Chapter Text
Tom
___
There were only so many places in this school where one could be alone.
The corridor alcoves were too exposed. The Astronomy Tower invited the wrong kind of company. Even the Slytherin common room—which ought to have been a sanctuary—buzzed with shallow conversation and cloying ambition. No, if I wanted to study in peace, it required more… creativity.
Hence the charm. Invisibility, silent as breath, settled like a second skin over me. I sat cross-legged in the corner of an unused Charms classroom, my textbook balanced across my knees, and the faint scratch of my quill filling the silence. It was pathetic, really, that I had to go to such lengths to find uninterrupted time, but Hogwarts was an institution built for the easily distracted. I had long since made my peace with that.
I was halfway through translating an early draft of the Wandless Elemental Theory, which—despite the dramatics surrounding its author’s untimely death—had some merit, when the door creaked open. I glanced up, irritated. The castle was full of broom cupboards and empty classrooms.
Of course they had to pick this one.
Then I heard her voice.
“No, Ron,” Granger was saying. “I already told you, I’m not going to the Yule Ball with you.”
It wasn’t particularly loud. If I hadn’t been alone in the room, I might not have caught it at all. But the tone—the mix of exhaustion and discomfort—snapped something sharp into focus. She sounded tired. Resigned.
We weren’t friends, obviously. We only shared one class, and she wasn’t in my House. Still, everyone knew who she was. The brilliant Muggle-born. The know-it-all.
Potter’s little shadow. She annoyed me sometimes with her endless questions, but I could admit she was clever.
Not more than me but clever nonetheless.
“I’m not asking you out or anything,” Weasley snapped, clearly agitated. “I just thought someone like you wouldn’t be so picky.”
Granger didn’t reply right away. I could feel the pause stretch out like wire between them. Then—quietly—she said, “Someone like me?”
“You know what I mean,” he huffed. “You’re not exactly anyone’s first choice, are you?”
Her silence pressed against the air like a held breath. My eyes narrowed, and though I remained invisible, I found myself leaning forward, ever so slightly.
“You act like you’re better than everyone,” he continued, voice rising. “Always waving your hand in class like the professor’s pet, correcting everyone, even your friends.You think that makes people like you? You think anyone wants to take the girl who treats the Yule Ball like it’s a bloody academic exercise?”
Her voice came then, barely above a whisper. “You’re being unfair.”
“Oh, I’m being unfair?” he snapped. “You walk around like you’re some gift to this place because you memorised a few spells. You’re a swot, Hermione. You make everything about you. Maybe if you weren’t so—so difficult all the time, someone would’ve actually wanted to take you.”
I expected her to shout back. Slam the door. Curse him.
But she didn’t. She just stood there, frozen in place, like the words had turned her to stone.
And then he landed the final blow.
“Honestly, Hermione, you should be grateful anyone asked you at all.”
The silence that followed wasn’t peaceful. It crackled, ugly and loud, with all the things she didn’t say. She was shaking—I could see it in the slight tremble of her fingers as she clutched her books closer to her chest. But she didn’t cry. She didn’t plead. She just straightened, shoulders pulled back, and walked out the door with her head high.
Weasley lingered for a second, looking almost confused by her refusal to react the way he wanted. Then he swore under his breath and stormed out after her.
The room was quiet again.
But something was different.
My fingers rested still on the closed book in my lap, a small frown pulling at my mouth. It wasn’t that I cared. I didn’t. Her feelings weren’t my concern, and I had more important things to worry about than Gryffindor drama.
Still… there was something ugly about watching her shrink like that. She always had so much fire in class, so much certainty. And yet just now, in the face of someone who claimed to be her friend, she’d wilted.
It felt… wrong.
I hated that I noticed.
_____
In theory, that should have been the end of it.
I should’ve shaken off the moment, returned to my book, and let Granger’s humiliation be one of the many irrelevant things I quietly observed and discarded. But for some reason, I didn’t. For some reason, the sight of her walking away—spine stiff, hands clenched, face set in something too proud to be sadness—lingered.
So I started watching her.
Not in a particularly sinister way. More like… observation.
