Förgätmigej

Hermione drinks, thirsty.

In her journey entering a state of sober thinking, her throat pulses as she greedily swallows the blood. It’s warm and spilling into her mouth, filling every loving crevice, the narrow caverns between her teeth, the soft underbelly of her tongue, the fleshy skin of her gums.

She’s trembling violently, not from exhaustion, but from relief. 

The pain was over. She had fed.

Energy surges back into her body, setting her bones on fire. She can feel her heartbeat in her teeth, echoing into her canines. Feeling like she’d burst with one more lick of blood, Hermione takes a small, conclusive gulp.

Finally, she detaches, slumping against the wall behind her. There was comfort in knowing she wasn’t falling, but had something supporting her. She thinks she can feel sweat on the back of her neck. Dark brown curls stick to her forehead.

“Lumos,” a low voice rumbles.

Light flashes. She squints. 

Fatigue still lingers in her limbs, so she cannot muster the strength to raise a hand to block the light. Her eyelids squeeze tightly, but rays of white still burn into her corneas. She is damned, because curiosity and confusion overtakes her, forcing her eyes to peel open and desensitize to the light. Blinking rapidly, she slowly recovers, adjusting to the brightness.

Ghostly white rays glow from the tip of a wand, shadows cast on a gaunt, hauntingly handsome face.

Riddle.

His expression is terrifyingly still.

Eyes now wide, Hermione’s mouth parts. Blood dribbles down her lip and her tongue instinctively darts out to catch it. His eyes follow the movement dutifully.

The relief that had filled her at the sight of a familiar face was soon washed away with cold shock. 

Tom Riddle’s shirt haphazardly hung from his shoulders, barely covering the expanse of his chest. Red stains the collar of his dress shirt, and two plum purple holes are developing on his neck.

She bit Tom Riddle.

Her body freezes over in terror.

But Riddle looks calm but agitated, as if impatiently waiting for Hermione to react.

He was supposed to be afraid, shocked, violated—mortified.

Blackness consumes the rest of Hermione’s surroundings, Riddle’s wand being the only source of light. She’s not given a clue to where she is. Her throat feels as though it might close on itself.

“Granger,” he says tonelessly.

He had said her name so casually, so conversationally that Hermione’s brain lurches into action. It’s torn from its sluggish pace of thinking and thrust into a fast, shock-stricken rush of thoughts, aided by Riddle’s blood flowing throughout her, rejuvenating her.

Darting rapidly, her eyes fling from side to side, overwhelmed by her new environment yet not stimulated at all. The darkness of her surroundings made her depend on the light produced by Riddle.

He must be able to hear her thundering heartbeat. The thought alone sends her heart galloping even faster.

Hermione had bit him and yet he looked unnerved. Her skin breaks into gooseflesh.

She had bit him.

The sight of her mark on him is so foreign that she can't believe it.

As the blood she ingested continues to reinvigorate her, the cogs in her brain turn furiously. Her senses are alight. She’s recovering. She wasn’t dead, she had some power—strength, and most of all, a working and functional brain. But Riddle was staring at her like one would at magical pixies, as if expecting it to say something queer.

He already knew. He knew for some time, and she felt very dumb because she hadn't trusted her intuition. The purposeful violations of dress code, the watchful eyes, the newspaper he had read, the chance encounter between Riddle and Myrtle. This was her confirmation that all this time, she had been right. That soothed her only slightly.

Her identity was plain and clear, laid in front of Riddle like a platter of food; denying it would do nothing. 

“You’re a vampire, now.” Her voice comes out strangely normal.

At her words, Riddle’s stone face breaks with amusement. He must have caught her lie. And the true Riddle that Hermione had only seen slivers of before, revealed itself in his unrestrained mirth. It was as though someone had cut Riddle into two halves and stitched them back together, so that he was still the same person, but something was entirely different.

“I don’t think so,” Riddle says smoothly. “Your bite won’t transform me.”

The silence that follows is terrible.

Riddle knows more than she had thought. Riddle knew a lot more than she did. He willingly had her bite him and was trapped with her in an unknown location where she could not call for help. There is doubt that they were ‘trapped,’ Hermione thinks Riddle is quite familiar with this place.

“If your bite could turn a human, then all your victims would be vampires and would slowly infect the school.” Riddle pauses, as if piecing together another bit of information and adds, “and I rather think Myrtle was not a vampire.”

The name sounds foul on Riddle’s tongue. Her ears could not take it. She felt herself become very sick.

Myrtle.

Riddle knew about Myrtle.

“Or.” Hermione swallows thickly. “My bite will kill you, just as it did to Myrtle.” Her voice gets louder, tremulous with anxiety. Her lie was so brazen but her voice quivers. She doesn't register how ridiculous she had sounded.

