Not a Drill

Prompt: College AU where the fire alarm goes off in the middle of the night, making everyone stand outside in the freezing cold in their pajamas. Seeing as the guard's investigation on who made the alarm go off is fruitless, the two star students, Hermione and Tom, take it upon themselves to find out who the fucker behind all of this is.

Very dark! College AU, Non-Magic, POC Hermione and Tom, Tomione, Subtle Blaise/Pansy & Blaise/Luna

Rating: M

Warnings: Hermione is far darker in this - if you want a pure, goody-two shoes version, I would not read this. Language, mentions of alcohol and drug use, jokes about glitter fetishes, harm onto others, murder, mentions of suicide, discussions about racism, money, and power

When the fire alarm went off at 3 AM on the morning of February 12th, Hermione had just closed her exhausted eyes. She had been up since 4 that previous morning, fretting over her research petition with Professor Vector, and had gone about her usual hectic schedule of classes and working at the library. She thought her night would end at 11 PM, but fate had a different answer.

Instead of a cup of tea and watching the history channel under the warmth of Harry's rugby sweatshirt, she was confronted by a very drunk Parvati Patil using their sink as a waste bin. For the next few hours, Hermione and Parvati's friend, Lavender, tended to the ill girl, making sure she had enough water and a clean trash basket to purge the night's alcohol.

Eventually, Parvati fell asleep around 2, but it took Hermione much longer to find sleep. Her Organic Chemistry TA, Cho, had texted Hermione in a panic. Cho was dating Hermione's Computer Science TA, Cedric Diggory, and Cho was fretting over him.

He looks like he hasn't eaten or slept in a while, but he's gotten so defensive about my asking. He won't sit with me in the library or Dining Hall anymore - it's like he's avoiding me. I've reached out to his friends and hallmates, and they said he's been out of the room a lot lately. But where could he be going? Do you think he's cheating on me? Or that he's smoking out in the woods - he did that a lot freshman year.

Hermione in response sent out a sad I don't know. But maybe contact his dad or the counseling center? It was a tough series of questions - Hermione didn't really know Cedric that well, considering she didn't need to go to his study sessions. From what she knew of him, he was always composed, polite, and friendly. But she hadn't seen much of him either since the start of the new semester, since she was now in a class specifically on Ancient Translations & Computer Coding.

Yet it left Hermione puzzled, and her brain continued to mull over it for nearly an hour. Cho and Cedric were the dream couple - both independent and successful but caring and devoted. It seemed odd for Cedric, one of the school's golden boys, to be in a slump. And it was even odder that Cho had thought to contact Hermione instead of, well, anyone else. Cedric was a popular guy with plenty of friends who cared about him.

So, when the fire alarm went off an hour later, Hermione's eyes opened all too quickly to the red lights flashing outside her darkened window. In moments of scrapped together adrenaline, she had on her coat and rain boots and had thrown open the door to the crowded hallway. Luckily, she spotted Neville in an instant due to his gangly height, and snagged him to help her friend Parvati out of the room. With Parvati sleepily hanging between the two of them, they half guided, half carried the sleepy girl downstairs and out in safety.

As they left the warmth of the dorm, a blast of cold air hit them, and Hermione began to curse herself for wearing cat boxers to bed instead of sweatpants. To make matters worse, it had begun to sleet outside, and the ground was still muddy from the previous weeks of rain and snow. Once Lavender and Neville were standing in a well-lit area of the street with Parvati, Hermione marched towards the small grouping of adults to find out why the fuck this had happened.

The dorm setup was confusing - it broken into four separate buildings each the size of a regular dorm that had shared kitchens, laundry spaces, and lounges via passageways. Finding the source of the problem wouldn't be difficult though, since one could narrow down which building it came from and then the floor and then find the asshat who did it.

When she reached the mix of residential advisors and security, she found her (friend? was he a friend or a study buddy or a competitor?) - she found Tom Riddle. Hearing her stomping boots in the snow, he whipped his head around, revealing a face so angry it could make Professor Snape look like a prancing unicorn in a field of puppies and kittens. She also noticed that he was only wearing a bright green towel and flip flops shower shoes, and that his wet hair framed his face in an almost artistic way.

