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Chapter Text

Looks are often deceiving. Hermione Granger knows this well.

In her experience, she has been brushed off, undermined and underestimated based on a myriad of factors that involve her appearance. She's frequently mistaken for being weaker than she is - opinions of her supposed inferiority are formed due to her gender, stature and her generally kind, if not slightly socially awkward, disposition.

Her revolutionary ideas, carefully crafted and formulated, are diminished and belittled by the establishment, branded as 'too radical'. Those in power look at her, but fail to truly see her. They diminish her activism and expertise. They are blind to her keen sense of ambition, her passion for justice and equality, and her extreme righteousness.

Those who misjudge her do so at their own risk. Dire consequences are sure to follow.

Hermione can recognise the dangers of making assumptions about somebody based on the way that they look. In her line of work, involving rigorous political campaigning and lobbying, it is important to recognise that there is always something lurking beneath the surface. Politicians and their unaccountable advisors often have ulterior motives and hidden interests.

Just because they seem to be kind, charismatic and in possession of a good sense of humour does not make them benign. In fact, those whom seem the most agreeable, the most relatable, who resonate with their constituents the most, are often the worst offenders. Their maliciousness is disguised well.

Of all of the people she has seen who have hidden their true natures deep within themselves there is one man who stands out. Tom Marvolo Riddle. For so many years, he had seemed perfect. He had an exceptionally handsome face, with sharp, angular cheekbones that made him look sculpted rather than gaunt. Tom knew exactly how to utilise his good looks to further his own goals - becoming a master at seduction, manipulation and exploitation. He was, by the time of his trial, and still is, an ethereal-looking young man, well into his twenties, with a balance of coquettish boyishness and graceful maturity about him.

He seemed charming and lovely to all that met him. Really, Tom is a jumbled mass of contradictions. Nothing of his personality is ever fixed. He has the ability to become whatever - whoever - he needs to be in order to manipulate somebody. He can play heartstrings as if he is a skilled musician plucking the strings of a lyre or harp.

By his teenage years, Tom had become an expert in finding the weaknesses of those around him, which he would then use to unduly influence them, either through manipulating them and twisting their worldview, or extorting them. Either way, he soon amassed a legion of people willing to do his bidding. He became a puppet master, tugging on the strings of some extremely powerful people despite the fact that he himself grew up in abject poverty. Tom quickly worked out that the people around him were pawns, and they should be treated as such.

Tom Riddle had a web of connections to the rich and powerful. He whispered in the ears of some of the most influential men and women in the country. Scions of aristocratic families fell at his feet. He became the darling of the elite, beloved. Tom was beautiful, and so charming - managing to seamlessly adapt to a more ostentatious lifestyle despite the fact that he grew up in an orphanage in the most desolate part of London.

His perfect, hauntingly angelic appearance and reputation had all been a lie. Inevitably, it came crashing down on him. His meticulous plans crumbled to ash, and he was left with nothing. Arguably, he is now in a worse position than he had been as a poor, orphaned child - hungry, lonely, terrifyingly ambitious but unable to express it healthily. At least at the orphanage he had occasionally been permitted to leave and wander the streets.

Now, Tom Riddle had been caged. Every crime, every nefarious deed that he had ever committed had been carefully unearthed and presented for the world to see. Or, more importantly, presented before a jury at the Central Criminal Court of England and Wales, more commonly referred to as the Old Bailey.

There had been protesters outside of the court every single day of the extensive trial, for months on end. As more details about his crimes unravelled, the crowds became more volatile. There were open calls for his execution - for a return of capital punishment just so the world could be rid of him.

He had been charged with count after count of murder, attempted murder, grievous bodily harm, kidnapping and false imprisonment - all of his crimes committed as the leader of an elitist group called the 'Death Eaters'. Tom Riddle's crimes, and the crimes committed under his command, rocked not only England, but the world at large. Some of Tom Riddle's 'Death Eaters' had been major players in the political and financial worlds.

Hermione Granger had, just two weeks before, been on the jury that was responsible for deciding his fate. Tom Riddle pled not guilty, posturing himself as a young man who has recently become financially successful after years of hardship, only to be tragically falsely accused of a series of violent crimes that he was wholly innocent of. He presented himself as the well-loved, but victimised, underdog. It would have been so easy to empathise with him, had Hermione not seen what he truly was - a vicious predator, looking to capitalise off the sympathies of others who wish to see the underdog prevail when the world is against him.

