If you see with innocent eyes, everything is divine

Authors note: shit is about to start getting heavy guys. consider yourselves warned! and to those that support me, despite how horrific this fanfic is compared to other Tomione stories - thank you. i am simply a smol bean trying to preserve the original character of Tom from the HP series as J.K Rowling has written him to be, with a dark twist of my own. i appreciate your support. it is noticed.

-SnowDiamante

"You want me to kill Daniel!? He's an innocent person!" I blurted out.

"No." Tom exhaled with exasperation. "He isn't innocent, Hermione." He was clearly losing patience with me fast. "He has defied me. Did you even drink that potion like I asked you to?"

"Yes." I defended myself. "Why would I not-"

But as I spoke the most peculiar feeling came over me. It was like my soul had just been set upon by a Dementor, and I stood there stupefied feeling each of my limbs becoming very cold. Paralysed in my own skin and beyond scared, I dropped the vial and landed on my knees holding my head in my hands.

It was like I had walked into a realm of pure negativity. I couldn't remember a single good thing, and I couldn't feel anything except a very cold and present darkness that seemed just as real as the sun outside on a bright summers day. I wanted to scream. I wanted to run out of my own body screaming bloody murder at the top of my lungs.

"Now this," Tom said softly from beside me, "Is how I see the world."

I don't ever think I had felt so overwhelming terrible before in my life. It was as if all the joy had been sucked cleanly out of my soul, leaving nothing but a frail wisp of a spirit behind, some chewed up and coughed out inhuman thing that resembled me but had absolutely no meaning whatsoever.

"Well?" Tom said in a tone unsuitably bright for the occasion, "How do you feel?"

Dead inside. Crushed.

I didn't reply. I couldn't even speak.

"Its not very polite to ignore someone who's speaking to you."Tom taunted me. "Now tell me how you feel."

"Just- kill me." I heard myself say as if from a distance. I couldn't think, I couldn't even hear the ridiculous request that had come out of my own mouth.

"Kill you?"

Tom laughed. It was truly the most terrible sound I had heard, zero traces of emotion just cruel delight. And the weird thing was, I now felt wired to understand the coldness behind it. As if my soul now had decided that it spoke his language of cruelty and terror. There was no more misunderstanding. I felt entirely beside myself, like a new person altogether.

"Unfortunately if I murdered you it would not be doing either of us any favours."

I could feel Tom beside me, I felt his cold hands forcing my own away from my face. I didn't want to see anything. I didn't want to look at anything. I didn't want to know this new, dark world.

"No." I gasped. "Don't. Go away!" I shrieked. I tried to push him back but his grip was obviously a lot stronger than me.

"Look at me." Tom said in a voice so soft it was almost gentle. But I wasn't fooled. He was emotionless, these gestures of his were as cold as a bucket of ice water thrown at me in the middle of winter.

I looked up at him regardless, finding an odd sort of pleasure getting caught in the bottomless pit of his dark shining eyes. He didn't know it but he distracted me from the horror I was going through which made absolutely zero sense since he himself was the living embodiment of horror himself.

"What's happening to me?" I whispered. Tom's eyes scanned my face, his mouth curving into a grin. "You're becoming like me." He sounded pleased. I, on the other hand, wanted to throw myself in front of a moving vehicle. Anything to not feel like this. Anything.

"He's blinded you!" Daniel yelled from inside the black sack. "Don't believe him, Hermione!"

I looked up, puzzled. Tom looked up too, his eyes meeting Daniel's for a single horrifying moment shining almost scarlet.

"What did I tell you about being quiet?"

His terrible voice was as sharp as the serrated edge of a blade, the startling promise of violence in his tone alone made my blood run cold.

Blindingly fast he drew his wand from the sleeve of his cloak and slashed it through the air in Daniel's direction, causing him to fall back as though both silenced and winded.

"It irritates me when dying people think they have a fighting chance." Tom mused in a rather thoughtful tone of voice. "It's just wasted effort. It's even more pathetic when they think grovelling or protesting in defence of someone who could help them is going to aid them."

I didn't realise I was breathing heavily until I heard myself heaving like I'd just run a marathon. Even Tom looked somewhat concerned after finishing his sentence, turning his full attention back to me, those intense obsidian eyes scanning my face.

"Hermione." He said to me. "I'm going to need you to breathe. Can you do that for me?" His voice was quiet. He was trying to calm me but I felt like Hell had just opened it's own damn gates inside my heart, every terrible thing that had ever haunted my mind coming forward in the destructive force of a great tidal wave upon a desolate island. And I was hopeless against the onslaught. Helpless.

I felt like the only thing I could do was sit in absolute terror. The feeling was paralysing. It was one thing to experience darkness from a different perspective, but looking at it from the belly of the beast? I felt like I wanted to throw up.

"I... don't want to exist anymore Tom." I said seriously. I couldn't control my breathing, the words came out broken, forced. I was panicking. "Don't do this to me-"

"Stop this Hermione." Tom said directly. "Focus. You are letting fear get the better of you. Just think. I have given you the perfect opportunity to see the entire world through my own eyes. You're being ungrateful." He accused. "Are you really too weak to stomach it? This is my every day life. Every second of my day is this."

Every second of my day is this.

I stood, my knees trembling enough for Tom to notice and when he did, he had the audacity to look amused.