Research. A curiosity, mildly entertained. The next time we had class together, I paid attention. Not just to her answers—which were always correct, insufferably so—but to her posture, the way she bit the inside of her cheek when McGonagall interrupted her, the way she tucked her hair behind her ear three times in exactly the same rhythm every time she was about to argue.
She sat in the third row. Always. Her ink never smudged.
Her essays were unnecessarily long and painfully well-structured. She corrected her friends—Potter with patience, Weasley with visible restraint. She never raised her voice unless someone interrupted her reading.
She was sharp. Controlled. Unpopular, but not pitied.
People rolled their eyes when she talked, but they listened. No one laughed at her to her face.
Except for Weasley.
He made it a habit, I noticed.
Three days after the classroom incident, he “accidentally” knocked her inkpot off the table before class started. She didn’t say a word—just vanished the spill and kept writing.
Five days later, he snorted when she corrected Snape, muttering something about “knowing everything.” She flushed but said nothing.
It was boring, predictable, almost tragic in how little she responded. And that, oddly enough, only made her more intriguing.
By the end of the second week, I had a list. Mental, of course. She read before bed. She preferred fruit over sweets. She hated noisy common rooms. She carried a self-replenishing quill and still double-checked its ink before every lesson. She never looked at me.
Which was ideal.
It meant she wasn’t interested.
And that was crucial, because I didn’t want someone clingy. I didn’t want to anything with a girl who might catch feelings, or worse, assume I had. The point of this entire plan—still unspoken even in my own mind—was simple: get everyone to stop trying to date me.
Permanently. I needed a girlfriend who wasn’t a problem.
Someone who could play the part without actually being the part.
Someone no one would suspect I’d chosen.
Someone like Hermione Granger.
It was absurd. But it also made perfect sense.
And so, the next morning, I approached her.
_______
Hermione
I was halfway through reviewing my Arithmancy notes when it happened.
I remember the moment exactly—not because it was particularly eventful, but because Tom Riddle never spoke to me. Not once in the five years we’d shared a castle.
Not when I answered questions in Transfiguration. Not when we passed in corridors. Not even when we were partnered once during a shared Ancient Runes lesson and he made it clear he would rather transcribe runes with a blunt spoon than speak to me directly.
So when I felt the weight of someone standing beside my table in the library and looked up to see him—black robes perfect, tie straight, face unreadable—I nearly dropped my quill.
“Granger,” he said.
I blinked at him.
“Um… yes?”
“I need to speak with you. Privately.”
My first, ridiculous thought was I’m about to be hexed. Followed swiftly by He’s lost a bet. That has to be it. But he didn’t look amused, or smug, or even remotely interested in the chaos he was causing just by existing in my personal space.
I stared at him.
Then I glanced over my shoulder, just in case he was speaking to someone behind me. He wasn’t.
“…Me?”
“Yes, Granger. You.” His tone was clipped, like I was the one being difficult. “It’s important.”
It was not the sort of thing one said no to. Not when it came from Tom Riddle. He had the kind of presence that made people move out of his way in corridors. Professors paused when he raised his hand. Even Malfoy looked uncertain around him, and Malfoy thought the world spun around his family name.
So I followed him.
He led me out of the library, down two corridors, and into an unused classroom that was either incredibly private or about to be the site of my murder. He didn’t sit. He didn’t pace. He just turned to face me like he was about to conduct an interview.
“I need a girlfriend.”
I gaped at him.
“Pardon?”
“I need a girlfriend,” he repeated, voice calm and utterly devoid of shame. “And after careful consideration, I’ve decided you’ll do.”
There was a long, awful pause.
“…You’re joking.”
“I’m not.”
My stomach dropped. I took a small step back, arms tightening around my books. “Is this—look, if this is some kind of prank—if Malfoy put you up to this—”
“No,” he said shortly. “No one put me up to anything. I’m asking you directly.”
I stared at him, heat rising to my face, heart pounding in my ears. “Why me?”
“I heard what Weasley said to you.”
Every word in my brain disappeared.
“And while I don’t particularly care about your feelings,” he continued, “I found the public nature of the exchange distasteful. You deserve better revenge than ignoring him.”
“That is… not comforting.”
“I’m not trying to comfort you.”
I blinked again.
He went on, as if this conversation was completely reasonable. “I’m tired of people pestering me about dating. I need a solution that is quiet, believable, and self-sustaining. You’re quiet. You’re believable. You want Weasley to feel bad. It’s convenient.”
