I started writing it straight away. So everyone, this girl (I sincerely hope you are a girl or this could get awkward) is the one you need to be thanking for this update!

New chapter will be heading your way soon, promise.

Lucy, over and out.