It is fortunate that the prosecution, and their star witnesses - a relentless, small team of investigators - had presented their case to the jury first. If they had not done so, then the outcome of the trial may have been much different. People are easily swayed by a pretty face, and first impressions are very important. If Tom Riddle had managed to solidify himself in their minds as a man falsely accused, and in desperate need of some sympathy, the outcome of the trial would have been much different.

The prosecution's witnesses, the investigators, had uncovered a series of disturbing events that began in his youth, at the orphanage in an impoverished part of London, continuing to rise in severity and cruelty in his adolescence, to the heinous acts he committed as an adult. His perfect facade had cracks in it, after all.

As a child, he persistently bullied the other children, becoming the dominant figure in the orphanage, and managing to traumatise two small children, both under the age of ten, into muteness. That wasn't the worst of it. Whilst just a child himself, Tom had brutally murdered a boy just two years younger than him, caving the boy's head in with a rock. The murder of Dennis Bishop was the first of many, but arguably the most shocking. At the time, he had never been suspected. In hindsight, it was obvious he was the perpetrator, hiding behind a clumsily-constructed mask of childhood innocence.

In adolescence, Tom really honed his ability to manipulate people to a fine art. He was accepted into an elite boarding school on a scholarship, and had begun to mingle with the rich and aristocratic, a trend which would continue on to his later life. At the age of fifteen, he ruthlessly poisoned a select few of his classmates, sending most to the hospital in comas and then killed again - a fourteen year old girl with a bright future ahead of her. Then, at seventeen, came the murders of his paternal family. He never forgave them for not retrieving him from the hell-hole that was Wool's Orphanage.

His murderous tendencies continued for years. He operated, completely unchecked, in the upper echelons of British society, carefully manipulating some of the most powerful figures in the country. He even coerced some of them into becoming his accomplices, into bloodying their own hands.

Tom Riddle had been convicted of every single crime he was charged with, in one of the longest trials of the century. Hermione Granger had smiled when he was sentenced to life in prison, and was sent to serve his sentence in Azkaban - the harshest, most high-security prison in all of Europe. Some of his loyal followers, too, had been sentenced along with him.

At the time, when she watched him be escorted from the courtroom, hands cuffed behind his back and dark hair falling into his eyes, with police officers rallying around him, she had thought of his conviction as a resounding success. Let him rot, she had thought.

Hermione still thinks like that. Her powerful sense of justice tells her that he deserves every year he will serve, and then some. He has earned all of the revulsion she feels for him. Equally, he has earned her curiosity, too.

Whilst acting as a juror, Hermione mentally dissected every violent, volatile, and calculating aspect of him. Tom Riddle is a multi-faceted beast, a complex creature with complicated, convoluted motivations that remain murky. Then, and now that the trial is over, she has studied every part of him. She has done incredibly amounts of research on his upbringing, his connections, his personality.

Hermione's curiosity is its own kind of monster. It has always driven her, perhaps just as much as her ambition and righteousness. Her intrigue is unforgiving, disturbing her day and night. Tom Riddle is never far from her thoughts. He haunts her in her dreams, and she rarely escapes him during her waking hours, either. The sharp, hungry teeth of curiosity ravenously bite at her, tearing into her flesh, leaving her scarred and frustrated.

Hermione constantly justifies her curiosity to herself by reminding herself that she had been involved with his trial for months. Multiple times a week, she had sat in the courtroom, in the first bench of jurors, staring at Tom Riddle - the perfect, pristine suits and his handsome face - whilst the prosecution recounted every awful thing he ever did, only for the defence to attempt to undermine it by trying to set him up as the underdog in this tale, wrongfully discriminated against and falsely accused.

She wants to be free from the thought of him. And yet, Tom Riddle is managing to pull her ever closer, insidiously slipping under her skin and infecting her thoughts. Hermione's interest with him is far from an obsession, but it is something that needs to be dealt with. It won't rest until it is satisfied, that much she knows.

All that she wants to know is why. His crimes are seemingly devoid of logic, spurred on by an anger that should be meticulously controlled, considering his ability to change into a different person at the drop of a hat.

Hermione has looked everywhere else for answers: the way he was raised, the people he was involved with, his family history. There, she has found none, and her curiosity only intensifies every time she fails. She is nothing if not determined.

