"Y-your girlfriend?" Shalini's face grew extremely red, her eyes widening to the size of saucers.

"Yes, my girlfriend." Said Tom carelessly. "We've been together since school resumed. I wanted to tell you earlier, but I was too busy."

With a wail, Shalini burst into tears and ran off. Mortified, I looked across at Tom who on the contrary gave a singularly mirthless smirk, and leaned back in his seat.

Heartless monster! Screamed my brain.

"That was easier than I had predicted." A cold, victorious smile spread across his lips. "She's been irritating me for so long, I was contemplating cursing her just to get her off my back."

"That's a vile thing to say."

Tom's eyebrows shot up. "What did you just say?" He said dangerously.

"I said that was a vile thing for you to say. And just to clear things up," I snapped, "I am not your girlfriend. I don't know what game you're trying to play here Tom but I'm not interested."

"That's funny." I froze as a shadow crossed Tom's features. "You say that like you have a choice in the matter."

Despite the poor lighting of the common room there was no mistaking those black eyes shining, just daring me to take one step further. Unsafe! My mind screeched.

He wasn't exactly the loudest type, but his words were cutting. I sat opposite gingerly in the seat opposite him, the sound of the water rhythmically lapping against the window my only comfort.

And that's when it hit me. If I pretended to be Tom's girlfriend I could have a solid reason to be wanting to dangle from his arm, which is exactly where I needed to be to thwart him.

"Who was Shalini to you? Was she your girlfriend?" I felt a little more comfortable asking him questions. Learning things was my forté. Learning about Tom Riddle couldn't be more complex than reading a challenging book, right?

"Shalini? My girlfriend?" I was surprised to see his mouth curl into a smirk. "She wanted to be. so imagine my delight when I found you standing right outside the common room, as pathetic the sight was, I knew I could use you as a means to get rid of her."

Oh right. So he was just going to use me to get rid of his wanna be girlfriend?

I guess I had to roll with it. He was right. I didn't have a choice. Not if I were to save the fallen modern day world at least.

"All you need to do is act the part convincingly." He said delicately. "And it shouldn't be hard. Just always make sure you're in close proximity to me during the time we share together. And no," he snapped after seeing the look of revolt on my face, "It doesn't go any further than that."

I stood, suddenly wanting to be alone.

Tom seemed to get the picture, although he didn't look up from his study.

"Your dorm is second staircase on the right." He twirled his quill in his long fingered hands idly. "The girls will show you where you will sleep."

"Thanks." I clutched my beaded bag and made my way over to the stairs, my heart beat pounding out of rhythm to the steady ticking of the Time- Turner. As foolish as the thought was, I couldn't help but feel as though everything was starting to go downhill. What was going to happen now? What did pretending to be Tom's girlfriend really mean for me? Would present day Dumbledore approve of this?

Present day Dumbledore is dead The voice in my mind said ruthlessly. Everything is already lost. You might as well take the risk, what have you got to lose?

I walked up the stairs and opened a large ornate door with a serpentine knocker.

Here we go I thought.

I twisted the handle, entering into a room of solid darkness.

"Hello?"

"Lumos." Someone said. From the darkness I could discern a bright beam of light that was shining directly into my face.

"Are you the new girl?" The voice said.

"Uh, yes. Can you not shine that light right into my face? I can barely see."

"Oh, sorry."

The bright light fell amongst a room with four 4 poster beds decorated lavishly in the Slytherin colours of silver and green. Only one of the beds had an occupant that was awake, a tiny girl with long black hair. For one horrifying moment I thought it was Shalini until she spoke.

"Don't worry, I'm not Shalini. I'm her twin sister Jade." I walked closer. The girl looked in every way as Shalini did, except the large dark eyes were full of warmth, holding a sort of glow that made her in every aspect a deal prettier.

"So... You must be the new girl Hermione. I heard all about you." She said softly. "Come, sit here." She patted a space on the bed beside her.

"How did you hear about me?" I didn't see how any word of me could've spread. Unless....

With one hand Jade lifted the wand light to the bed beside her where her sister lay either sleeping or feigning sleep.

"My sister."

"Oh.... Of course."

I turned, shutting the door in my wake. So Shalini had told her sister about me. Great. The last thing I needed was for someone that hated me to go around, marring everyone else's perception of me. Not that I was so insecure in myself, but my character and identity here was something I had to preserve. I sat down on the bed beside her heavily.

"Well, what did she tell you, then."

"A lot of things, actually. So is it true? You're Tom's new girlfriend?"

I sighed, fiddling with the clasp on my beaded bag. "Yes. It's actually a really complicated story. But I didn't mean to upset your sister. Honestly. You know what he's like, right?"

I appealed.

"Who doesn't." She said darkly. "He's got the whole school under his control. But not me."

In the faint light her eyes were bright and defiant. "You be careful, Hermione. You don't want to get in too deep, if you know what I mean. He's dangerous. And I'll admit, he's major eye candy. But extremely dangerous."

I cast the muffliato spell, not wanting to have to keep whispering.

"Dangerous? What do you mean?" Of course I was well aware of the sheer scale of evil Voldemort was capable of, but as for Tom Riddle I was woefully clueless except the events surrounding the Chamber of Secrets that Harry and Ginny had recounted to me.

