Tom waited for my reaction. After about three minutes of trying very hard to maintain my composture it appeared he lost his.

"Well?" He said quietly. "Have I finally managed to crawl back into your good graces?" I looked at him to find him already staring at me, his eyes locked on mine.

"I don't know what you wrote about me." I said, choosing my words very carefully. "But even if I did, it doesn't matter. Because I don't like you. Repeatedly hurting someone and apologising each time afterwards just goes to show that you have absolutely no emotional tact whatsoever."

"I am sure, if you bothered to read what I had written, your thoughts would change." Tom said easily. "Aren't you at least curious about what I had to write about you?"

He withdrew a leather bound diary from his cloak, a very old book secured by a golden lock. It didn't matter what time I was in, seeing Tom with any sort of diary was enough to send a thrill of fear through me.

"Take it." He held it out to me like an offering, yet I made no attempt to take it from him.

"Keep your damn book." I snapped. "You're not listening to me."

"Oh, but I am." Tom said, smiling widely. "Have you stopped to consider what I think about this? I'm saying that you are wrong. You think that I am detrimental to your emotions, yet have you considered that all the while you deny mine?"

"You have no emotion." I said coldly. "So what was there to deny in the first place? Now, if you know what's good for you, you'd leave me alone."

Tom raised an eyebrow.

"You should know by now that I don't want what is good for me." He told me, and there was no remorse or hesitancy in his tone. Even his demeanor was relaxed, the darkness emanating from him had more than a home within him. It was as if it seeped from his every pore. "I wrote what I love about you." He said, a little offhandedly as though even showing his feelings was difficult.

"How nice." I said, tone dripping indifference. "That still doesn't change my mind. You can desire whatever you like - Just as long as it isn't me."

"I don't desire you. I need you. Soon you'll see things my way, and we will finally be together. As we are meant to be. All you need to do is say the words."

Now it was my turn to laugh.

"If you think that I'm ever-"

But I was cut off mid sentence.

"Excuse me. Are you Tom Riddle?"

We both turned to see a pretty Gryffindor girl standing a mere foot apart from us looking at Tom with a strange look of admiration and disconcertment.

"Yes." Tom answered bluntly. "What have you come to tell me?"

Tom Riddle was not the type of man you interrupt, it didn't matter who you were.

"There's a fight in the Slytherin common room." The girl looked as if she felt bad for telling Tom, and I really couldn't blame her.

Shock. Anger.

The emotions flickered across Tom's face so quickly I was afraid if I blinked I would miss something.

"Who is fighting?"

"I don't know. I just was told to tell you."

"By who?"

"Xavier Malfoy."

"Very well." Tom said, with a distinct air of finality. "You may go."

The girl ran off, the sound of her receding footfalls echoing in the long hall.

Tom turned to me.

"Your little hide and seek challenge is going to have to wait." He said, beginning to head off toward the direction of the Slytherin Common Room.

"Well, what are you waiting for?" He demanded. "Are you scared?"

I swallowed. Truth be told I was more afraid of Tom than whatever pathetic brawl was taking place in the Slytherin Common Room, but telling him and exposing my weakness was a fools move.

We walked quickly down the hallways of the School, taking the shortest and most time effective way to the Slytherin Common Room, Tom ahead and me a few feet behind.

"What are you planning to do?" I asked.

"Just watch. I'm going to become a living exemplar of how to properly exercise authority as a Prefect."

We had arrived in the dungeons, it was only the two of us here standing together beneath the dim greenish glow cast by the Lake.

I looked at Tom to find him already staring at me.

"Ladies first." He nodded curtly toward the direction of the door.

"Venomous tentacular." The password was accepted instantly, permitting Tom and myself entrance.

The Common Room was empty. Not a sound could be heard, nor a single sign of a living soul in the area. I looked around. There was no sign of a struggle, everything was in perfect order.

Yet something wasn't the least bit right.

"You stay here." Tom said quietly. "Keep your wand drawn. There's something rather off about this."

But instead of sounding afraid, he sounded as if he found the entire situation hilarious, the slight smirk on his face contrasting starkly to the events unfolding.

I watched Tom as he ascended the staircase to the dorms, agile and dark as a shadow. I stood there alone, wand drawn and not knowing what the hell to expect. Part of me wished that Tom didn't just disappear like that, I didn't want to be alone in a dangerous situation.

I needed to calm myself. To my left was a desk of books. I walked over, drawn by curiosity more than anything else.

Parchment lay scattered on the table beneath of which black ink appeared to have been spilt.

On a solitary desk in the far corner of the room, a candle began guttering. I watched it out of the corner of my eye.

My heart started pounding.

Get it together Hermione. It's just a candle.

Have you ever seen a candle guttering for no reason?

"Tom?" I called out. The Common Room was still.

No response.

"Tom." I said again, in a more powerful tone. To my right, through the Common Room windows, the water of the Great Lake looked darker now that it was night.

I thought quickly for a second. Even though I was raised by Muggles I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that when a candle starts guttering without any natural cause that something was bloody wrong.

"Tom?" I stepped forward hesitantly. "What are you doing?"

"Hermione." A voice hissed.

I spun on my heel.

Standing at the doorway was Xavier Malfoy, his pale skin and hair contrasting starkly with the dimly lit room. My lips parted in shock. What the hell was he doing?

"You need to get out of here." He hissed. "It's a set up. It's an initiation. I don't have time to explain. Just go. Now!"

I realised in that moment, that I was in danger. Xavier had to be right, this was a trap that Tom had lured me into. Surely.

"Hermione," I heard Tom call down from out of the blue. "Look at this."

