He hated her. He hated her wild brown curls and her ramrod straight back and the way her arm shot up whenever a professor asked a question. He despised the way she twirled a pencil into her hair until it got stuck while she was thinking and the way she nibbled a quill when searching for a passage in a book. He was sick of her eternal, sunny smile. He wanted to wipe that smile off her face.

It was too easy to rile her up, she was such a Gryffindor. Attack the weak and she'd come running, wand waving and hair crackling with magic. She was intelligent, he'd give her that, and probably the only one who'd be able to challenge him. Challenge, though, not win. He enjoyed provoking her. It made her eyes flash and her nostrils flare and her hair fly out of control.

He couldn't stop drawing her. He couldn't stop because he could never get her right. Her features were not perfectly symmetrical, but near enough to be considered, if not handsome, at least pretty. So one afternoon, as his thoughts wandered away from another boring History of Magic lesson, his hands had started drawing her. And now he just couldn't stop.

Always, always wrong. He could not capture the twinkle in her eye or the twitch of her lips, and her hair… her hair was the worst of all. Even when she tied it back in a ponytail it seemed to spring from its confines in every which way. No matter how hard he tried, no matter how often he practised, his drawings were always just off. It frustrated him to no end.

She didn't know what to make of the broody Slytherin who'd walked out of the Room of Requirement one day, claiming it was 1941 rather than 1995. She felt his eyes on her, every day, every time they were in a room together. He never spoke, except during class. He mostly observed the seemingly strange new world he'd been thrown into, his piercing blue eyes taking in every detail, every nuance, and his lips constantly turned up into an irritating half-smile, as if he knew something nobody else did.

He was smart, she'd give him that. Brilliant, actually. He gave Malfoy a run for his Galleons and pushed her further than anyone ever before. They'd had some fierce debates in Defense Against the Dark Arts and his twisted sense of morality made her skin crawl and her head hurt. Only her stubborn self-righteousness kept her from admitting that it could be justified in some cases to use an Unforgivable. His arguments and his voice were too compelling, and he knew. He knew he had won the minute she started repeating her arguments instead of countering his. It was the only time she'd see him smile fully, and it infuriated her more than anything.

It was funny how little had changed in fifty-odd years. Mudbloods were still looked down upon, though the word itself was not often used in polite society. Slytherins stuck together and were despised by the other three Houses, who were really only united in their hate for green and silver, and barely tolerated each other in any other circumstance. And within Slytherin, the descendants of the Sacred Twenty-Eight ruled the roost. But no amount of pure blood, no amount of money or political sway impressed as much as personal power.

They only tried to taunt him once. Slytherins were easy to understand and manipulate. He'd done it all before, after all, and once he'd put the Malfoy boy in his place, they all regarded him as their unofficial leader, and the former Slytherin Prince became most loyal in his adoration.

But the girl… She was a puzzle. It didn't take him long to figure out she was Muggleborn. She tried too hard, was too careful and too controlled in her magic. But why she hung around those two goons he could never understand. Granted, they weren't stupid, exactly. But they clearly had such different goals, such different work ethos, that it was a miracle the three of them got along at all.

He still couldn't draw her just right. That was frustrating. He liked perfection. She was not it.

Eventually, others began to notice how much attention she was receiving from this strange boy from the past.

"He's staring at you again," Harry muttered over his shepherd's pie. Hermione stopped herself from looking up, but Ron, never one for subtlety, turned around to glare at the Slytherin in question.

"Just leave it, Ron."

Ron turned back, still glowering.

"He's up to something, I know he is," he said around a mouthful of roast chicken.

Hermione just shook her head. "You're as bad about Tom Riddle as Harry is about Malfoy." Both boys sputtered and choked on their food in indignation, and Hermione just smiled innocently and took another sip of pumpkin juice.

"I don't know why he keeps looking at me, but I don't care."

"Don't know either," Ron said, his eyes flicking over her face and hair and upper body. "It's not like there is anything to see."

He didn't notice that her smile became just a little tighter, and her eyes no longer sparkled.

He'd seen the flash of hurt on her face from across the Great Hall and narrowed his eyes at the Gryffindors surrounding her. It didn't take him long to figure out what had happened, a little Legillimency never hurt anyone, after all. Or, at least, it didn't have to. The Bludger he Charmed to attack only Ron Weasley at the next Quidditch game, however, did hurt the redhead a great deal. It was only after he'd seen her hurry into the Infirmary and he'd felt a pang of something that he realised he'd just done something to avenge her. It was disconcerting.

