I didn't get far. I was only half way down the spiral staircase outside Headmaster Dippet's office before the door opened and Tom Riddle came out. Tall, mutinous, and yet somehow poised as a cobra ready to strike

his dark eyes widened at the sight of me trying to make a run for it.

"Do you think that's a good idea?" He descended the stairs slowly, a wide grin on his wretched face. He appeared to all the world infuriatingly delighted at having gotten me in trouble.

"How could you do that?" I demanded, charging down the remaining stairs and coming to a halt beside the stone gargoyles. "How could you frame me for something you did?"

"Oh, spare me the dramatics." Tom said nastily. "How about I ask you a question." He came up to me, standing in such close proximity I could see his face in clear detail. The flush in his pale cheeks. His dark eyes, and within them my shell shocked, straggly haired reflection staring straight back at me.

"Why were you spying on me outside the library?" He said softly. "I saw you. In fact, I knew you were there the entire time."

"I wanted to know what you were doing." I lied.

"That makes sense." Tom said sarcastically. "If you really wanted to know, you could've just walked into the library like any other person. Instead, you preferred to stand outside the door not only to lurk but to eavesdrop. Can you explain why that is?"

I became silent. I wanted to frame Tom the way he had framed me. But the difference was, he had beat me to it. He had succeeded in doing what I wanted. And what's more, I couldn't just tell him that.

"Just what I thought. You don't have an excuse." Tom snickered. "You probably wanted to get me in trouble. Is that right?" He watched me, laughing softly while I struggled to maintain myself.

"Why did you follow me out here?" I snapped, deciding to steer us both off the subject. "Was there a reason for that? Since you seem so pissed off at me and all."

"I only came out to pass a message on." Tom snapped back to his serious self unnervingly fast. "Our dear friend Dippet said to tell you this. You're getting away with a warning because according to him, there wasn't sufficient evidence to point the blame at you."

"Damn straight there wasn't!" I agreed, my anger getting the better of me. "And for the record that was a rather poor attempt of framing me, Tom."

"Dippet is a fool. Not even I could have foreseen that he would apply his mind logically to piece the situation together and realise there was no hard evidence to use against you." He retaliated.

I frowned. In a matter of moments Tom's face suddenly morphed into a disarming smile. "You got away from me again, Hermione." He said coldly. "I bet you think that it wasn't a fluke. That you won this by sheer skill, or something equally delusional."

"Dippet snapping to his senses isn't what I would consider a personal victory." I snapped. "Speaking of which, did he want me to come back into his office or not?"

"No." Tom answered swiftly. "He felt that you would come back when you were ready."

I could tell by the sort of tone Tom was using that he thought of this entire thing as some kind of joke. It wasn't funny at all. Well, at least not to me.

"Well, I'm going to get lunch." I started walking away, only realizing after a few passing moments that a certain tall dark someone was keeping pace with me easily.

"Can I help you?" I snapped, spinning on my heel to face him.

"I'm going to go with you. How else am I supposed to maintain my sexy physique if I don't eat?" He gestured with one slender hand at his lean figure.

"Yeah, well." I huffed. "I would've thought considering the circumstances you might have decided to go alone."

"What happened is in the past." Tom said briskly, continuing to walk ahead of me.

"Tom." I snapped. "It was about 5 minutes ago."

"Hermione, Hermione." Tom stopped walking, and looked down at me with a disapproving stare. "Are you going to walk with me, or would you like me to collect real evidence to give to Headmaster Dippet? Because I certainly can. You only need to say the word."

He stood back, falling into a shadow cast from a stone statue that obscured half of his face in darkness.

I paused, taken entirely off guard by his sudden change in behaviour. What type of evidence was he talking about? And then I understood. He would do anything to frame me. To really throw me under the wheel.

"Don't look at me like that. You know what happens when you disobey me."

Tom said pleasantly. "Now, let's go. Or have you lost your appetite?"

I started walking stiff, uncomfortable; Tom smiling slightly, apparently at ease before leading the way towards the Great Hall. Students were all around us, laughing and joking without a care in the world and in that moment I felt this incredible feeling of loneliness sweep over me. Even in a crowded space he could make me feel so isolated, like I was completely at his mercy and there was nothing anyone could do about it.

I was so lost in my thoughts that when Tom stopped walking I almost ran into him. Well, if he hadn't put a hand out to stop me.

"Watch where you're going." He demanded. "Look around you. Look at how big this Hall is, and you still have to run into me."

"I didn't intentionally run into you." I snapped.

"Yeah? And I didn't intentionally start this year of School knowing that I would have to put up with a troublesome, needy girl who was deluded enough to think she could singlehandedly defeat me."

I smiled slightly to myself, more so because I could than anything else. The truth was I felt like I was way out of my depths. But there was no way in Hell I was letting him know.

"Did you know that I've told all of your pathetic little friends to stay away from you?" Tom turned to look at me, his dark eyes capturing mine for a brief moment before he continued walking up the Hall.

"When?" I blurted out stupidly.

"Let's say, when you weren't paying attention." He said, his voice edged in amusement. "I have personally taken it upon myself to track down and... speak... to each and every single person you may have called a friend at this School," Tom said again, talking a deal slower as if speaking to someone incredibly dim witted, "And I have convinced not one, but all of them to stay away from you. Which means that you will be truly isolated while you carry out this impossibly far fetched mission against me."

"What? Why?" I demanded. "What does anyone else have to do with this?"

Students passed us in the Hall, their chatter and laughter dying down as the temperature of the air dropped several degrees.

"What does anyone else have to do with this? Absolutely nothing. So why then do you always insist on involving so many in on your fruitless plight against me?"

Tom stopped walking, appearing to take a deliberate pause before turning on his heel to face me.

"No one who makes a choice to rise against me is a team player." He said coldly. His face was like an emotionless mask. "You want me? You can have me. And in turn, I want no one else but you. I'm so tired of having to deal with your moronic acquaintances who are always first to rush to your defence whenever you piss me off. Thankfully, that is not going to happen this time. There will be no one you can use as a battering ram this time. I'm going to cut you off from everyone. That way, when I win my wager, I get to receive the full pleasure of my effort."

"That's never going to happen." I said sharply. "Because you're never going to win."

I thought with a sudden stab of emotion of what Tom meant by isolation. I knew that feeling too well, and thinking of the days ahead now felt like looking headfirst into a bottomless pit. How the hell was I going to cope?

"Well then." Tom gave me a sharp look, like he was staring into my soul. "I guess it's time to wake yourself up, Hermione. Because by the looks of things I am miles ahead of you. And what I find rather amusing is that I don't think you're even aware of exactly how far ahead I am. In fact, if all I have planned turns out the way I want it to, then I may have already won."