New Colors of Life

Right...So, after what, two years? I decided to finish the story on the AFF, as it has been finished on FF. Since the last time I had posted anything here was waaay to long ago, I, of course, fucked up everywhere I could. And the italics plus bold letters drive me nuts...So, sorry for that.

I\'ll just keep posting chapter after chapter until I go insane with the editing part.Ha.



After midnight



Once upon a time, I dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, to all intents and purposes a butterfly. I was conscious only of following my fancies as a butterfly, and was unconscious of my individuality as a man. Suddenly I awoke, and there I lay, myself again.



Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming that I am a man.

-Chuang-Tzu, 3rd century BC



A warm light from several magical candles illuminated the dark and chilly room and the two occupants on the king-size bed in the middle of it.



The old clocks on the wall let the only person awake know that it was well past midnight.



Sleep simply did not come. Of course, he could have taken the Sleeping Draught, but for some reason, he wanted to stay awake on his last night at Hogwarts.



Looking down at the relaxed and oh-so-familiar face of his lover who was soundly asleep, Tom

couldn\'t stop a small smile spreading on his face when Hermione smiled in her sleep and mumbled something. Even after the whole year they spent together, Tom could not begin to understand how on earth Hermione could be so trusting. Sure enough, she was always suspicious of him when conscious, but he could clearly see how vulnerable she was while asleep. Asleep in the arms of the Dark Lord; a murderer she knew he was; a person who could have killed her million of times without a second thought- and still Tom could feel her cold feet making their way to their favorite source of heat- his warm ones, and the tight embrace of Hermione\'s soft hands. Yes, he could have killed her many times before, and even now nothing, nothing stopped him from suffocating her with one of the many pillows they were laying on.



He should have killed, Tom thought while watching his lover sleep in his arms. Many, many times during the last several months Tom was determined to simply draw his wand out and cast a Killing Curse, the same curse he had cast many times before.



When he thought about killing Hermione, even though she held a lot of secrets for him to reveal in the future, he thought only of the Killing Curse. He used to think for some time that the reason for his choice was pretty simple- it was his most favorite Unforgivable, but when his traitorous mind told him the real reason behind his choice, he destroyed all the furniture in their room, like a common filthy muggle would do- kicking and throwing thing around.



Tom still tried not to think about it, as the simple memory drove him nuts with anger. He did not want her to suffer.



Tom\'s musings were disturbed by a small cough coming from the still sleeping form of Hermione.



Hugging her tighter, Tom took a concerned glance at her peaceful expression. Two days ago Hermione caught cold when they were gathering some mushrooms in the Forbidden Forest at night. He should have forced her to return to the castle when he saw her shivering from cold. Instead, with a heavy sigh, he gave Hermione his own cloak- and the result was evident in the morning. Hermione was violently sick and he was perfectly well.



With a worried expression on his face, Tom tried to wake Hermione up when he heard another violent cough escape her lips.



"Granger, wake up," said Tom quietly shaking her still soundly sleeping form.



He did not want to raise his voice, since he could clearly remember the last time he did so; and he was pretty sure his broken nose did as well. After Tom suggested Hermione would visit St. Mungo\'s and get some professional help as her nerves clearly needed some heavy treatment, he had to cast a Petrificus Totalus on her before she could tear him apart with her teeth.



"Uh-hu," murmured the still sleeping Hermione and shifted her position so that she was completely over Tom\'s form. The happy smile on her face did nothing to calm Tom\'s inner turmoil.



He killed everyone who had either annoyed him, or mistreated him in his childhood, that was except Dumbledore, but the fool\'s time was yet to come. He cast the Killing Curse without even a second though; he felt satisfaction and pleasure run through his body while casting the Cruciatus Curse and watching the victim suffer; he did not know what remorse meant and he definitely did not change in any way. But he simply could not kill her. Tom tried to reason with himself that it was only because of her importance to him, and the anger started bubbling inside of him yet again. He refused to even think about the emotional part of their involvement and every time his wonderful memory would stuff his brain with flashes of the scenes from their time spent together.



Putting his chin on the top of Hermione\'s unruly hair Tom smirked with unease. The whole situation was getting out of his control and that was not supposed to happen.



With a feather like touches, Tom stroked Hermione\'s hand, too deep in his thoughts to notice that his \'head-ache\' had woken up.



He did not love her- that the Dark Lord was sure of. The thought, however, did not really help. He knew that he was incapable of feeling the \'normal\' love; he was far too gone for that. He already had four horcruxes and his soul was already ripped apart too many times for the normal emotions to exist. However, the thought alone that he did not really want to kill Hermione, made him want to cast the Avada Kedavra while pointing his wand at his own head.



