Work Text:
Boys workin' on empty
Is that the kinda way to face the burning heat?
The first time Tom was presented to Her Royal Highness, Princess Hermione, she seemed thoroughly unimpressed.
She had looked down at him through the tip of her royal nose as she sized him up and down, lips pursed and almost smirking as though he hadn’t just saved her from what was an attempt on her life. Her gown was torn on one side from where Tom had pushed her down with him in order to block her from the cunning Avada Kedavra that had come her way, and he wondered, distantly, if she knew—but she couldn’t have, so that was—it was ridiculous is what it was.
But she was so very bright—she had stood there, gaze calculating and dissecting and almost looking through him like he was a particularly complicated essay she needed to analyze, could practically see her taking notes and filing them away and cutting him open and examining him, and it shouldn’t have thrilled him, should have made him angry or frustrated or even nervous.
But against all odds, she fascinated him.
“Is this all that you’ve got?” she had said, raising an eyebrow. The King pursed his lips beside her, giving the princess an admonishing glance. “Auror Marvolo, is it?”
Tom nodded once, biting back a retort that would surely get him in trouble. “Yes, your highness.”
“So you’re the one who tore my dress?” and then she raised an eyebrow at him.
I'm the one who saved your life.
“Not on purpose, I can assure you.”
If his cheek bothered her, she did not show it, and he got to watch a smirk grow on her face.
I just think about my baby
I'm so full of love I could barely eat
He could feel the resentment by her posture alone as he followed her to her duties, in and out of rooms, to the dining room and sitting room and the library. She had not spoken to him since the day she met him, and he had not bothered making conversation—he had not, after all, come to the castle for the purpose of having small talk with the princess about house-elf rights and goblin piss.
It still bothered him though, that she did not seem the least bit affected by his presence like everyone else was—as if she could not feel the magic dripping off of him in waves in the way that everyone else always did. She did not look at him in awe, or cower in fear, or even acknowledge that he was there and it bothered him that she could be so nonchalant in his presence.
The weeks came and went without a single sign of who had attempted to assassinate the heir to the throne—Tom was not surprised, did not even blink at the news, and certainly she had noticed then, as he was right beside her when Auror Potter briefed them on the investigation. She did not react, did not even miss a beat as she went back to reading A History of Magic as if these things just happened all the time and Tom did not could not understand how she could just—just put her life aside as if she didn’t care if she died, as if she was resolved in the fact that she was going to die someday.
And most of all, Tom disliked that she seemed to revel in placing her life in danger. Gods—didn’t she ever think?
Today he was tasked with the burden of escorting the princess to the Royal Charity’s fundraiser—he did not much care for it, if he was being honest, but it was his duty and he was still undercover as her bodyguard, so when the king and the minister discussed security details with the Royal Guard, he simply bit his tongue and nodded along.
He had shadowed her the whole night under a disillusionment charm as she had spoken with foreign dignitaries and the aristocracy and wondered, distantly, if anyone would even notice if he just disapparated and spent the whole night in his bed with a firewhisky. It simply came to be that he was not in the mood to mingle, invisuble as he was, and this was only worsened when—
A purple spell had flown across the room, heading straight towards Hermione. Tom could feel his blood go cold because he had not—he had not fucking planned this, goddamit, as he blocked the spell and stood in front of the princess. The shock of the spell against his shield had caused his disillusionment charm to ripple, and he slowly grew visible as he grabbed the princess’s arm—he had not planned this, and he knew his followers would not even risk betraying him, would not even think of it, even—so this had to be someone else. Which meant someone else was trying to take away what was his—
He paused the slightest as he looked into Princess Hermione’s caramel eyes, and then he apparated them away straight into her bedroom.
Fuck, Tom thought, fuck fuck fuck , who the fuck did that? And why did he think that?
She wrenched her arm away from him as he walked around her room, shooting warding spells into the walls and reinforcing the floor to ceiling windows, locking her balcony doors, main doors, checking for spells, curses, charms to injure, explosives, cursed objects—he could not stand to see her pace around her room, could not would not look at her.
“I need to see my parents.” she demanded. “I need to—Gods—” she heaved, chucking off her high heeled shoes and then continuing to pace around the expanse of her room, “Are they—I need to—need to make sure they’re safe—let me out, Marvolo.”
