#tom riddle oneshot
Text
Obsession
Tom Riddle X Fem OC/Reader
Word Count: 5K
Warnings: Mild language, Graphic, Smut, Toxic, Possessive, Protective, Angst, Fluff, Suggestive, Anger…
Prompt: Y/N Black is a mystery to many. She isn’t interested in making friends, only her studies. However, unbeknownst to many, one boy has piqued her interest——Tom Riddle. Little did she know, he had an obsession with her.
Sidenote: I did use some spells from the vampire diaries just for the heck of it. I may do a part two, but I’m not sure if it really needs it. I’ll leave it up to you guys!
Everyone seemed more chattier than usual. Maybe it was the upcoming Yule Ball or maybe it was because holidays were approaching. However, you hated the buzzing chatter, the obnoxious shouting, and all of the crowded halls. You had tried to go to the library as an escape from this madness, but everyone had infiltrated the library even.
You were the Scrooge that everybody was painfully aware of as you stormed through the halls with your books clutched to your chest. If you were a Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, or Gryffindor, they would have laughed at the irked expression on your face. However, knowing you were a Slytherin strikes fear in many.
Not to mention you were a mystery to many. You were oh so quiet, along with a freakishly amount of smart, and an unearthly amount of beautiful. You chose to stick to yourself, choosing to not make any friends. You instead chose to have acquaintances in case a group project popped up, however you normally managed to worm your way out of that so you could work alone.
That was how you preferred doing things, alone. Other students have given up on trying to befriend you, seeing it as pointless. Guys would still try and ask you out, but their advances failed. They hadn’t noticed that your interest was piqued by a boy already. However, it seemed that he was just like you.
Tom Riddle was a handsome young man with jet black curly-ish hair and dark brown eyes that looked almost black from afar. He was fairly tall and had a lean look. His face was always blank…passive as he studied or walked through the halls or even when he was with his group of “friends”. They were his followers in his mind, not his friends. To anyone else, they saw them as a happy friend group.
You had noticed the things that anyone would pick up about Tom from afar, like his intelligence. Tom excelled in all of his classes, in fact he was tied at the top of the year with you. He too was introverted, preferring to be alone and in silence. For someone as passive as Tom, you noticed things he did. When he was judging something, he’d lean back in his chair, occasionally quirking an eyebrow as if he was impressed or annoyed.
When he was in a rather intuitive or creative mood, his eyes seemed to be a lighter shade of brown and he would get carried away in his journal. When he was thinking, he would zone out on his journal or something in the room.
You noticed that he’d clench his jaw until a muscle there ticked when he got angered. When he was annoyed, he had a tendency to sigh.
“Y/N!” Narcissa calls.
She stood among Tom Riddle and all of his “friends”. Tom’s eyes find you who was clearly irritated. You had made your way through the crowd and head towards her.
“Yes?” You ask.
“Hey, that is no way to talk to your favorite cousin.” Narcissa scolds.
“Who said you were my favorite?” You ask.
“It’s because it is me.” Bellatrix grins.
“Not you either.” You mutter.
“Moving on, have you seen Sirius or Regulus?” She asks.
“I’m not their keeper, Narcissa.” You mutter.
“They said they were meeting up with you.” She says, sighing in frustration.
“Well they didn’t. I need to get to class.” You mutter.
Before you could go, Bellatrix grabs your upper arm in a tight grip. You turn back to her with a clenched jaw as Narcissa steps back, muttering an “Uh-Oh”.
“Leaving so soon, cousin?” She mocks.
“Bellatrix, I’m warning you now to let go or you will regret it.” You warn calmly.
“What will you do? You're all goody two shoes, yet your in Slytherin. I think that dumb hat sorted you into the wrong house.” She says.
You pull your wand free, pointing it at her as you mutter “Stupefy”. You roll your eyes as she flies backwards through the crowd.
“If I wouldn’t get expelled, I would definitely crucio you or use the killing curse on you for your information. However, nothing is stopping me once we graduate.” You say, before turning and leaving the group stunned.
Tom smiles slightly as he watches you walk away, finding himself even more intrigued with you than he originally was. Call it an interest or maybe an obsession at this point. He liked to watch you when he could. He noticed things about you that he was sure no one else noticed.
He knew you were a quiet and mysterious girl, but underneath that “innocent” mask you wore, he knew there was a strong woman with a dangerous mind. You were far from innocent and today proved that more so to him. To anyone else, you were that innocent girl. However, when you let your guard down if you were stressed or angry or irritated, he could see the danger swirling in your (eye color) eyes.
He lets his smile fall, regaining his composure before turning back to his group. Bellatrix was back on her feet, a scowl on her face as Narcissa helped hold her up. He watches as Sirius and Regulus join them.
“What is wrong with you?” Sirius asks.
“Your bloody sister is what is wrong! She used stupefy on me!” She snaps.
“How pissed off did you make her?” Regulus chuckles, shaking his head.
“You both told me you were meeting with her about becoming a follower. Yet, she hasn’t seen either of you all day. So, where were you both off to?” Narcissa snaps.
“Have you seen how mad she can get? We learned not to mess around when she gets mad, Issa. When she is mad, she will take down anyone in her path. We’ve learned how to avoid making her mad. So, you go have that conversation with her because I rather not get crucio’d again.” Sirius says.
“Wow.” Avery mutters.
“She may be quiet and keeps to herself, but Y/N is a ticking time-bomb when you make her mad. She is intelligent, and maybe too intelligent for her own good. She also liked being stronger than others in magic, so that is why she studies so hard. However, because she is so antisocial and introverted, even as a child before Hogwarts, she took her studies serious, so she doesn’t understand fun. She is boring.” Sirius says.
“I bet she hasn’t ever shagged anyone, or snogged! A sixth year and a virgin! That is embarrassing.” Bellatrix cackles.
That further piqued Tom’s interest about you.. He found himself having more thoughts about you, both innocent and sinful thoughts. However, his sinful thoughts changed to the exception of you being a virgin. That made him feel a possessiveness over you he wasn’t quite sure how to feel about. However, he knew that the idea of you being with anyone else was sickening to him. You were his, you just didn’t know it yet.
Your studies past fairly quickly and you were heading towards the Great Hall. You sit at your normal spot, Regulus sitting next to you. Tom sat a table down with his “friends”, however his focus was on you. Regulus gently closed your books, pushing them away.
“Eat, then study.” He stresses softly.
As irritated as you were about him taking away your books, you listened. Tom quirked a brow, finding himself wondering if it was often you got so distracted by your studies that you didn’t take care of yourself the best. His eyes roam over you slowly, noticing the dark circles under your eyes along with the thinning face of yours. So, it was often, he thought.
“Y/N! My favorite sister! How has your day been?” Sirius asks as plops down across from you.
“What do you want?” You ask, sighing as you pushed your food around on your plate.
“Nothing to do with studies I hope, she is taking a break to eat.” Regulus stresses.
You close your eyes as the two start to argue, resting your chin on your hand. You open your eyes when Regulus stands, his voice getting louder.
