Author's Note: Canon through OoTP – or very nearly, at least. This is set in the summer before sixth year.

Content Warning: What follows will include bashing of just about everyone. If you don't like that, stop reading now. Hermione is NOT nice in this fic.

BTW: I blame insomniac plot bunnies on crack for this little treasure.

Disclaimer: Characters, universe, etc. belong to J. K. Rowling. And that's not me. This is of no monetary value to me, and I can only take credit for the plot.

That summer was the longest of Hermione's life – and that was saying something. When she finally escaped her parents' house, she did so only to find herself in the Burrow. There was no privacy to be had in the cramped confines of that ridiculous hovel. She roomed with Ginny, who would not shut up about Harry, and she found herself enduring far too many sexually charged glances from Ron.

Withholding the urge to curse him until he begged for death was a constant strain.

The only bright point was when Severus visited, and he never stayed long. Worse, he didn't even know who she really was. She'd recruited him back in the day, swathed in enough glamor to look nothing at all like herself, and he'd known her under that guise since. The years had only made him more stunning in her opinion. "Handsome" in the traditional sense had ceased to impress her a long time ago. After Tom, well, no one could really measure up in the traditional sense of male beauty. Severus was… wonderfully unique, and refreshingly male.

He rarely stayed at the Burrow very long, but her opportunity presented itself at last when he was forced to spend the night up in Percy's old room. Hermione waited until the house slept, then crept up to his room. She let herself in, penetrating his wards with ease. Clearly, he was too comfortable here to have put up nothing stronger.

She'd barely closed the door behind her when he simply materialized out of the shadows and threw her against the wall, his arm across her chest above her breasts and his wand at her throat.

She laughed delightedly and watched as he blinked in shock upon taking in her appearance.

"Miss Granger?!" he hissed distastefully. "What are you doing breaking into my room?"

He was wearing that wonderfully intimidating scowl that he had and she couldn't help but lick her lips.

He blinked at her again.

"Oh, how I've missed you, Severus," she purred. She hadn't been alone with him in months.

He stared at her for a moment, then snatched up her left wrist and yanked up the sleeve. He hissed in surprise and dropped her arm when he saw the Mark. "Who are you?" he demanded.

"Come now, you know the answer to that, love," she smirked, pursuing him slowly across the small room until his back hit the wall and she was able to press herself against him. She trailed her fingers down his chest and rubbed the back of her hand against the side of his cock, feeling it already stirring.

"Mia?" he said uneasily, his countenance softening slightly.

"Who else?" she whispered before capturing his lips with hers.

His eyes slid closed and he groaned, crushing himself against her for a moment before his eyes snapped open again and he tore his mouth away from hers. "How did you get in here?" he gasped.

"I was invited," she said primly. "Who would ever turn away Harry Potter's best friend?"

"I don't understand," he complained, and then his eyes widened. "What happened to Miss Granger? You didn't… kill her, did you?"

"Severus, my love, it warms my heart to hear what actually sounds like fear in that question. You really wouldn't like it if 'Miss Granger' was dead, would you?"

He cleared his throat and his face became a mask. "She's a mudblood, but she's very bright. Killing her would be a waste of a very promising witch. Perhaps she can be made to swear fealty to the Great Lord."

"Long since taken care of, love."

He looked at her with uncertainty burning behind his black eyes, his face otherwise unreadable. "I don't understand," he finally admitted, his tone irritated.

With a sigh, Hermione moved away from him to sprawl herself across the bed. "Let me tell you a story, dearest one," she drawled, fanning her hair across his pillows and lifting one knee as she left her legs spread suggestively. "It begins in the Department of Mysteries."

"Sounds intriguing," he smirked, settling himself in the space between her legs and resting one hand on her thigh. She could still see the hint of concern behind his eyes.

"She's really gotten to you, hasn't she?" she purred, running her hands seductively over her breasts and down her stomach, which his eyes followed before snapping back up to hers. "Does my body arouse you?"

He looked away from her for a moment, and she saw his throat work as he swallowed. "I've already told you, my interest in her is her mind, not her body."

"Don't be such a prude, love," she laughed. "It's terribly boring!"

