I didn't know if I was dead or alive. Around me a burning light seemed to encompass the entire room. I could feel Hermione right beside me, the power of the magic I had unleashed like electricity running from me to her like a living current. We were helpless against the friction of the spell I had made, once again nothing but puppets controlled by forces more powerful than the both of us.

"Hermione." I tried to speak, desperately wanting to see if she was ok. I didn't care about myself, I just wanted to know about her.

My voice sounded, splitting the light into technicolour.

"Answer me." I said.

"Tom." Hermione responded. "Calm down. I'm fine. And I finally understand everything now."

Hermione spoke and it was like the light was talking directly to me. I couldn't speak. The light slowly died, fading out into the edges of my vision revealing Hermione sitting beside me staring up at me with a look of sharp discernment in her eyes.

"I finally understand what happened to you." She told me.

"What are you talking about?" I said in confusion. Did the spell affect her sanity?

"Something did happen to you." Hermione said again. Her voice wasn't harsh. "You're not right. You were born of a love spell, weren't you? You were born demented to the world. And I think I can help you."

Looking into her eyes was like looking into a burning fire. I couldn't tear my eyes away. I felt something deep inside me stir uncomfortably, her words hit me hard, twisting inside me like the coils of a sickness. She wasn't wrong. I was the result of a love potion given by my mother to my father. It was common knowledge that he didn't love her, and in her lovestruck state decided to force him against his will to be what she wanted of him.

"Stop talking." I stood, walking away from her. This was too much. I felt cut from the truth of everything I knew, suddenly plunged into a void of all things uncertain and undefined.

"Tom, listen to me." I turned and found Hermione standing with me. Her eyes were pleading. "I can help you."

"I don't need help." I said curtly, stepping out of reach as she raised her hand to me. "I know what I'm doing. I've always known what I was doing."

"I know you're scared-"

"I'm not scared of anything." I said angrily, staring her down. "How dare you try and use my past against me. I just saved your damn life."

"You cursed me, then reversed it after feeling guilty and now you expect me to be grateful and be in debt to you for how you supposedly saved my life?" She demanded. "You've fucking ruined my life so many times sometimes I wonder if you're even human at all!"

"I didn't have to stop the curse. You should be thanking me for showing you this mercy, something that I do not often do. Do you have any idea how often I tear peoples lives apart? I can do it without feeling one single goddamn emotion. Do you really think that I was guilt driven to stop myself hurting you? I stopped because I was harming myself. Perhaps you consider yourself more important to me than you really are."

There was a silence.

"I hate you." She said quietly.

"No you don't." I walked around the room, coming full circle to stand in front of her. "If you hated me sweetheart you would be dead right now. And so would I."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Now it was her turn to be confused.

"That Curse could only be reversed between us if we both had feelings for each other." I explained. Hermione's face turned scarlet.

"I don't have feelings for you!"

"You're lying." I smirked.

"No, I'm not. I hate you." She said again. Her voice wavered, she couldn't even look me directly in the eye. "You kept me as a mind controlled slave."

"You were resisting me." I told her. "And endangering both of our lives."

"Isn't that something you do every day as a hobby, though?" Hermione flared up.

"You're drivelling." I observed.

"Ok I guess I am a bit. But still. I don't love you, Tom." She spoke, looking everywhere but directly at me.

"Right. That was so convincing." I said scathingly. "Next time you want to lie, I strongly suggest you don't since your expression alone is a dead giveaway to the truth."

"Why would I love someone that's ruined my life?" She snapped. "Besides, what you said must refer to yourself also." She raised an eyebrow. "You may as well have just confessed your feelings to me."

"I don't know how I feel about you." I admitted. "You get under my skin and make me feel like I'm going crazy." I dragged a hand through my hair. Even discussing it was stressing me out.

"Likewise." Hermione said bitterly. "You make me feel as if I'm going crazy. But for some reason since I came back to my senses I realised that it's not actually you. It's your inability to understand love which makes you commit terrible atrocities all the time. It's like you've got a mental barrier preventing you from realising that there's light as well as darkness. You're only seeing the darkness."

"You sound like a true pet of Dumbledore." I mocked. "The reason I am successful Hermione is that I can focus on the important things. Power. Magic. Harnessing it to reach further than any wizard has dared to reach."

Hermione shook her head sadly. "That's exactly my point. There is more to this world than the quest for power, Tom. What about love?"

"What about it?" I said dismissively. "I don't have time for those mundane concepts. One moment you're in love, next moment you've withered away all magical potential. I've seen it happen and I'm not about to fall for it."

"Have you ever considered that leading a life without loving is the equivalent?"

"I'm not going to have this conversation." I told her. I was starting to get pissed off.

"I've been trying to get you to understand things from my point of view. Without all the sappy pretence that witches and wizards who fear darkness conjure up to keep the masses from being educated. I was giving you a once in a lifetime opportunity to make something of yourself, Hermione."

"I don't desire to hold the entire damn world in my hands, Tom. I love, and that's an abundant life already. I don't need flocks of people beneath me to make me feel certain of myself. I don't know how we are both alive right now, if this is what you believe love is."