He shouldn't have been surprised that she stalked up to him one day while he was preparing his Potions homework and bluntly asked why he stared at her all the time. Gryffindors were, typically, anything but subtle. He studied her in silence until she betrayed her unease by squirming and gripping her books more tightly. He pushed his own aside and gestured at the chair across from him.

"Maybe you're just fascinating to look at," he said, one corner of his mouth curling up into a ghost of a smile and his eyes scanning her face for a reaction. She flushed and sat down quickly, rifling through her bag to avoid looking at him until she could no longer pretend to be looking for the quill and parchment she needed to do her homework.

"So what are you working on?" she asked, still not quite meeting his eyes.

The other corner of his mouth also lifted up.

She couldn't resist spending time with him. He could hold his own in a discussion and actually seemed interested in what she said, so unlike Ron and Harry. When they asked her why she was spending so much time away from them, she muttered something about O.W.L.s and the library, and after the fifth time she didn't even feel bad about lying any more.

The first kiss, right before Christmas, was a surprise, though not an unpleasant one. He tasted of chocolate and bitter almonds and the pumpkin juice he'd had at dinner. His fingers burned like fire on her shoulders and back and tangled in her hair, tilting her head backwards. The butterflies in her stomach beat their wings wildly as she tried to process the feel of his lips, his nose trailing softly along her cheek, his teeth nibbling at her earlobe, one finger caressing the side of a breast. He grabbed her hands and held them, just a little too tightly, behind her back when she tried to wrap her arms around him and it left her feeling vulnerable and powerless and exhilarated. She lost herself into his blue eyes as he stared at her, scrutinizing every inch of her face, and then let go.

"What are you doing?" she asked, a little dazed but still sensible enough to know it was strange that he reached straight for his parchment and quills after what had been the best kiss of her life.

"I want to draw you like this," he said, and his quill moved over the parchment in confident strokes. She didn't move until he sighed and crumpled up the drawing.

"I still can't get it right."

She laughed.

She'd looked amazed after he'd kissed her, dazed eyes and swollen lips and love bites on her neck. He was sure he'd be able to draw her then, but still he couldn't capture her gaze. Infuriating. At least the kissing wasn't too bad.

"I'll manage some day," he said as he set the discarded drawing on fire with a flick of his wand.

"I just don't see what the problem is. Those few sketches I've seen were very good."

"I don't want good, I want perfect."

She didn't know why, exactly, she'd decided to stay at Hogwarts over Christmas. Harry and Ron were going home and she'd be quite alone. Except for Tom, of course. His touch sent shivers down her spine and set off the butterflies in her stomach, and his lips set her body on fire. He was addictive. He was dangerous. And she couldn't stay away.

He didn't have to do much to convince her to meet him in an abandoned classroom in the dungeons on Christmas Eve. He only had to smile at her and she'd do anything he asked. A Slytherin you could impress with a display of power, a Gryffindor with a display of love. It was too easy.

She let him tie her hands together and secure them above her head. She only blushed and smiled and her eyes, those damned eyes, sparkled with excitement and mischief. Any hesitation was easily kissed away.

"Do you trust me?" he asked.

"Of course I do," she said fiercely. "I trust you and I want this. I want you."

She wasn't afraid. He liked to be in control and she didn't mind surrendering. It was strangely liberating to let someone else make the decisions. When his mouth closed over her nipple she couldn't stop the moan that fought its way out of her throat.

"Don't hold back," he said, "I want to hear you scream."

She didn't see him reach out for the knife.

He looked up from his drawing, comparing the model with his rendition, and nodded in satisfaction. Finally, finally right. He smiled into her lifeless eyes - now without the sparkle he'd never quite managed to catch - and turned the parchment around to show her.

"You see? I knew I could do it."

He stepped closer but then paused, his toes stopping just short of the congealing blood on the floor.

"It's a pity you're not here to appreciate this work of art," he said, stroking the image lovingly. His eyes roved over her body, her arms still bound to the headboard, her unseeing eyes staring in the distance, blood slowly trickling from the carvings on her stomach. He'd known he would enjoy her screams. It was a memory he would treasure forever.

"Perfection."

He took his diary from his robe pocket and finished the ritual.