I was horrified. Mortified. I wanted to sink into the floor and die.
“You don’t even like me.”
“I don’t like anyone. It’s not personal.”
“That’s somehow worse.”
“I disagree.”
I took another step back. “I’m not doing this. This is insane. You don’t just walk up to someone and assign them as your girlfriend. That’s not how this works.”
He didn’t move. Didn’t blink. “Think about it.”
“I won’t.”
“Then don’t. Just say yes.”
“I just said no.”
He gave a small, infuriating shrug. “We’ll discuss it later then.”
He turned toward the door without waiting for a reply, clearly expecting me to follow.
I didn’t move at first. My legs were still in the middle of deciding whether to flee, collapse, or hex him. But eventually, because I didn’t want to be alone in an empty classroom with Tom Riddle any longer than necessary—and because I was fairly sure he’d just stand there and wait for me if I didn’t—I followed.
He held the door open like a gentleman, which was ridiculous considering he’d just tried to logically argue me into dating him. I marched out first, head down, face still burning with secondhand humiliation.
And that’s when it happened.
Three girls were walking past, laughing about something one of them had said. They were older—Ravenclaws, I thought—and all three turned their heads as the classroom door creaked open behind me. They looked first at me. Then at him.
Then back at me.
The laughing stopped.
I saw the moment it clicked—saw it in the widening of eyes, the subtle gasp, the sharp elbow one of them jabbed into the other’s side. One of them actually dropped her bag.
Tom, of course, didn’t notice. Or didn’t care.
“Don’t look so horrified,” he said mildly, falling into step beside me as we walked back toward the library. “We’re not doing anything.”
“That’s not what it’s going to look like.”
“Not my problem.”
“You dragged me into an empty classroom.”
“I led. You followed.”
“You stood very close to me.”
“You stood very still.”
I glared at him. “You are the worst.”
“Possibly,” he agreed.
We reached the library in record time, but it was already too late. The Ravenclaw girls were whispering furiously at the end of the corridor. A fourth had joined them. By dinner, it would be twenty. By breakfast, the entire school.
I sank into my chair, heart hammering, brain still playing
catch-up with reality.
Tom Riddle had just asked me to be his fake girlfriend. I had said no. And now half the castle thought we were together.
It wasn’t funny.
It wasn’t.
Except… maybe it was a little bit funny. And when I thought about Ron’s face—about what it would look like when he found out—I suddenly wasn’t quite so horrified.
Not entirely.
____
I tried to ignore it at first.
Tried to tell myself it would blow over—that someone would correct the story, that no one would actually believe it. But by dinner, I knew I was wrong.
Lavender and Parvati were whispering before I even sat down, eyes darting toward the Slytherin table. Dean asked if I’d hit my head. Seamus offered me a chocolate frog “for the trauma.” And when Ron finally noticed, he just stared at me like I’d grown an extra head.
“Is it true?” he asked, barely waiting for me to put my fork down. “Are you actually… with him?”
“No,” I snapped, too fast. “Of course not. That’s ridiculous.”
But I didn’t sound convincing. I knew it. He knew it. And the more I denied it, the more everyone leaned in like they were waiting for a dramatic reveal.
I left early, muttering something about needing to study, but the whispers followed me all the way to the common room. And that night in bed, long after the others had gone to sleep, I lay awake staring at the ceiling and thinking about what Ron had said in that classroom.
You should be grateful anyone asked you at all.
It echoed in the dark like a curse.
He hadn’t apologized. He hadn’t even seemed embarrassed. Just annoyed that I’d rejected him. Like it had been my job to say yes.
I didn’t want to be with Tom Riddle. Obviously. He was cold and arrogant and unsettling in the way that made you feel like he already knew what you were going to say before you said it.
But people had seen us together.
And if I leaned into it—if I didn’t deny it—then maybe, for once, Ron wouldn’t get to make me feel small. Maybe the entire school would stop treating me like a joke no one wanted to sit next to unless they needed help with homework. Maybe I could finally control the narrative.
I sat up slowly, the thought crystallizing in my mind like a perfectly solved equation.
I didn’t have to like Tom.
