Summer is over. She is gone.

Hermione Granger falls in love with Tom Marvolo Riddle because he talks like velvet and laughs like little shards of broken glass - jarring, cutting, leaving whitish scars with blood crusts under the thin layer of pinkish skin. Hermione Granger falls in love with Tom Marvolo Riddle. But none of these things tell the truth.

"She never saw him herself. Bet it's a seventy year old pervert with a bald head or perhaps he has some serious disease that disfigured him completely. I once saw a pic about someone without a nose and bloody hell he looked like a snake," Ron ends indignant and Ginny nods while she picks imaginary crumbs off her scarf, adds, "Kinky."

Sometimes words are not enough.

He wonders why so many people measure their love in heartbeats because the sentiment may be nice but terribly impractical - heartbeats can race, heartbeats can slow, heartbeats can end. It's the adrenaline that keeps the paces changing and he prohibits himself to think that it's something as foolish as love.

"It doesn't matter", Harry cuts him off mid-sentence and Hermione watches, observes the way his eyes turn sharp and his posture shifts when he raises, "I paid my debts, just drop it Ron." Ron's mouth snaps shut and the silence which follows is thick and electric, like right before a summer storm. (she never asks, they never tell and perhaps that's the start of her misery)

"What's your name?", she murmurs again and rests her hand at his nape, tugs at his black strains until he looks up, lips hovering over hers and he smirks, wide and dangerous, almost pestilent and she leans down, ravishes his mouth until he pushes her back and her spine hits the sand.

When she enters the bar Draco doesn't comment on it, reaches over the counter to push a Lime Rickey in her direction and keeps silent. She downs the drink in one go. (he puts a second glass in front of her but she watches the ice melt, wonders how long it will take until the weight of the guilt will leave her shoulders)

Entering the underworld has always a price. Hermione wonders what price she has to pay.

People say there are things in the future. (bright and promising, sparkling, beaming, radiating like a star before it collapses, implodes until glorious pearly-white nebula rests in the night, swallows the time, swallows everything dazzlingly beautiful until the darkness arrives, eats, hungers for cruelty, for eternity) Tom wonders what the future bears for him.

"She's a threat and we need to get rid of her." There's a flicker of something foreign in Rodolphus' eyes and he observes his brother with an intense dark stare which makes him feel intimidated and threatened. He's flabbergasted when Rodolphus speaks again, calm with a certain kind of bite behind his words, "Are you jealous?" He opens his mouth, but not a single word comes out.

But Tom, oh Tom is brilliant, Tom is dangerous, Tom is a riddle, Tom is here and Hermione breathes his essence deep in his lungs, prepares for the impact and lives.

Sometimes, Tom speaks in the language of kisses.

The soft flesh of her delicate lips is pinkish and rosy, he traces the spot where her teeth lacerated the skin, draws her lips on the photo over and over again as if he wants to memorize the shape with his fingertips. Later, he takes a permanent marker and writes down the necessary information - Hermione, January 2014 - pins the photo on the wall and leaves.

Tom's voice whispers dark in her mind, reminds her that special circumstances require special treatment and she thinks with the rapidness of a peregrine. She comes home that night and searches through Tom's folders, neatly sorted files with evidences and leverage about every single student until she finds Cormac's record, flips through it. She blackmails him the next day.

"My answer remains the same, Thomas", his father's voice is a monotonous tone, almost indifferent and Tom breathes, feels his palms itch where his nails scratch the thin layer of skin, spits furiously, "Why not? It's just one weekend." Tom Riddle Sr. flashes a smile at him, all teeth and caustic like a jackal and Tom wonders how it'd feel to ram the pen into his main artery.

There's blood on the tip of her fingers, old and crusted little crumbs hide beneath her fingernails and she tries to scrub them away, rubs and grates on her skin until it's pinkish red, until it burns but the blood won't disappear, leaves the creases of her palms in crimson.

He wants to cut her, wants to hurt her, make her bleed for God's sake but she merely whips her hand and the mirror sets itself back to one piece. Red eyes watch in horror as the monster stares right back at him again, bald, ashen, sick, cruel and he snaps, spits at her, "Why?" Red sunlight catches in her brown locks and she smiles, dark and secret, "You're born for this, Tom."

She takes the applicator out of the gloss-lipstick and smears it on her lips in a thick paste, spreads it until they're reflecting shiny and lustre, "I'm not going anywhere. Why do you think all men paint themselves when they go to fight? This is war." And I'm ready.

5 litre Champagne and Vodka bottles are sold over the counter and she watches men and women alike pouring themselves glass after glass, licking it up from tanned abs or the hollow between curved breasts that ablaze in different neon lights from the spotlights. Gracious finger slide a new Cosmo over the counter and she takes it, winks but her eyes rest focus, hawk-like.