If she wants her answers, there is only one place she can turn to now that she has exhausted every other possible source: Tom Riddle himself.

---

It is two weeks and six days after the trial of Tom Riddle has concluded that Hermione Granger decides to write a letter to him.

She agonises over it for days, unable to sleep or eat. She paces endlessly around her small London flat, incapable of staying still or allowing her concerns to rest. Her strong moral compass tells her that it is completely and utterly wrong, barbarically unethical, of her to write to him. He doesn't deserve to receive correspondence. He deserves to rot inside of the walls of Azkaban, to live out the rest of his days alone, his good looks crumbling and his mind descending into madness.

From an outside perspective, it can be said that Hermione has accrued something of a moral superiority complex. That statement is not totally invalid, and she can recognise that herself. But, in her line of work, it's hard not to. Her sense of justice is well-developed, and despite her slight vengeful streak, she is a stickler for rules and protocol and accountability, though she hates the red tape of it all - the ceaseless bureaucracy that has to exist because their officials can't be trusted.

Hermione is more than aware that it is unequivocally wrong to write to Tom Riddle. She is in the fortunate position where she has no misconceptions about him. His hauntingly beautiful appearance had never fooled her. Not when she had been a juror, and certainly not now that the case is closed. She knows he is guilty. She attested to that herself in court, vehemently asserting her opinion with the other jurors during the deliberation process. She knows every single terrible act he has committed. She does not, in any way, think he is innocent.

And yet, she does so anyway. She has never been able to temper her curiosity nor her ambitions. If she wants to know why he committed the crimes he did, then she has no issue in using him for the answers she needs to put her mind at rest.

Equally as agonising as deciding whether or not to write to him, is attempting to discern what to write to him. Hermione already knows she won't change her mind. Writing to him is a compulsion. She needs to know why he did all those things.

Composing the letter is more difficult than she had originally anticipated. Throughout her career of activism, lobbying and protesting, she has written an innumerable amount of letters to various people - ministers, members of parliament, peers in the house of lords, CEOs of different conglomerates, diplomats and ambassadors.

Hermione knows how to write to attempt to appeal to the rich and powerful. In theory, Tom Riddle isn't so different from them. Over the twenty-seven years he was permitted to roam free, he had accrued a great deal of power, even managing to wield it over some very influential figures after worming his way into their circles. He had to fight to be noticed - in that aspect, she supposes the two of them are very similar. Had he not been a serial killer, perhaps she would be writing a letter to him under different circumstances - trying to appeal to him on one issue or another.

But, really, she can't treat Tom Riddle, mass murderer and master manipulator, the same way she would the prime minister or any of his aides. He doesn't deserve that treatment. He doesn't deserve to have her stroke his ego, nor is he entitled to her civility or cordiality. Politeness is a privilege, and it is one he has not earned with her.

Unfortunately, none of that matters. Hermione has spent weeks attempting to unravel Tom Riddle. She is forced to acknowledge that she will have to maintain a level of politeness towards him, no matter how much she hates the mere thought of doing so. He probably won't tolerate hostility, but she won't act subservient to him. He has done nothing to deserve her respect, nor the respect of any sane person in the country.

Hermione sits at the small desk in her flat, drafting and revising different versions of her letter. There is no perfect way to pose the questions she wants him to answer. There's probably no way for her to weasel the 'why' out of him if he does not wish to relinquish it. Now that he is imprisoned, he will be desperate for any scrap of control he can get his hands on. She can't even decide how to address him, nor whether she should attempt to justify her curiosity to him.

After meticulously formulating and re-evaluating a myriad of different drafts, she manages to settle on a version. It isn't the well-thought-out, coherent, persuasive yet firm letter she had hoped it would be. It falls just short of the perfection that she's been relentlessly seeking. But, Hermione is exhausted. She has important work to do - in her professional life, she's striving for change. For equality. For accountability. She can't afford to dedicate all of her time to creating a letter for a serial killer.

The fact that the letter isn't perfect does irk her. But, the irritation of a lack of perfection is significantly less bothersome than the enrapturing curiosity that binds her to the man she helped to convict.

Here is the letter she settles on:

Mr. Riddle,

My name is Hermione Granger. I was one of the jurors responsible for your convictions, and subsequently for your imprisonment in Azkaban. I do not write to you to gloat or to attempt to start some asinine pen-pal relationship. I do not wish to see you reformed. I am more than aware that you are beyond redemption.