“Enough!” You snap, the two instantly quieting.
It had gotten the attention of those around your table. You take in a slow breath before letting it out, regaining your composure before looking between your brothers with a blank look.
“You two bicker like a bunch of children. This is our brief moment to be able to hang out, however you both don’t know how to push aside your differences because you both are too hot-headed and irrational.” You rant.
You snatch up your books that Regulus had pushed away from you earlier and stood from the table as you left the Great Hall.
Tom watched you leave before looking between your brothers, before his eyes fell on your plate of untouched food. He puts some food in his bag, going unnoticed and decides to leave himself. He made his way to the library, heading to the forbidden section where he assumed you’d be. He feels a brief moment of pride flare in his chest, right about where you had gone. He clears his throat and you look up from your notes.
“Here. I noticed you didn’t eat.” He says.
His voice surprised you. It was deep, soft and mysterious. He pulled out some food he took from the Great Hall and handed it to you.
“Thank you.” You murmur.
He nods, going to leave and you begin working on your studies again. You sigh as a loud group comes into the library.
“Would you allow me to show you a place I like to go?” He asks, looking back down at you.
“I don’t see why not.” You admit, gathering your stuff before standing.
You follow behind Tom, not quite sure where he was taking you. You knew of his quest to become the Dark Lord. Some of his followers had big mouths, so you heard more than everyone thought you knew. They assumed you were clueless about his current quest and they all were tip-toeing around who would be the one to break the news to you. However, you knew. You knew more than them in fact.
He looks around, making sure there was no other students or professors in the hall before a door appears in the wall. Your lips part from surprise as he ushers you in, following behind you. You looked around the empty room in awe.
“The Room of Requirements…I’ve heard of it and I’ve looked everywhere for it.” You mumble.
“Yes, I searched for this room for awhile myself. I later learned that the room only will appear in great need.” Tom explains, seeming rather smug about finding it.
“The room seems to know you quite well…and you seem to know the room quite well too. Otherwise, the door wouldn’t have appeared because I’m sure my studies are not in great need.” You say, turning back to him.
You feel a heat spread across your body as you catch his eyes on you. The dark eyes slowly trail over you, mapping out your body. His eyes stop on your blouse where you had a few buttons undone since you were alone and had started to get a little hot in the confined aisles of the forbidden section in the library.
He steps forward, closing the distance between the two of you. You look up, not realizing that he was this tall. He puts a hand out and gently grasps your hip before trailing it up your side. He tugs on the middle of your blouse, revealing more of your cleavage, before he starts undoing the remaining buttons.
“That and maybe because I am in great need of you.” He murmurs, leaning down to trail his lips along your neck.
You shiver, feeling a trail of goosebumps being left behind from the ghost touch. His hands find your shoulders where he pushes the robes off before pushing your blouse off along with it. He leaves a soft kiss on your racing pulse, before he pulls back to look down at you.
You were left in a dark green lace bra, and he tsked quietly, approving the way they made your breasts look. The bra seemed to work as a push-up bra, but really Narcissa had gotten you the wrong size this year.
His eyes trail over your stomach, noting the soft curves he would be sure to feel later. His eyes focus on the short school-girl skirt, also Narcissa’s doing. You didn’t fret much about it as you knew you’d wear your robe more often than not. You were wearing knee high stockings with a pair of mary-janes.
“The school girl skirt, hmph, your just asking to be fucked, aren’t you?” He asks, a smirk slowly spreading across his face.
“Tom.” You say breathlessly.
“Leave the skirt on, but take your panties off.” He orders.
He begins unbuttoning his own shirt, watching you. You were frozen in place before you start to work the panties down. He held a hand out, looking at you expectantly. Your shaky hand places the matching dark green lace panties into his hand.
He balls it up and sticks it in his blazer pocket. You watch as his long, slender fingers work his belt off. Your eyes focused on his veiny hands.
“Hands and knees.” He says.
You slowly drop to your knees, turning over, no longer able to watch his next move. You get on your hands, moving so you are on your elbows. You arch your back down, sticking your ass out more.
Tom licks his lips slowly, swallowing hard as he watches you get into the position. He inhales deeply, watching as you arch your back. He puts a clenched fist to his mouth, lightly biting himself, not quite sure if this was really happening. The skirt hid nothing. He could see the big globes that he found himself really attracted to. He never would have taken himself as an ass man.
His eyes trail further down to see your glistening entrance. He pushes his pants off before he gets on the ground behind you. He brushes your hair over your shoulder, before he finds himself tracing down your spine lightly. You shiver unintentionally, however he enjoyed the effect he on you.
“How bad do you want me?” He murmurs into your ear.
“Please, Tom.” You whisper as you push your hips back.
“Pathetic. Do you want my cock or not?” He asks, grabbing a fistful of your hair and roughly jerking your head back.
A breathless moan fills the thick air in the room as a heat spreads across your scalp. He clenches his jaw, feeling himself twitch from the sound he heard. It was the beginning of a beautiful symphony, one he didn’t realize how much he’d become crazed for.
“Tom! Please! I need you!” You cry, feeling frustrated that he wasn’t touching you where you wanted to be touched.
He smirks, gently grabbing your hips. He uses his other hand to guide himself into your dripping entrance. He groans, your walls immediately grasping onto him, suffocating him. You moan lowly, your hands grasping at the stone floor as your eyes flutter shut.
“Fuck.” He curses, working himself in and out of you slowly.
“Tom, please.” You plead, pushing your hips back.
“Is my cock the first one you’ve ever had?” He asks, his eyes burning in the back of your head as he awaited your response.
“Yes! Please, Tom!” You cry.
He couldn’t help the grin across his face. He heard it, but he wasn’t sure if maybe you just kept them out of the loop. But, knowing he was the one to take your virginity was exhilirating to him.
“I better be the only cock you have here. You are mine.” He warns.
“Yes! I-I’m yours, Tom!” You moan as he starts to move at a faster pace.
“I’ll kill any boy who dares to be with you, because you are mine! I’ll punish you if I see you talking to some boy.” He growls, his hips now savagely moving.
You cry for more, your soft and loud moans were music to his ears. He breathed heavily along with you as held onto your hips tightly. Skin smacking echoed in the room and you heard his soft groan which sent you coming. He groans louder as you clench around him, coming around him.
You stood on shaky legs, buttoning up your blouse and grimacing as you feel your shared climaxes slowly leaking out of you. He grasps your chin, looking at you with a stern look.
“Keep it in. I want you to know who fucked you.” He says.
“Tom, I need my panties.” You say as your cheeks flush.
“Find another way to keep it in.” He says, before focusing back on straightening himself out.
You pull your blazer on along with your robes before grabbing your books and hurrying out. You reach the Slytherin common room, Narcissa and Bellatrix looking up from their game of cards. Sirius and Regulus’s backs were to you.
“Oh my god, you got shagged!” Narcissa exclaims with a grin.
“Who was it?” Bellatrix asks.