"Wait a minute. Did you just hex me? What was that?" She scooted away from me. I looked down at the wand in my hand.

"Oh, that was just a spell to prevent anyone hearing us." I explained.

"Ooh. Wait a minute, isn't that advanced magic?" Her eyes widened. "No wonder why Tom likes you. He's always had a thing for intellectuals."

"No. Actually he doesn't even know what I'm capable of." I said bluntly. "At least not yet. This is my first day here. Well, night, technically. He hasn't seen me performing any magic yet."

Jade frowned. "Hold up. So you're his girlfriend... And he's never seen you perform a spell."

"No, it's not like that." I said quickly. "We haven't been together for very long that's all. He asked me out during semester break."

"Yeah, well. He's real impulsive that one." She sat up and drew the curtains around the bed concealing us from sight.

"All of the teachers love him. Practically every girl in the school is obsessed with him. No one seems to see what I see. And what I see is.... People are scared of him."

She held the wand light so it was illumating her face, and a ludicrous image popped up in my head of muggle children, telling ghost stories in the dark.

"Look. I know I must seem like an idiot to you, being Tom's girlfriend and all," I said, suppressing a shudder at the word "girlfriend".

"But I want to know more about him. What does he do here? Why's everyone so scared?"

Jade smiled sadly. "He.... is a powerful wizard. Not just, you know, magically. He manipulates people. He uses terror as a tactic to control who he chooses. I wouldn't be surprised if he's used this tactic on you to get you to be with him."

I thought of Tom's face when he was telling me that I was his girlfriend and that I had no choice in the matter.

"You could say that." I muttered.

"And that's not just it. The people that are close to him can't exactly.... leave him. Knowing Tom Riddle is like being in a cult. He might have said he wants nothing to do with my sister, but mark my words, he's still exercising some level of control of her."

"You mean like the Imperious curse?"

"I thought so at first." She said seriously. "But it became obvious later on down the track that he didn't, thank Merlin. Being close to Tom is literally putting the Imperious curse on yourself to be a slave to him. He'll be able to manipulate you with ease. It's weird. I've seen it happen before. I..." She froze.

"What's wrong?" I reached over and gripped her arm. Jade's face had gone extremely pale, she looking at a fixed point behind my head.

"Jade?"

"If I were to cast a silencing charm to talk to a friend, I would've made sure it looked as though the other person was in bed first." Tom Riddle said quietly. "Although, I suppose if I were as moronic as you two pathetic girls I wouldn't have thought to bother."

I spun around, terror and adrenaline coursing through my veins. Sure enough, Tom Riddle stood at the foot of the bed, leaning against one of the bed posts as casually as one might lean against a street sign.

He's breaking school rules! The voice in my head screamed. School rules!

"This is the girls dorm, Tom, you're not supposed to be here." I said, outraged. "What do you want?"

Jade groaned.

"What do I want ?" Tom repeated. His eyes were sparkling maliciously, his tall figure casting a long shadow over the bed. "I want you two to break up your secret meeting, and go to bed like the rest of us."

"You can't just barge in here and demand us to do whatever you say!" I exploded.

"Are you sure about that?" Tom said coldly. "I was under the impression that I could do whatever I want at this school."

I gaped. "No one can do whatever they want at this school." I continued, unable to control myself. "There's regulations you have to respect."

"Hermione." Said Jade shrilly.

"Right. There's school regulations to respect, you're right in that aspect, at least." Tom said. He tilted his head in mock thought causing part of his face to be concealed by darkness. "But what's going to happen if I don't follow every school rule? Are you going to report me to the teachers?"

"Well, I will If you're not careful!" I said indignantly.

It was that which triggered a positively murderous look to come over Tom's face. I didn't see his hand twitch, until it had actually enclosed around my ankle in a stone cold vice and had thrown me off the bed.

"Hermione!" Jade cried.

I fell hard, whacking my head on the ground ,bright lights erupted in my vision. Tom knelt down and lifted me by the neck.

"You do not," he growled, "disrespect me. Do you understand?"

"Y-yes." I gasped. Jade must've tried to hex him because the next thing I knew he released me, and from my position sprawled on the ground I saw him flick his wand at her and send her crashing on top of her bed. The muffliato spell must've broken by now, but no one in the beds had stirred, although how they couldn't have heard all the crashing and yelling, I had no idea.

"He's gone." Jade let out a low whistle. "That, Hermione, was basically what I was trying to warn you about."

"He's so vile." I said disgustedly. "I can't believe that-"

"That you're his girlfriend?" Jade snorted. "Yeah, me neither."

"Alright, what dumb bitch was stupid enough to piss Tom off?" Shalini ripped open one of her curtains to glare around at the pair of us angrily. "Let me guess.... Was it his girlfriend Hermione?"

Jade ignored her, helping me to my feet. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine." I lied. "I just hit my head that's all. Nothing major." Tom might as well have kicked me in the skull, the accumulated pain from my headache and the events that had just transpired now causing a hammering throb in my left temple.

The sooner I complete this mission the better.

I reached instinctively for my Time-Turner, anticipating the soothing ticking of the modern day clock. My hand reached toward my neck, dragging lightly along the skin where Tom's hand was minutes before, suffocating me....

Nothing.

No.... please no....

Fear paralysed me. This couldn't be happening. No....

The Time-Turner was gone.