He gritted his teeth, "If this was one of your mangy Gryffindor frat boys, I swear-"

"Harry and Ron aren't even here this weekend, they have an away game at Durmstrang for rugby."

"Hermione!" Hagrid greeted her cheerily, despite the dried drool in his beard. "Had a bit of a problem with the alarms we did. Not to worry tho', just a drill." He then bumbled away to check on a trod upon plant.

"My ass it was a drill, I would have been notified ahead as a representative of my building," she hissed under her breathe.

"Where did the alarm go off?" Tom asked impatiently of the security guards, arms crossed and foot tapping.

"That's a tough question, young sir," Mr. Cadogan began. An older man who seemed stuck in the medieval ages, the security guard was far from lucid. "And I'm afraid we cannot bequeath you with an answer at this time. You see, we cannot ponder how to use this here . . . thing," the old man said, holding up an iPad.

"You idiot," Janice grumbled. "Of course it's not working, you doused it in coffee when you fell asleep on duty! If you did your damn job-", she went on to shout. Janice, also known as the "Fat Lady" was the head of security for the Gryffindor Tower building, and she was a bit more abrasive than the rest of the security staff. This was understandable, given the habits of her residents.

The pair of students walked away from the bickering guards. "We're not going to get anywhere with them," Hermione grumbled.

Tom nodded, placing his hands on his hips in determination and to keep his towel up. "We need to find whoever did this and set them on fire."

Tom's friend and roommate Blaise Zabini walked over. "Fire is a bit extreme, Tom." Blaise Zabini, who was the mediterranean and Turkish olive to Tom's half Japanese and English paleness, was the only one who could give Tom a run for his money in the dreaminess department. While a bit haughty and image obsessed (Blaise looked like he was at a photoshoot right now, in silk pajamas and an expensive looking embroidered coat), he and Hermione had bonded over their shared international backgrounds. Blaise was Italian,Turkish, and a little Moroccan, while Hermione was Polynesian and Canadian.

"I'm standing outside in nothing but a towel in the sleet at 3 in the morning; a stoning is the true punishment, but I'll settle for a burning at the stake."

"Ooh, a fire," Pansy squealed. A drunken plaything of Blaise, she and Hermione mutually detested each other. "I say we torch her clothes first. Cat boxers and a floral tank top - who dresses you, the lost and found?" Amused by herself, Pansy snorted.

"Shut up you, you stupid bitch," Hermione snapped. Pansy blinked quickly, puckered her lips, and teetered off to the next group of people. Blaise looked a little surprised, but Tom was partially grinning at her rage.

"Um...?" Blaise started, raising an eyebrow

"She's a gold-digging, mindless wannabe, I'm exhausted and have no tolerance for bullshit."

"Let's go find the culprit and make them suffer," Tom declared, and together, he and Hermione marched off towards the Ravenclaw dorm.

"Hey, you might want to get some clothes on first!" Blaise shouted after them, and he received two angry birds flipped at him. "God, you two are a scary pair," he murmured under his breath.

XxXxXxXxX

Hermione met Tom outside his room, but he was still getting dressed. He had just finished putting on his jeans and was digging around his drawer for a shirt. For whatever reason, his room was entirely dark still.

"So I'm thinking we start with Ravenclaw; find a kid who can hack the system-" Tom started.

"Why not begin in Slytherin?"

"Because everyone in my building knows I would murder them on site," he paused to pull his University of Hogwarts Tourguide sweatshirt over his head, "if they did something like this." There was a wicked gleam of triumph in his eyes.

Hermione sighed as she leaned against his dorm frame, "So we start with Ravenclaw."

"Ravenclaw and then Gryffindor." Tom had begun to put on his boots and he sounded a bit muffled, but she heard the Gryffindor part loud and clear.

"What?" She asked in defiance. "You know the rugby team is gone this weekend, so my dorm isn't the problem."

