Breaking Hermione

The Devil You Know

I have seen your heart, and it is mine.

-Tom Riddle
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

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HERMIONE

What?" It took all of my self control not to go tearing out of the room screaming at the top of my lungs. "I can't just kill someone! What the hell?!"

"Spare me with the dramatics. You're not even thinking." Tom said over me with a snarl. "You could kill someone, however you've been conditioned like every other damn person in this world to reject the notion."

He looked at me, his dark eyes sharp and searching mine desperate to find some dark emotion he could exploit. I stared back in horror. It was hard to believe the two of us were still at Slughorn's stupid dinner party, the atmosphere felt like I was having a conversation with a Dementor in my own Azkaban cell.

"Have you ever considered why society might have shunned the idea of killing?" I asked delicately. Tom's face was impassive and I felt about as useful as a psychologist probing an dead soul.

"Has it ever for a moment crossed your mind why murdering innocent people isn't an ideal-"

"Actually, I've paid it a lot of thought." Tom cut across me. "And do you know what I've come to realise, Hermione? That the world, like yourself, is afraid. You don't want to kill because you fear the consequences. You fear having blood on your hands."

He leant back until he was partially concealed in shadow, smirking as if this entire conversation about murder was all a joke to him.

"Not all of us have the desire for the mundane lifestyle you have. It's cowardly." His eyes were intense. "You live easily, and no great profit ever came from a path like that."

"If you consider committing evil acts as a lifestyle path then I feel sorry for you." I snapped.

Tom's eyes glinted black. "Evil acts..." He mocked me on a cold laugh. "You should hear yourself. I suggest you drop the childish muggle storybook talk and grow up. And while you're at it is yourself you need to feel sorry for, certainly not me."

"I pity people like you. Brilliant, but caught in the pitfalls of simple and easy." His voice was rough hinting a darkness lurking beneath his exterior that was too cold for comfort.

"I have power, money and influence. You have what? A pile of passed exams? If that is what you call success Granger then I am... shocked."

My jaw basically fell to the ground.

"Hold on. You... pity me?" I said with an incredulous laugh. Tom Riddle, the only wizard in the world stupid enough to sell his entire soul to the darkness pitied me? "Wow."

"You're going to find out sooner or later it isn't enough to be a brilliant student." He looked up at me through his lashes, his head resting on his hand in a contemplative gesture. "Years down the track you're going to be old. Decomposing in your own skin. You're going to wish in that moment you left something better for yourself than all the reapings of that ongoing damsel in distress routine of yours."

"I'm not some damsel in distress!" I exclaimed. "And also I don't wish for the things you want. A life of negativity to me is a life wasted. You're wasting away. And your ideas on killing? Well. You're wrong. Deeply wrong. You speak of it like it's a key to untapped potential when it's not-"

"Wrong again, Hermione." Tom's voice was hard. "It is. In fact, so many branches of the dark arts are only accessible by committing lowly deeds."