In the courtroom, I learned a great deal of information about your life. I learned about all of the crimes that you committed throughout your life, and the impact of your actions on the world at large. What I failed to learn in the courtroom is why. The prosecution failed to present a motive that satisfied me, though I am convinced beyond any point of doubt you are guilty.

There is no better source for me to consult for answers than you. Why kill those people? Why do any of it?

Hermione can't even bring herself to sign the letter. She feels like she has ended it prematurely, but after her vicious redactions to the letter, there is nothing else that she would feel comfortable communicating to a man like him. She resolutely refuses to mention why she wants to know more about his motivation. She thinks that her monstrous curiosity, especially about such an awful person, is best left unsaid. Besides, she's almost afraid that it would give Riddle some form of leverage against her.

She waits until the next morning to send the letter off to Azkaban prison. Hermione creeps up to the classic red postbox just outside of her flat, and drops the letter off there. She feels a sudden sense of guilt when she hears the letter land amongst the others that are already in the postbox. It feels as if her moral compass is spinning hopelessly, never managing to point to true north.

The gravity of what she has done - what she has written - hits her with a weight that is similar to the mass of the sun. She shouldn't get involved with Tom Riddle. He has proven time and time again that he is dangerous. This communication feels wrong. She feels, for perhaps the first time in her life, that she may have made a mistake - that she may have chosen the wrong course of action or that she may have failed to give proper consideration to her choices.

But, Hermione is in the beneficial position where she can recognise how dangerous he is. Others may see the pretty, soft flower that is his alluring appearance, but Hermione sees the venomous serpent lying in wait under it, hoping to strike at the ankles of whomever gets too close.

Hermione tries to convince herself that she is prepared, that she knows him and that gives her an advantage, that her ankles will remain unbitten and her veins will stay free from venom.

Chapter Text

Tom Riddle had been born into abject poverty, in the most desolate, crime-ridden part of London. He had been raised in Wool's Orphanage - a harsh, hellish environment that was no place for children. Rather quickly, Wool's Orphanage had become a place of rampant abuse and psychological warfare both between staff, and the children contained within its walls.

He quickly learnt what it meant to have to fight for his right to exist. And fight he did. Just as swiftly, the other children learned to fear him.

The children of Wool's Orphanage often went on to participate in a vicious but nonetheless predictable cycle - they would be born into poverty, have no education to speak of, be kicked out at the age of eighteen, fail to find employment, turn to crime, and perhaps get themselves killed in the process. That is the circle of life in the recesses of London, where people are starved for opportunities to alleviate themselves from poverty. Often, the children of the Orphanage are themselves children of people whom had once been raised there. It is an intergenerational web of poverty, starvation, crime and desperation. It is a breeding ground for awful, unspeakable things.

Perhaps, in another world, Tom Riddle would have fallen into that same trap the rest of them did - mediocrity. But, in this world, he did not. From the moment he had first been able to experience coherent thought, he knew that he was special. He knew that one day he would stand above the rest. His mind was brilliant, a diamond in the rough, and he had inevitably been recruited to a boarding school, which he attended on a full scholarship.

Tom Riddle had fought tooth and nail for every scrap of power that he accrued. Nobody had wanted to give the no-name, penniless orphan a chance at greatness. So he took the greatness he coveted. He charmed, threatened and extorted his way into some of the most powerful and influential social circles in the United Kingdom, amassing something of a following as he did so.

There had been casualties along the way. Collateral damages to his success. Tom had never thought anything of it. In his mind, murder can absolutely be necessary, or warranted. As a child, he learnt to be vicious, unforgiving and merciless in his wrath. It is something that he has carried to adulthood.

In hindsight, he knows that he should have thought more of it. He shouldn't have been so careless. His arrogance had been his downfall in the end, his achilles heel.

Tom had been caught. The evidence he thought he had so cleverly disposed of all seemed to reappear at exactly the wrong moment. Even then, he had boldly assumed that he could evade the charges, with his charisma, good looks and intelligence - nobody would want to believe he was guilty. Additionally, he had thought his high-profile connections could save him. Until, they fell down with him.

Now, he is in Azkaban - the harshest, most isolated prison in all of the United Kingdom, situated right at the northernmost point of Scotland. It is a wretched place, untouched by any humanitarian efforts. It is designed to induce endless suffering, rather than rehabilitate. The prisoners within Azkaban are beyond redemption, anyway.