"Seamus and the microwave."

"He was drunk," Hermione protested.

Tom countered, "He did it five times freshman year and twice last semester. And what about his lint incident in the laundry room?" He finished tying the laces and stood upright, not bothering to move his still damp hair out of his face.

"Seamus is just fire-prone, okay?" She crossed her arms to avoid the cold. She had thrown on a light sweater to cover herself and sweatpants, but it wasn't helping. The Slytherin dorm, being one of the oldest on campus, was very drafty and the heating system was temperamental. Hermione could just move a few feet into the heated dorm room, but the hastiness of Tom's actions alerted her to another presence in the room.

"Which is exactly why we'll talk to him first."

"They bicker like an old married couple," a whispy voice said from the shadows of Tom and Blaise's bedroom. Hermione knew that voice - she heard it everyday in her social justice class.

"Luna?" Hermione asked, ducking her head back inside. The blonde Ravenclaw responded with popping her head out of the Blaise's sheets and turning on his desk lamp.

"The Ravenclaws won't be able to help you - most of the main frame for the controls are in the Hufflepuff basement," she smiled, eyes fluttering.

"Uh. . . thanks," Hermione said. She was about to close the door, but Tom popped his head over hers.

"Did you say Hufflepuff?" Luna nodded. Hermione couldn't see per say, but she could tell by his rapping on the door that an idea had seized him. "Blaise, keep it to your side of the room. And I want her out by the time I get back - you're brilliant Luna, but I don't like having guests in the room for too long."

"That's bullshit - Hermione sleeps in here all the time," Blaise argued

Hermione blustered, "That's different. I'm not doing anything sexual with Tom."

Blaise snickered at this. "Hmmm, sure. Well, Hermione, because I obviously love you more, I'm going to insist you need a coat on before you trudge outside. My Saint Laurent one is on top of the microwave."

"Oh really, it's not necessary-" But before she could say another word, Tom stretched an arm inside, grabbed one of his jackets from the clothes hook and handed it to her.

"Take it."

"Probably cleaner - Blaise keeps naughty things in his coat pockets," Luna giggled from under the tent she had made out of Blaise's fancy sheets. With that, Hermione and Tom quickly closed the door and paced away from Blaise and Luna's romp.

As Hermione shrugged on his jacket, she asked, "When did that become a thing?" She was hit by how much it smelt like him - mint gum, his woodsy cologne, old books, and lemon-ginger tea.

"When Pansy flounced away. Luna was sitting in a tree and they got to talking about mosaics and astrology and now she's found his stash."

"Should I be afraid to ask what he has a stash of?" A rush of cold air hit them as they exited the Slytherin dorms.

"It's the worst possible thing... Hufflepuff dorms then?"

"Hufflepuff dorms," she repeated in agreement before picking up where Tom had left off. "Oh, please don't say a whip. I would hate to lose any last respect I have for him."

"No - it's glitter." Tom gritted his teeth when saying it - like he had personally been offended by the very existence of glitter.

Hermione snorted at the thought. "He has got to be the most preposterous man I know. Is there even such a thing as a glitter fetish?"

"I don't know, and I don't want to know." They both laughed, releasing crisp clouds to form around them, light grey making a stark contrast with the dark early morning.

"How long has he, um, been dabbling with glitter?" Hermione asked.

"No idea. Just as long as it doesn't spread to my side of the room, it's ok. Because Blaise, for all of his oddities and kinks, is tolerable. There are far worse people out there," Tom darkly mused.

"Like the jackass who set off the alarm."

"Or that asshole McLaggen from freshman year." The air around that seemed to still at the mention of Cormac - they kept walking, but Hermione's motions became stiff and robotic.

"Yes," she finally agreed, "he was an asshole."

"Weird how he was kicked out for cheating before second semester since he was on the honor council."

"Mm-hmm."

"Then there's that Ravenclaw girl, Marietta Egdecombe, she transferred after spring break. I heard a rumor from Cedric Diggory that is was a very bad case of allergies in her acne medicine that permanently altered her skin."

