Chapter 1
Tom has a little cottage in Cornwall, not far from the seaside. It’s surrounded by trees, and the most powerful protective enchantments. The little cottage, Shell Cottage, was named for all the easily harvested seashells that litter the beach. It’s cozy, quaint, and the sort of homely abode no one would attribute to a rising Dark Lord. Whether it be the drafts of Muggle orphanages, a tiny apartment above Borgin and Burkes or the inns of Albania, such warm domesticity wasn’t thought of as applicable when it came to Tom Riddle.
And he would have had little use for this thatched and snug abode, if it weren’t for the witch that lived there.
Tom has a little cottage in Cornwall, not far from the seaside: one of the greatest heroes of the first Wizarding War lives there. She was once one of the mightiest duellists in recent memory, a burning flame of courage that lead a war at the tender age of 18. Tom has a little cottage in Cornwall, not far from the seaside; and in it he has a great sorcereress without memories. A childlike former soldier, the sweetest taste of paradise he never bothered to dream of. It doesn’t matter that she doesn’t remember; Tom Riddle is her past, present and future.
Her name was Hermione Granger once. Now she was just Hermione; but most of all, she was his.
She was never permitted any bit of tenderness; a Mudblood on the European continent during Grindelwald's revolution could hardly have experienced an easy childhood. That, coupled with her years of service and sacrifice, a child soldier, meant that Hermione was hardened. A veteran of the greatest conflict in modern memory, a decorated war hero; and a sweet, hurt little girl.
But under Tom’s care, within the garden, she positively bloomed. A tender, blushing warmth flowed from her; petal soft and heated. Like the morning sunlight through the kitchen window, shimmering jars of amber honey that sat on the varnished countertop. Honey like the syrup between her thighs, that slick, glistening little girl-cunt that was just for him. Hairless and butter soft like the fruits in their little yard, so succulent and pliant for him. Tom had a soldier with a cunt of summer dew and cherry nipples like red evening skies. Tom had a witch with an empty head, and an empty hole that Tom could fill up with himself.
And Hermione got to be his sweet, nothing of a little girl. Although she was four years his senior, her amnesia and lack of childhood had made the former soldier a winsome companion. Although she was four years his senior, Tom provided her with the paternal comfort and safety she had always been deprived of; he had cosseted an Eden of peach-fuzz and fresh milk for a battle hardened soldier he had coveted since his seventh year at Hogwarts.
"That's Lieutenant Hermione Granger, they say she is one of the best duellists of a generation! The Brightest Witch of an Age! A ruddy-faced Slughorn mused out loud to the congregation of Slytherin boys gathered at his table, brandishing a newspaper clipping with a young woman, uniformed and standing beside Albus Dumbledore. "She's not much older than you lot, what a gem she would have been in my collection!
Tom's lip had curled in disdain as surely as the newspaper clipping curled around that tattered remnants of his fractured soul. Hermione Granger was no gem; but nonetheless, Tom had unknowingly resolved to pluck her from the heights of internationally glory and make her a part of his own collection. Tom didn't know it then, but that night when he has stolen away the photo of lieutenant Hermione Granger, he had become as much a collector as he was collected. He carried that photo in his pocket for over half a decade, scheming and plotting a way to walk into her life and make her his.
He needn't have bothered; Tom saw her by chance at an inn in Albania, and he had never believed in destiny more than he had seeing Hermione Granger seated at a nearby table with a hag and a house-elf.
....
After a long day of wreaking havoc, sowing dissent, and committing unrepentant crimes, Tom always wandered back to his little cottage by the seaside. Tom was vigilant, never directly Apparating to Cornwall; instead, he kept a second residence on retainer as a decoy. Although Tom was confident in his diligence and his duelling prowess, Hermione was still relatively helpless. Once one of the greatest fighters of a generation, now, she was a whisper soft kitten, declawed and entirely his.And how she purred for him. She loved to be his pet, a silk ribbon tied in a bow on her neck, her rosebud arse plugged with a copper tail.
She’d even indulged him on more than one occasion, submitting to transfigured kitten ears as soft and sensitive as her clit. He had her lap fresh milk from a bowl while he fucked her ass; balls deep and a hand fisted in brown curls. Making sure he didn’t miss her pink tongue flicking milk, courtesy of the local Muggle market, onto her pouty face.
She lapped up his cum just as eagerly.
Tom was content with the domesticity of the cottage, and he enjoyed the slice of light he had carved out for his life. Tom had never yearned for hearth or home, but he had every right to possess whatever he desired. And he desired a happy life with Hermione. He also desired power and immortality, but why should he not have it all? Why should he not seize everything he wanted? During the day he treaded in shadow, and by night he walked in the light. Hermione was his light; his bluebell flame, beckoning him like a flickering Will o' Wisp. She was the softness of button down pyjamas and velvet teddy bears, plush lips and puffy nipples. She was warmth and light and a head full of cotton and sugar spun dreams woven by an arachnid with fangs like a serpent.