She was just too much- too noisy, too bossy, too sneaky, too independent and way too smart for her own good. At the same time, Tom could clearly remember the times when Hermione had been so innocent and tender, so full of life and some weird sense of happiness; she had given him funny looks when she thought he wasn\'t watching and he knew that she would often simply look at him for hours when she thought he was asleep. She was Hermione and that was it. At that thought Tom wanted to vomit.



Woken up by the tender touches of the oh-so-familiar hand, Hermione lay as quiet as a mouse, not daring to let Tom know she was no longer asleep.



How many times during the last few months had she been laying awake, thinking what had happened to her life- just like Tom was now. Hermione knew Tom better than anybody else- she was pretty sure of it; she knew even without words spoken what he was thinking of or what his current mood was.



Breathing steadily and quietly, Hermione recalled the last few months of their life, trying not to cry because that was it- their life. Not his and her, but their life, as Hermione could no longer understand how to live without him, without being in his presence every day and every night.



He was a crazy bastard in every sense of the word. He was evil, impossibly cruel and violent; the amount of his self-esteem and his ego weighted more than the whole Hogwarts castle; he did not know what love, redemption or pity meant; he thought that there were only two opinions- his and the wrong one; he often shouted at her and treated her like a house-elf. He was completely bonkers and nothing in the world could help him in that department.



At the same time he had the most brilliant mind Hermione had ever seen. He was determined, ambitious, extremely powerful and smart, he was so sneaky and cunning that even without knowing, one could understand his ancestry. He was handsome and he could be tender when he wanted to. His laugh, oh so rare honest laugh, and not the evil crackling, made Hermione shiver with passion.



Taking a deep breath, Hermione tried to stop the traitorous thoughts and memories from crawling into her painfully throbbing brain, but it was to no avail. The memories and feelings crashed upon her like a deadly tsunami, surrounding and suffocating her with its dark and unruly waters.



Flashback.



It was the 31st of December, the last day of the soon-to-be over year and it was his birthday.



Before yesterday, Hermione really did not plan on buying Tom anything; it wasn\'t like he was her boyfriend or anything. Trying not to think that with their living arrangements and the way they spent their time he was more like a husband, Hermione recalled the reason why she decided to buy him a birthday present.



Right after the Christmas ball, where Hermione had a lot of fun and Tom didn\'t, the Star was ready for a very painful evening; wondering if she lived to see the sunrise. Tom, however, surprised her immensely- he did not kill her and he didn\'t really hurt her…that much.



When the ball was over, smiling sweetly and innocently, Hermione darted off to the Gryffindor tower, hoping to escape the wrath of the I-will-kill-you-and-then-I-will-eat-you-but-you-will-suffer-anyway Dark Lord. It must have been a spectacle- Hermione, dressed like a stoned milkmaid who got dressed in the dark storage-room of a circus, and the elegant Head boy, both smiling like sharks before darting off from the Great Hall.



Luckily for Tom, everybody thought that Hermione had a great sense of humor and she even received 50 points from the Charms\' Professor. Dumbledore should have given her some points as well- for the brilliant transfiguration work- but Hermione sensed waves of envy coming for the Transfiguration Professor dressed in orange cloak with purple stars and a red with yellow pointed hat for not coming up with the idea for the \'outfit\' for himself. Hermione was much more \'fashionable\' than anybody else in the whole Great Hall.



After twenty minutes of running around the castle, playing hide-and-seek with the craziest and deadliest Dark Lord in the history, Hermione ran towards the lake. Her high-heeled boots and the idiotic heavy star on the top of her head made it very difficult for Hermione to run quick enough to escape the clutches of the I-will-find-you-and-you-will-be-very-sorry Head Boy.



She would have used magic to transfigure her even-the-horse-is-not-that-loud boots that alerted anyone in the range of one mile of her location and the star would have been thrown away, hadn\'t it been for the nasty spell the Dark Lord had managed to cast on her. If Hermione used magic, he\'d know straight away where she was hiding.



And that was no good.



Hermione thought she made it when she reached the waters of the lake- all she had to do now was hide somewhere. The only question remained was where exactly could she hide and not die from the impossible cold without any chance of using magic. Running like a pregnant hippo, Hermione almost died from the heart attack when a strong body jumped on her and pulled into



the freezing waters.



"Ha-ha-ha…Having fun now, Granger?" sweetly asked Tom while holding the shivering form of his \'playmate\' under water.



Still, he did not kill her- he simply burned her whole wardrobe when they finally made it to the castle and made her wear three transfigured leaves while she was in their room- two on her breasts and one covering her feminine core.



Trying not to think of the pervert who waited impatiently in the castle, Hermione entered the shop. She really did not know what to give him- any small pretty object he would no doubt turn into yet another horcrux.



