A/N: Thank you for all of the Favorites, Follows, and Reviews!

A reminder for those who haven't read the changes from the first few chapters. Tom is 17 and in his Seventh Year. For the sake of having smut, I have pushed back the timeline in which Tom Riddle was supposed to create his first Horcrux. Since this is extremely AU anyway, I didn't think anyone would mind.

Chapter Twelve

Hermione and Tom walked into the Great Hall a mere ten minutes late and this fact was not missed. Not by a glaring Dumbledore, and not by Tom's followers. The former tracked them with his eyes, displeasure fairly vibrating out of his body. On the other side of the hall, his follower's disquiet had little to do with the time of his arrival or who he was out with and more to do with their directionless state. It had been a long time since he allowed them freedom with little governance and no enforcement. Not once had he loosened his tight grip on their behavior since he originally pulled together his band of Knights.

At first, he found the hiatus necessary, a way to keep Hermione from finding out what he was up to and tattling on him to Dumbledore. Now, however, things were different. Perhaps it would help him by bringing her in, showing her what he was up to, and introduce her to his new plans for the future.

A sly gleam entered his eye as he slid onto the bench next to Nott.

"Meetings will resume Friday night," Tom said quietly to his followers, barely containing his smirk when Hermione quietly gasped at his side. Slowly, he turned to her and leaned close, basking in the nearness, the intimacy, and whispered in her ear. "Do you want to come too?"

Hermione blushed deeply and sharply nodded once before turning her attention to the food that already filled the serving plates in the center of the table. Tom straightened and reached for the pumpkin juice, a self-satisfied smirk teasing at the corners of his lips.

His Knights began shifting in their seats, excitement thickening in the air.

"What changed?" Malfoy asked casually after patting his napkin against the corners of his mouth. Tom was once again struck with how different this Malfoy was from the elder, and how Abraxas should be thankful to his mother for his sterling manners.

Tom glanced at Hermione. "I trust her,"

Hermione's eyes grew wide and surprised and it was nearly as comical as the reaction of his Knights, yet no less visceral. The truth was that he did trust her, and the other unvoiced truth was that she was the first and quite possibly last person to earn that unflinching faith from him.

"You trust me?" Hermione breathed, obviously shocked.

"Why are you so surprised? I've shared more with you than I ever have with anyone."

"I thought…"

"See, there it is. The assumptions of what you think you know about me."

"No, it's…"

Tom slid his arm around her shoulder and pulled her closer, smoothing her hair off one shoulder onto the other. She was nearly in his lap, her ear intimately pulled to his lips. Every inhale was intoxicating. Every exhale was a chance to watch her shudder in his arms as his breath ghosted over her neck.

"You didn't hurt my feelings." He continued. "I already know my fight is going to be a long-drawn-out battle to win your complete trust. It is difficult to change things that are so ingrained as your notions of me are but could any man other than me give you what you need?"

"And what is it that you think I need?" she whispered, not wholly unaffected. Her breathing sped up and her pupils dilated when she turned her head to look him in the eye.

Deepening his voice to mimic the dark man from her memories, he said, "A challenge,"

Her breath caught and she leaned in, eyes dropping to his lips. Tom's heart thumped in his chest as she closed the distance between them, molding her lips against his. Her kiss was sweet and quick and gone before he could do more than wish for more.

Turning from him, she put all of her attention on her plate, shoving the first mouthful past the very lips he was now fantasizing about. A deep red blush climbed her neck as he watched her, thoroughly enthralled.

Malfoy snickered softly and Tom snapped his eyes dangerously on him, but Malfoy merely gestured toward the head table where Dumbledore was fuming, a goblet stem in his clenched hands, the cup's shattered pieces scattered on his plate. Tom already felt as if he could take on the world and win but just seeing Dumbledore's fury had him rising higher and higher in victory. If Hermione's affections were what they were fighting for, Tom would unquestionably be winning. And they both knew it. Their eyes met across the Great Hall. One smug, one calculating and letting his anger fuel his vendetta.

Tom turned away first, brought back by Hermione as her smaller, delicate hand tangled with his. Something in his chest squeezed and warmth flooded his stomach. A tight knot gathered in his groin. It was excitement, desire, and something more that he couldn't define. That irrational desire to conquer, to control, to claim her rose within him. Instinctually he knew that acting on those feelings would be the death knell to whatever this was that was building between them and let the feelings roil impotently. Soon he would need an outlet to release his pent-up energy.

