valentines2k17 - Friendship that caught fire - K
Written for @knittedcoffee
Prompt: Hermione and Tom go on a date. Something either goes very wrong or very right.
Friendship that caught fire by princess-of-the-worlds
Summary: Tom and Hermione’s friendship becomes something more. Pan!Hermione. Bi!Tom. High school!AU.
XX
With an angry huff, Hermione slams her locker shut, hoisting her backpack up in one hand. She sweeps the end of her frizzy ponytail off one shoulder to avoid catching her hair under her bag as she slings it across her back. Immediately, she staggers under its weight, stumbling a few inches before righting herself. Why she took so many advanced classes, Hermione will never understand, but it is her own burden to bear.
Sighing in exasperation, she joins the stream of other students shuffling at a snail’s pace to their next classes. After moving barely past three classrooms, Hermione loses the dregs of her patience and shoves her way through the crowd. Finally, she arrives in her government class and plops down in her seat, burrowing her head in the crook of her cardigan-covered arm.
There is a slight thump as a bag is placed on the floor, and then someone is sliding into the desk next to hers. “Hermione.” Her name is said in polite acknowledgement.
Hermione glances up reluctantly, her cheeks coloring. “Tom.” She nods her head in what she hopes is a friendly manner.
Tom Riddle is the golden boy of their high school, a senior essentially confirmed to be the valedictorian of his class, class president, star swimmer of the school team, captain of the soccer team, openly bisexual.
Though Tom is charismatic, intelligent, and cunning, most people are drawn to his classical beauty. Dark hair styled neatly, dark expressive eyes, pale skin, fine facial structure, high cheekbones. He is dressed casually as usual in a grey Henley, well-fitted jeans that makes it hard for Hermione to tear her attention away from his muscular thighs, and neat combat boots.
He is a pretty boy, and he often uses that to his advantage, but Hermione is drawn to the dark streak that only she seems to know that Tom possesses, mostly because it matches her own.
They both are fiercely competitive and resourceful; they respect rules but do not shy away from breaking them to stay on top or protect what or whom they love.
Tom was originally frustrated by the pretty little Indian junior who matched him in nearly every class, and Hermione could never understand how Tom seemed so flawless, but they came to a mutual understanding over a blackmailing incident involving Rita Skeeter.
They have an odd relationship now, but Hermione is quite sure that their unusual way of flirting involves outscoring each other on exams.
“We have that midterm coming up in Calc,” Tom begins casually, “and I have a proposition for you.”
“What is it?” Hermione asks curiously.
“A bet.” Tom smirks triumphantly, because he knows that Hermione is never able to resist a challenge.
Welp. This midterm seems like it was already going to be a bit difficult, even for Hermione, but now Tom wants to raise the stakes.
“Go on,” she says cautiously.
“If I have the higher score, you must do something for me. If you have the higher score, well…” Tom shrugs. “You get the point.”
“What’s the catch?”
“The winner won’t tell the loser what they have to do until after we receive our scores.”
Ever the strong-willed, Hermione can find no way to reject this proposal without forfeiting to Tom, even with the catch that Tom could ask her to do something truly horrible like purposely fail an assignment.
“Fine,” Hermione tells him, steely-eyed. “I accept your challenge.”
XX
Hermione studies her ass off for that midterm.
For about a week, every spare moment between classes or before her various extra circulars, she reads her class notes or practices problems from her textbook, rejecting even invitations from Ron, Harry, and Ginny to join them at a nearby coffee shop.
But, in the end, it is all worth it to view the stunned expression on Tom’s aesthetically-pleasing features when Hermione scores one point higher than Tom.
Tom quickly schools his features back into a neutral expression. “Well, I guess you won, Hermione.”
She tries not to smile smugly.
“What is it that you require me to do?”
Hermione has given this some extreme thought over the last week, and, finally, she settled and made decision.
“Go on a date with me.”
His eyebrows rise, and, for a moment, Tom is truly taken aback. “What?” he asks, forehead scrunched up.
“This Saturday. The Three Broomsticks. I’ll text you a time.”
XX
What Hermione has failed to account for is that this Saturday is Valentine’s Day; this forgotten tidbit comes to her Saturday morning when she awakens and wanders downstairs to find a dozen red roses placed on the counter, a gift from her father to her mother.