“Yeah, I’d like to know.” Sirius seethes, taking in your disheveled hair and the hickeys on your neck.
Narcissa looks at your knees to see that they were scraped up, but you choose to ignore your brothers and cousins as you make your way past them. Regulus laughs, yelling “Atta girl!”
A small smile graces your lips at your little brothers comment. He too was protective of you, but he knew you inside and out. He and you were far closer than you were with Sirius. You get to your dorm and think of showering, but then your mind wanders to Tom. Keep it in…
You pull on a pair of fresh panties as you change into your nightware. You found yourself tossing and turning for a long while before you fell asleep. By the time it was time to wake up, you were exhausted. You could sleep in, but that ruins your morning routine.
You go to the shower, grimacing at the burn in your stomach. It was now that you realized you didn’t eat once yesterday. You finished up in the bathroom before pulling on a black lingerie set. You gasp as your door opens and Tom walks in.
“I knew you’d be awake.” He says, his eyes slowly roaming over you and some of the bruises he had made from where he held you still.
“Tom, what are you doing here?” You ask, grabbing a random robe and pulling it on.
“I’ve seen it all, darling. I wanted to tell you no more skirts.” He says and you look at him confused.
“I…Is it because how short they are?” You ask.
“That and the school girl skirt should be meant for my eyes when we are alone. Do you understand?” He asks.
“I…yes, Tom.” You say quietly.
He grins, looking at your neck where you had several hickeys before he leaves. You frown and look at the outfit you had prepared for this morning. It consisted of a school girl skirt.You sigh, grabbing a dark green skater skirt that ended a little about mid-thigh. There wasn’t much you could do about the length of your skirts until you went shopping again.
You grab your button up blouse and your Slytherin tie. You grab the blazer and sigh when you see dust on it. You hang it back up, deciding you will have to clean it later because you don’t have time now.
You pull on your knee socks and mary-janes when there was a knock at your dorm door. You open it and see it was Narcissa.
“I came bearing gifts.” She says.
You open the door and she guides you to the small vanity as she begins to help you cover the hickeys on your neck and jawline.
“So, who was it?” She asks.
“I’m not sure if I’m ready to say who it was yet.” You murmur.
“Did he force you? I’ll make him suffer the worst ways imaginable.” She says seriously.
“No, no, he didn’t force me. I’m just not sure what is happening yet. I don’t know if it merely was just another shag to him or if it’ll turn into something. However, he’s being a little controlling of what I wear, mainly my skirts.” You explain.
“I feel like I already know who this is.” She says, sighing.
“Who?” You ask.
“Tom Riddle?” She asks.
“Oh…how did you know?” You ask.
“Tom is…many things. I don’t know if he is capable of love and a relationship. He is a very possessive man. And I mean to the extent that it isn't healthy. He is ill-tempered and easily jealous. Not to mention he can be obsessive too. I personally think you should put some distance between the two of you and let things die down. I don’t know what his intentions are, but I’m sure they aren’t good.” She explains.
“Alright.” You say quietly.
You were quite sure how to feel. But, you knew Narcissa meant well and you also knew that she knew Tom better than you. You trusted her advice almost as you trusted Regulus’s.
“All done.” She says.
“Thank you, Issa.” You murmur and she nods.
She leaves you to your thoughts and you realize you need to head down to the Great Hall for breakfast. You gather your books and make your way out of your dorm in a daze. You head to the Great Hall and see everyone was already there. You ignore the burning stare that you knew belonged to Tom Riddle.
“Hey, you okay? You seem out of it? And your running late.” Regulus says.
“Oh, I’m fine. I think I’m just in need of food. I realized I didn’t eat once yesterday.” You explain.
“Y/N/N, you’ve got to take better care of yourself. I will start treating you like I did the first year.” He warns.
“I know, I know, and I promise I’ll do better.” You sigh.
“Why is Riddle staring at you? He seems pissed.” He whispers.
“Oh, who knows.” You sigh, briefly glancing at Tom.
Tom was staring at your neck where your hickeys would be, but thanks to Narcissa, they were no longer there. You managed to eat some of your food before it began to make you feel sick. You felt suffocated with Tom glaring daggers into you and Sirius was no better.
“Stop it.” Regulus warns Sirius.
“I want to know who it was.” He snaps, looking back at you.
You clench your jaw, narrowing your eyes at him as you take a slow breath in and let it out. You pull your wand out and keep your hand rested on the table, so you don’t draw anymore attention to you.
“Keep glaring, brother and watch how fast you end up in the hospital wing.” You warn lowly.
“Guys.” Narcissa warns.
“Who is he?” He growls lowly, leaning closer to you.
“Oh shit. Take cover!” Regulus says, going under the table.
You reach forward, grabbing Sirius’s tie and pull him closer as your face heats from anger.
“Astronomy tower, now.” You grit out.
He stands and storms out and you stand as Regulus pokes his head out.
“Don’t kill him please.” He pleads.
You storm out of the Great Hall, wand in hand as you make your way towards the Astronomy tower to see him already there and waiting.
“Who is it!?” He snaps as you both circle each other.
“Sirius, it’s none of your business. Stop trying to act like the older and protective brother. Stop acting like you care!” You snap.
“I do care! You're my sister.” He snaps.
“Guys. Let’s try to keep calm.” Narcissa says as she walks in with her group.
“Yeah, let’s just hug it out and make up.” Regulus says.
“I want to know who has my sister acting like a tramp.” He snaps.
“Oh no….oh no! Oh no! Back up, back up, back up!” Regulus says as he pushes everyone back.
“Bombarda!” You fast and Sirius curses as he tries to dodge the mini explosion you casted his way.
“Confundo!” He shouts, but you dodge it.
“Everte Statum.” You cast, watching as he flies back against the wall, his wand falling in the process.
You walk forward, grabbing his wand before looking down at him.
“Impulsa Animositas!” You snap, gaining confused looks from around the room.
“I…Y/N, have you been creating spells again?” Regulus asks cautiously.
“Again?” Narcissa asks alarmed.
“What did you do to me?” Sirius snaps.
“Say something mean. To any of us.” You say, smirking.
“What the hell did you do to me you crazy bi—ow!” He exclaims after feeling a jolt of electricity go through you.
“Just as I assumed. This spell will zap you everytime you try and say something mean.” You say.
“That’s child’s play you idiot!” He snaps before groaning.
“Hm. This isn’t. Lihednat Dolchitni.” You cast.
His hands find his throat as he try’s to breath. You clench your fist tighter, watching how he struggles more before you wave your hand and it stops. He leans forward, breathing heavily.
“Tread carefully, brother. I have far more up my sleeve than you wish to believe.” You spat.
“You…you will get in so much trouble for creating spells. Regulus and I told you that you need to stop.” He breathes heavily.
“Then keep your mouths shut otherwise I’ll make you suffer in the worst unimaginable ways.” You say.
With that, you turn and walk past the group who seemed shocked. You head back to the Great Hall, gathering your items before heading back to your dorm. You were too upset and riled up to do anything. So, instead you hurry to your dorm and lock the door.