Tom gritted his teeth and spun towards her because Merlin, could she not get it through her pretty little skull that her life was in danger and it was not because of him? Someone had tried to kill her yet again, and fuck if he was letting her die before he could kill her.
Like he said before, he had a purpose here.
“Your highness—” he hissed, as she tried to break the wards enclosing the balcony doors. She couldn’t, of course, even as competent as she was, she wouldn’t be able to break through Tom’s wards because it was his magic.
She growled and screamed and banged on her balcony doors and windows and main door and then charged at Tom, gripping him by the collar of his shirt and pushing—no, shoving him against the door of her en suite. “Let me out of here! I need to—my parents—fuck.”
Tom grabbed her hands and pulled her off of him gently, “Your highness—your—your highness—” And she continued to heave and sob and she held onto his hands so tightly that he thought they would break. “—Hermione.”
And she broke down then, crying in front of him after weeks of him thinking she simply did not have the ability to do so—and he did not—could not possibly know what to do in this situation except stare at her as she slowly sunk down to the floor in full royal regalia, her pretty periwinkle dress wrinkling as she sat on it.
Tom sank down with her, and wondered why he felt a twinge of something in his chest when he saw her cry.
There's nothing sweeter than my baby,
I'd never want once from the cherry tree.
Tom knew the princess did not understand his vehement insistence that she not get married to Edmond Riddle—because how could she possibly understand? Outwardly, Edmond Riddle was the perfect fiancé, constantly doting on her and sending her presents and treating her right—Tom resisted the urge to gag when she told him this—so why should she break off the betrothal that would finally save her kingdom, the betrothal that she had been caught up in all of her life.
She didn’t even know what he—what his errant brother was like, how cruel and how manipulative and—and Tom did not understand why he felt the need to tell her this, because surely she would be dead by then. She would not live to see her wedding day, he was sure, but he—he still could not help it, did not know how to control it, did not know how to tell her not to marry him—did not know why he was telling her not to get through with it.
“He’s a dangerous man!” he had argued vehemently, as the princess flashed her pretty caramel eyes up at him in anger. “I know you’ve known him your whole life but that does not change that I know for a fact that he has a part in the illegal creatures trade that you have so rapturously been against, and I know that he—”
“You don’t know a single thing about him! Gods, do you even have proof of such—such atrocious claims?” the princess—no, Hermione demanded, poking a finger into his chest. “He is a good man, who only wants the best for his people and who wants to end the—the feud between our two countries, who wants to—wants to—who treats me right!”
“And you love him, Prince Edmond?” he drawled sarcastically. “Does our little princess wish for a happily ever after?”
Hermione’s face scrunched up in anger as she glared at him from under her lashes. “How dare you—”
“I am trying to warn you, Hermione—but fuck if you ever actually listen to me.”
She startles, stepping back as if slapped. “What is that supposed to mean?”
Tom laughs cruelly. “It means, Hermione, that you—that I—” Tom sighs and rolls his eyes, because what the fuck was he even going to say? It means that you don’t care much at all for me and I quite dislike that I have no effect whatsoever on you—and he doesn’t know why she’s making him feel like this and has the distinct feeling that this wasn’t supposed to happen and—and what the fuck was he even saying? Why the fuck did he even care? “Nevermind what it means.”
He walked out of her room and waited for her to get dressed outside, as he always did.
But this time is different, isn’t it, Tom? A traitorous voice inside his head said. Because this time she is going with him—with the son of the man that had your mother killed. And it bothers you doesn’t it—it bothers you because you’ve grown to care for her, you stupid boy, because you have forgotten your purpose—
The voice was promptly smothered when she walked out of the room. He nodded at her perfunctorily, even as he stared at the way her dress hugged her body, the way her skin seemed incandescent in the light of the hallway—and his throat closed up, his chest feeling heavy all of a sudden, because she looked like that and he had to kill her and he didn’t know if he could, now, except—except he had a purpose—a duty—Gods, he had been letting himself forget that he had a purpose here—and she—
He tapped the tip of his wand on his head as he slowly dissolved into nothing but a shadow.
Maybe it was time he remembered that he wasn’t here for her, and that he was here to kill her. He should count all the reasons why he shouldn't be distracted by such frivolities such as lust.
