This is a oneshot I posted on tumblr for the lovely Kreeblimsabs. (I say oneshot but my stories have a tendency to expand into full fics)

This has been beta'd by the amazing, Daenerys Stormborn Targaryen, who has worked wonders, whilst teaching me a whole lot of stuff. Thanks.

Haunted

Hermione pursed her lips in annoyance as yet another girlish giggle interrupted her reading. Usually she would be able to ignore such a sound, so immersed in the written word that a herd of Hippogriffs storming through the common room wouldn't have distracted her. But not tonight. Tonight, every bloody sound that came out of Lavender Brown's mouth tugged on her nerves with the insistence of a toddler demanding a sweet. It was just so...squeaky, and irritating, and saccharine. Honestly, she had no idea what Ron saw in the girl.

Forcing her eyes to reread the last paragraph, she ignored the two girls playing the silliest game she'd ever heard of.

"It's an R!" Lavender squealed.

"No it isn't," Padma said.

"It is! Look, there's the round bit."

Hermione looked up from her book to see them huddled over an apple peel. She rolled her eyes. They'd been peeling apples and chucking the skin over their shoulders for the past hour. But no matter how many times they did it, the peel did not resemble any letter of the alphabet, and therefore did not give them the initials of their soul mate. It was ridiculous.

"Hermione, doesn't this look like an R?" Lavender asked.

"It looks like an apple peel," she said, snapping the book closed, "because that's what it is. Honestly, the whole thing is an absurd superstition."

Lavender pouted in that annoying way Ron found so endearing. "It isn't. When my aunt did it, the peel formed a W and two weeks later she met my uncle Wilhelm."

Hermione huffed in annoyance once more.

"Well, you try it then." Padma grabbed an apple from the pile and held it out to her.

"No, thank you."

"She'd never believe it anyway," Lavender said, giving Padma a sly look, "but I bet she'd believe Mirror, Mirror."

Hermione frowned. "I've never heard of that."

Lavender clapped her hands in manic glee. "You go to a dark room, light a candle and stare into a mirror. After a few minutes the face of your true love appears behind you."

"That's...I have no words for how stupid that is." She stood up, tucking the book under her arm, preparing to go to bed.

Leaning forward, Padma asked, "Will you try it?"

"No."

"Are you scared of what you might see?" Lavender chirped, standing up and pulling Padma with her.

Hermione tutted. "I'm not scared because it won't work."

"Then prove it," the two girls parroted together.

Ten minutes later Hermione found herself in the bathroom. Alone and in the dark. Padma and Lavender were waiting outside. Hermione could hear their incessant giggling through the door. The whole thing was absolutely idiotic. She shouldn't have agreed to it, but there was no way she would back out now. Even if only so she could prove the insipid girls wrong. Since none of them had a candle, they had decided that Hermione's wand would work just as well.

"Lumos," she muttered, squinting at the sudden light.

Everything looked different. The shadows seemed to flinch away from the light as she slowly made her way to the mirror above the basin. Her footsteps echoed around the room. The shadows shifted as she moved and her eyes darted nervously around, fearing someone would creep up on her. She came to a stop when her hips touched the cool marble of the basin.

She didn't dare look in the mirror straight away, instead taking a couple of deep breaths. Bemused she realized her hand was shaking. It made the wand light flicker ever so slightly. Unable to stall any longer, she dragged her eyes slowly up to the mirror. Her face looked odd lit up from below. Washed out and skeletal.

As instructed, she stared at herself. After only a few seconds she began to feel uneasy. She reasoned that it must be the darkness surrounding her and the fact that she'd never really looked at herself so intently before. But it wasn't just that. The thought of seeing another face beside her own in the mirror scared her.

Her slightly panicked breaths, and the dripping tap somewhere to her left, were the only sounds she could hear. A trickle of sweat ran down her spine as she forced herself to remain still. But the longer she stood there, the more she felt as though the darkness was pressing against her. Her wand didn't seem to throw out as much light as before, though she knew that was impossible.

A puff of air touched her cheek.

Gasping, she looked back into the mirror. Just as the light of her wand died out, she saw a face appear behind her.

Screaming, she pushed away from the basin and felt the sensation of cobwebs on her face before she made it to the door. Her heart was hammering so hard she could feel it pounding in her ears as she fumbled for the handle. With a pop the door finally opened. She almost collided with a wide-eyed Lavender and Padma. Not giving them time to speak, Hermione simply pushed past them and sprinted all the way back to the dorm room.

Hermione couldn't sleep that night. Or the next. Or the one after that. She'd developed a fear of the dark that she couldn't rationalise. She even went so far as to sleep with a muggle flashlight because she didn't quite trust her wand any more. What little sleep she did manage was plagued by dreams. Strange and twisted nightmares where she was stalked by a presence that whispered half-formed words into her ear. She constantly felt as though she was being watched. The feeling intensified when she was alone. Terrified, she started clinging to her friends, but never giving in to their incessant questioning about what had happened in that dark bathroom.