Riddle looks composed, his expression utterly nonchalant. 

“That can’t be true. Because I killed Myrtle.”

Nothing.

“Hermione, I killed Myrtle.”

Riddle’s eyes are empty and black.

“Don’t lie to me, Hermione,” he whispers with a greedy smile. "I know your bite didn't kill Myrtle."

The Tom Riddle that Hermione has seen is gone. The charming smile, practiced manners, and repetitive tone all melt away. She witnesses him flourish with a chilling air of restrained hostility. 

“No,” she chokes.

Somehow, she did not doubt that Riddle had killed Myrtle. 

She felt sick, but not at the revelation that her friend had been murdered, but that Hermione had made a lethal mistake—which she realized wasn't a mistake, biting Riddle. She was barely lucid. He had made her bite him. She was coerced, barely conscious. She hadn’t chosen to bite him. This was his choice. Hermione did not make mistakes, and that was an axiom. 

Riddle had let her bite him—

“I had to weaken you,” Riddle’s voice is quiet. “I had to kill Myrtle.” He says this with sureness, almost growing violently excited. “Without her, you would grow weak. And I needed you weak because I don’t know what you are capable of. What vampires are capable of. Though you pose no threat against me."

“How arrogant,” she says through gritted teeth. Her muscles tense. Hermione’s body ignites, returning to life. She can feel herself slowly regain strength.

“Killing Myrtle would kill you, unless you bit someone else, which… you did.” Riddle’s lips twist into a satisfied, sick smile. “You bit me.”

“I was forced to—”

“How?” Riddle interjects, silencing Hermione. “How could I , a human, have forced you, a vampire.” 

Crouching before her, his gaze is unescapable.

“Do you think anyone will believe you?” He asks quietly, tenderly, uncharacteristically so.

Hermione shudders.

Riddle is right. 

He sees the realization in her, because his eyes flash with victory. Propped against the wall, water seeps into her uniform. Sweat and mist coats her back in a sticky layer.

Riddle raises his other hand into the light, revealing Hermione’s wand and letter in his grasp.

Her eyes widen and before she knows it, she lunges forward, hands outstretched.

He pulls back, easily avoiding her advance. His lips twitch with frustration.

Realizing the letter could never return to her hands, Hermione grounds her teeth, settling back against the wall.

“Riddle,” she demands. It’s of no use. Riddle has the upper hand.

His expression sours, something she had never seen the Head Boy allow himself to do. Privacy was a revealing instrument.

“Is that how you treat your savior?” He tuts, eyes narrowed. “I found you sprawled on the hallway floor, convulsing and trembling. You barely had the strength to breathe.”

She should have died. Rather than this.

Water drips, the sound fluttering in the vast chamber. Pipes squeak. A plumbing system. She recalls the wet air of the girls' lavatory. Her hands itch for her wand, and she glances at his hands greedily.

Riddle follows her eyes, noticing that she was intently staring at her possessions in his grasp.

“What’s this?” He raises his brows. The envelope tears open with a nonverbal spell and Riddle slips out the folded letter. 

At the sight of the creamy white paper, Hermione scrambles, sitting on her knees and leaping forward.

She’s still weak, just resurfacing from unconsciousness, so Riddle easily dodges her, leaning back sharply. She falls back against the wall. Clenching her hands into fists, she surrenders.

Riddle watches her for moments longer, keeping her under painful silence, dragging out the time as he wished, as if to demonstrate his will. Once he surmises that she would no longer try to repossess her letter, he slowly drags his gaze to the envelope, darting back to Hermione intermittently. The letter unfolds with nonverbal magic, swaying in the air as Riddle scans the contents.

“Dear Professor Dumbledore,” he reads. 

Hermione sweats.

“I regret to inform you that Myrtle Warren’s death has greatly affected my state of mind.” Riddle stops, eyeing Hermione above the paper. She averts his gaze. Magic suspends the letter in the air as Riddle cocks his head to the side curiously. “Well, I suppose that isn’t a complete lie.” His eyes seem to cloud, recalling Hermione’s limp body in the corridors.

Riddle returns to her letter, eyes jumping side to side.

Hermione bites her inner cheek, drawing blood. Her entire body is recoiling with irritation, feeling entitled to privacy over her own letters, which Riddle was blatantly breaching.

Seemingly, he finds another interesting bit, because he feigns disappointment with a theatrical shake of his head.

“I have met with the reporter, Miss Skeeter, and completed the interview. Rest assured, that I have done what you have asked of me and defended the school’s honor.” Riddle hums. “I’m glad to know that you have no loyalty to your kind.”

“As if muggleborns are a different ‘kind’ than purebloods,” Hermione retorts. 

