Peremo

Her soup was burning.

It had thickened, become tar-like, and bubbled aggressively, filling the kitchen with smoke, and—

"Mum?!"

Hermione closed her eyes, massaging at her temples as a dull throb pounded between them.

When she didn't reply, the sound of her pulse was joined by the quiet thumping of feet slowly getting closer.

"Have you seen Dahlia?!"

Hermione glanced up from her sludge—because let's face it, it hardly could be classified as a soup anymore—just long enough to give Klaus a hard look. "What have I told you about keeping her in her enclosure?"

At her unhelpful answer, Klaus scoffed irritably and went to go back to his searching, but then abruptly stopped and turned back, his nose crinkling. "It smells like something died in here," he told her.

Hermione huffed and shooed him off with a wave of her hands, and he dashed out again. The sound of his feet on the hardwood floor followed him, becoming loud when he reached the stairs.

"And don't run on the stairs!" Hermione yelled after him.

Grumbling to herself about the last time he'd tripped and sprained his ankle, Hermione took out her wand and charmed her pot clean, before spelling the kitchen window open to waft out the smell of her ruined meal. Then, she tipped her head back and let out a long, dejected sigh, before she headed back toward the pantry to get all of her ingredients back out again.

What had her life become? She'd gone from having the entire wizarding world depending on her, needing her, and now, she was on snake watch in her own home, couldn't even make a simple pot of soup—

"—Ah!"

She had to extend her stride at the last second to avoid the snake that was coiled in the pantry doorway, and clung onto one of the shelves to keep her balance.

"Oh, you fucking little— Klaus!" she yelled, glancing at the damned snake. Its head was raised—looking right at her, the creepy little thing—but its body remained coiled, comfortable. "She's here! Come and get her before I squash her!"

Dahlia's tongue flicked out, and some more loud thumping ensued—he was running on the damned stairs again—before he reappeared.

"Sorry," Klaus mumbled as he ran back into the kitchen, eyes searching frantically for the snake. When he spied her in the pantry, his shoulders visibly relaxed and he hurried over to her. "She's been a bit stressed today."

"Oh, has she?" Hermione said dryly, silently questioning what on earth could make what had to be the most pampered snake in all of Britain stressed.

Klaus cooed at the snake, offering her his arm, and after a bit of encouragement, she finally started to uncoil as she slithered up his arm.

"Yeah, we... might've gotten separated at the museum yesterday, when I went in with Oliver," Klaus said sheepishly, standing back up. "I don't think she's fully forgiven me yet."

Klaus wasn't much shorter than her anymore, but it didn't stop Hermione from staring down her nose disapprovingly.

"You lost her?"

He grunted, stroking gently over her patterned scales. "I didn't mean to," he whined. "I only put her down for a bit so she could enjoy the plants around the fountain, but then... I just... got a bit distracted."

Hermione met the snake's beady little eyes, feeling the slightest bit guilty for swearing at her. "Huh. Poor thing."

"It took ages to find her," he said, sounding annoyed with himself. "She made it all the way to the second floor to the forestry exhibit, but thankfully some guy found her before a muggle stood on her."

"Oh, for goodness'— Klaus." Two flights of stairs were an impressive feat for a snake of Dahlia's size, and he and that bloody snake were usually inseparable. He must've been properly distracted to part with her for that long.

"I know, I didn't mean to," he insisted. "I told her I was sorry."

Hermione sighed before she started filling her arms with the ingredients she needed for her second batch of soup. "Well, at least she was found, and no harm was done."

"I know... yeah..."

Hermione, sensing from his tone that there was something more to the story, turned to raise her eyebrows at him over her bag of potatoes, as if to say, 'well?'

"It's just... the guy that found her, he— he... spoke to her," said Klaus, frowning at the snake, "and she's been bothered ever since. It's like... like she doesn't want to be with me anymore."

"Oh, don't be ridiculous," she said, a little distracted as she crossed the kitchen and plonked her ingredients on the kitchen counter. "Of course she wants to be with you. She loves you."

"She's a snake, Mum," he told her, as though it had escaped her notice. "They don't love the way people do. They like people they can trust, and I went and lost her, so what if... what if she's decided she likes him more?"

"'Likes him more'?" Hermione repeated incredulously, not quite sure what he was getting at. "What do you— wait, what did you mean by, he spoke to her?"

"I mean, he spoke to her. Like I do," he said, before tacking on an accusatory, "you never told me there were others who could do it."

"I..." Hermione paused, heart skipping a beat. "I didn't think there were."

Parselmouths were rare. Really rare, and almost all parselmouths known throughout history had been able to be traced back to the same familial line...