"Pity," Hermione muttered politely, but Tom heard the bite in her voice. "How do you know Cedric?" It was unlikely they would have be friends - Cedric was the humble son of a mayor who had no interest in politics and tried to keep a low profile; Tom was the accident of two unknown people who was very publicly flying his way up the social ranks, almost magically.

"Tour Guides," Tom brushed off before continuing his original train of thought, "And of course there's Rita Skeeter, that horrible blogger. If you ask me, she had it coming, but then again, the police did say it was a suicide-" Hermione cut him off as they approached the Hufflepuff dorms.

"If you have something to ask me, then please, be my guest."

"Oh, Hermione. I don't need to guess," he smiled to the point where his lips curled at the ends, and in the lamp light it was a monstrous smile.

"Then what's the point of bringing it up if you already know the answer?"

"Because if my hunch is correct about who is responsible for this, then this could be a big night for you." Using his card, he swiped them into the dorm and darted in, leaving Hermione outside, boiling with anger and pickled. For a moment, she stood very still, hands clenched at her sides, toes curled, and then she knew what she had to do. She swiped into the dorm and strode after Riddle, who with his long legs was already at the bottom of the stairwell.

"Took you long enough."

She marched up to him and pounded a finger into his chest. "If you think you can use any of that as leverage against me, you're wrong."

"Wouldn't dream of it," he shrugged with a smirk.

But Hermione kept going, "Besides, your nose isn't so squeaky clean either. Want to explain the disappearances of Moaning Myrtle and Regulus Black this fall?"

"In due time, yes. But for right now, we have a badger to catch." He scooted around her and moved towards the control room. But she kept up with him, short, angry bursts of speed compared to his long, relaxed pace.

Under her breathe, she hissed, "You've just accused me of murder, but you want to find the fire alarm kid?!" He turned around but kept walking, this time backwards, so that he could talk to her.

"Don't you see? It's all related."

"No, I don't see. So why don't you-" But before she could finish, she saw that the control room door was cracked open ajar. "Someone's been inside here." Tom whirled around to see for himself. The pair darted inside the ominous room to investigate. "Whoever did this knows some basics with wires, computers too. Look," Hermione gestured to the circuit board. "They were able to wire it so it seemed like all the fire alarms were going off. Allowing them to not get caught as the source."

"I think the alarm was just the distraction for a getaway - check the monitors. Our culprit shut off the security cameras to all of the bathrooms and has looped the recordings from earlier this evening." Tom ran his hand over his freshly shaven jaw. "I forget how smart our golden boy really is."

"You think you know who it is?"

"No, I know. And this wiping of the bathroom security proves it." Tom pulled his phone from his jacket pocket and began rapidly typing.

"Who is it?" He paused for a moment to look up at her.

"Who's a Hufflepuff that is great with computers and has been acting shady lately?"

"It's not Cedric, it can't-" Hermione argued, but Tom stopped her with a wave of his hand.

"It is."

"I need more proof."

"Then follow me. We're lucky that the tapes for the Hufflepuff bathroom are still looping." He grabbed her hand and began to walk out, but hesitated for a moment. "Did you touch anything?"

"No - are you going to try to lift Cedric's prints from the scene?"

"No, the authorities will in a few hours though, and I'd like to leave one of the crime scenes undisturbed."

"One of?" Hermione asked as he guided her towards the girls' bathroom.

XxXxXxXxX

In the heart of the steam tunnels that ran deep under the school, the ancient Knights of Walpurgis, Basilisk chapter, held an emergency meeting. 6 of the 7 members were present, each in hooded black capes with skull masks and a burning candle in their hands.

"I need you to just stay in my entrance tunnel - the others don't know why I've called the meeting. We have to vote on you joining before you can technically enter," Tom explained before they had literally jumped down a mysterious hole that led to the stem tunnels in the bathroom. On the long walk to the gathering spot, he had explained about the group, how he was an ancestor of the founder through his mom, and the importance of the group.