He is angry at himself - at the world - at any and everybody that may have played a hand in his downfall. Tom Riddle's anger is not a petty, childish kind of anger. It is not anger without action. It is a fierce, vengeful wrath, the likes of which the world has never known before and will never know again. It is the kind of burning fury depicted in the Old Testament, the kind of anger that drove God to unleash the ten plagues upon Egypt. It is the kind of rage that can raze nations.

Tom Riddle lives out his days, seething and stewing in his own rage, in a tiny cell with a singular, barred window. It is a loathsome, monotonous existence. He is half driven to insanity, to throwing himself into the arms of complete madness.

This day starts the same way as any other. He barely sleeps through the night. The shitty bed, with its thin mattress and scratchy sheets is hardly the problem - there had been times he slept on the floor back at Wool's Orphanage. It is his own meticulous planning, fantasies of freedom and of exacting revenge that keep him awake. Unfortunately, they are just that - fantasies. Tom has become something of a caged animal, infuriated, but also desperate. His desperation is never a good thing.

Then, his letters arrive. Tom receives fanmail. There are plenty of women and men obsessed with the allure of a serial killer, especially one as striking as himself. He never answers them. The idiots who write to him are mindless, boring creatures who seek to change or absolve him - commonly seeing him as a 'pet project' of sorts. He is a force of nature. People don't seek to change the nature of fire. It burns and it scorches, and that is its purpose, its destiny. People seek to put it out, not to redeem it. That is how he should be treated.

There are other, equally menial and delinquent, writers who are enamoured with his work. They admire his violence - some receive a bizarre kind of sexual gratification from it. Tom doesn't particularly like them, either. But, being revered is better than being coerced into presenting as remorseful. The recognition for his work is nice. Thrilling, even, if the writers are particularly imaginative with their words.

Tom likes being worshipped. He likes the power of it all - of having people devoted to him, spellbound and enraptured by the violence that he can wield. They often fail to see him as a whole person. To them, he is just an amalgamation of his most barbaric acts, childishly alleviated from his ambition because they cannot conceive of a world where he is intelligent and possesses measure rather than be constantly consumed with the lust for blood. And, here, in Azkaban, he almost resents it.

It is not his prerogative to be seen as guilty, as a brutal, psychopathic monster. He needs to be seen as innocent - to be seen as wrongfully convicted.

He's sifting through the letters, passing them through his fingers. There's nothing else to do but read them, no matter how much they irk him in different ways. This morning alone, Tom reads three letters that try to encourage him to change, to turn to God and repent, two particularly sexually charged writings, and one from a reporter reaching out to interview him. The press are like vultures, hounding him just as much as any other inane individual that reaches out to him.

There's a break in his routine. A letter catches his eye - starch white envelope, with neat, printed handwritten scrawl on the front. It looks steadfastly official.

Tom runs the pad of his forefinger over the lettering - the way his name is written on the envelope is unique, without the softness of those who wish to see him rehabilitated, and with none of the hastiness of those who find pleasure in his work. This is something different. Something entirely new.

He swipes his thumb under the seal, tearing the envelope open without any regard for preserving it. Impatiently, he tugs the letter out and flips the peper open. Handwritten again - neat, steady. There's no hesitation to the writing, indicating that it is prewritten, possibly one of many drafts.

He reads it carefully, studying the writer's every word. She had addressed him respectably enough, but hadn't bothered to sign it with her own name. Rude, really. But it doesn't matter. Not when a letter from Hermione Granger is the most interesting thing that has happened to him in weeks.

First and foremost, he sees an opportunity. Describing his motivations can be drawn out into a long correspondence. Long enough for him to manipulate her. The Granger girl, a juror herself, communicating him could possibly be used as grounds for a retrial. This letter, her curiosity about him and his innumerable acts of violence, is something he can capitalise on. It could become the catalyst for release from Azkaban, if he plays his cards right. His own downfall had been his arrogance. Perhaps hers will be her curiosity.

And secondly, Tom feels intrigued.

His existence in Azkaban is defined by its mundanity and banality. It is ceaseless confinement, where he is subject to keeping only his own company. He has a single window. He is starved for both interaction, entertainment and an outlet for his anger. He feels like a ravenous cat that has found a mouse to toy with.