And she was stuck in Tom’s web like a constellation of hope; and Tom had fallen headlong in love with a tamed leviathan, as precious as a milk-sleepy kitten. Hermione, as lost in girlish limbo and the vast expanse of forgotten memories as she was, had not lost her mind. Had not lost that cool intellect like a steel trap. Instead, it curled and bloom and splintered into something so much more beautiful than Tom could have ever imagined.
Hermione didn’t know a single offensive spell, but could whisper half remembered muggle tunes and sprouts would flourish like the ever growing warmth in his chest. She could smell the wind and paint it in colours, she could call down a falling star and hold it in her hands like a beating wish. She could cradle a dead dove to her breast and with nothing but electric yearning she could throw it, beating organs and wings not unlike fallen stars, and it would fly into clouds as wet and soft as her kiss in tousled sweet grass.
She could hold his ophidian heart in baby soft hands; calluses from a duelling wand worn away by years of Toms affection. If this was love, so be it.
....
Tom loved coming to the cottage at twilight, the pleasure of approaching home and hearth, the satisfaction of rest. The familiarity of the domestic, and the smell of one’s distinct home.
Even snakes had dens.
The gentle closing of the front door, and aromas of fresh linens and lived in cooked foods. The particles of familiarity that were as unnameable as they were untenable. He crept of the mahogany stairs, the slight creaking a quirk he refused to eliminate, as this earthy domicile had no need for clinical perfection that permeated all other spheres of his life.
This place was a garden for Tom to tend. As he learned the satisfaction of caretaking through his guardianship, so too did Tom learn an appreciation for wildness. His exacting demands could make space for the untamed. An element of the unknown, of the forbidden and chaotic had always fascinated him. And just as he groomed the wild tresses on Hermione with rosemary oils and velvet ribbons, Tom allowed her to make parts of him as wild as his dreams in Wools. As wild as her riding on the back of a dragon during the war, or his cock in their bed. As wild as happening upon the very object of his dreams, more precious than any diadem, in a run down Albanian inn. As wild as every meticulous plan falling wayside with the banality of a drunken witch slipping on ice outside of the inn, and a head injury that was more efficient than any Obliviate.
Maybe it was luck, or magic, or destiny... All he knew was that Hermione was meant to be his; she just had to forget who she was.
....
Tom would sweep into their room, finding his little darling cuddled under the sheets. He relished her open and easy breathing, the innocence of blissful ignorance. And oh, was Tom’s little cottage by the seaside a bubble of blissful ignorance, and Hermione was his beautiful little fool.
And he was a fool. He was a fool because he clipped her wings and he loved her for her wildness and her violence as this sugar spun little nothing of a girl. One who held him in her palm like the pretty cage he had trapped her in. Tom would undress, and slide into cushy sheets and heavy duvets. He would smell her curls and natural oils embedded in the pillows. The perfume of rosemary and lavender and the appeal of the natural body. She always wore soft pyjamas: button downs with snowflakes and teddy bears rather than abrasive lace or slippery silk.
He would cuddle close to her, and his sleepy ignorant girl would be pliant as he pulled down her pyjama pants only enough to slip his cock in. Tom loved fucking Hermione in her sleep. She was so helpless, so relaxed, and very sweet. Tom was free to enjoy himself at his leisure, and despite the fact that Hermione had never once refused him, he still enjoyed it.
She never said no. No even once. She always obliged Tom, and he had made sure to fuck her plenty when he knew she was only submitting because she couldn’t even fathom refusing him her body. Tom’s affection and devotion was not without cost. Hermione was free to refuse him almost anything, but her body was not one of them. And if felt good, fucking her whenever and however he pleased. It felt good to wield power, even over her, even in this sunset oasis of light he had allowed himself. Even at the cottage by the sea.
And so Tom would enjoy exploring his cunt, because it was his, and it hadn’t been Hermione’s since the day he kissed her under the peach tree. Since that night outside the inn, since he was barely a man with a fist clenching a stolen newspaper clipping. That cunt was his; like her heart was, like her memories were. And what did it say about their relationship that Tom was the one that held her memories as surely as the weight of her heavy breast in his greedy palm. As he fucked Hermione in her soft pyjamas, edging himself with her sleepy cunt like his own toy.
He always liked to see how long to keep her in the edges of dream, as surely as his bollocks were on the edge of release. And her sleepy mumbling and confused clenching were so delightful that he couldn’t help but kiss his contentment in her head and temple.
“Shh, stay sleepy sweetie. Let daddy use you” he would whisper, as softly as the thumb toying with a nipple, the down frailty of her top rubbing his knuckles.
And Tom would fuck at his leisure, soft kisses and then cummy thighs that he would cover with her bottoms before spooning her to sleep. That night, as Hermione fully returned to dozing, Tom drifted into slumber already with a dream on his mind; a milk sweet and swollen Hermione, the weight of his love a heavy anchor in her womb. His heir growing under her fluttering heart like the tentative hope of early morning sunrise through their kitchen window, varnished honey and peach fuzz.
Tom has a little cottage in Cornwall, by the sea, and it has space for a second bedroom: a space for all three.