You pace frantically, running your hands through your hair. You let a breath out that you hadn’t noticed you were holding.
“You’re okay. You’re okay. Everything is okay.” You mumble to yourself.
The lock on your door clicks, so you turn and see Tom. He closes the door back and turns to you with that normal passive and cold look.
“That was…impressive.” He says.
“Tom, I really rather be alone right now.” You mutter.
“Why cover the marks I left? I left them for a reason.” He says, his voice hardening as his eyes turn several shades darker.
“I didn’t want to walk around with them showing. People would have said something and I don’t want to deal with that. Plus, I rather the school not know I was your play thing.” You mutter harshly, turning your back to him.
“Who said you were a play thing because I don’t recall ever telling you that?” He snaps.
“Tell me this, Tom. Are you one for commitment? Would you be in an exclusive relationship? Huh, tell me that!” You snap harshly as you turn to face him again.
“I can do commitment. Before, I’d say no. However, for you I am willing to do it. I’m willing to be in an exclusive relationship as you call it. Because I can’t ever get you out of my head! You are all I can focus on! It’s so…so irritating, yet I love it at the same time.” He growls.
“Tom, there are going to have to be some rules set in place if we are to do something. Like the skirt thing this morning. I only wear skirts.” You say.
“Fine. Wear your skirts, well not the school girl ones, however I can’t promise that some asshole won’t end up dead for looking. You are mine.” He snaps.
“Okay, and what about the marks?” You ask.
“You shouldn’t care what anyone says. You never have before, so why care now? I want people to know that you belong to me. I want the guys to realize that you aren’t a possibility anymore. You are mine.” He says, closing the distance between you both.
You look up as his hand wraps around your throat. He tightens his hand and you let a shaky breath out as you clench your thighs.
“You barely know me.” You mumble.
“I know more than you think, darling. You piqued my interest. When that happens, I tend to learn everything I can.” He murmurs, brushing his nose against yours before kissing you softly.
You hum, moving your hands to his hair. You whine when he pulls back, a smirk on his lips.
“What does that mean? How have you learned about me if you just started speaking to me yesterday?” You ask.
“Because I might be a bit obsessive when it comes to learning of the things that interest me. I won’t stop until I know everything.” He says.
There was banging on your dorm door and you sigh, going to walk past Tom, but he loops an arm around your waist.
“Who is it?” Tom asks, annoyed.
“It’s Bella, me and Regulus. Is Y/N in there?” Narcissa says.
“Well go away. I’m about to fuck my girl.” He snaps.
Your face heats up as you cover your mouth to hide your gasp. Narcissa gasps, Regulus laughs and yells for you to get it while Bellatrix throws a fit.
“We are not doing anything! We are just talking!” You exclaim.
“Talking, huh?” He says, quirking a brow at you as he slips a hand beneath your skirt.
You let a shaky breath out as he trails his hand up your thigh. He gets to your underwear, sliding two fingers beneath the lacy fabric.
“Tom.” You mumble.
“Talking and yet you're so wet for me. Do you want my cock again?” He asks, sliding a finger in you.
Your eyes flutter close and he grins widely, loving the way you reacted to his touch. You were the violin and he was the violinist. He played you so gracefully and loved the beautiful symphony that came from your mouth. It was his greatest obsession.
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The Beginning
◇ Pairing: Tom Riddle X professor!Reader
◇ Warnings: smut, manipulation, forbidden relationship, Tom Riddle, bath, nudity, dub-con, short age gap
◇ Summary: Tom notices that his favourite professor is a bit stressed.
◇ Note: Sorry for the mistakes and the English. Both character are aged up. Part 2 Part 3
The room was filled with the chit chat of students who were taking the Defence Against the Dark Arts class, a subject often called simply DADA by everyone.
In the background of the big lesson room, there was soft music that created an almost pleasant atmosphere in contrast to the type of class that was taking place which had quite heavy topics that frightened many and intrigued others.
One of those people who were fascinated by the subject was Tom Riddle himself, clever boy, Slytherin and much more, especially the darling of professors, of every professor, except Albus Dumbledore, so the young professor Y/l/n was no exception.
There was a special bond between the wunderkind student and the professor, almost intimate if someone misinterpreted it but it was nothing like that or at least that was how it was for Y/n, the young witch had only managed to get her job a few years earlier and right from the start, thanks to the passion for her subject shared with Tom, they began to bond.
The Slytherin student who had now come of age and managed to become the head boy as well as a prefect, had approached the teacher to find out more secrets about magic and because he surprisingly found their conversations interesting as well as entertaining.
This was the real reason why he had started a few months after he met her to pretend to meet her by chance while walking around the castle, thus starting a routine between the two of them that happened almost every day if Y/n wasn't busy with her duties as a Hogwarts professor, which happened sometimes and which annoyed Tom for some strange reason.
Y/n was convinced that Tom saw her as a mother figure, someone to follow and learn from, and so did the young adult, but everything changed one evening.
After a busy astronomy lesson Tom wanted to visit his favorite teacher before heading back to his dormitory but when he reached the door of her classroom, hoping to find her still there, voices made him stop in his tracks.
The door was slightly open and he could easily see what was going on inside Miss Y/l/n's classroom.
She was inside, leaned against a table as she listened attentively to what someone was saying to her, Tom couldn't recognise the man so close to the woman with that look that the student had learned was lustful from the experience of his peers.
The whole situation awakened something all too well known inside the Slytherin heir, envy, pure green envy and resentment turned against them, something animalistic flared up inside him, a need to prove himself just as he had done at the orphanage when he was still a child.
Perhaps that was the reason that started the break of the platonic feelings the student had for his teacher.
New thoughts ran through his head as he decided how to move the pawns of his game in such a way as to receive what he wanted and thought he deserved, waiting patiently for the most suitable moment which came one summer night.
It had been a few months since the beginning of her senior year but they were almost at the end, his attitude had not changed in the slightest towards Miss Y/n and so the young woman did not suspect anything when she received a letter from Tom asking her for urgent help and giving her the coordinates of where to meet.
Worried, the young woman rushed to what she discovered was the prefects' bathroom, she was breathing heavily and was ready to solve whatever the problem was.
The young woman however had expected everything but her favorite student to wander calmly around the bathroom as he arranged the water and suds, meeting her eyes with his cold black ones, a faint smile forming on his face when he spoke "professor".
The atmosphere was suspicious in a way, suspicious but relaxing, since the aroma of soap filled the room as Tom tended to his clothes leaving them propped elegantly on a chair so they couldn't get wet "what's going on, Tom? I got your owl and I came as soon as I could" Y/n declared while she looked around, studying the bathroom in order to understand the riddle and discover why Tom Riddle had made her run all the way there.
She didn't even realize what the boy was doing before he was surrounded by the water and the foam caught her attention again.
Tom was standing in the tub, his clothes forgotten on the chair as the water made his pale skin and nearly Greek god muscles stand out; Y/n couldn't help but notice how his student had grown over the summer, making space for a decidedly attractive young man who reminded her very much of a Greek statue while her y/e/c moved around studying the parts of his skin on view, reaching his neck and finally his face.
