A subject for a great poet would be God's boredom after the seventh day of creation.

- Friedrich Nietzsche

Boredom is never quite boring. It is a state of waiting for something better to arrive. There is something delicious in putting your instincts to sleep so that you may awaken them later.

Some say Tom Riddle became a Ministry official because was too brilliant to pass up the chance, but the truth had more to do with boredom. Working in the hub of bureaucracy offered him so many avenues for biding him time, for waiting in the shadows. A spider never runs to his next meal, he glides.

He licks his finger now as he turns the page of the report in front of him. It is a most entertaining read, despite the formal language and wooden turns of phrase. In fact, he has never read a more outlandish tale in the whole of his uneventful career.

He flicks his wand and stamps the top page. Yes, he will listen to this one.

Petition no. 205 – Ms. Hermione Granger, Muggleborn, Age: 16

Misdemeanor: Underage Magic with Attenuating Circumstances

Verdict: To Be Decided

Petitioner must report to the Improper Use of Magic Office for an Interview.

Riddle looks up from the parchment. She must be waiting outside, crammed in with the rest of the unremarkable souls who have to languish in these hallowed halls. But she is not unremarkable, if this file is to be believed.

He presses the buzzer on his desk. "Send in petitioner number 205."

There is commotion beyond his door. Vociferations, the scraping of chairs. Finally, there is a modest knock.

"Enter."

His initial reaction is disappointment. His lips twist in annoyance. The girl before him is a scrawny, nervous animal, all knobby knees and sharp elbows. Her frizzy hair is trying to escape the confines of a clumsy braid. She is wearing a prim blazer and long skirt, punctuated by heelless, sensible shoes. Fingers stained with ink. She has an eager, rabbity expression. No doubt, she seeks approval.

Is this the same girl who "accidentally" imprisoned the hack journalist Rita Skeeter in a jar?

It does not seem conceivable.

"Have a seat, Ms. Granger," he instructs tonelessly. He should have known a Muggleborn would never be truly interesting.

The girl sits down, ankles crossed neatly. She holds her hands folded in her lap.

"Start from the beginning, leave nothing out. I will know if you're –" He is about to say lying. But he doesn't get a chance.

Granger's hand shoots up. Before he gives her permission to speak, she says in a voice that is soft but unhesitant, "First off, it should be remarked, Sir, that this is not really a case of Underage Magic Use."

Riddle lets the quill sag between his fingers. "Pardon?"

"The underlying assumption has been that I performed illegal magic to entrap Rita Skeeter, but the illegality was committed by her," she continues more confidently. She sounds like a pedantic student correcting her less informed teacher.

Her expression is less rabbity and more vulpine, now that he looks at her better.

Riddle feels a stab of irritation, but it is not altogether unpleasant.

"Do tell," he nods coolly. He does not say anything else. He has often found that people like to fill up the gaps in conversation.

"Well." She twirls the tip of her braid nervously between her fingers. More frizzy locks escape the knot. "Skeeter is an unregistered Animagus, a fact which must have escaped the Ministry. I did not transfigure her into a beetle. My only action was to catch her with a jar. A jar, as you well know, is not a magical object by default."

Her knees bob slightly as she speaks. Her fingers card her braid obsessively. She wets her lips once, twice. Riddle is riveted by the telling reactions of her body. Her patronizing tone has a girlish shadow; she is telling the truth, but she is also hiding something.

A scrawny, audacious thing. He feels himself grow taut.

He makes a note in the file about Skeeter's unregistered Animagus state.

Granger watches him write intently. She follows the quill's tip, alert to every generous loop and lingering curlicue. She is trying to make out his ciphered letters.

Her eyes, he notes, are furtive and impatient, like two glittering beetles. The metaphor is ironically apt given the circumstances.

"I suppose I don't have to mention that a simple Reverse Spell will show that my wand has not performed the transfiguration," she adds eagerly.