A book? Really, what book could she give him- "How to cope with a difficult childhood?" ,or "Insanity and its consequences", or maybe even " The bad and the good. How to make friends and not enemies". Stiffing an insane giggle, Hermione decided she did not want to test Tom\'s patience; she was walking on a very thin ice as it was.



After giving it some thought, Hermione decided to buy him an owl; after living with Tom for some months, Hermione knew for sure that he didn\'t have a personal owl.



Taking her time to pick the pet for Tom, as she really wanted to please him, Hermione wandered around the shop, looking at the various creatures in the shop.



Just when she was about to tell the shop owner that she had finally picked the owl she wanted to buy, Hermione saw a small cage with a little snake in it. The cage was placed far away from the entrance and one simply did not notice it. The small serpent had huge yellowish eyes that were looking straight at Hermione. The little head was swaying back and forth, as if the snake was bouncing or something. The hissing coming from the creature sounded so…lost and unhappy that Hermione instantly had tears in her eyes.



"Ah, I wouldn\'t recommend that one, Missy," the shop owner said looking disdainfully at the bouncing snake.



"Uhhh…and why is that, sir?" asked Hermione while eyeing the little serpent\'s eyes that were almost full of tears.



"Weird one that is, that\'s for sure. Bought ten times and every time it was returned," murmured the shop keeper. "If you ask me, I\'ll say it\'s touched in the head".



\'Tom will know for sure how to deal with the poor creature. He\'s the only one that understands them, anyway,\' thought Hermione having already decided that she was going to buy this one.



Even though it was a snake, it wasn\'t a poisonous one, and definitely not as spoiled as Nagini. The fat creature just couldn\'t stay away from their bed and Hermione had to throw Nagini out every single night. She did not care that Nagini was lonely, as Tom told her many times with a nasty smirk on his handsome face.



Bastards, both of them. Only Dumbls was on her side, but Tom had found a way to keep the parrot quiet after one round of Cruciatus when the parrot called Tom \'a white fluffy pussy\'.



The little snake\'s eyes were so full of hope that Hermione decided not to dwell on the fact that she was buying a snake for the Dark Lord as a birthday present.



The look on Tom\'s face when Hermione gave him his present in a form of a hissing and bouncing snake was imprinted into her memory forever.



Waiting nervously for the reaction, Hermione did not want to admit it even to herself that she wanted him to be happy with the present. And not only with the present.



End Flashback



Smiling to herself, Hermione felt Tom\'s embrace tighten.



Tom was thinking about the exact same things as Hermione was- his birthday and his present.



He really did not expect Hermione to know when his birthday was and he definitely did not expect to receive the first ever birthday gift. No matter that the gift turned out to be a heavily touched in the head snake that sang and made rhymes all the times.



Tom remembered sitting on the sofa in their room with Nagini in his lap and Dumbls hidden in the closet. It was not his fault that the bird preferred to hide in there when Hermione was not in the room. It should have thought better before calling the Dark Lord not only a pussy, but also a white and a fluffy one.



Tom was reading a book about the mushrooms that he needed for the ritual when he heard something strange. He took a glance at Nagini- the snake had also heard something and was looking peculiarly at her Master. So, unless the bird learned Parseltongue, there was another snake nearby. Tom thought about his pet basilisk, but it was hidden in the Chamber of Secrets and it definitely didn\'t do that.



"You better watchhh out



You bettter not cry



Bettter not pout



I\'m tttelling you whhhy



Ssssanta Claussss is coming tto ttown"



Tom and Nagini were trying to decide whether they were hallucinating or not when a door opened and a beaming Hermione stepped into the room with a bouncing package in her hands- the same package that was \'producing\' the sound that was supposed to be a song.



Still not believing his eyes, Tom took the package when Hermione mumbled about this being his birthday present.



Looking at the creature, Tom was about to ask Hermione what the hell it was, when the snake started bouncing and swaying once again.



"He\'ssss making a lissssst,



And chhhecking it twiccce;



Gonna find out Who\'ssss naughty and niccce.



Sasssnta Clausss isssss coming to town"



Taking a glance at the shocked Nagini, Tom did the only thing that came to his mind- he laughed.



So now, when Tom and Hermione laid in bed, both unsleeping, Nagini, Dumbls and Tom\'s newest snake- The Butterfly, as it called itself, were in the room as well.



He was living in a fucking zoo, Tom decided finally drifting to sleep.



Hermione sensed when Tom fell asleep and took a careful glance at his relaxed features.



\'How could somebody so handsome be so evil?\' thought Hermione looking at the straight noise that she had broken several times and the perfectly shaped lips that she had kissed so many times and was kissed in return.