"It's not about murder or wearing nice bowties or your GPA. It's about power and shaping the course of history." Hermione nodded.

"But families with lots of money tend to be members."

"Money is a form of power, no different than knowledge or charisma."

"I take it Regulus Black was involved?"

"Was. But there was a difference of opinions when it came to who should be in charge. I, as an ancestor of Slytherin, have the birthright to run the group. Regulus was of the opinion that because I'm only half white that I wasn't worthy. Everyone else sided with me, and Regulus decided to try to expose the group. He was originally going to talk to Skeeter, but you so delicately took care of that situation for me. So he went to the next best thing - Myrtle and her "bemoan" column in the Quibbler."

Hermione was still confused, "But Myrtle went missing in August - Regulus didn't disappear until December."

"We were going to do it on the same night, but Reg caught wind and fled. He knew he had no support, so he played the appeaser and apologized, thinking he could convince new members to back him later. Regulus thought he could trust Ginny Weasley, but he didn't know she had been in my back pocket the whole time."

Hermione stopped in her tracks. "Ginny? Ron's sister?"

"Yes. She, unlike her endless stream of miscreant brothers, has some common sense and ambition."

"Who else is involved?" Tom listed off the names, and she knew most of them from the building around the school. Senior Bellatrix Black (planetarium), senior Abraxas Malfoy (atrium), and junior Kai Avery (school of business). There was one boy she didn't know, a freshman named Anthony Goldstein, and she sort of knew Ginny and Cedric.

"Won't they be opposed to me?" She gestured down at herself. "I'm not exactly, uh, the usual member." He squeezed her hand in response.

"If I tell them to, they will," he reassured her.

Standing in a mostly complete circle, the Knights argued in hushed tones over what to do about Cedric. The only discernable voices were those of Bellatrix (due to its shrillness) and Tom (whom she heard advocating for her, using words like: brilliant, bright, cunning, ambitious, capable, murder, succeeded, and got away with it).

Dealing with Regulus had been easy - drown him in a bucket of water, dump the body in the lake before it freezes over, and let the flesh-eating bacteria do their job. Handling Myrtle, however, had been a different story. Cedric had become disgusted with killing for the sake of killing (Myrtle, after all, had not known anything about the group and posed no threat as long as Regulus didn't talk to her), and had begun to have a moral struggle. This only grew when he was charged with mummifying her corpse in the tunnels. Apparently, tonight he was hoping to return balance to the world by taking Myrtle from the safety of the tunnels and properly burying her in the woods, an act that would surely expose the group and their actions.

"Then it's settled," Tom announced, and the group all nodded before lifting their masks and taking their hoods down.

"The council's never had this many women," Bellatrix noted sullenly.

"About damn time," Ginny snapped in response. "Hermione, come on out!" A little skittishly, Hermione joined the ominous group. Upon closer inspection, she found Cedric lying on the floor with each member firmly resting one foot on top of him to prevent him from moving.

"You may join us, Hermione, but on one condition," Abraxas addressed her.

"You have to kill him," Kai Avery finished. Cedric looked up, face red from crying, surprised to see her.

"Hermione-" his voice was hoarse and it was painful to watch him suffer like this.

"Cedric suffers from only being able to kill in the heat of the moment against someone who has wronged him - he held Regulus's head down in that bucket with no problems because of some passing remark he made to Cho once. But he lacks the ability to kill otherwise," Bellatrix explained, digging the heel of her expensive rain boots into Cedric's neck. "Let's hope you can take an order better than he can."

"No, Hermione, don't do it!" Cedric shouted, to which Bella kicked him in the side. Yet Cedric continued, "You're one of the good ones - all of those things they accused you of, they aren't true. You didn't poison Marietta or suffocate Rita."

"But they are true," she murmured. "I did hurt Marietta and I did kill Rita. And I'm not one of the good ones, but that doesn't make me a bad guy either." Cedric had begun to cry again.

"Hermione, no, please," he begged.

"Is it supposed to look like a suicide, accident, or murder?" Hermione asked Tom.

