Breaking Hermione

The One

Hermione

In my new darkness I was senseless, chasing fantasies of life. The days seemed to bleed like the thoughts in my head, orbiting around me like a universe destined to forfeit itself. Around my neck, the snow diamond was a steadfast necklace pulsating reassuringly with its own tiny beat, hidden within my cloak beside my real and now cold heart. I had lost all my friends, and those who had been watching me closely from Tom's group of loyal followers seemed delighted to see the light had left my eyes. Despite this I was determined to surpass them in status, and soon I would. I knew I could. With ease. Tuning into my academic drive and falling out of the world was only becoming commonplace. Tom and I had become in a class of our own, unlike anyone else at our level. Now that we were deeply engaged at a frequency of comprehension beyond most, we spent our time quietly revising in the restricted section of the library, sifting through the contents of old books and strategising power manouvres in the dark. Tom told me he would often come to the restricted section to find books that would feel colder to the touch. He said that the power of each one could be physically felt once you had advanced your powers enough.

"Forbidden knowledge." Tom turned to face me with a derisive glance at the rows of books before us. In the faint illumination of his wand his eyes shone obsidian. We had accumulated a wealth of knowledge already, the ancient volumes stacked nearby on a table selected with careful consideration. "The advanced levels of the Dark Arts have their own ways to thresh the weak, to keep their secrets hidden to only the eye of one who has the key to enlightenment. We know by now personal development cannot be gatekept, a pursuit exclusive to those ambitious enough to seek glory." He reached out a pale hand, trailing it along the books with his eyes closed. I lost myself for a moment in his beauty until I heard a noise. Movement. Light. I saw the lamp before I saw her, and froze in my place as if immobilised.
"I'll handle this." Tom slipped past me, his hands lingering for a moment on my waist. I froze inwardly, knees trembling, suddenly unable to breathe at the contact. Hell. Surely I had been more intimate with him than that, yet now I was highly strung, overly responsive.
What was happening to me? I attempted to gather what was left of my sanity as
the strict and overprotective school librarian Madam Pince approached us. Tom took an old, weathered book from the shelf seemingly at random, placing it carefully under his arm.

"Good evening, Madam Pince." Of course. Tom had defaulted back to the suave and self assured Slytherin Prefect, most favoured to become Head Boy. We all knew it was well past evening, yet all three of us were far too entrenched in the knowledge around us to psychoanalyse the formalities. Tom was arrogant to the third degree, welding his charm like practical magic both controlled and without needing to exert much effort.

"I've noticed you've been coming here a lot lately, Tom." Madam Pince held up her lamp higher to try to see him clearer, yet its' light only reached my height. "And not only you either. Your pretty companion, too." I locked eyes with her for a moment before looking down. Pretty companion. I wasn't ashamed to be in the Restricted Section, I was ashamed to be nothing more than a hollowed vessel painted sweet and demure. At least here in the darkness I had the illusion of concealment of myself from... Myself. I looked up as Tom brandished our permission slip he had coerced Professor Merrythought to write last week, watching Madam Pince's expression growing all the more bewildered from the shadows as she read aloud.

"Permission granting both Mr Riddle and Miss Granger unlimited access to the Hogwarts School Library including teacher approved rights to loaning books from all sections including Restricted, all hours of the day and night." She seemed to ponder this for a moment. "All hours of the day and night." She repeated. The leniency was overly done, yet Tom never missed with the Imperious Curse, a retailiation against Professor Merrythought for using me as an exemplar before our class the other day.