Riddle tips his head in curiosity, beckoning her to continue speaking. “Within wizardkind, muggleborns and purebloods are the same?”

“Are we?” Hermione snaps back challengingly.

Aggravated by Hermione's defensiveness, he ignores her, returning his attention to the letters once again. His brows were tense with the compulsion to resist furrowing them. Riddle refused to show his annoyance.

Hermione's tongue felt ticklish, as if wanting to say something. She didn’t want to be forced into silence, into following Riddle’s direction of conversation. Oriented to his liking, the flow of their interaction was curated to avoid things that discomforted him.

“Please understand,” Riddle reads aloud, “that my leave of absence is imperative to my mental and physical health, as I will properly mourn the death of my closest friend in the peace of my muggle home.”

He pauses.

“I’m disappointed, Hermione. I never pegged you as a liar.” His eyes gleam playfully.

Her dry throat chokes on saliva.

“Your closest friend?” He echoes with an air of wonder, glancing back at her letter in disbelief. “Mourning? Between the two of us—” He says this like they are an ‘us.’ A detestable word. She wants to snap that there is not an ‘us,’ not with Hermione. “—we know that you’re not mourning Myrtle’s death, I hardly think you cared about her.”

There Riddle goes, saying another plural personal pronoun. ‘ We.’

“You don’t plan on recuperating. You’re running,” he says sharply.

Hermione swallows painfully.

“As the Head Boy, I cannot allow one of my students to commit such an audacious act of perjury. I cannot allow you to lie .” He frowns.

The letter bursts into flames, the sudden combustion searing Hermione’s vision. In seconds, it extinguishes, as the ashes sink to the floor. She watches helplessly. She wants to cry, to collect the fine dust and magic it back into its original form.

“I’m afraid you will not be leaving Hogwarts,” he says gravely, furrowing his brows. Catching the ugly grimace on Hermione’s face, he adds, “unless you want me to share your secret.”

Her mouth parts, about to spew a threat of her own, when Riddle recognizes it. 

“No one’s going to believe you,” he remarks casually. “You have no evidence that I killed Myrtle.”

Eyebrows furrowed, Hermione starts to ruminate. It was strange. Because Riddle had never crossed paths with Myrtle before this year. Curiosity tugs at her, pushing away the shock she had originally felt at his confession.

“How did you know that I bit Myrtle?” Hermione demands.

He seems hesitant to answer, expression shifting ambiguously as he actively fought the urge to display his contemplation. Contemplation in whether to shroud the truth or not. Finally, the muscles in his jaw relax.

“Myrtle and I were in close proximity—”

“You were kissing her.”

Riddle’s face scrunches in disgust. The contempt is so obvious that Hermione doubts he was lying. “Please refrain from summoning unpleasant memories,” he warns. 

As if this wasn’t already becoming an unpleasant memory itself.

Not waiting for her response, he continues to another point of discussion. “You picked a good candidate. No one would have found Myrtle attractive enough to venture near her body, to find your mark,” he says curtly. These words of praise are said viciously, with an ice-cold edge. “Not to mention, the situation seems to fall into my favor. No one seems very keen on investigating Myrtle’s death.”

Rita Skeeter’s nosiness and Dumbledore’s evasiness come to the forefront of her mind.

“You can’t get away with it.”

“I already have,” Riddle says.

“I’ll tell Dumbledore.” 

Riddle focuses entirely on her, empty eyes piercing hers. Hermione resists looking away. 

“I don’t advise that,” he finally says, settling into a resolute tone. “If foul play is confirmed, then by law, they must conduct an autopsy. And I wonder what they might find on her body…” He trails off.

The insinuation is so clear that Hermione remains dumbly quiet.

“And I reckon you didn’t have time to remove the scar from Myrtle’s corpse,” he says apprehensively. “Her death was very sudden.”

“You can’t remove the scars.”

Riddle is silent. Hermione wets her cracking lips.

“I’m not stupid, Riddle, if I could have removed it, I would’ve.” Her voice is bitter, filled with resentment at herself. “After repeated puncture, the wound will not be able to heal,” she explains.

At her confession, Riddle’s eyes sparkle with intrigue. “Surely you can use magic to remove it.” 

“You don’t think I’ve tried?” She bites back.

He waits, irises storming with thought. 

Hermione’s eyes wander back to his torso, clumsily clothed. He’s forgotten, whether by negligence or lack of time, to button his collar, revealing his reddened neck. Due to starving for weeks, Hermione suspects that she had ingested an abnormally large quantity of Riddle’s blood to compensate.  But Riddle bares no signs of exhaustion. His body coils and ripples with confined energy and strength, the light pulsing from his wand still glares brightly, and he seems to brew with endless thought.

