Flight of the Stars

Chapter Ten

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, but I'm still gonna write like I'm running out of time.

A/N: While I was writing this, I listened to Devil Devil by MILCK. It's a very cool song and it fits their situation pretty much perfectly. :)

o-0-o

Tom liked control.

Or, rather, he liked what he could control. Like his Death Eaters, and the teachers that fawned over him so, and his path to immortality. Magic. Power. Power wasn't just controllable; it was control. Having power, being power, meant that one could control anything one came across. He possessed rather a large amount of power, being Lord Voldemort, which meant that he could control almost everything. His world was neat and orderly, with the hierarchy firmly established, just the way he liked it. The way to live forever was illuminated in front of him. He knew someday he would take over Wizarding Britain.

Enter Hermione Granger.

Suddenly, his neat, organized, controlled world was flipped upside-down. She was a Mudblood, yes, but she was also powerful. She wasn't a pureblood, but she was a Slytherin, and her filthy blood didn't stand in the way of her cunning. She was female, but she was just as powerful as him. She utterly destroyed the hierarchy, and just like that, this strange, time-traveling girl with the bushy hair and the flashing brown eyes had wrested away from him what dominance he possessed, and had put herself on a level with him.

Tom couldn't control her, and he didn't like what he couldn't control.

No matter that she would rule by his side, or whatever rubbish he had told her. He would shape her into Lady Persephone, but would never truly let her have a portion of the power. A Mudblood, share the throne with Lord Voldemort? That would never do.

She could be molded, however. She was like clay in his hands, delightfully shapeable into the image he had procured in his mind. Ambitious, intelligent, she was both of those already. But he could twist her bookishness into intellectuality, her charm into charisma. She would be revered by the people, and feared by her enemies. He could, with patience, tip her appallingly virtuous moral compass over the side, so that she would be ruthless and merciless. He could see it already, in the way she acted, that all of those traits were lying hidden beneath the surface. He just needed to coax them out.

He would transform her into the Lady, and the people would worship her. It would be easy from there.

The only hindrance was her perception of him. She was, of course, the only person he had met so far that hadn't taken an immediate liking to him. He rather suspected that she hated him. It made sense, naturally, as she had fought against him in the war of her time, but that needed to change. He trusted her, knew she would never willingly betray him, but she needed to trust him.

He doubted it would be hard. He could, when he wished it, be very persuasive.

o-0-o

"No."

"Please?"

"Absolutely not."

"Come on, 'Mione. It's just today. Look at the sky! It's such a beautiful day, and you want to waste it reading? I mean, I get it, but look at the sky ."

"No. Especially not for Quidditch."

Abraxas frowned. "I'll be playing today."

"That's nice," Hermione said, not looking up from her book.

"But it's Slytherin against Hufflepuff! It'll be a guaranteed win."

"Not necessarily," she said. "Hufflepuffs are hard workers. Those nights where it's raining and you guys aren't practicing? They are. They could beat you."