The flicker of the candlelight was now cast up the wall. I stepped backward, slowly at first. I stumbled past Xavier, running like a bullet fresh from the barrel of a gun.

Keep going. My mind screamed. Get away from him.

Being one of the only people in the entire School during the holidays had its perks. I could sprint down numerous halls without running into a single person. My body was spurned on by the sudden feeling of fear coiling within me. I hated feeling emotions these days, it sickened me. It kept me anxious, fearful and downcast.

I kept running, and then ever so gradually began to reduce my speed. I reached the Great Hall, walking briskly inside. Tom Riddle was going to come after me - and I had no idea where I was going to hide.

I had gotten myself into yet another disastrous situation, and I felt like an absolute idiot.

Minutes passed. I just stood there numbly, not sure what to do anymore.

I waited.

And then...

"How disappointing."

I heard him before I saw him, standing only mere feet behind me was Tom Riddle looking far from pleased. "Next time I tell you to do something, you do it. I told you to stay. And what did you do? You left. You disobeyed me."

His eyes narrowed.

"Do you know what day it is today?" He asked sharply.

"What are you talking about?" I demanded. "It's just an ordinary day."

"I considered at first not mentioning your birthday." Tom mused, walking around me slowly.

"And then I came to discover, slowly but surely, that you would come to grow on me a lot more than I'd care to admit. I wanted to do something nice for you. To show you that I cared."

"How do you even know when my birthday is?" I demanded.

"I talked to you once and asked you. Obviously you don't remember, or you wouldn't be asking me."

I suppressed the urge to roll my eyes. I was so tired of this shit. I didn't give a damn whether it was my birthday or not. My own birthday was irrelevant in this time. Why the hell would I celebrate my birthday in a time I didn't belong to? And more importantly, since when the hell did Tom ever celebrate anyone's birthday?

"What was the guttering candle about?" I asked, completely ruining whatever tangent Tom was about to go on.

"What candle?" Tom said sharply. "There was no candle."

"Yes there was." I said indignantly. "On the table over on the far left side of the room. Kinda hard not to see."

Tom's eyes darkened ever so slightly and I suddenly heard Xavier Malfoy's voice repeated in my mind.

It's an initiation.

An initiation... To make me a Death Eater.

"Perhaps one of the others lit the candle and left it there." Tom said mildly. "It happens."

"No, it doesn't just happen." I snapped. "Plus, there wasn't just one candle. There were a few."

"I have no idea what those candles were doing where they were." Tom smiled, and I knew just by looking at him that he was lying yet again.

We were the only two people in the Great Hall. No one else was here. Tom was lying to me, and I was once again alone and forced to hear it yet again.

"What was up the stairs?" I asked Tom. Maybe he could answer this question without swerving it.

Tom paused, a slight smile edging his lips.

"Good question, but it's going to have to wait for another time. You should have listened to me and not run away." He said coldly. "If you stayed, you would already have already answered your own question. But enough for now. Let's discuss this in further depth outside." Tom cut across me smoothly. "Care to take a walk with me through the Forbidden Forest?" He asked, extending his arm like a gentleman.

"Are you fucking serious?" I demanded. "You really want to go for a walk through an extremely dangerous forest at night...with you?"

"I can promise you that all of the so- called monsters of that ridiculous Forest would not measure up to my skill, power and cunning."

"Oh, perfect." I snapped. "So I get to take a lovely stroll through a Forbidden Forest of dangerous creatures at night... all the while alongside the worst of them all."

"Learn to live a little." Tom Riddle told me. "Those hideous Arachnids are relocating, but that would be the only sort of monsters out there that I figured you would be scared of."

"They're called Acromantula." I corrected.

"I don't give a fuck." Tom snapped. "They're a disgusting species, they might as well be nameless."

I thought momentarily of Aragog and felt a surge of anger. I wasn't as scared of spiders as Ron but that sure as hell didn't mean they weren't a valued species. Aragog may have wanted to kill me and my friends at one point, but he was naturally inclined to feed his family. Tom on the other hand was taking his hatred too far once again.

Perhaps seeing how rattled I was about the Acromantula comment, Tom spoke again.

"I would consider you joining me as a kindness." He countered. "After all, you were the one who ran away from the birthday surprise party. I had put a lot of work into it..."

"When you say birthday surprise party," I said, staring at Tom directly in the eyes, "Why do I get the feeling you mean something completely different?"

"Now you're thinking on my level." Tom answered. "But sadly, I'm always going to be one step ahead of you. I will tell you what you want to know - but only if you follow me into the Forest."

"What then," I swallowed, trying to keep my cool, "Is out there that I need to see?"

"It's time for you to finally learn how to trust me. Do you really think that I would lead you to danger?"

This was sounding worse the more Tom talked. At this rate, I wasn't even confident that I wouldn't be killed tonight.

"The acquaintances I have at this School," Tom began, with slight edge in his voice, "Are not anything like you. They don't act like you, or think like you. The majority of my friends in Slytherin House are group of low lives who relish a chance to glory in the dark. Nothing more. But did you ever think about what we are trying to achieve at this School? Of course not. You would never permit yourself to consider that I have great plans. Not to mention considering that even I have feelings too, but I can already see that you consider me nothing short of a monster." Tom said, now beginning to walk toward the end of the Hall where the main entrance was.

"I'm not going to turn around. I already know that you're going to follow. Because you always do, in the end."

I just stood there, watching as Tom Riddle left the Castle through the main door, not even pausing once to look back at me.

I paused. Then, thinking very carefully, I stepped back. I wasn't going to follow. I was going to find Xavier Malfoy.