“The wound will heal, since this is the first time I’ve bit you,” Hermione starts, hatching another plan. “It will scar by the fourth or fifth bite—not that it will happen.” 

Because scars were permanent, and Riddle should not want it.

And curiously, Riddle looked irate.

“Do not try and trick me, Hermione.” His tone is abruptly vile. And her name sounds vicious on his tongue. “You will remain at Hogwarts. I will allow you to continue feeding on me.”

Allow. ‘Allow’ was the word Riddle had used. He would allow Hermione. The situation settles into her skin like fine dust, itching her in spots she could not relieve. She needs Riddle to keep quiet just as much as she needs his blood. She feels trapped and foolish and her identity is the crux of all the blame.

“It’ll scar,” Hermione states blankly. “It’s permanent. You can’t remove it. It’s magic.”

“I’ll find a way.”

“If I haven’t been able to, what makes you think you can?”

“Why can’t you?” Tom’s dark eyes narrow. “Is it wrong for me to assume that vampires have certain… amplified powers?”

That knocks Hermione back.

She suddenly recognizes the greed glinting in his eyes. 

Power.

“I’ll help you remove the scar. I’ll find a way. All you need to do is comply,” Riddle whispers. He sounds dreamy, wistful. “You're a specimen.” The term sounds almost endearing, but Hermione cannot control the shiver that trickles down her back.

She’s paralyzed by his pinning stare; his eyes are probing, like a fisherman observing his catch. Riddle leans forward, inching closer, crowding her against the wall. His eyes widen uncontrollably. He’s gone mad.

“I want to know your magic.” He moves in, forcing her further back. “I want to know what you can do.” His breath fans over her face. “Aren’t vampires immortal?”

Her heart drops.

She feels incredibly ill.

“I can't wait,” he murmurs, dragging his lit wand against the line of her jaw. Her flesh glows from the light. The wand is cold yet fizzing with magic. 

She holds herself very, very still.

Riddle prolongs the dread, his wand tracing her throat. It’s cruel. As if he’s seeing how long she will keep, with his wand digging into her skin, under his mercy. The angle of the light illuminates Riddle from below. He looks skeletal. 

In one fluid motion, Riddle pulls back.

“Your identity is safe with me. I’m very good at keeping promises.” His smile is knowing. If she stares at him a moment longer, the queasy feeling might grow.

Hermione braves herself, wondering why her racing heartbeat did not feel fast enough. She doesn’t know how long she is catching her breath for, because it feels like minutes before she can summon her hoarse voice.

“Let’s make an Unbreakable Vow,” she croaks. “I won’t say a thing about what happened, and you won’t either.”

Riddle raises a brow. “Trying to kill me so soon?”

She’s almost shocked at how quickly he’s caught on.

“That’s only unless you break your promise.” Hermione forces her breathing calm. “I thought you were confident in secrets.” She glares up at him.

“You know that I killed Myrtle, and I know that you are a vampire. If either one of us breaks… the other will tell,” Riddle says in a clinical tone. “That way, we can both keep each other responsible.” He pauses. “You’re as good as dead if anyone finds out you’re a vampire. You know the Ministry does not take well to things they cannot control.”

Her stomach flips, as though she might retch and vomit. She hates that he is right. Arms hugging her torso, she starts to squeeze herself for comfort.

“How do I know that someone won’t… stumble upon your mark?” She asks carefully.

“Hermione,” he feigns offense with a soft frown. “Surely you know that I am more than capable of defending my own body.”

She remains mute, willing Riddle to understand. His eyes widen a fraction as it clicks. 

“This is more appalling. You think I would engage in scandalous behavior?” Riddle’s offense is genuine.

“I am afraid to report that you are still a boy with hormonal desires.” She tries to sound as detached as she can.

“Intimate acts are below me.”

“Celibacy is not the boast you think it is.”

“I’m glad you’ve regained your spirit,” he says flatly. 

Hermione looks away. Riddle rises to his full height, towering over Hermione. She refuses to stare up at him, keeping her eyes trained ahead, a direct view to his legs. She wonders how much force would break his shins.

He offers a hand, palm facing upwards. 

“Shall we get going, then?” He says in a beckoning tone.

Hermione sits there, hugging her legs, knees to her chest. Her inner thighs are revealed by her sinking skirt. She’s bare, but it doesn’t compare to how much Riddle already knows of her. Even though her skirt is hiked to her hips, she knows Riddle cannot see it. His wand is held in front of him, the light only beaming in a small, concentrated arm-length circumference. Darkness swallows Hermione. Light envelopes Riddle.

She takes his hand.

At contact, he yanks her up, not allowing her a second of relief.

She catches her breath, tipping her chin to look at Riddle. Now in the wands' proximity, both their faces are illuminated.

Riddle has an especially horrible smile.