Oh, she is clever. She knows a Reverse Spell does not always distinguish between several instances of the same charm. She must have also read the new Ministry regulations where it is stipulated that, should Reverse Spells be cast on the wand of the transgressor, said transgressor may appeal to the Wizengamot and sue for faulty proceedings.

She came prepared. Very few people come prepared for anything.

He finishes writing but he keeps his eyes on the report, tapping the feather end of the quill against the parchment. A few moments pass in excruciating purgatory. Time feels at a standstill. Boredom purified. Boredom finally reaching its much desired apex.

"Well, do you believe me?" she finally bursts out, a frayed, imperious edge to her voice. "Can you verify my claim?"

He notes that her front teeth are long and sharp and predacious as they stab her lower lip, but he does not grace her with his attention. He rests his elbows against his desk, laces his fingers together and brings them to his mouth, affecting a posture of deep thought.

Granger shifts in her chair, the folds of her skirt coming stuck between her thighs. She must be warm underneath, warm and a little damp with sweat.

She checks the gleaming name tag on his desk. "Mr – Mr. Riddle? May I be so bold to ask what you're deliberating?"

Her elaborate politeness rings false. He should know, he has affected the same obsequiousness in the past. In fact, she is of his breed. Less calculated perhaps, but just as determined to get her way.

The difference between them is that he can wait.

He draws his chair back and pulls a left-side drawer out. He rummages through it until he finds the documents he requires. He makes a show of thumbing them thoroughly.

Granger leans forward, her fingers scraping the edge of his desk.

"Please, Sir. I believe other petitioners are waiting. My case is fairly simple, you'll agree."

Riddle suppresses a smile. She is insulting him under the guise of assistance. Such tactics are like water off a duck's back.

He scolds himself for not seeing through her the moment she walked in. Her plainness, like his handsomeness, hides the auspices of a different world. Inside them is a teeming, swarming army, the dictator's army. They are autocrats. They wish to superimpose their world over the one they have to negotiate daily.

He slaps the papers in front of her, making sure she sees the bold lettering.

"But…" Granger trails off dryly, eyes widening. The forms required for her sentencing and expulsion from Hogwarts. "But I have committed no actual crime."

Riddle's lips quiver. He allows himself a smile.

"Are you quite sure, Ms. Granger?"

"Extremely," she says, voice shaking with righteousness. Her expression has not darkened and yet the lights have gone out of her face.

"No, perhaps you do not consider it a crime. Privately, I would be inclined to agree with you, but the Ministry will not share our view."

Granger frowns. "Our view?"

"On the matter," Riddle continues calmly. "You and I may care little if a bothersome woman goes insane trapped in a small receptacle, but…others care deeply for the sanctity of life."

Granger opens and closes her mouth. She tries for shock, but fails. She works her lips in silence.

Finally, she expels a breath. "Of course I care about – about the sanctity of life."

Tom's smile becomes sinusoidal. "Then why did you hex the jar?"

There it is. There it is. Her eyes flash with diamonds. Her nostrils flare. He's caught her. She thought she was clever. She thought no one would be able to tell.

"I –"

"An Animagus could break an ordinary jar. An Animagus can also break a jar which has been magically locked. But they can't put their mind to it when they are in constant pain."

He tells her these facts with relish, like spreading marmalade on toast and biting into the crisp middle.

"You made sure she could not even attempt to escape. A good word for it is torture, isn't it?"

Granger shakes her head repeatedly, the loose braid dangling over her shoulder like a hanging rope.

"N-no, that's not – I merely wanted to make sure she did not harm anyone."

Riddle picks up his wand, caressing its irregularities.

"The road to hell is paved with good intentions. That's a Muggle saying, isn't it?"

Her spine straightens, making her stand taller. Her fingers are clenched into the folds of her skirt. "It does not apply here, Sir."

Riddle is growing tired of these dissimulations. It is not every day that he finds a symphonious being who sings in the same choir.

He must have her, and quick. After all, she is right. There are other petitioners.

"Tell me, Ms. Granger, do you want to pursue your studies further?"

"Of course I do." She tries to control her despair.