Tom's anger recedes, retreating under threat from his newfound ambition and interest.

He thrusts his mind back to his trial, to those long, frustrating days spent in the courtroom, cuffed and chained. Back then, he had been confident he would beat the charges, that his defence would be good enough, that his charisma would save him, the way it always had in the past.

Tom's defence team, comprised of some of the best lawyers money could buy, had prepared profiles for each of the jurors. He thinks the practice of doing so is probably illegal, but that hardly matters. He remembers each of their faces incredibly well. He hadn't thought much of Hermione Granger then. He had overlooked her, like he had the rest of the jurors, and now he feels like he is paying for it.

From what he recalls - Hermione had easily been the prettiest of the jurors, with an unrefined, wild and natural kind of beauty about her, with long, brunette curls, hazel eyes and a smattering of freckles over the bridge of her nose. He failed to realise it at the time, when it would have mattered the most, but in hindsight it is obvious. Her eyes had been a little too piercing, a little too critical. It was as if she had stared straight at his soul. She had seen something dark, something twisted and horrific within him.

It's all so painfully obvious now looking back on it. Where he had assumed that she, and the rest of the jurors, would become easily enamoured by his good looks, charisma, and the, much-redacted version of his life he told in court. He should have realised that, of all of the jurors, she saw straight through him right away. Hermione Granger had looked at him like she could identify every stain on his soul with scientific precision.

Her letter only confirms it. She deliberately tells him that she's not writing to him to boast about being one of the people responsible for putting him behind bars, and that she doesn't want to communicate with him more than necessary. Hermione Granger doesn't wish for his redemption - she had written that she thinks he is beyond it. She doesn't want to see him saved or redeemed. She is resolutely convinced of his guilt.

The second that Tom finishes reading her letter, he immediately decides that he will reply to it. It almost feels like a compulsion - chasing after the only opportunity he has, as well as the only interesting thing he has encountered whilst in Azkaban.

The response he provides her must be measured. As of right now, Hermione Granger is a mystery. She is an amalgamation of unknown variables, and he has no way of discerning how to approach her in a way that may mellow her and make her more malleable. Her only conceivable motivation is what she admits to: blatant curiosity due to dissatisfaction with the prosecution's reasoning for his crimes.

In that measure, he has all of the leverage - he alone knows why he did it all. But, ultimately Hermione is the one outside of Azkaban, with all the freedom in the world, and Tom is limited to a single room. He has already made the mistake of underestimating her, of brushing off her much-too-knowing looks in the courtroom. He refuses to do so again.

Inexplicably, honesty seems like the best route. Tom knows that, with Hermione, his charm will have to be subtle but ensnaring. She sees him. Really sees him. She has intimate knowledge of every 'terrible thing' he has ever done, and she doesn't see the prospect of redemption in him.

Maybe she doesn't need to, not for his bare-bones plan to come to fruition.

Tom carefully considers his reply to her. Lies by omission will be necessary. Letting her know he is concealing some information will also be a vital aspect of this - if her curiosity has driven her to write to him once, then it can happen again. He'll dangle his motive in front of her like a carrot on a stick. He can be persuasive when he needs to be.

She's smart - she must be in order to have understood what he is. Perhaps the proper approach is not to outright taunt her by withholding motivation like a child would, but rather by continuing to preach his innocence and torturously slipping hints into the letters. He has a gut feeling that her infuriation will be the path to his liberation.

The letter he sends to her is as follows:

Ms. Granger,

Of all the letters I have received, this is the first time I have been contacted by a juror. I am truly shocked by the contents of your letter. Due to your negligence, and the negligence of your peers, to consider the proper evidence, I have been the victim of an egregious miscarriage of justice.

Myself and a group of my well-established associates have been wrongfully accused as a result of a political conspiracy. There's a strong dislike for upstarters in the upper echelons of our society, and I hoped that the courts would recognise that. Both I, and those associated with me, are wrongfully suffering whilst the real perpetrators of these crimes are still at large.

I feel deeply for the families of the victims. They all died in truly horrific ways - especially my schoolmate, young Myrtle Warren. Envenomation is nasty business.

Unfortunately, you too have been made a victim to a system that wants nothing more than to see me punished. Please, I urge you - have an open mind. You'll need it.