And it was normal, wasn’t it, that he was awed by her beauty? It was normal and it was—it was human, is what it was—and Tom could appreciate beauty—knew how to, objectively saw that she was attractive, regal. And it was all this was—just lust, yes, and it didn’t have to be anything more.
That and the fact that Tom was damned if he was going to let his brother kill her before he could.
So Tom had receded into the shadows of the ballroom and watched her dance and laugh with Edmond Riddle, a man who shared the same eyes as him. And he did not know why it affected him so, watching her dance with his half-brother—the rightful heir to the throne, he could remember his father saying as he looked at his bastard son in disgust. He did not know why he felt as if he could not stand it, could not bear the way she looked at him.
But then—but then the air flickered around Hermione, a figure getting much too close to her. His heart promptly dropped into his stomach as he realized what was happening again, and he ran to her side—he always always ran to her side, he realized—as the sickly yellow shade of a Diffindo spewed out of their wand. Tom was too late—and he watched Hermione fall to the floor, bleeding, and he wanted to scream and shout and fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck—“Petrificus Totalus!” he shouted, but the assailant had already flown up in a stream of dark smoke, smashing a window into the ballroom floor.
Tom waved his wand in a wide arc, transfiguring the glass into sand—could vaguely register the ball goers screaming and running for cover as he rushed towards Hermione’s side. His errant brother had run off, he realized, and fuck if he didn’t hate him as much as he did now. “Hermione. Hermione, please.”
She had reached for him the moment he knelt on the floor beside her—had clutched onto the sleeve of his black uniform as he had forced his hand not to shake when as he whispered Vulnera Sanentur and let the tip of his wand to trace the shape of the wound running down a rib on her left side and wondered if she could hear the erratic pounding of his heart.
“Tom,” she had whispered, pleading. “Tom, I—”
He stilled for just the slightest moment because she—
“You—you—Tom—” she had whimpered, and Tom’s heart flew out of his chest and he thinks he could throw up, would just sick all over her because she—
Because she was not supposed to know his name, none of them were—not even the King or the Minister and certainly not her but she knew—which meant she knew why he was here which meant she knew what he had to do, which meant—
Fuck. How could things be this complicated?
He watched her pretty caramel eyes slip shut.
'Cause my baby's sweet as can be
She give me toothaches just from kissin' me
“You saved me again.” she said, as if it wasn’t his job to save her—as if she didn’t know that he was keeping her alive just to kill her at the most opportune moment. She said it reverently, in a tone almost akin to praise, as she laid in her bed, white as a sheet.
“I did.” He replied, clearing his throat. “It’s my job.”
Gods, was I a fucking liar.
“Is it only because of that?” she whispered softly. “Is there not—nothing more?”
Tom stood up straight from where he held a near constant vigil at her bedside, mouth pursed into a thin line. “No.” he said, gaze straight ahead. And it was a fucking lie because he wanted to kiss her as much as he wanted to want to kill her and he would have laid down the whole fucking world at her feet just to keep her and forget that he had a duty to his mother, that he made a vow to his followers and she—she would never understand, couldn't pretend to.
Except she knew, didn't she? She knew my name.
And as she lay in bed that night, he went through all of the dark curses he had memorized, researched, learned and even made. How easy would it be to just—just say that she had died peacefully, say that he couldn't save her and just let her die. The curse had been mostly siphoned out of her system, but how hard would it be to fake that it had come back during the night, truly? How hard would it be to say that he had not known until it was too late?
It would be so easy then, to overthrow the King. His followers had been waiting for him to show his hand, waiting for the heir to the throne to finally bite it and for the king and queen to mysteriously fall ill after. After he had seized the throne, he would be finally able to avenge his mother, would finally be able to destroy the kingdom—his father's kingdom—that had crushed his mother’s light like it was nothing but a mere candle flame to be blown out in the winter wind.
But as he looked down at her—looked at her slowly rising chest and wild, vibrant hair—he had realized he had made a most fatal mistake.
And fuck if it didn’t save her from himself.