"You are vying for the position of Head Girl next year, aren't you?"

Her jaw clicks under the skin. A second mouth, buried underneath. "Yes."

"It would be a shame if you were not there to fill it," he says, tapping the forms of expulsion with his fingers.

"It – it would."

Tom leans back in his chair with a lazy smile. He touches the knot at his tie, but he doesn't loosen it. No, he tightens it.

"Well then. What shall we do about it?"

He does not insult her by asking What are you willing to do for it? He knows she is capable. What he wants to underline is that he will not abandon her to the task. No, they are doing this together.

"What – what do you propose, Sir?"

Tom flicks his wand imperceptibly in the direction of the door. She can hear the locks turning, fastening.

"Start from the beginning," he says, in a mockery of his initial remarks. "Leave nothing out."

She is not exactly obedient. Fastidious maybe. Curious most certainly.

She unravels the braid with a subconscious sense of relief. She has never done well with her hair tamed. The curls fly out of their enclosure like Medusa's snakes, hissing venom. He is arrested by her lioness mane, the way it frames her face, the way it denies her girlishness. It is hair with intent, hair with a separate mind. What an alteration it produces.

They both seem to give up a breath they had been holding.

"Put your elbows on the desk."

He walks around the desk, letting her observe his sleek form, letting her admire the intelligent muscles underneath the suit. She might not entirely agree with this arrangement, but she can at least appreciate what she is being given.

Tom Riddle knows his powers. When he stands behind her and places a soft hand on the base of her spine, she can't help the shudder that rakes over her.

"Lower, if you will."

He presses her down on the desk until her pert little ass sticks out from her clerical skirt.

"I want you to look over your shoulder. Can you manage that?"

The girl is wrestling with her own hair, but she makes the effort to stare at him. She is trying to glare, but she is too nervous, too expectant. Her eyes are glittering beetles.

He fingers the folds of her skirt, pulling them up and letting them fall against her thigh. He does not touch her flesh. He bunches the fabric between his fingers and drags it up, up, up, until he can almost see her white knickers, and then lets it glide back down, scratching her puckered skin. The exchange of heat and cold makes her vibrate. He can see her fingers are clawed into his desk. He repeats the motion three times.

Granger inhales sharply, rubs her thighs together. He steps forward so that his trousered leg brushes up against her calf. The contact makes her push back imperceptibly, rubbing herself against the tweed.

He continues this little game until her staccato breath is the only sound in the room.

"I know what you're thinking," he says after a while, pressing his thumb against the zipper of her skirt. "Is he ever going to touch me?"

"I don't – don't want you to touch me," she says, her voice slightly hoarse from his ministrations.

"Oh, but I don't have to. I can make you come just by taking a seamstress' measurements. Hips, waist, circumference…"

He can see her predacious teeth stabbing her lower lip repeatedly. He imagines what he could do to those canines, what she could do to him.

"Would I also be remiss in guessing you are a virgin?"

She blushes and nods, head bowed further into the desk. But the lioness watches him through the forest of her hair.

"I don't suppose you have a strapping boy in mind to get you past this inconvenience. Your classmates must be…quite unable to handle you."

He can feel her body trembling with rage, fighting against the truth of his assertion.

He smiles. "If this is too hard for you, I can just tell them what you did. You might be able to enroll into Beauxbatons in a few years."

The girl shakes her head. "No."

"No, what?"

"I don't want you to do that."

"Then what do you want me to do?"

She grits her teeth. "I want you to get me past this inconvenience. Sir."

He smiles. "There's a clever girl."

He cups her ass through the skirt, kneading the fabric with the flesh. He feels her buck against the desk. He unzips her. The clerical skirt becomes a rag on the floor. Next he drags her underwear down slowly, but not all the way down, lets them hang despondently from her knees. He spreads her legs and rolls up her blazer. He places an almost fatherly hand over her bare belly, as if checking for an ache. He feels the tension coiling underneath, loves the way she gasps when he spreads his fingers and brushes against her pubic hair.