He took another sip of pumpkin juice and continued to eat with his left, leaving his right hand in her grasp.

The next morning, a thin crust of ice glittered around the edges of the enormous glass wall in the Slytherin Common room. The chill of the morning was barely chased away even though the fireplace was roaring with its flaming tentacles as the white-hot center was kept fed by the house-elf that tended it. Tom ran his fingers over the fine wool robes he wore, wondering if he should have added another layer before coming to the Common Room. Perhaps he should abort his plans in favor of a warmer day.

"I will never get over how handsome you are," Hermione's voice startled him out of his thoughts, and he smirked, realizing that she just complimented his looks. She thought he was handsome.

"What were you expecting? I thought you knew all about me," he teased, turning to her.

"It is one thing knowing that you were handsome and another to experience it,"

"It's an experience, is it?" He pushed back his robes and slid his hands into his pockets and languorously strode across the room to where she was standing. He felt on top of the world with her gaze helplessly pinned on him and the chill of the morning was chased away as his body burst into invisible flames. Already his stomach clenched in want.

Hermione finally snorted and turned away though she peeked back at him as if she couldn't stand to not look. "You knew what I meant,"

"What is it that captivates you? The way I smile? The way I can cut a man with a single look? The way I need you?" he murmured as he reached out, cupping her face in his large hand. "Or is it just that I am pretty? Malfoy is pretty and yet I don't see you staring at him."

"Do you just want me to stroke your vanity? You know that you are by far more handsome than any of them,"

"My vanity is perfectly fine and if anyone is stroking anything, I hope you will allow me the honor. I would worship your body. Follow your soft curves with my fingers. Tease your nipples into peaks." He closed the little distance between them and hovered his lips a hairsbreadth over hers. "I would bring you pleasure of which you have never before experienced."

"Oh God," She murmured.

"I could be that too," Tom muttered before leaning in and tasting her lips.

Hermione huffed a laugh against his lips and he could almost feel her eye roll. He couldn't help the smirk that fought against his desire to remain calm, cool, and collected. But abruptly his humor was forgotten as she ran the tip of her tongue over the seam of his lips, surprising him again. He was used to being the aggressor, the conqueror, the one in control, and with one slight movement, Hermione knocked him senseless.

Stepping closer, he pushed her back against the stone wall, lifting his arm to rest his palm on the cool granite next to her head, never parting their lips. She opened her mouth to his invading tongue, moaning at the silk feel sliding against one another. If she were a fine wine, he would savor her; a rare steak, devour her. A glutton to all that she could offer.

Tom drew another moan out of her, raising his free hand to caress the soft planes of her face, her neck, the sharp divide between her collarbone. The pulse in her neck pounded through her veins, making his fingers jump against her neck on their trek downwards. As fast as her heart pounded, his was even faster. He felt his control slipping.

Breaking the kiss, he pulled back, just enough to search her eyes, admiring the drunk look he found there. A look placed by his kiss alone. Male satisfaction charged through him as they panted in tandem, staring at each other.

She lifted her hand between them, laying her palm on his sweater over his navel, making the muscles under her fingers clench in need. He rose to the occasion, painfully trapped in his trousers. Desperately he needed to feel her soft curves against his erection; the friction and her attention his singular goal. Then her hand traveled down, so slowly that Tom thought he might die of anticipation.

Hermione paused just above his erection and he watched the struggle play out in her eyes, refusing to do more than wait. She needed to make the first move this time and show him that he could make his move too. How badly did she want him? Was she brave enough to slide her hand the last inch to feel his cock?

With what looked like fierce determination, Hermione closed her eyes and pressed her hand around the outline of his erection. Tom groaned loud and uninhibited, throwing his head back in pure, intoxicating pleasure. He felt her lips press against his Adam's apple as she grew more confident in her decision. Sliding her hand from his pulsing cock, her nimble fingers danced at his waistband, unhooking the closures. Pushing his trousers and pants down to his knees in one fell swoop, she took control. Control that she already had.

Only seconds passed before her delicate hand wrapped around his velvet shaft. It was there she stalled, uncertain. Biting his bottom lip, he wrapped his hand around hers and began pumping, teaching her how to touch him.

Her head snapped up and they stared at each other as they stroked. Hermione's breath shuddered and she shifted from one foot to the other, rubbing her thighs together.