Tom M. Riddle

He's satisfied with what he has written. Tom had overlooked Hermione Granger's suspicions of him before, to disastrous results. She has done nothing but demonstrate a reasonable level of intelligence, and she's curious enough to seek him out of her own volition. He is confident in his assessment that she will scrutinise every word of his writing carefully.

And when - not if - she finds the inconsistency hidden within it, he'll have her hooked.

Tom sets the letter aside. This is merely the first step, the initial ensnarement. The Granger girl is now, perhaps with a shade of awareness to her actions, standing with one foot above a bear trap, almost, but not quite yet activating the sensitive hair-trigger that will cause metallic teeth to clamp into her ankle. There is time for that later.

The next, most logical step is planning. Tom is suddenly aware, now with his infernal anger muted, that he has wasted time. He needs to capitalise on his every moment in Azkaban if he ever wishes to be free of the wretched place.

Now, he has to consider acquiring help from the outside. He'll need information should Granger respond to his letter - he's certain she will - it's a given that future correspondence between the two of them will require him to have more than just cursory knowledge of her. To manipulate her, he'll need to get inside of her head.

He wants information on Hermione Granger, and he'll need to acquire it from an outside source.

When Tom's downfall occured, he had not been the only person affected. His closest, most loyal servants had been taken with him, falling from grace only to crash and burn upon their landings. Some had, foolishly, proudly boasted about their crimes, as well as their connections to him. It's something that he knows will be problematic to deal with in the future. Others, the smarter, more conniving of the bunch, had thrown him under the bus and claimed to be extorted.

He knows, though, that no matter which category the person falls into, they won't deny him if he asks for something. They wouldn't dare, not even when he's behind bars. Tom has plenty of leverage over them all. Enough to make them fall at his feet.

There aren't many of his followers who managed to escape incarceration. But, one comes to mind - platinum blonde, shrewd, aristocratic.

So, Tom plans to write another letter. One to Lucius Malfoy, with a singular demand: information on Hermione Granger.

After that, Tom supposes he will have other plans to set in motion, too. Lost in his anger, he has become complicit in his own isolation and imprisonment. That ends now. Azkaban will bend to his will. It will become a tool in his arsenal rather than a restrictive force.

Tom has always had a talent for inspiring corruption in others. It is something that has been apparent since his youth. With his angelic face and a few sweetly whispered words, he easily turned people to his puppets - though, sometimes he preferred to use more brutal methods to sway them to his cause. The prison guards of Azkaban seem like a wonderful place to start.

---

London has far too many occupants and much too little space to house them in. Hermione's shoe-box flat, much like every other property in the capital city, requires an exuberant amount of rent. She is one of the lucky few who are able to live alone, independent from a roommate to split the ever-increasing bills with.

For the most part, her flat is well-kept. Everything has a place, in order to maximise her efficiency. Her kitchen and bookshelves are organised meticulously - everything in the kitchen is neatly labelled, and the books, some classic literature, some memoirs and some textbooks are arranged in alphabetical order.

There is, of course, one glaring exception to this cardinal rule of cleanliness. Her desk, which serves as her working space for the majority of the day, is always cluttered. On the wall above her desk, next to a window, is a cork bulletin board. The bulletin board is the home for her current projects, for campaigns she is actively working on.

It is covered in both newspaper clippings, as well as her own personalised notes. Each is colour-coded for a different cause that she is currently pursuing.

There are some blank spots - specifically in the bottom right-hand corner. Whatever issue she had previously dedicated that corner to has either since been resolved, or abandoned. Hermione, in her recent years dedicated to pursuing the change that she wants to see through activism and lobbying, has found that getting people to listen is harder than she had initially thought.

Having an audience for her issues could change everything. Shouting and screaming is useless unless somebody is around to hear it. Hermione has her activism, organising rallies and the occasional audience with a minister, down to an exact science. But, there's only so much she can do without support from those who have established and legitimate power. They are the ones that she needs to hear her. Unfortunately, they don't often like what she has to say.

Hermione is scouring recent legislative changes, monitoring the parliamentary ping-pong of having bills sent between the two chambers. Frustratingly, there's nothing that catches her eye. If she had ever been in want of a distraction, it is now.

There's a small noise from the front of her flat - as if something has fallen over. Hermione turns quickly, frowning. She stands from her chair, and moves to investigate.

