Falling apart. [Tomione]

5.

"Are you already leaving?"
The girl asked while she was still laying on her bed, naked covering herself with some sheet. He turned towards her while buttoning his shirt.
"I have to... Patrol the corridors, it's my turn."
Lie, big lie.
"You could pretend you forgot it and then you could come back here, in my bed, for a round two."
She said with a mischievous voice. Tom smirked, giving her his back.
He hated those situations, usually, after he slept with the other girls, all he had to do was waiting for them to fall asleep, the he could dress up and go away without dealing with too many questions.
Unluckily, Lauren Parkinson was never tired.
"I think I'll pass."
Lauren snorted loudly, he could feel her eyes on him while he was tying his shoelaces.
"You've been acting weird, lately."
"Mh?"
Still he didn't dare to look at her.
"Last year you wouldn't say no to a second round."
"I'm the Head Boy this year, there are more things I have to take car of."
"There is Granger."
He closed his eyes, taking a deep breath.
"What does Granger have to do with my head boy's duty?"
"Nothing, I meant that you're acting weird since she arrived at Hogwarts. You never allowed me to be next to you in the great hall... You never allowed anyone."
The last phrase was feeble like a breath but it was well audible in that quiet and empty room.
"So I'm strange because Granger eats beside me?"
"You always observe her, you look at her with curiosity. Every Time she answer in class you have a satisfied look for what she say... You never looked at me in that way."
He went out the room but not before said: " 'Cause you don't answer in class, Parkinson."

The library was empty that day, probably because it was nine in the morning. Probably because it was Sunday, and nobody would spend a free day studying. Nobody but Hermione Granger.
"What are you doing here?"
A voice, that in those months she had learnt to know, asked her.
'Nobody but her and Tom Riddle.'
She corrected herself.
She had to admit it, she wasn't in library to study but because she needed a place where she could think, she need a plan.
The departure of her travel back in time happened so suddenly that the plan was her last worry. But now she was there, in a time that didn't belong to her, with the future dark lord in her same house.
Dumbledore has always been opposed to travels in time, he has always been opposed to change things. But changing his mind so suddenly had only one meaning: Dumbledore predicted their defeat, he understood that Voldemort had become stronger than any other wizard, including himself, and he couldn't leave the world in the dark.
"Don't you see? I'm playing Quidditch."
She said pointing at the book she was reading,
A smirk appeared on Riddle's face.
'What an insolent.'
Usually when new students came to Hogwarts, Tom or one of his knights for him, made them understand what their place was, sometimes using the violence. He didn't have to do it with Granger for a simple reason: from the first time he looked in her eyes, Tom understood.
He understood that she already knew something about him, she looked at him with hate and disgust, she inspected him to know his future moves and, above all, she wasn't afraid of him.
How could she know him before they met?
Who was Hermione Granger? Why did she hate him so much? But above all, why did he find her so interesting?
"Shouldn't you be out there surrounding by stupid boys like you always did?"
"You're confusing yourself, Riddle. That's you, not me."
He snorted, then he sat on a chair opening the book he had in his hands until that moment.
In those two months, Tom tried more and more times to enter inside Hermione's mind everytime their eyes met, in vain.
What he saw inside it was a big dense dark cloud and that meant only one thing: occlumency.
Granger was an occlumens, a good occlumens since she didn't allow him to see anything. This made him more suspicious and his curiosity was reaching the limit.
"Why did you refuse my proposal to walk you in class?"
Hermione stopped reading and she looked at him.
"Are you really asking me something that happened a month ago?"
He didn't answer, he just kept looking at her waiting for an answer.
What did he have in his mind? Hermione had no idea.
"Well, you have to admit it, Riddle, you are not a kind and gentle boy."
"But a walk trough the corridors wouldn't have killed you." Hermione wasn't so sure. "Still, you said no immediately, without even thinking about it."
Hermione snorted, tired of his little games.
"What are you getting at, Riddle?"
"You know something about me."
"Well, there are lots of rumors about you in the school."
"No, I think you knew something before even arriving at Hogwarts. You showed it when you looked at me with hate at King's Cross."
Hermione looked blank for a second, thinking what she could say but without success.
She rapidly stood up taking her book.
"You don't know what you are talking about."
She started walking with quick steps trough the exit, Tom followed her.
Once they were out of the library he reached her wrist.
"Instead, I think to know it."
She turned around, looking in his eyes.
"Who do you think you are? The world doesn't turn around you, Tom, you have to understand that you are not in my thoughts."
Big lie.
"Is that why you never stop looking at me, right?"
"In your dreams, Riddle!"
They were both shouting.
Without knowing why, unconsciously, they were facing each other, a little space was dividing their faces.
They have never been so close to the other, they could swear it.
Just in that moment Hermione noticed a little scar that Tom had above his upper lip. She wondered how he got it.
"Why do you look at me with disgust?"
His voice was calm now. But she was quiet. They kept looking at each other like something was blocking her, making the come closer.
'Too close.'
Tom thought before leaving her wrist and going away.