"What is scaring you?" He asked me, standing as well, his height was enough that he dominated my vision. I could only see him, and he was watching me with the clinical scrutiny of a doctor. You're hurt? Tell me where it hurts.

"I can't- I won't hurt Daniel." It took all my effort to say the words, and Tom just waved a hand at me lazily as if shooing away an irksome fly.

"No. How about you think about it and then answer me again. Because I don't think you're really taking this as seriously as I want you to be." He said after a pause.

I couldn't answer. I was using all of my strength and mental ability to hold myself together, to stop myself from ending up in a psych ward at Saint Mungos and Tom was just standing there with an almost bored look on his face, as if seeing someone crumbling to pieces was a very common occurrence and even something he was getting tired of seeing.

"How about a strike a deal with you, then." Tom tilted his head, considering me with a terrible glint in his eyes. "Kill him. And I'll spare you from ever having to drink that potion again."

I fell back on the ground, knees hitting the floor. The darkness was clouding my heart, my mind. I was drowning in it, the feeling was drawing a strange parallel in my mind back to when I was a kid, stuck in the darkness of my bedroom all alone with a broken nightlight and nothing but pitch black all around me.

I drew my wand from my cloak sleeve, pointing it at the unconscious form of Daniel Dolohov.

Go on my mind urged me. Just get it over with.

No another voice in my head said. And then a searing pain eclipsed my mind.

Get it done, Hermione.

Do it!

Think about what Daniel is going to be when he's older... He's a Slytherin after all...

Do it! The insanity peaked, the unrelentingly horrifying voices in my head bringing me quickly to a point of no return.

I gritted my teeth, aimed my hand-

"Avada Kedavra."

Tom laughed as the bolt of jet green light from my wand hit its mark, killing Daniel instantly. I froze. He was dead.

No. I thought. He couldn't be.

I killed Daniel Dolohov. I killed someone.

No you didn't. It's only a dream.

I pinched my arm. I pinched it so hard my nails drew blood.

I was awake.

No...

I couldn't think. I couldn't bear to. I closed my eyes. I couldn't think about what I'd done. At least not yet.

"I'm impressed." Tom said for the very first time. "You have done well." I looked at him and for some reason instantly started to cry. I couldn't stop myself.

"I- I killed him." I had finally gone mad. I was a damn murderer. I was evil. I was insane. Tom had broken me into a demented character like himself, and the worst part was I was the only one to blame.

"Yes." Tom actually put a hand on my shoulder. "You have killed someone. But I am pleased with your effort tonight. You have done well. I didn't think you'd have it in you, you really are much too innocent for your own good..."

"What- about the Ministry?" I asked between gasps of air. "They-"

"What about the Ministry?" Tom frowned as if they had absolutely no way of tracking a killing curse from within School grounds.

"I've- killed a s-student." I started crying all over again like a blubbering mess, my hands trembling with the wand still in one of them. "What- about- Isabella? What about-"

Tom stooped, taking my wand of me.

"Do you honestly think I would allow yourself to kill someone people actually remembered?"

He laughed, a cold sound, it set the hairs on my arms on end. "I've modified the minds of everyone that knew him."

"That's- impossible." I said, wiping my face with one sleeve. "You- can't have- tracked down everyone - that k-knew him."

"Well, I have. And it did take me a bit of time, he knows quite a few people. But thankfully for me, he wasn't too much of a social butterfly - I got there in the end. I always do. Not a single living person now knows who he is. Except us, of course. He was your initiation. And he served as your first success under my guidance."

My initiation

The words made sense but I couldn't comprehend them. I couldn't comprehend anything.

"Oh-god." I sobbed. "What-about his f-family." I was fast becoming a train wreck. I was trembling so hard I bit my own tongue, tasting the bitter salt of blood.

"What about them? If it would make you feel better we can have a quick funeral for him." Tom actually made the sign of the cross over his chest, casting his eyes skyward as if to a God. "Rest in peace, Daniel. You will be sorely missed, but never forgotten..." He mocked. "At least your dismal life finally had some purpose in the end."

He threw the black sack over his corpse with an almost casual grace.

"T-Tom." I struggled to speak. I was having a breakdown. Tom mocking Daniel dying was just making things that much worse.

"Yes?" Tom said lightly. "What is it?" He turned back from Daniel's corpse, a sort of inhuman gleam in his eyes. "Well? Spit it out."

"T-The Ministry... They would know-"

"It's about time you revised your ideas about the Ministry of Magic." Was his instant chiding response. "They are not as powerful as we deem them to be. In fact, I stopped giving a damn about them years ago when I finally understood their values and inefficiency. It's about time you do the same. What type of deluded mindset do you have? Hundreds of nameless Muggles go missing from their families each year, without so much as a trace. Quite suspicious, don't you think? And who do you think is behind all that? Believe it or not there are wizards and witches out there applying the Dark Arts with such a grace that they are never apprehended for their crimes because they are that brilliant at their craft."

I froze for a minute.

"Magic- leaves traces." I said with difficulty. "They would t-track this-"

"Only if you were stupid enough to not cover your tracks." Tom told me. "What do you think this room is? What type of Magic do you think I possess that you doubt me that much? What type of spells do you think I've casted here that you could kill someone and not having members of the Ministry arriving at Hogwarts right now?"

My head was pounding, Tom's voice splintering like white noise in my head. It was too much. I closed my eyes, falling backward into a sea of darkness.