She quickly finds the reason for the noise. The postman, or one of the receptionists, had dropped off the mail for the building. Sitting innocuously on her doormat is a letter. Hermione picks it up, snatching it from the ground.

Inscribed in neat, elegant scrawl on the envelope is 'Ms. Hermione Granger.'

Hermione feels her heart thunder in her chest. She's not expecting any correspondence, other than... Well, there's only one person it could be. The man who she had helped put behind bars. She stares at the envelope for what feels like hours. His handwriting is elegant and even. Remarkably posh, which is something she hadn't thought to expect of him, given his upbringing. But, Tom Riddle had traversed the upper echelons of British society without ridicule or his presence being questioned. He had to have fit in, adapting his behaviour the way a chameleon may change its colour.

Her mouth feels much too dry, the taste of rot heavy on her tongue. Already, she feels like she has lost something - like her surprise at his impeccable handwriting has somehow put her at a disadvantage. Hermione steadies herself by mentally recounting all she knows about him - his tumultuous childhood, proclivity for violence indicative of a heavy anger, ability to manipulate others and change his approach based on how responsive they are to his tactics. She knows him. She has dissected and analysed every part of him. She may not know why he committed his crimes, but she knows everything else about him. That is to her advantage.

She steels herself. She doesn't know what she expects to find, but there is no way that her curiosity would permit her to avoid opening the letter. Hermione is once more overcome with the feeling of how wrong this whole thing is. She should never have reached out to him. Tom Riddle had been a plague, rightfully locked away and removed from society. She shouldn't interact with him.

Hermione's half-afraid that she'll be tainted by association, and half-angry at herself for ever interacting with him. He doesn't deserve company, or even the barest hint of human interaction. He is a monster, and should be treated as such. There is no hope for change, not for him.

Her curiosity had won the fierce, bloodied battle against her morality and sense of justice the first time, when she had been contemplating writing to him. Hermione is slightly disappointed in herself for it, and even more disappointed in herself because she knows that it will win again.

She opens the letter, carefully breaking the seal on the envelope. She reads his words like she is reading scripture - spellbound, but sceptical.

Tom Riddle proclaims his innocence. It's infuriating - it sparks this ungodly rage within her. She has seen the evidence - she has seen every bit of evidence that he did it. It's irrefutable. He is guilty. There is no doubt about it, not in her mind, not ever.

He has the nerve, the arrogance, to blame her. To call her negligent. To suggest that she did anything but her civic duty. As he had in the courtroom, he tries to portray himself as the victim, the wrongfully accused young man with a bright future ahead of him left to languish and deteriorate in a brutal environment for a series of crimes that he did not commit. Above all else, he is a liar.

He wants her to believe that he and his vile brigade of associates have been made scapegoats in a conspiracy. As if he would know what it is like to be frozen out of the establishment, to have his ideas disregarded and brushed off despite their brilliance. He doesn't. In fact, Tom Riddle had, for a time, had high society on strings.

Immediately, Hermione identifies that something is off about the letter. Something in the content of Tom's writing is causing alarm bells to ring in her head. He's slipped. He has made a mistake somewhere.

She quickly finds it. He talks of his victims - perhaps to taunt, or to reminisce on his crimes, she's heard that serial killers like to relive their crimes. It thrills them to think of the damage and suffering they have inflicted and wrought on the world.

Myrtle Warren. Tom mentions her by name. She had been a fourteen-year-old girl, in the year below him. Smart, but socially awkward, stunted in her social development. As a fifteen-year-old, Tom had poisoned a portion of the student body at his elite boarding school. His schoolmates fell into comas. All eventually awoke and made recoveries, except one: Myrtle Warren. She had been found dead.

The poison had never been identified. Despite the murder weapon remaining unknown, the case had been strong enough for a conviction.

Here, in the letter, Riddle refers to Myrtle's death as being as a result of 'envenomation'. No such thing had ever been listed in her autopsy report, nor had the coroner mentioned it during his witness statement, as far as she is aware. If Hermione recalls correctly, Myrtle Warren had died of an epicardial hemorrhage.

She looks to the blank space in the bottom right-hand corner of her bulletin board, and she decides rather quickly what she will dedicate it to. Tom Riddle will unravel, and she will have her reasoning. She won't accept anything about him remaining a mystery. Her curiosity won't allow it.

Hermione is an expert in political science, diplomacy and activism. But, by the week is out, she is determined to become an expert in envenomation, too.