“Ugh, no” she murmurs under her breath, but her mother overhears her anyway.
“What’s wrong?” Avani Das-Granger asks her only daughter, sipping her coffee as Hermione helps herself to a muffin and a glass of fresh orange juice.
“I asked a classmate out on a date, but I forgot that today is Valentine’s Day. It will be slightly awkward going on a first date, surrounded by couples that have been together for several years,” she admits to her parents.
“Boy or girl?” her father asks.
“Boy.”
Richard and Avani Granger are quite liberal about who their daughter is allowed to date. Though several people have caught Hermione’s attention, regardless of their gender, Hermione’s dating life has been limited to a short relationship with Viktor Krum, an exchange student, a few dates with Draco Malfoy that went nowhere, and an awkward date with Ron before they, thankfully, realized that they considered each other as siblings.
“It’s that Tom Riddle boy, isn’t it?” Avani smiles in realization, recalling the several times that Hermione has come home ranting about being ranked second in a class.
Hermione flushes and retreats upstairs with her breakfast before her mother can continue her line of questioning.
XX
It has taken Hermione about an hour of combing, straightening, and braiding to tame her frizzy hair, but it now appears neat and has been worth the effort. Despite having inherited most of her mother’s features, including her tan skin and golden-brown eyes, Hermione has her father to thank for the tangled texture of her hair. Thankfully, in the last few years since entering high school, she has created a manageable routine.
With her most difficult task out of her way, she searches through her closet briefly before settling on a black floral dress with a rust-colored cardigan, adding leggings, her brown boots, and a coat to stay warm.
After a ten-minute walk to the Three Broomsticks, which is thankfully undecorated for Valentine’s Day, likely because all couples will have already gone to Madam Puddifoot’s, Hermione slides into a booth in the back of the pub, still visible to the door and waits.
“Hermione,” Tom says as he materializes to the left of the booth.
Hermione’s heart skips a beat when she notices how good he looks in his grey button-down and dark jeans with the same boots he was wearing when he challenged her to the bet.
“Tom,” she greets him as he slides into the booth opposite her. “I was just about to order.”
After their order is placed and their food is brought out, Tom remarks, “I never really understood Valentine’s Day or how it promotes the concept of love.”
He has feed the perfect line to Hermione.
“Spoken as a true cynic of romance.”
Tom raises an eyebrow in skepticism. “And you can name examples of what you refer to as romantic love?”
Counting off her fingers, Hermione lists, “Romeo and Juliet, Gatsby and Daisy, Hades and Persephone, Achilles and Patroclus.”
“Two are fictional, one is mythological, the last is just wistful thinking,” Tom says matter-of-factly.
“Fiction mirrors real life,” Hermione refutes.
“What about real life then?” Tom questions rapidly. “My parents would not be a prime example.”
Everyone knows about the Riddles; it came as a shock to everyone in their community when Merope Gaunt, daughter of a formerly-wealthy family, married rich heir of a shipping company Tom Riddle Sr. After thirteen years of an unhappy marriage, they finally divorced, and Tom, estranged from both parents, moved in with his best friend Abraxas’ family.
“I suppose not,” Hermione muses. “I suppose that means that you have never been in love?”
He shakes his head. “It has always been mutual attraction.”
“Even with Theo?” she asks curiously. “You dated him for about half a year.”
“No,” he pauses before continuing, “and you?”
“Viktor was my only real boyfriend, and we only dated for a few months, so no.”
They split the bill and pay it before retreating outside. Strolling besides each other for a few minutes, they pass an alley where Tom tugs Hermione inside.
Hidden from the view of most people, Tom gently presses Hermione to the brick wall and murmurs straight into her ear, “Love or no love won’t keep me from doing this.”
She doesn’t have a chance to ask what before his lips are on hers in a hot and heady kiss. When he releases her lips and smirks, Hermione grabs his dark hair and drags his lips back onto hers, thinking I’ll get you to believe in love eventually.
XX
Six years later, when Tom is down on his knee, a gorgeous silver band laying in the velvet box in the palm of his hand, Hermione knows that she has succeeded.