I just had to let them believe it was real.
The next morning, I didn’t hesitate.
I walked into the Great Hall before breakfast had properly begun, before I could talk myself out of it or hide behind a timetable excuse. My eyes scanned the Slytherin table with single-minded purpose. I spotted him immediately—seated near the end, back straight, tie perfectly in place, every inch of him calm and calculating. Riddle never slouched, never smiled at his friends, never looked like he was enjoying himself. But he looked expectant. As though he already knew why I was coming.
I didn’t slow down. I ignored the knot in my stomach and the burning flush creeping up the back of my neck. I reached him, curled my fingers around the sleeve of his robe, and tugged sharply.
He looked up, eyes cool and unreadable.
“Granger,” he said, voice smooth as ever. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
I didn’t answer. I turned on my heel and kept walking, dragging him with me. I could feel the stares from every direction—people elbowing each other, whispering behind their goblets, eyes flicking from me to him like this was some dramatic third-act reveal. I hated how much attention it drew, hated how fast my heart was beating, hated how he didn’t seem bothered at all.
He followed without resistance, letting me lead him through the entrance hall and down a side corridor until we reached the first empty classroom I could find. I pushed the door open, stepped inside, and whirled around to face him. He was already closing the door behind him like this was the most casual thing in the world.
“I’ll do it,” I said, arms crossed tightly over my chest.
He lifted an eyebrow. His expression didn’t change, but something about the air between us shifted—like he’d been waiting for this. “Do what?” he asked, as though I might be here to discuss a homework assignment.
“You know exactly what,” I snapped, pulse skittering. “The thing. The ridiculous… fake relationship you proposed yesterday.”
He took a slow step forward, studying me like I was an experiment. “You’ve reconsidered.”
“I haven’t reconsidered anything,” I said quickly, before he could get too smug. “I’m making a tactical decision.”
“Of course,” he said softly. “A sacrifice for the greater good.”
“I’m doing this because people already think it’s true,” I hissed, arms tightening. “And because it will shut Ron up.That’s it. This isn’t about you.”
“Mm,” he murmured. “I assumed as much. Though I do find it interesting that you came to find me rather than letting the rumor fade.”
I gritted my teeth. “If I ignore it, it spirals. If I pretend it’s real, it becomes leverage.”
He didn’t look convinced, but he also didn’t argue.
Instead, he nodded once, like we were striking a business deal.
“But there have to be rules.” i said.
“There are always rules,” he said. “You’ll be pleased to know I’ve already considered most of them.”
I gave him a sharp look. “Don’t patronize me.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
He was infuriating. Even more so now that I’d somehow agreed to this. I took a step back, drawing a steadying breath.
“We don’t tell anyone it’s fake,” I said. “Not under any circumstances.”
“Agreed.”
“We make it look real. That means—”
“I know what that means, Granger.”
I scowled. “I’m saying it anyway. If someone’s watching, we act like a real couple. Walking together. Sitting near each other. Possibly… holding hands.”
“Fine,” he said. “What about kissing?”
My entire face went hot.
“If necessary,” I muttered, “but only if absolutely necessary.”
He didn’t smirk. Not exactly. But his eyes gleamed like I’d said something funny.
“I appreciate your professionalism,” he said.
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
I hated that I didn’t know when he was teasing me. It made the whole thing feel more precarious. Like I was already playing a game I hadn’t agreed to fully understand.
“We can stop whenever either of us wants to,” I said firmly. “No questions asked.”
“We stop when we’re both ready,” he said, a bit too smoothly. “Mutual termination. No conditions.”
I nodded. “And—and no weird things.”
He tilted his head slightly. “You’ll need to be more specific.”
“I’ll know it when I see it,” I said, glaring. “Just don’t do anything to make this worse.”
He studied me for a moment longer, then gave a slight, formal nod. “Understood.”
The silence that followed felt oddly final. I knew I should leave—return to breakfast, pretend everything was normal—but something about the way he looked at me made me hesitate. There was no triumph on his face, no smugness. Just quiet calculation. Like this wasn’t a favor or a scheme. Like he’d wanted it all along.
I folded my arms tighter, bracing myself. “This is a mistake,” I said.
“Undoubtedly,” he replied, completely unbothered. “But here we are.”