Dahlia raised her head off of Klaus' shoulder just then, and at the abrupt movement, he said something to her, a quiet hiss that Hermione couldn't understand.

Could it... could there have been another surviving line descended from Slytherin, other than the Gaunts? Or... a surviving Gaunt?

She supposed it could have just been... an impossible co-incidence, but the odds that the ability to speak to snakes had just happened to appear in another family line, in the same part of the country, was just so infinitesimally small... so small, that it was probably more likely that...

Dahlia slithered further up along Klaus' shoulder and hissed something back at him. Ugh. It was strange enough to hear Klaus speaking parseltongue, but she'd never get used to the sound of the snake doing it back.

Creepy little thing.

"Uhm... Mum?" said Klaus uncertainly, glancing between her and Dahlia.

Hermione bit into her lip, still mulling over another supposed parselmouth in Nottingham. "Hmm?"

"She... I think she wants me to tell you something," Klaus said, frowning as he hovered in the doorway.

Hermione eyed the snake, finding the snake staring back.

Usually, the snake wanted nothing to do with her, which suited Hermione just fine, thank you very much. Over the few years that Klaus had had her, instances when Dahlia wanted to address her had only occurred a total of two times.

The first time had been on a winter's day, and she'd wanted her to move out of the way of the fire so the warmth would reach her unimpeded.

The second time had been to request that she started purchasing slightly larger mice for her dinners.

Reasonable requests, really.

"She says..." Klaus paused to hiss again at Dahlia, his frown deepening further when she hissed back. "She says, she was told to tell you... 'you missed one'...? Sorry, I don't know what she means..."

Hermione drew a sharp breath, fumbling against the counter, and the onion she'd been holding slipped from her fingers.

"Oh." Klaus quickly bent to pick up the onion and offered it back. When she didn't take it, he said, "Um... Mum? Is... is everything—"

Hermione shook herself off. "Yes," she said, much too quickly, clearing her throat. "Yes, fine. You know, I was just— I think it might be about time to give up on the soup, don't you? Now that you know she's safe, how about you go and get Dahlia settled back in her enclosure and find your shoes, and we'll head out for dinner, instead?"

Klaus’ eyes narrowed in suspicion—he looked so much like his father when he did that that it hurt—but then, at the prospect of proper food, he said, "...okay. I won't be long."

Hermione gave him a small reassuring smile and shooed him off. Then, with Dahlia draped over his shoulders, he dashed up the stairs, a quick pace that wasn't quite a jog.

The moment he was out of sight, Hermione moved.

She hurriedly snatched up her wand and started summoning things over into a neat pile on the dining table—only the absolute essentials, a bit of food, some water, baby photos and other irreplaceable trinkets from the living room. While they organised themselves, she exited the kitchen, running up the stairs to go and fetch her bag.

Think, think, think—what did they need? Her bag, the stone, and the box of Tom's old books she'd kept stashed away in her cupboard all of these years. That was all, right? Everything else, she could make do without. She and Klaus could get new things. As long as they had the necessities, they could make do with everything else, and—oh. She mustn't forget the cloak—

In her panic, she slipped on the second step from the top.

Hermione fumbled back to her feet, swearing quietly, and opened her bedroom door, hurried on in, and—

He was there, sitting on her bed.

He looked older than he did in her nightmares. Tired. Worn. But it was unmistakably him, Tom, in the flesh, sitting casually, elbows resting on his knees, at the foot of her bed.

She froze, raising her wand at him only out of muscle memory, but it didn't seem to bother him. Instead, when he saw her, he didn't say anything, just raised a single finger to his lips.

The warning didn't need to be spoken.

Don't let him hear you.

Hermione didn't breathe, didn't dare move a muscle, and the hinges of her door groaned as it slowly fell closed behind her, latching quietly.

When Tom stood, she pressed herself back against the door, blinking firmly, not trusting what her eyes were telling her. But he wasn't going away, and he— had he always been that tall? Had his shoulders always been so broad?

He crossed her space casually, and with both flight and fight responses stalling, she shrunk as far back into the door as she could. But instead of approaching her the way she anticipated, he passed her by, stopping by her dresser. He plucked up one of the many picture frames— in it, was her favourite photo, a black and white photograph of her and Klaus, taken with a muggle camera.

"Thirteen this year, isn't he?" he murmured, and it was the sound of his voice, the gentle, endlessly familiar baritone that broke her composure.

She muffled her mouth with her hand to restrain her gasp, and the corners of his lips picked up as he placed the picture back where he'd found it.