Once again he moved into her, pressing her back against the wall, trapping her hand and his erection between them, and ran the fingers of his free hand from her knee, up under her skirt, until he met her soaked knickers. He paused and waited. His patience paid off when she nodded and his fingers moved the cotton to the side, sliding his fingertips the length of her slit back and forth.

"Tom," she moaned, trying to continue stroking him, even as his fingers distracted her. She was so wet, so aroused, and his fingers continued their onslaught, jealously coveting each and every sound she made.

When she looked as if she couldn't take anymore, his fingers pressed against her engorged nub. Her grip on his cock slaked and he grabbed her wrist, drawing it up above her head, pinning it against the wall.

Tom's body was begging for release, for friction, for her sweet, wet center but he held himself in check, determined to wring her first orgasm out first.

His fingers rubbed faster and faster and she cried out to the empty common room, uncaring if they would be caught. It boiled his blood, that sound.

Finally, her body stiffened against his as she shattered and broke, crying out his name for all of the castle to hear. She was so beautiful as she broke for him and his need only grew as he watched her. He felt high, on top of the world.

Hermione tugged her captured wrist out of his dazed hold and wrapped her hand again over him.

"Show me how to please you," She whispered.

"Fuck," he whispered, leaning heavily into the hand propping him against the wall.

Falling to her knees between them, he felt her hot mouth close over the head of his cock, ripping another tortured moan from his throat. Having no other choice, he held himself in stiff control, fighting the impulse to bury his cock in her willing throat.

Every movement that had Hermione's lips sliding the length of him was a lesson in torture. He looked wild, he was sure of it, and knew that he wouldn't last much longer. Not now that Hermione took more and more of him with each stroke.

"If you don't want me to come in your mouth, Love, you need to stop," he gritted out between clenched teeth. Her only answer was to suck him harder and he flexed against his will, hitting the back of her throat. That last did him in and he was gone.

His balls tightened, drawing up, and his spine tingled with a building pressure that put any other encounter to shame. The first burst of his seed coated her mouth, his eyes shut tight as he rode out his climax, moaning as she continued sucking each successive spurt of his release out of him.

She pulled away from him after he was spent, swallowing his seed with a grimace.

Tom pulled her to her feet and crushed her body against his. If he thought he felt possessive before, it was nothing to what he felt now. He would never give her up. No matter what Bathilda Bagshot said.

"I can't believe we just did that here in the common room where anyone could walk in on us," Hermione's horrified gaze swung to his amused one. "We could have been caught!"

Tom shuffled back a step and bent down, pulling his trousers and pants back up. Slowly he did up the placket, a sly smile growing on his lips.

"Tom!" Hermione whisper yelled.

"Did you think I would have put you in a position where just anyone could see your face when you break? I would kill any man who caught even a glimpse of you. You are mine. And like fuck if I will share."

"What are you saying?" she murmured breathlessly as if his possessiveness was turning her on all over again.

"Every dorm is sealed until the Knights release them. Remember, Love, I don't do anything by halves. When I want something, I take it. And I have been more patient than ever before waiting for you to make the first move. I needed to get you alone. Then all I did was give you the opportunity to be brave enough to take what you wanted too. And you want me, just as much as I want you,"

Hermione's face reddened immediately and buried her face in his robes. "Did they hear us?"

"The students in the dorms?"

She nodded against his chest in response.

He snorted before drawing her out of his embrace, capturing her chin with his fingers. Lifting her face to meet his, Tom looked deeply into her eyes, dropping every ounce of humor in favor of sincerity. "Do you think I would do that to you?"

She shook her head as best as she could in his grasp. Tom leaned in and pressed his lips against hers in a sweet imitation of their earlier frenzied kisses.

"Ready for breakfast, Love?" he murmured against her lips. She nodded, lifting on her tiptoes to keep him from straightening and ending their kiss.

He laughed into her mouth and wrapped his arms around her waist, crushing her to him and lifting her slightly off the floor.

"We better get a move on before Slughorn comes down to find out why none of his house made it to breakfast this morning."

Hermione squealed and pushed him away, scrambling as she grabbed her bag from the floor where she must have placed it before he noticed her. He chuckled and tucked his button-down back into his trousers before picking up his own bag and following at a slower self-satisfied pace. Almost as an afterthought, Tom sent a quick message to his Knights, letting them know the counter curse to all the dorm doors that he sealed that morning in an effort to catch Hermione alone. Moments later he sent another spell over his shoulder pointed at the girl's side to undo the one he cast earlier. He had used a special spell of his own creation on the doorway to Hermione's dorm that allowed her and only her to cross.