She only realised she was holding her breath when their eyes met again, the situation they were in became much clearer to her and a blush appeared on her face making her turn quickly to give privacy to the young man who was staring at her amused with an unfamiliar twinkle behind his pitch black eyes.
She could hear him moving in the water, probably moving closer to where she was before speaking again "I've noticed that you are under a lot of stress lately....I thought a bath might help you, professor" the Slytherin revealed with a mischievous smile that relented slightly when she politely declined several times before attempting to leave the room, soon ending up in the water though, Tom's arms wrapped around her as if they were two snakes, his breath was warm against her neck and she could feel him take in her scent before letting his lips graze the delicate skin of that area "I know you want it too" whispered the young man almost in an attempt to seduce her as he sensed the shiver that ran through her body.
"No one will have to know, my mouth will remain closed" he whispered again, licking this time behind her ear before starting to play with her lobe using his teeth "come on...professor".
Miss Y/l/n's eyes flattered closed despite the fact that she tried to fight her lust, but it was immensely difficult with Tom's large, long hands, which traveled slowly all over her body exploring and almost expertly touching the areas that would make her give in.
It was as if there was a study behind it, his hands traveled with the wisdom of someone who had studied but not yet experimented with practice, this however did not silence the voices telling her not to do it.
The struggle in her head continued and the more time passed the harder it was to resist, especially now that the young adult's body was right against her back and she could feel everything from his muscular chest to his abs to his hard cock against her lower back.
His warm breath was against her now cold neck, making her
shiver and sigh deeply memorising how Tom was touching her because it had been quite some time since she had fucked anyone.
Despite the urge boiling inside her, Y/n shifted, slipping from the wizard's strong grip, stopping his next movements by placing her hand on his smooth chest.
Tom's black eyes met her y/e/c's, his large hand with long, skinny fingers wrapped around her wrist, slowly moving it to his lips, his tongue tracing its way to the inside of her hand before stopping to allow their lips to meet in a strangely soft kiss.
Miss Y/n's tits were against Tom's muscular, pale chest, her hands buried in his black hair as the boy's arms were around her waist bringing her even closer to him.
Their lips moved slowly, both of them lost in the shared sensation, exploring one of the tastes after another. It all ended, however, when Y/n regained control, noticing the head of his cock brushing against her entrance almost as if teasing her.
Reason because she forced herself to pull Tom away from her before licking her lips, weighing up her various options, she wasn't going to go all through with one of her students, it wasn't even supposed to end up like this and yet there she was in a bath with the most talented student at Hogwarts trying to seduce her.
Tom moved closer just as her internal debate ended, it only took her hand to stop him and her gaze followed by a teacher's tone to make him obey "get out of the water, sit on the edge of the pool...this is to stay between us, it won't happen again and I don't want to talk about it ever again, do you understand?" she asked after a few seconds the last question before admiring how Tom's body, shifted and emerged from the water to position itself like she had asked.
And there he was, Tom Marvolo Riddle, in all his glory and nakedness, his legs spread for her and an intense gaze focused solely on her. The young professor had listened to several conversations of the horny schoolgirls going after Tom but had not at all expected what she had in front of her now.
That didn't frighten her though, they had already reached a moment of no return and her hands instinctively moved to the young man's muscular, hairy thighs; they traveled a slow, teasing pace that made all the remaining blood go right down into his now rock hard cock.
The wizard admired closely as Y/n's hands moved over his length, pumping him a couple of times using the water as lubricant before she moved her face closer and left little licks on the tip.
Their eyes met and her mouth continued to work on him, exactly as her hands did, causing small moans followed by hisses that came out of Tom's perfect lips.
His dark eyes had not yet moved away from her just as Y/e/c's were still focused on him, it was intense.
Her tongue came out of her mouth to lick the entire length a couple of times and then take him completely in her mouth, deep throating him without him expecting it.
Her cheeks hollowed as she sucked, Tom's thighs shaked slightly under her hands as sinful grunts escaped his lips; his hips began to move without even meaning to, his tingling hand lusting for dominance gripped her wet hair in a tight grip so that he could choose his movements.
His hips moved swiftly as he fucked her mouth mercilessly focused on achieving his first peak of pleasure, it was a almost suffocation feeling, Tom needed more, much more, but he had almost reached his peak.
The wizard only released his hold when he came, now leaving Y/n free to move as she wanted, despite this the young witch focused her attention till the end on his tip, sucking gently as her hands massaged his balls almost as if she was milking him.
As soon as she realized she had taken every last drop, Y/n slowly pulled away, swallowing it all while looking into Tom's eyes.
The young professor had to avoid him in order to reach the entrance to the prefects' door without falling for another attempt at seduction by the student.
The two looked at each other in silence, Tom wanted to say something but Y/n silenced him with one last kiss, followed by an elegant movement of her wand and three words "this stays here".
As soon as she finished speaking she walked out of the bathroom leaving Tom standing there all alone, looking at the door, his body now dry and his uniform back, it was as if nothing had happened, as if everything had only been in his head but the lipstick marks proved something else.
In fact they only confirmed the wonderful and unexpected sensations he had felt in those few minutes he had been with her, he knew that she had sensed that it was the first time he had done this kind of activity but he also knew that she wanted more, he wanted more, there was something more and Tom was going to take it at all costs.
Things had not begun and ended that night in the prefects' bathroom at Hogwarts, the wizard would make sure of that and he would not put an end to what he had managed to get…what he had been craving for some time and now knew he could have.
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#tom riddle x y/n#tom riddle x reader#tom riddle x you#tom riddle#tom riddle smut#tom riddle oneshot
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⭑ for the love that used to be here. tom riddle x reader
summary. you and tom are the only muggle-borns in slytherin, until one day he isn’t.
tags. angst, afab reader who is referred to as a witch a few times and rooms with girls but i don't think i ever use she/her pronouns or say the word girl/woman, biggest warning is that this is SO long (idk what compelled me to write a year 1 – post-hogwarts fic but here we are twenty thousand damn words later), blood purity and bigotry, dumbledore is greatly offended by the bonding of two orphans until he can capitalise on it, frequent wwii mentions (specifically the blitz), book clerk tom, MURDERER TOM… ministry reader, kissing, smut once they’re 21/22 May all the minors in the room exit at once, more angst, sad ending kinda, me spreading a very personal and very nefarious tom riddle agenda that is canon to ME but probably only like two other people
note. i need a shower and an exorcism after writing this shit. i'm exhausted. i don't even remember half of it. but i'm also SO stoked, this is my little (very large, frankly) 100 followers celebration! i've only been on here for about a month and the love has been so crazy so thank you mwah mwah mwah ♡
word count. 21.8k (i know... i KNOW)
You learn quickly that your shade of green is not the same as theirs. The rest of them are emeralds, even at that age — they glitter with their parent’s polish. You are flotsam, sea-sick, envy green; the putrid boiling stuff that brews in your cauldron when you look away for a second too long, and, really, it’s more of a stain than a colour at all. There is a fraction of a second where you find something powerful in that. You are not an easy thing to remove. And then it’s gone, because they want to so badly.