He heaved a sigh and looked at her again. "Very well, Mia, if you must know, her body is quite pleasing, but I've no interest in her in that way. How could I when I have you?"

"A very interesting question," she chuckled.

He frowned suspiciously, but she ignored it.

"Back to my story. Have you ever heard of the Mirror of Destiny?"

He frowned uncertainly for a moment, then shook his head. "It does not sound familiar."

"Probably because it was considered a failure," she explained. "It was created to have the ability to transport a witch or wizard through time and space to the moment of his or her destiny's inception."

"Sounds impressive," he noted.

"Oh, it is," she admitted. "Or it was. Seems that it was recently destroyed when some foolish children broke into the Department of Mysteries."

His eyes widened slightly in recognition.

"The witches and wizards who created the mirror each attempted to use it to prove that it worked," she went on. "Funnily enough, they succeeded, and called it a failure. You see, these individuals who made the mirror were each destined to do that very thing. They'd completed their destinies, and therefore had nowhere to go but right back. They never thought to test it on anyone else.

"So it remained stored away for years along with the other nearly useless junk that never functioned properly or was of ill-conceived design. To my knowledge, it was never used until late last spring."

"What are you saying?" he asked warily.

"I'm saying, that Hermione stumbled into that mirror, dear Severus. And her destiny was only just beginning."

"What destiny is that?" he gulped.

She sighed, "To destroy Lord Voldemort, I sincerely hope."

He blinked in shock and leaned away from her a little. "What did you just say?" he gasped.

She sat up and crawled over him until she straddled his lap. "To destroy that insane, snake-faced prat," she drawled.

"What do you mean?" he whispered warily.

"Let's face it, darling," she smirked, "Tommy's gone over the deep end. He was completely nutters long before his death and resurrection. Now… Ah, it's actually gotten worse. He needs to die."

"Wait, what does this have to do with Hermione?" he demanded, shifting uncomfortably as his cock once again responded to her contact.

"Oh, dear, I have gotten ahead of myself, haven't I? I do apologize," she ghosted her lips over the shell of his ear before leaning back to continue her explanation. "As I was saying, Hermione fell into the mirror. And fell out of thin air in the Great Hall at Hogwarts, literally into the arms of one Thomas. Marvolo. Riddle. In the year 1943."

His mouth fell open slightly. "She went back in time?" he whispered to himself. "To when the Great Lord was at Hogwarts?"

"Indeed," she smiled. "She resisted at first, of course. But no one can resist Tom for long. He seduced her with his stunning good looks and whispered promises of knowledge beyond that of any other witch in the world. For a long time, she believed that she could change him," she rolled her eyes. "That she could temper him. That, at the least, she could use him for his knowledge and later turn it against him."

She sighed. "She didn't even realize how far gone she was until it was far too late to go back. She eventually threw her support behind him in truth, and Lady Death was born."

He started at the name.

She nodded, "Oh, yes. You see, she soon discovered that when one goes back in time, one does not proceed with aging until she begins to move into her own future once more. So Hermione remained in the body of a sixteen-year-old while the years rolled by.

"When Tom left Britain to search out a greater understanding of the dark arts, Hermione was often his companion. He fulfilled his promise to her to bring her knowledge and power such as has never been known, and she absorbed it all. Unfortunately," she continued with a sour grimace, "Tom was never one for sharing his favorite toys. He kept vital bits from her. He ensured that his power eclipsed her own, so that, when he returned in '72, he could bully her into becoming little more than any other sniveling Death Eater."

Severus flinched slightly and she realized her error.

"I apologize, my love. That was not meant to include you." She ran her fingertips lightly down the side of his face. "You have been more than that to me since almost the very beginning. So brilliant, so talented, so…" she ground herself down onto his lap, "virile. You must understand though, that Hermione had been at Tom's side from the beginning. She was there when his first horcrux was born. She nursed him back to health when the creation of the second nearly killed him. She added her power to his to make the third."

His mouth fell open again.

"Oh, yes," she nodded, reaching into her blouse to draw out the necklace she'd been wearing for the last couple weeks. "This locket contains bits of two souls."

He stared at it as though he was afraid to be so close to it.