"Go for an accident, we haven't had one of those in while," Ginny piped up.

"It'd be an awful shame if he tripped down the hill during this storm while coming back from smoking," Tom stated coolly.

"And then cracked his skull," Bellatrix hummed.

"Or snapped his neck," Anthony added, pushing his glasses up.

"Flip him over," Hermione commanded, and suddenly Cedric was on his back, shoes still pressing into him like muddy fingerprints on his yellow rain jacket. She knelt down behind him, cradling his head in her hands. "Hand me his bong, will you?"

"Please Hermione," Cedric pleaded. "Think about Cho." That made her pause, and Cedric seized the opportunity. "You don't have to do this. Murder isn't the answer."

"You're right," Hermione acknowledge, "I don't have to do this," she stated calmly as she petted his hair. "But I want to." Cedric's face dropped in astonishment and sorrow. She kept petting his hair, but he was so taken aback by what she was saying he had stopped shaking or moving at all. "You betrayed your friends and their trust by trying to undo all of your work. And traitors are unacceptable, so yes, murder is the answer." Without much further thought, she broke the yellow glass bong beside, took one long, large shard, and drove it into back of Cedric's brain.

XxXxXxXxX

Later that morning, Hermione and Tom were getting french toast at their usual cafe, reading the paper on Cedric's untimely and accidental death. The news was filled with mourning as well as caution against consuming drugs. Tom was grinning from ear to ear as he read it.

"This is brilliant. They all bought it." Luna looked up from her spot next to Hermione and across from Blaise and tilted her head.

"Bought what?"

"A new app I'm working to track the use of the fire alarms to identify any patterns or trends in students to reduce the behavior."

"Oh, I thought you were talking about Cedric's murder," she said breezily. Blaise, Tom, and Hermione gasped.

"Murder? Luna, it was an accident." Hermione blustered.

"That's what the police are saying. But everyone knows he was buying laced weed from Professor Slughorn and they had a fight over dealing. Slughorn obviously wanted the problem to be gone, and now it is."

Blaise changed the topic though, "Speaking of problems, did you two ever catch the fire alarm guy? You never came back to the room."

"No, we didn't. Security systems were all haywire due to the weather," Hermione lied.

"Blaise, you owe me $20," Luna chirped.

"No I don't - they didn't outright say they had sex!"

Luna giggled, "Well, they did something intimate last night. Just look at how they keep looking at each other. Like they have a secret."

"The only secret I have at the moment is that I was planning on asking Hermione out for the Valentine's Day at our favorite thai food place."

"Hmm," Hermione laughed. "My secret is that I got the research gig with Vector."

Tom beamed at her. "I told you that you would, oh ye of little faith." Hermione blushed and went back to dipping her blueberries in maple syrup.

On the walk back to her dorm, she asked Tom, "Did you really mean what you said about Valentine's Day?"

"Yes," Tom replied with a little grin on his face. "Sorry the moment got ruined. I was going to ask you this morning, but then Blaise and Luna joined and-" Hermione cut him off.

"It's alright," she assured him, squeezing his hand. "If this were a book we'd kiss right now, but I haven't slept in over 24 hours, I've got major BO and stinky breathe, I'm sweaty and gross and still wearing pajamas, and we murdered a man this morning."

"We don't need to rush it," Tom shrugged. "It will happen when it happens. Go get some sleep while you can, we have your induction later tonight."

"Ooh, am I going to have to be branded with a skull or snake tattoo?" She teased.

"Don't be ridiculous. We just make you drink unicorn's blood," he jested. She started up the steps to her dorm but then turned back.

"How did you know about everything I had done?"

Tom just shrugged and began to saunter away. She didn't need to know that he had pushed each of those events into existence, that he had given Rita the nasty rumors and Marietta the lies and Cormac the confidence to unsuccessfully woo Hermione. Because in the end, the how of the situation didn't matter; it was the outcome that was important. And now, Tom could continue climbing the ladder to power with the most powerful ally permanently on his team. For what's a king without a queen as bloodthirsty as he was?