You learn, with a bit less tact, that you doesn’t actually mean just you; that it’s you and him whether you like it or not.
He evidently does not.
“It has to be completely fine,” Tom says to you in Potions, his voice small then but just as practised.
You narrow your eyes. “‘Scuse me?”
“I said the powder has to be completely fine.”
“I heard you completely fine. I know how to read.”
He stares blankly at you before returning to his own station, and that’s that.
It isn’t unheard of for muggle-borns to be sorted into Slytherin, so you’ve been told, but one glance around your common room and you can see it’s pretty damn rare.
There’s Tom Riddle, there’s you, and there’s a seventh-year girl whose knuckles are always white like she’s spent so long with her hands balled into fists that they don’t know how to do anything else. Tom Riddle is a prat, the girl is too old and unapproachable even if she wasn’t, and you are very good at being alone.
That decides it. Flotsam still floats.
Everything is — fine. It’s fine for months; you have no one and need no one and sometimes you catch a jinx in the back of Charms that zips your mouth shut or bends a foot the wrong way (a cruel reminder of how much more these people know than you) and your broom occasionally pivots so sharply the Flying professor has to stop you from careening into a wall and breaking enough bones for a week’s worth of Skele-Gro, but it’s fine.
…It’s just that he’s insufferable.
The boy is eleven years old and he speaks like he’s stealing glances at an invisible lexicon between every word, more refined than any of the orphans you grew up with which makes you wonder which sort he’s surrounded by, and you take it upon yourself to theorise in passing if you could ever scare him badly enough his real voice would slip and he might just appear human for once.
Only it becomes clear when you’re stirring awake in the Hospital Wing after a mysterious bout of dragon pox (conveniently, all the pureblood children developed an immunity after catching it young) has rendered you bed-ridden and pockmarked, that you don’t think anything can scare Tom Riddle. He’s suffering just as well in the bed beside yours to keep the contagion to the two of you, and he’s all cold, eddied rage under sallow skin and beetling bones.
“They’re going to kill you,” he says after three days of silence, when the room is dusted in moonlight so thin it’s like squinting through cinema noise or mohair fluff to try to see him.
You blink at the vague shape of him. “What?”
“If you don’t hurt them back, eventually, they’ll just kill you.”
In hindsight, it’s an assumption so hastily bleak only a scared child could make it.
I want to hurt them, you try to say, but for what follows you cannot: I want to hurt them but I’m not good enough to do it.
You roll over and pretend to sleep, and in the morning, you hurt them anyway.
It’s Avery who’s unlucky enough to be the first to test you when you’re three assignments behind in Transfiguration, still a bit groggy from your last dose of Gorsemoor Elixir, and actually, physically green. He tugs your hair and stings your cheek with the promise of “bringing a bit of colour back to your face” and it’s sort of funny how banal it is compared to the other transgressions you’ve been dealt — that this is the thing that makes you bare your teeth, grip your wand in a hand that still can’t hold half of it, and send Avery flying across the room with a Knockback Jinx.
Tom sits with you in the Great Hall for dinner that night, and he never really stops.
You practise spells by the Black Lake between classes and he’s anything but kind about the ordeal, but you teach each other. You end your days with singe prints and sore wrists and you often take more damage than he does, but sometimes, as spring settles in with warm tones (apple and jade and moss — all the greens you’d never imagined), you leave with less bruises than he does. It hardly feels like friendship. It feels much more like purpose.
When summer comes you don’t write to him, and you don’t expect he will either. You don’t suppose you’ve actually written a letter in your life. Instead you try new wand movements under your quilt every night and wait for August’s departure on a big red train.
You sit together when the day does come. He asks you if you’ve been practising. You frown and tell him you’re not allowed to use magic outside of school.
Second year is nothing but monotonous, antiquated theoretics. Most everyone complains. You don’t see why they should — they’re already aeons ahead of you — but that means you finally have a chance to catch up in your less-than-school-sanctioned meetings with Tom while the rest remain practically stationary.
Deputy Headmaster and Transfiguration professor Albus Dumbledore is imperceptibly less soft with you than he was last year when you make the apparently poor decision to sit beside Tom on the first day, and you file the subtle shift in demeanour into some mental cabinet to review later.
You find workarounds with the librarian, Madam Palles, inclined to sympathy for the poor, orphaned muggle-borns to grant relatively unfettered daytime access to the Restricted Section so long as you keep it tidy and none of the books leave the library. That’s where things get a bit more interesting.
For a month you remain innocuous as can be. You browse through rare historical tombs and foreign biographies that would charge more galleons than you can conceptualise, and you never leave so much as a tea stain on the parchment. You smile at the Madam when you return the key each night, and walk back to the dungeons with your hands behind your back. It is, of course, totally unrelated that a month is what it takes for Tom to master the third-year curriculum’s Doubling Charm. An entirely separate affair when you meet him in the most secluded alcove of the library, slip him the key, and stifle your grin as he duplicates it perfectly.
You discover Christmas break is your favourite time of the year. Nearly all the purebloods go home. The Slytherin dormitories are effectively halved.
It’s two weeks of earnest, uninterrupted work and sleep without fear of waking up with jelly legs or whiskers.
Madam Palles, most nights, makes a slight, drowsy effort of searching the library for leftover students before she casts the lights out and closes the door. Then, it belongs to you and Tom.
You’re splayed rather ridiculously over one of the big reading chairs on Christmas Eve, Lore of Godelot in hand, enthralled by a chapter detailing his controlled use of Fiendfyre through the power of the Elder Wand.
Tom is cross-legged and sat straight, his brows furrowed in concentration.
“What’ve you got?” you ask, leaning over to answer your own question.
Tom as good as rolls his eyes, holding up the book to give you an easier look.
“Magick Moste Evile?” You scrunch your nose. “Bit much, don’t you think?”
“It’s the stuff they’ll never teach us.”
“I wonder why.”
He steals a glance at your own book and smiles in that smug way that makes you want to slap him.
“What, Tom?”
He shrugs. “You might want to know you’re reading stories about the author.”
You look down. Lore of — Godelot wrote Magick Moste Evile?
It shouldn’t really be surprising. Three chapters ago your book was recounting his months in Yugoslavia grave-robbing magical burial sites.
“Whatever,” you mumble, “It’s just a biography. Least I’m not reading the words out of his mouth.”
“Well, they’d be out of his quill.”
“Oh my God, Tom, shut up.”
All good things must come to an end. Term resumes and your hackles are back up.
Abraxas Malfoy, Antonin Dolohov, Walburga Black and the best of the worst of your house have returned, sleek-haired and insatiable and deranged, truly, in such a manner that you don’t think you can be blamed for the instinct you feel every time you pass them to lunge like a wild predator or run like wild prey. All Tom does, though (and so you follow, because he’s standing with you and who has ever done that?) is meet their gazes with equal assuredness. He never seems bothered. He never seems animal. You are still all hammering heart and heavy lungs, and you are learning not to see the world through the eyes of someone who’s only ever had their fists to fight. You have magic, you remember. You’re good at it. You could hurt them, if you really wanted.