Sometimes she would see a flash of movement out of the corner of her eye. But when she turned there was nothing to see; only weird, blurry air and the scent of crushed grass and ink. And whenever she closed her eyes she saw his face. Pale, perfect, cruel. It became clearer and sharper with every passing day. She had no idea who he was, but he scared her. His dark eyes were greedy and full of hate.

"Hermione?"

Startled, she looked up into the pale face of Luna Lovegood. They'd been studying together for the last hour and to her shame she hadn't gotten anything done.

"Are you quite alright?"

"Yes I-" Hermione froze as her eyes fell on the parchment in front of her.

It was full of her own neat script. Lines and lines of it filled the page. Indeed, her hand held a quill and the tip was poised to write. Three words were repeated over and over again.

Tom Marvolo Riddle.

She didn't recall writing it. She'd never heard of Tom Marvolo Riddle, but she had the most awful feeling that she knew who he was.

"I have to go," Hermione whispered, putting her things away robotically.

She practically ran out of the library, her feet striking the floor with hard staccato taps as she rushed to the stairs. It was only when she was halfway back to the dorm that she realised her mistake. She was alone. The corridor was deserted and full of shadows. The breath squeezed out of her lungs in a hiss. A shiver ran down her spine, raising the hairs on the back of her neck.

He was here.

The torches flickered and then went out, plunging her into darkness. She fumbled for her wand, turning to ice when fingers circled her throat.

They felt solid as they slammed her into the stone with brutal force. Cool breath touched her cheek.

"Did you think you could ignore me forever?" hissed an unfamiliar voice.

Hearing his words made Hermione's insides clench with the certainty that he hadn't been a figment of her imagination, after all. She held her wand in a sweaty palm but couldn't make a sound emerge from her crushed throat. Her eyes widened, trying to see beyond the blackness.

"Well?"

A mangled gasp fell from her lips. The rough stone bit into her spine as she fought to free herself. She felt the edge of a jaw brush her cheek and hips press into her stomach.

"I could hurt you so very badly Hermione. But I could make you crave me like the very air you breathe just as easily."

She felt a tear trickle down her cheek to land on his wrist. She had no idea what would've happened if Filch hadn't come along and started to relight the torches. The moment they flared to life, Tom disappeared. Fading into the air and leaving nothing behind but tears and bruises.

It was utterly chilling to be stalked by a ghost. And that's what Tom Riddle was: a ghost. She'd looked him up in the library's collection of year books. Tom Riddle. Slytherin. Prefect. Brilliant. Top of his class. And dead. Killed in a freak accident within the walls of Hogwarts. Some kind of attempted spell reversal had instantly killed him.

Hermione had spent hours searching for spells and rituals to banish him. She had tried everything, but nothing worked. He continued to haunt her, constantly breathing down the back of her neck or touching her cheek. He still invaded her dreams and made her body react in unthinkable ways. She often woke on the verge of orgasm, his phantom fingers still caressing the pulsing nub between her thighs.

But only later, on a stormy night, did she begin to understand just how dangerous he was. She was heading down to the library, following a group of Ravenclaws, when she was pushed to the side and into an empty classroom. Her first panicked thought was: Tom.

It was always Tom now.

But when she spun around she came face to face with Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle. They were blocking the doorway, sneering at her, eyes filled with hatred cultivated over a thousand years.

"What do you want?" Hermione asked tiredly, wondering if she was supposed to be afraid of them.

Tom was her fear now. Only Tom.

"Fucking Mudblood," Goyle hissed, pulling his wand and pointing it right at her. Crabbe followed suit a second later.

For a moment, she merely stood there, flabbergasted at how stupid they truly were. Did they honestly think they would get away with attacking her at school?

Sucking in an annoyed breath, she reached for her own wand, freezing when the scent of crushed grass and ink filled her lungs. She felt the feather-light touch of fingertips brushing her lips.

"Nobody touches what's mine," Tom whispered into her ear.

Her eyes darted up just in time to see Vincent Crabbe twist to the side and throw his fist at Goyle's face.

The large Slytherin's nose burst in a spray of blood. The crack of it breaking seemed to echo through the room. Goyle fell back, hands leaping up to cradle his face. Crabbe pulled his hand back and hit him again, knocking Goyle off his feet. As soon as he hit the floor, Crabbe began to kick his life long friend with ruthless efficiency. But his face was twisted in complete horror the entire time, tears streaming down his cheeks to land on the whimpering Goyle.

Hermione took a step forward, shaking off the shock. "Stop!"

Crabbe twitched, his eyes darting towards her in desperation.

"Tom!" It was the first time she'd said his name out loud and it fell from her lips with surprising ease.

All movement stopped. It was as if someone had pressed the pause button on the world. Hermione felt a rush of cold air hit her face and the room began to spin. She looked up to see Crabbe reach down and heave Goyle to his feet, dragging him frantically from the room.

The last thing she heard before the door swung shut, was Goyle's pain-soaked voice. "She's haunted."

He was right.

Tom Riddle was haunting her and he'd never let her go.