She was betraying everything and everyone by laying here with him, admiring his looks and not trying to kill him. Every single day Hermione spent trying to solve this riddle that was sleeping now, looking like an angel. He was an enigma, a brilliant and impossible difficult enigma that had captured Hermione and was not letting go. She honestly believed that she was better off without him in her life until that night.



It happened more than three months ago, on the 16th of February, right after the Valentine\'s Day.



Hermione remembered that day as clearly as if it had only been yesterday.



Moving even closer to Tom\'s warm body, Hermione tried to stop the tears, but they ran like a mighty waterfall and Hermione\'s heart clenched with the unbearable pain, just like back then.



Flashback.



It was around nine o\'clock in the evening when Hermione returned to her room in a rather nasty mood. Tom was there reading a book about some painful curses and not paying her any attention at all.



They had a fight a couple of hours ago and now it seemed no one wanted to talk first.



Hermione went to bed and turned her back at Tom, clearly showing what she thought of him.



Hermione was so annoyed by him that the only thing she wanted at the moment was for him to leave her alone, to leave her life for good.



If Hermione thought that Tom was going to apologize to her, or to lie beside her and hold her, the she heavily mistaken.



She heard him get up and move towards his old room.



The interconnecting door\'s lock clicked, leaving Hermione alone in the cold and dark room.



Trying not to think about Tom Riddle, Hermione fell asleep.



A loud moan woke her up.



Looking around the room for the source of the noise, Hermione\'s heart almost stopped when she understood that the moan was coming from Tom\'s room.



Another lusty moan was followed by laughter, his laughter, and Hermione felt as if a Dementor had entered her room.



Tom was with her, with that bitch Walburga Black, and he was definitely enjoying himself.



Hermione\'s heart was beating so fast that she feared it would jump form her ribcage; she did not have enough air to breath. Tom really left her, as she had wanted him to.



The pain was unbelievable; Hermione could not think, could not breathe and she felt as if she was dying inside.



"No, no, Merlin please, NO," sobbed Hermione holding her head in her hands. Tom was not having sex with another woman, he was not. She wanted to howl like a werewolf at the moon, to stop the pain and the devastation that were ripping her soul apart.



Hermione wanted to run to his room, to kill that bitch and to make Tom pay. She wanted to hit him so hard so he would feel what she felt. She wanted to hold him tight and never let go, no matter what he was. She wanted him. She needed him. She loved him.



With an insane cry of outrage and hurt, Hermione fell onto the floor, not caring if she hurt herself or not. She deserved the pain for betraying everything she believed in, for betraying everyone she had known.



She fell in love with a murdered, a monster that would never stop until he achieved what he wanted; she fell in love with her own death.



The moans and cried of pleasure kept coming from Tom\'s room and Hermione tried to cover her ears, to scratch her eyes out, so she wouldn\'t hear or imagine what he was doing there.



Wailing like a wounded animal, Hermione finally understood what the word jealousy meant- the pain and the suffering were so strong that every sane thought flew out of her mind, leaving her alone and naked to the worst nightmare possible.



Even the recent revelation about her feeling for the Dark Lord did not register in her exploding mind- all she could see and hear was Tom with another woman. Her Tom.



Hermione did not know what happened next, but she woke up in her own bed and not on the floor where she had fallen.



She woke up in cold sweat and an insanely beating heart. When Hermione saw Tom who was lying beside her in their bed, she thought with the strongest relief she had ever experienced that it had been a dream, a nightmare.



Her relief was gone as soon as she noticed the hickey on Tom\'s neck and sensed the dreadfully sweet perfume coming from him.



With a crazy wail Hermione launched herself at the surprisingly quiet and pensive Dark Lord, trying to hit him, to make him suffer. Tears flooded her eyes and she did not see the pained expression on Tom\'s face, not caring about anything else than to make him pay for her pain.



A very strong embrace halted all her movements.



"Hush," a soft voice whispered and Hermione felt a tickling of magic-Tom had cleaned himself up from the scent and the presence of Walburga. Soft lips touched Hermione\'s forehead and she felt drifting asleep.



End Flashback.



Wiping her eyes from the tears, Hermione took a deep breath and closed her eyes.



There was no sense in getting back to that day, as it had never happened again, as far as Hermione knew.



Something happened between the time when she wailed herself to sleep on the cold dungeon floor and the when she woke up in her bed with Tom looking gravely at her. Hermione wanted to know what it was, but she knew better than to ask.



He could not know what she felt for him, Hermione thought while falling asleep.



Tomorrow a new life began- away from Hogwarts and Walburga.



Tomorrow after the Graduation, a new journey was waiting for them. A journey that would begin in Mexico.



To be continued