Not much is different that summer than the last. The war is hard. The food is hard to chew. You chip a tooth. You’re too afraid to fix it with the Trace on you, but you still smile because you will, and everyone seems put off by that. What is there to smile about?
You suppose, for them, it’s a question with few answers.
For you — you’re back on a big red train musing about the functions of muggle warfare with Tom Riddle, chucking a useless card from a chocolate frog out the window and moaning about how you wasted the sickle you found under your seat.
He’s gotten very good at ignoring your theatrics and going right back to whatever it was he was talking about. And you note, unrelatedly, he almost looks like he’s learned how to open the windows at Wool’s. (You dare not suggest he’s doing something so ludicrous as sitting in the sun too, but this is a start.)
Dippet, or the Minister, or whoever it is that’s in charge of the practicality of the curriculum, has become fractionally less stupid in the last three months.
You don’t have to rely on nights in the Restricted Section or weekends at the Black Lake to actually learn something anymore. Of course, without the assistance of those illicit extracurriculars, you wouldn’t be able to match up to your peers the way you are this year, but it’s nice to duel with dummies instead of motioning your wand vaguely over a desk, and you and Tom still climb the notice boards in rapid succession.
They hate you for it. One of your roommates makes a pointed effort each night to glare at you from her bed like those jelly legs are back on the table, Orion Black (two years younger but just as nasty as his cousin) nearly trips you on your way to Divination, Abraxas Malfoy develops what you think borders on obsession with Tom, and for once it feels almost offhand to not care about any of it.
You’re beginning to think even at its best, Hogwarts is remarkably insufficient. This leads you to books mercifully unrestricted so you can read about a few of the other magical schools for comparison. Beauxbatons is renowned for providing most of the worlds alchemical developments, Uagadou’s early propensity for wandless magic makes it unfathomably more practical than Hogwarts, Durmstrang (though you scoff at their violent anti-muggle sentiment) teaches the Dark Arts as something beneficial rather than unforgivable, and — what do you learn here? Even with the hair’s-breadth of magical leniency you’ve been allowed this year, it’s no surprise so few recognizable names in wizarding history are Hogwarts alumni.
“Let me have a look at that,” you say to Tom one evening, when he’s peering once more over the pages of Magick Moste Evile. He’s a purveyor of knowledge in all forms, but he always seems to come back to Godelot in the end.
He raises a brow, handing it to you like your intrigue doubles his. “No more reservations?”
“Don’t get ahead of yourself. I’m only curious.”
“Curiosity—”
“Killed the damn cat, I know.” You glare at him through the pages. “I think that’s you, in this case though, since you’re the one in love with the bloody thing.”
He shakes his head as he reclines in the low light of the Restricted Section, muttering something that sounds like “ridiculous,” or “querulous,” or something else unimaginably fucking annoying.
You might be wrong. Retract your last quip and expunge it. If Tom’s in love with any book, it’s the behemoth dictionary he’s been spitting stupid adjectives out of since he was eleven.
But Godelot’s musings on the Dark Arts are fascinating enough that you can understand the appeal. He’s no wordsmith, and you appreciate that in a way you’re sure Tom deems regrettable, but his points are straightforward but thoughtful in such a way you can read in them how he was guided by the Elder Wand through everything he did. There’s a stream-of-consciousness to them. Something doctrinal you’re surprised to enjoy for all the obligatory English creed they washed your mouth with at the orphanage.
“Find what you’re looking for?” Tom asks, combing with little interest through the tomb you’d put down in favour of his.
“I’m not looking for anything. I’m just…” You sigh. It’s almost painful to say. “I think you were right, and — oh, shut up, don’t look at me like that — I don’t think we’re learning anything here. Not really; not as much as they do at other schools.”
“Of course,” he says blankly. “Hence this.”
This — restricted books and furtive duels — should not be necessary.
“You know that’s not gonna be enough. For the rest of them, maybe, but not us.”
He tenses how he always does at the reminder of his difference. And you get it. Sometimes in moments like these you forget the reason you’re here in the first place. It isn’t just the rebellious divertissement of two academically eager students, it’s… survival. What future do you have as a penniless orphan in wartorn London? What future do you have as a muggle-born Slytherin who’s apt with a wand when there are a thousand more your age, just as skilled and twice as pure?
It isn’t enough to be as good as them. You have to best them, and you have to do it forever.
The night stumbles into an exhaustive silence because you both know it’s true and it’s a bit too heavy right now. The answer isn’t in this room. Just you. Just him. So you sit in the dark and you stare through that muffled nighttime noise playing tricks on your eyes. The worst of the world can wait until morning.
The worst of the world has impeccable timing.
A fault of both sides of the coin; the muggle world is a travesty and the wizarding world is just a bit fucking late, really.
So there’s the newspaper. It’s October first and the date reads September tenth. School owls are a joke and you can’t afford anything better.
And it’s a dirty, ashen grey. It smudges your green if you ever had it at all. You were born to this and you will return to it always.
BOMB’S HAVOC IN CROWDED PUBLIC SHELTER
MOTHERS AND CHILDREN AMONG THE CASUALTIES
DAMAGE CONSIDERABLE, BUT SPIRITS UNBROKEN
All you can hope to do is pass the paper to Tom and wonder without words what you’ll go home to.
The answer is very little when the summer clouds your vision with dust and you stand dumbly with your suitcase in front of nothing at all. You’d tried your best until your departure to keep up with muggle news, but it had remained, routinely, a month behind with the owls. By the time June arrived you were still holding your breath through May. Tom had attempted to reason with Dippet for summer lodgings at the school but you were both denied in light of the exquisite mercy — the bombs have stopped! The Blitz has ended! Go back to the aftermath and make do with the craters.
It’s a bit ironic that Tom’s orphanage survived and yours didn’t. At least you can finally see what all the fuss is about.
In truth, it’s more strange than anything. You feel unreasonably like you’re impeding on a part of him that has never belonged to you (if any of him does); that place where you intersect but never draw attention to. You remind yourself you had no choice in the matter. The system puts you where it wants to, and these days the options are slim. But it’s — the walls are amber-black tile and plaster, lined with sanitary-smelling hospital beds and a cupboard per room. Per room, you think; you’ve got one of those now, and with only one girl to share it with.
You figure the reason for the extra space is probably not one you want to know.
Anyway, you don’t actually see Tom for two days. The caretakers bring you a tray of dinner that’s vaguely warm and a bit too salty and you sleep off the debris you think you breathed in that morning, half-sated and sun-tired.
But then you do see him, and he’s in these funny uniform shorts and a thick blazer and your greeting is an offhand joke about the scandal of his knees that he doesn’t seem to appreciate. He eyes your muggle clothes while you wait for your own set and you know you really don’t have any room to judge.