When my time comes around
Lay me gently in the cold dark earth
She looked up at him from where he had the tip of his dagger pressed to her throat softly, a menacing grin on her face. She had laughed madly then, and if Tom ever had any thoughts about the princess’s steadily declining mental state, they would have been confirmed now.
But he had always known she was mad, didn’t he? Knew it because he saw the empty eyes from his mirror stare back at him every time her eyes met his from across rooms, balls, parties, functions, and death beds.
“Do it, love.” she goaded, eyes flashing with mirth and a sadness he couldn’t quite place. He felt it settle inside his lungs and make a home there. “Do you want me to hold your hand for you?”
She placed her hands on top of his as he held the knife to her throat, and he thought that he wanted to die, right there. Horcruxes be damned, because if she was going to go then he was too.
But he had a duty here, he had a purpose, and she was just a box to be ticked on his to-do list and he does not know, could not know why he couldn’t just kill her for the life of him.
“Are you going to kill me, Tom? I’ll even pretend I didn’t know that this was what you were planning all along. I’ll die quietly.” she says, looking at him, and God did it burn him alive, because her eyes were filled with fire and longing and he wished, then, that things could have been simple—if things had been simpler, would he have been able to have her.
“Shut up! Shut up shut up shut up—shut the fuck up, Hermione!” he growled, chest heaving. The tip of his dagger pressed harder into her throat, breaking soft skin and allowing the smallest drop of devil’s red blood to drip out of her. He forced himself not to waver.
She did not even so much as shake as he looked at him as if she were—as if she were disappointed , he realized. That was the look in her eye, she was disappointed in him, as if she didn’t already know he was as callous and cruel as he was, as if his heart wasn’t breaking in two. He thought, rather childishly, that he could laugh with the thrill of it as her face broke into a startling, cold smile, and wondered if he could make the world stop in this exact moment, if he could make the universe stop in its tracks just for the two of them. He just wanted more time, goddamit.
You look atrocious in white, he wanted to hiss, but you look beautiful all the same.
“If I—if I—Hermione.” he whispered her name like it was a prayer. He breathed out through his nose.
“We won’t speak of it. Never again.”
“I have—I have a purpose here. And this—this isn’t just—about me because there is—and I—” Tom let the dagger fall to the floor between them as he surged forward, lips meeting hers—and he felt the volatile heat between them growing and expanding until it consumed him, ate at his insides and forced its way into his system even as he tried to resist and forget—forgo this hopeless thing that he found.
She had ruined him.
And he had just realized that he would let her, if only for the smallest hope that it would let him keep her.
It did not.
No grave can hold my body down
I'll crawl home to her
She was still. So, so still.
He could not save her this time—could not save her this time, did not know how to cope with that, did not know if he would ever be able to cope with that, not when he saw her lying so still and fuck if he knew what to do then.
He fell to his knees next to her on the ballroom floor, tried shaking her awake—tried doing anything to get her to open her eyes and smile up at him and he had wanted her to tell him that it was just a sick fucking joke, even though he knew she never made jokes. Even though he knew that his fucking half-brother, that smarmy fucking bastard, was cleverer than they all would have known, had almost outsmarted him except—except he didn’t, didn’t he? He was dead, gone, disposed of—fuck, he had done all that he could.
And he still fucking—
She was lying so still.
“Hermione please please please—I will do anything — please please fuck.” He held her closer to him, and he shook like a leaf when he realized she was still warm and if he had only gotten there sooner he could have fucking saved her again—could have saved her and he was still too late, just this once, and he could not—he could not fucking breathe because he still fucking—
“Please, sweetheart, please please please you can’t—you’re not allowed to leave me—I didn’t say you could—fucking please—” he sobbed, shaking her again. She did not even stir, did not wake, as he held her in his arms. Maybe she would have if he had—if he had gotten here sooner, if he had somehow known because wasn’t he supposed to? Wasn’t he supposed to save her—he had done it over and over again, had saved her from assassination attempts and shards of glass and himself, for fuck’s sake, and the one time he should have known, he didn’t and now he had fucking—
“Hermione.” And if he had been in any state to care, he would have hated the weak break in his voice. Would have cursed himself over and over and over for sounding so childish, so insolent, so much like that part of himself that he had tried to destroy that he—and he fucking—
He fucking lost her.
He cradled her to his chest and cried into the white of her wedding dress.