"Did you sleep with the jar next to your bed every night?" he asks conversationally, fingers sinking into her pubic hair, lower, hooking against the tip of her clit, dragging her forward against his crotch. She seizes up momentarily, has no answer for him.

"Did you touch yourself as you watched her knock her limp, insect body against the glass?"

She moans - tries to suppress it - moans again as he flicks her clit, as his finger dips between her folds and returns to the nub, a backwards motion which multiplies, an echo which burns into her skin.

Her senses are diluted as he applies two fingers to the task. She does not even notice when he unzips himself.

"What did I tell you about keeping your eyes on me?" he scolds her softly, slapping her bare ass with his other hand. The small assault jolts her, makes his fingers sink in deeper.

She struggles to comply. She's finally accomplished what she wanted before. She is glaring now, but it is a glare of lust. The autocrat demanding her rights. Very well.

His hardness rubs against her thigh, along with the tweed of his trousers. He molds his length to her, makes her feel him against her cunt, slides himself between the folds but does not penetrate.

Her hands shake uncontrollably against his desk. She knocks his name tag off.

"I know what you've been told, Ms. Granger. The first time stings, the first time hurts. The first time stretches you inside out. It is torture. It can be. But sometimes, a jar is just a jar. It doesn't have to be a device for pain."

A lesser mind would not have understood, but she does. Of course she does.

Part of her relaxes under his grip. Another part steels herself.

"What do you say, Ms. Granger? Hermione?"

She nods her head, swallowing hard. "A jar is just a jar."

He eases himself in her, like a diver testing the morning waters. When he plunges, she is ready to envelop him. She doesn't scream. There are other petitioners outside and they forgot to secure the room for noise.

Luckily, she knows a few handy charms to clean up her skirt, but even so it looks a frightening mess.

Since it was abandoned on the floor between their feet, it was the unfortunate recipient of their repeated climax. Her sweet, riverine cum, running down the back of her knees as she buried her fist in her mouth. His sperm, leaking heavily into her sensible shoes, spilling over. His mouth was against her ear when they both came a second time. He inhaled the scent of her damp hair. Hermione tried to crane her neck and witness the abandon on his face. But it was hard to fight the waves of pleasure.

Fuck me, Sir, she kept thinking, because that's what the women in her mother's cheap erotica often clamored. She never understood what they meant, and she was not sure now, but she knew that what she wanted was not just the fucking, but the fucking to completion. Perhaps that's what the novels should say. Fuck me till I'm empty, till I'm a husk, till I'm no more.

Tom Riddle was thankfully skilled in Legilimency, otherwise he might never have guessed the bend of her mind.

He drank in her thoughts, a deep groan wrenched from his throat.

He increased his pace, gripped her thighs and buried himself in her to the hilt, until he felt trapped, until there was nowhere else to go. A jar is just a jar.

She tries another scouring charm.

Riddle tightens the knot in his tie. He smiles. He'd like to see her walk out of here without a skirt.

"I am glad this was all a misunderstanding, after all. But I advise caution," he says in the cadence of a Minister official. "You wouldn't want to come down here for a second interview, would you?"

The skirt is sticky against her thighs. Her shoes squelch with muck. She combs her wild hair to the side and starts pleating it.

"No…I would not."

Her voice is thick with subtext. Inside her, many things swarm.

Riddle picks up his name tag and places it carefully on the desk. A spider never runs for his meal, but he could make an exception for her. He wants to have her again, as many times as her body and spirit can withstand it. He wants to cover her mouth and hair with him. He wants to be covered by her mouth and hair.

But she must be the one to transgress, or will he have to force her hand?

Hermione Granger smiles. It does not reach her eyes.

"Thank you, Sir. Shall I send in the next petitioner?"

Tom Riddle leans against his desk, regarding her. He returns her parting shot. "Please do."

Yes, she will return to him. He will make sure of that.

A/N: written for Tomione Smut Fest 2018, prompt: Blackmail. Hope you enjoyed it!