"She was at his side for thirty years, and he told her to bow before him," she hissed furiously. She quickly got off Severus' lap and paced to the window, drawing open the curtains just enough to peek out. He didn't move from the bed.

"She joined him because he promised that she would never be one of 'them'. He promised that she was more, and would always be." Her face cleared and she added matter-of-factly, "He broke is promise. No one does that to me. Not even 'Lord Voldemort'. So I conjured a plan to end him."

She turned back to where Severus was still facing away from her.

"You knew he'd kill Lily," he said quietly.

"Lily's life bought us twelve years, Severus. Twelve years free of him," she said coldly. "I could never figure out how to disconnect him from the horcruxes, but I was able to devise a new plan."

"Lily's dead because of you," he said numbly.

"Are you still on that?" she complained. "Honestly, Severus, I thought you were over her."

"All this time," he said, finally turning to face her, flinching slightly when his eyes met hers. "All this time, you were to blame! I trusted you, Mia! I loved you!"

She sighed irritably. "Severus love, please just stop and think for a moment before you embrace your father's temper and wake the entire house. Shall we consider who is really to blame for her death? Okay, how about her to begin. For joining the Order of the Phoenix. For marrying that prat, Potter. For stepping between Voldemort and her son. Honestly, I may be able to respect her courage if she'd actually known that she could sacrifice herself to save him. But she didn't. She had no reason at all to believe that Harry would not follow her into death within seconds. And while we're on it, why did she not have her wand? How do you leave your wand in another room?"

She shook her head and moved on. "Then there's Albus, for recruiting her. Albus for failing to protect her. Lily and James again for trusting that rat, Wormtail. Of course, Tom, as he was the one who actually killed her. You, I am sorry to say, my love, for erroneously serving your lord, as I had admittedly encouraged you to do.

"The only thing that I am guilty of, is doing nothing."

"But you knew what would happen!" he insisted obstinately.

"I did," I agreed. "I knew that Tom would be the next thing to dead."

She quickly crossed the room to him again and placed her hands gently on each side of his face. "Lily never loved you, Severus, not as you deserved. She was selfish and shallow, and she did not deserve your love. I love you, Severus. Me. I have for twenty years. You have always known what kind of person I am. I've never hidden it from you. So don't you dare expect me to feel badly for not risking everything to save the life of that girl. Don't you dare judge me for that."

His eyes fell closed and his head bowed slowly to rest against her shoulder. "This is the real you," he said quietly. "You really are Hermione Granger."

She sat down next to him on the bed, lifting his face to hers. "Yes, love. I apologize for keeping that from you, but I could not risk the truth. Had Tom discovered that there existed a single person in this world other than him who knew of my history… You know how he gets. Cruciatus here, Avada Kedavra there… And Gods forbid he start to question my loyalty. Not now. Not when I am so close to destroying him."

"You seriously mean to kill him?" he asked warily. "Kill the Great Lord? You sound alarmingly like Albus."

She laughed heartily, "Albus is a senile old fool with his pathetic collection of children playing at destroying the most dangerous man alive. I am Lady Death, the witch who has spent the last fifty years with Tom Riddle, twenty of which have been occupied planning his demise."

"So what's your plan?"

"Not my plan, love, our plan. We are switching sides. Unless I am much mistaken, Albus has already put on the Gaunt family ring, has he not?"

Severus frowned, "Yes, but how did you know?"

"It was my magic that prevented that ring from killing Tom, dearest. Do you really think I could put my fingers into such a thing without leaving behind a little insurance?"

His eyes narrowed. "We destroyed the ring, Mia."

"Immaterial," she shrugged. "The 'damage', as they say, has already been done. I think you'll find the old man much more amenable to your… suggestions now." She removed Salazar's locket from her neck and slipped it over Severus' head. "I've been whispering in Tom's ear a lot of late. He's decided the time has come to end Albus Dumbledore. Your duty, my sweet, is to do the deed. With this locket, he'll be begging you to kill him."

He picked up the locket warily and stared at it for a long moment before meeting her eyes again, "Tell me what to do."

Ah, fun! I do hope you enjoyed. I now return to regularly scheduled programming. Honest.