Less than ten minutes later, his entire house flooded into the Great Hall en masse, not once complaining about being stuck in their dorms. No doubt they knew who was responsible and he was well enough liked to be indulged without question.

Mondays were always sluggish but not today. There was an undercurrent of excitement that roiled among the upperclassmen. Tom supposed it had something to do with the Unspeakable that sat beside Dumbledore at the Professor's table. Rolling his eyes, he reached for the toast.

The wheels inside his brain whirred faster and faster even though his outer appearance put off a nonchalance that could convince anyone that he couldn't care less about the visitor. What was the codgy old bastard up to this time?

Hermione fidgeted next to him, but Tom doubted anyone else noticed. It had always been this way between them. Each of their reactions, even minute ones, were noticed and cataloged by only each other.

"What do you suppose that is about?" Hermione leaned into his side and mumbled.

His lips twitched as he glanced at Dumbledore from under his lashes. The bastard was looking way too smug for Tom's comfort.

"I haven't heard anything about this." Tom turned to her and quirked his lips, the shine of mischief in his gaze. "Want to help me find out?"

Hermione smiled wide and turned on the bench, bringing her knee up between them, sitting nearly crisscrossed. Something about the way she smirked made him raise his brow.

"Espionage, my favorite pastime," she said.

Tom laughed, throwing his head back, enjoying the warmth that seemed to be flowing between them. "Mine too."

"He does seem rather smug this morning though, doesn't he?" Hermione leaned in with a conspiratorial whisper glancing at Dumbledore.

"Indeed."

The owls flew in, causing the entire hall to erupt with the sound of excited students and flapping wings interspersed with the loud screeches of the winged. All around them, owls dropped down next to their classmates delivering packages and tightly furled scrolls.

Tom used the chaos to observe the two men at on the dais, watching them talk in hushed whispers and muted gestures. It was clear that their visitor had not been invited by the Headmaster if said Headmaster's murder glances at the two of them meant what Tom suspected them to mean. Another glaring truth was the almost fearful way the other professors acted as if they had heard stories, and not all of them to do with the wondrous unknown and respect of the Unspeakables.

"Tom," Hermione muttered, poking him in the side and gesturing to the owl patiently waiting at his elbow.

Unburdening the owl, he gave his last bite of toast to the creature, unfurling the scroll it had delivered.

Tom Riddle,

I came upon some intelligence that I thought would be highly interesting to you.

Late last night, the Unspeakable office sent three owls from the bowels of the Department of Mysteries. One went straight to the top floor to the Minister. One went to Archives. The last went to Albus Dumbledore.

Luckily, Briggons from the Archives owes me a favor and shared his 'copy' of the correspondence. I remit the following for your discretion.

Dear Minister,

Among us walks a woman not of our time and the ripples of her presence have been felt even down here in the Department of Mysteries. The sheer danger of allowing her to continue in this time forces us to make the following recommendation:

Time traveler must either a) be sent back to her own time, b) killed, or c)captured for further experimentation.

Of these options, we the Unspeakables, recommend option c. further research will advance the Ministry's goals of sustainable time travel.

Unspeakable Tabbard

The Minister's response was immediate, giving the Unspeakables official permission within an hour of asking. In the unofficial attachment, Hermione Dumbledore was named as the time traveler by the one and only Albus Dumbledore. Curious that her own uncle would give her up, don't you think? After all, family loyalty in our world means everything.

Lord Nott

"That is interesting," Tom muttered passing the note to Hermione. Within moments, Hermione was huffing with indignation, sputtering as her rage grew. Tom met the eyes of each of his Knights, making sure that their attention was all on him. "Tonight. We cannot wait to do damage control. Dumbledore has threatened one of ours and we need to make sure that this coup is advantageous for us. Find out everything you can and be prepared for the meeting tonight."

Each of his Knights nodded before rising, heading for the first class of the morning.

"How dare he!" Hermione fumed under her breath once they were alone.

"You didn't think he would stop after being voted down in the Wizengamot this weekend, did you?" Tom said as he grabbed first his bag then hers,

"No, but I also didn't think he would serve me up for experimentation in the Department of Mysteries either!"

Tom sighed and kissed her temple, closing his eyes as he breathed her in. "I won't let him win. Not now, not ever."

He plucked the scroll from her clenched fingers and slipped it into one of the pockets of his robes and rose, tugging her up with the hand still entwined with hers. "Come, Love, we've got classes to go to and plans to ruin."