"How—" It was an effort to find the words, more, to keep them steady. "How are you here?"

Tom smiled properly as he approached her, stopping only when the tip of her wand pressed into his chest, and his eyes roamed over her features. They were excited, hungry, like a cat, and it was only now that he was so close that she could see it; the warm brown eyes she remembered were gone. His irises were entirely enveloped with crimson.

"That's it?" he murmured softly, and in her state of shock, he easily plucked her wand from her. "No pleasantries? No, 'how've you been', 'it's good to see you', or... 'I've missed you'?"

Hermione couldn't breathe.

Was he real? He looked it. He'd taken her wand.

He looked so real.

"Well. I've certainly missed you," he said. "In fact... I thought about you, almost every day while I was gone. I thought about, all of the things I'd do to you once I had my body back. You could even say... you inspired me, you kept me going, and now that I'm finally here, I..." His lips picked up, and he drew a quick breath, smile widening. "You're even more beautiful than I remember."

"It—Dumbledore?" she whispered, her mind scrambling to figure it out. "It was him, wasn't it?"

"But it's... remarkable, isn't it?" he interrupted, eyes narrowing as he searched her features. "Twelve, almost thirteen years, and... it's as if you've barely aged a day." He looked her down and up. "Isn't it?"

She didn't hear him. The words weren't making sense. "Did you already have it? The diadem?"

Tom ignored her. "How have you done it?"

"That night, after... you weren't looking for me at all, were you? Your others were gone, so you made another."

But he only smiled. "I'll tell you mine, if you tell me yours."

"Tom—"

"That's not—" Tom struck, hands clasping her around her neck, cutting off her windpipe as he drove her into the door loudly, handle driving into her back. "—my name, anymore."

Hermione trembled pathetically in his grip. Because she'd dreamed of it endlessly over the years, his hands around her throat. Sometimes in her nightmares, they squeezed, sometimes they twisted, and sometimes it was worse, and he'd be fucking her while they constricted, holding her down, stopping her from screaming.

And—oh God—those red eyes were bottomless, and what had she done?

He'd had another horcrux, must have, one he shouldn't have had, and— those eyes.

How many did he have now? What even were they?

What had she done?

There was a sudden light sound of hissing, and Tom was distracted, easing up ever so slightly as he glanced downward.

While she gasped for breath, he let out a hiss of his own, smoother than the way Klaus spoke it, refined and seductive, and when she followed his eyes, and down on the ground, she spotted Dahlia slithering past her feet. Reaching Tom's foot, she started coiling her way up his leg.

Hermione blanched, and her state of shock broke. "What did you do—"

"Shh, shh, shh, it's all right," he cooed, pressing his body against hers to stop her struggle, one of his hands moving up to press his thumb over her lips. "It's all right. She's only put him to sleep for us. You don't want him to hear us, do you?"

"No—leave him out of it," she hissed, pulling at his arms, "you leave him—"

"Oh, no," he said, stopping to laugh. "I can't do that."

"Not him," she pleaded, slackening against him, and his hands loosened, his tight grip softening into a gentle caress over her skin. She could take anything he threw at her, she knew she could, but Klaus—

"A-anything. Please, just— not him."

Tom's smile was cruel, smug, and he leaned into her, running his nose along her neck, breathing her in like he were drinking her, groaning against her skin. "I missed you," he groaned. "And you— you kept my things. You had my child." He lifted her chin, forced her to look at him. "You can't tell me you didn't miss me, too."

No.

Yes— no.

No.

"Please."

Tom's teeth dug into his lip while he smiled, red eyes aflame.

"You're going to do exactly as I tell you," he murmured slowly, word by word. "You're going to get me that fucking locket. You're going to give me everything you keep in here." He swept his hand back, over her skin and into her hairline, his fingers tapping on her temple. "Every memory, every secret, every fucking fleeting thought. You're going to give me anything I ask for this time, won't you? Because you're a good mother. You love your son. My son."

She trembled all over, not only just where he touched her. "Don't touch him. Please. Please—"

"Oh, I won't. I won't, not unless you make me," he said gently. "You understand?"

Hermione willed herself to wake up.

Wake up, wake up, wake up.

But she didn't.

She nodded.

"Good girl," he purred, a hint of a laugh on his lips. "Now I'd like you to stay very, very quiet." He brought his hands down, sliding them over her throat, over the swell of her breasts, the dip of her waist and along her hips, until he was tugging at her skirt, pulling it up over her thighs, bunching it in his hands. "You can do that for me, can't you?"

When he touched her, Hermione bit down on her tongue so hard that she tasted blood.

What had she done?