He doesn’t, or at least doesn’t say he minds your relocation.
You spend half the summer waking up in the middle of the night to acquaint yourselves with the London tube stations, and the other half in whatever crevices of the orphanage you aren’t harangued by Mrs Cole every five seconds, which are far and few between. She seems to have decided fourteen is old enough an age to worry about your intentions unchaperoned, like it’s the bloody 1800’s, and admonishes you and Tom relentlessly despite only ever finding you quietly buried in useless books.
You begin to miss Madam Palles and her invaluable pity. Everyone’s an orphan here. No one’s sorry.
“What’s his deal?” you ask one stuffy afternoon, reclining in your creaking seat to prop your legs on the desk.
Tom knocks them off (he’s so well-mannered that you sometimes push these little gestures of impropriety just to bother him) and glances at the target of your question. Some broad, blond boy who skitters down the corridor a shade paler than he arrived. You’ve yet to properly introduce yourself to anyone you don’t have to, so names are muddy when you try to apply them to faces.
He shrugs, but there’s a flash of something in his expression you’re fascinated to realise is unfamiliar. “He’s an imbecile.”
“...Riiiiight, but that isn’t a proper answer.”
You smile. Legs return to table. Timeworn Oxfords muddy the surface. Tom scowls.
“There was an altercation last year,” he says tersely, “he’s rather fixated on the matter.”
“An altercation.”
“Very good, that is what I said.”
You narrow your eyes and he sweeps your legs off the desk again, gaze catching the unmistakable ribbon of an old bullied scar on your shin.
“And I suppose you’re above such incidents,” he muses.
You cross your arms and huff. He always wins games like these.
You’re grateful when you return to Hogwarts in one piece after your final night of summer is spent underground, and the certainty of knowing where you’ll rest your head for the next ten months cannot be understated.
But the worst thing has happened, and you blame it on the flicker of a moment where you missed Madam Palles like it was some jubilant, accidental curse to ever miss anyone. A foreign thing you remind yourself never to do again.
She’s only gone and jinxed the locks to the Restricted Section so they cry like newborn Mandrakes when Tom’s replica key clicks in place.
For a second you both stand there looking stupidly at each other. Getting caught was a fear two years ago; you’d almost forgotten it was still possible.
Tom is quicker to collect himself. He grabs you by the arm and casts a Disillusionment Charm, and you don’t burst running out of the library like two blurry suncatchers reflecting the candlelight as your instinct heeds; you cling to the shelves and you slither silently to the door. (You’ll make a joke about it when you can breathe.)
Madam Palles the Traitor comes heaving into the library in her nightgown, a blinding blue light baubled at the end of her wand, and it’s really just theatrical at this point to use Lumos bloody Maxima when the basic spell would do the job just fine.
“Has she suspected us the whole time?” you say on gasp once you’ve made it to the dungeons.
“Perhaps someone else has,” Tom suggests.
“What? Malfoy?”
You think it’s a good first guess. It could have been any of the Slytherins, upon consideration, but Malfoy seemed most fixated on Tom last year and it wouldn’t surprise you to learn he’d been observant enough to follow you to the library and notice you don’t leave with the other students.
But Tom quashes the idea. “I’m doubtful. Malfoy is attentive, but Madam Palles is hardly partial to him.” (He had, in second year, set one of her books on fire while studying offensive spells.) “I suspect it was someone with more influence.”
Only no one has more influence than Abraxas Malfoy. The rest of the Slytherins follow him like lost pups. But then Tom might mean —
“A professor?”
“It may be.” He says it like he’s already decided his suspect.
He is, as always, and ever-infuriatingly, correct.
It’s that file you tucked away for later, reoccurring when you return to Transfiguration in the morning like a second epiphany: Dumbledore.
He assigns the term’s seating arrangements, which he’s never done before, and there’s something in his tone when he pairs you with Rosier that feels intentionally like not pairing you with Tom. You don’t think it’s paranoia clouding your better judgement, and by the way Tom’s gaze hardens as he takes his seat beside Malfoy, neither does he.
Dumbledore is suspicious for a number of reasons. He disappears for weeks at a time. The Prophet writes articles on his sightings in Austria and France like he’s an endling beast. He’s being sighted in Austria and France — two notable countries in Grindelwald’s ongoing war. Perhaps ancillary, you’ve decided the charmed glass repositories he uses to hold his old artefacts are the same ones encasing the least permissible books in the Restricted Section. And if that isn’t paranoia (which, you’re willing to admit, it may be) then you assume he has them so proudly on display because he wants you to know.
You consider it a warning.
Tom does not.
“Just give it up,” you hiss over a game of wizard’s chess, “I bet we’ve read every book in there twice already anyway.”
His jaw ticks as the sole indicator of his annoyance, and he takes your rook. You scowl.
“Tom, that man thinks you’re devil-spawn. You know he’s just waiting for an opportunity to catch you doing something wrong.”
“So?”
It sounds so petulant you think he’s been possessed by his eleven-year-old self. Then you think he was a lot wiser at eleven.
“So?” You make an aggressive move with your knight. “So don’t give him one!”
He stares at the board and his breath is just a trace sharper and you hate that you know him like this and no one else. You wonder if he knows you like that too, but resolve with ease that he does not. You’re hard frowns and lewd jokes and trousers torn at the knee to bare scars with stories you wish you could forget. There’s no mystery there. Tom is nothing but — gordian knots and fixed expressions and little patterns to learn like the rules of this stupid game between you. You must know Tom Riddle by every atom or not at all. And that isn’t a choice, really. You’ve never known anyone else.
“Are you stupid, Tom?”
You glance at the board. He’s got Check. A terrible, true answer.
“No,” you finish. “Then don’t act like it.”
Your king glances at you and you nod. He falls. The game is resigned.
Tom acts stupid.
Dumbledore knows.
It all happens very fast.
You strike Tom harder in the arm with Confringo than is likely necessary that night, and he returns the favour with a Knockback Jinx that thrusts you into the shallows of the Black Lake.
You gasp. The cold water feels like it’s swallowing you whole when it strikes, an envelope sealed around you and licked shut for good measure. Everything holds to you, and it’s fucking November. Your senses are so overwhelmed that you forget to murder Tom the instant you sink in. You forget to do much of anything.
You wade trembling out of the lake when sense returns and Tom huffs, peeling off his robe to treat the burn on his arm.
“You—idi—iot,” you mutter, trying to find the incantation for a warming charm but the words get stuck between your chattering teeth. “You stole a re… stricted book.”
Tom glares daggers at you between his poor healing job and you scowl, mincing through the grass and grabbing his arm. “Fucking imbec-cile…”
You’ve done enough damage that if he were anyone else you’d be proud of yourself, and somehow, simultaneously, if he were anyone else you’d be able to manage a pinch of guilt. But he’s Tom, and you know him by every atom, so you cannot be proud, and he’s Tom — he retaliated by tossing you in freezing water and now your clothes are clinging sodden and heavy to every inch of you, so you certainly can’t be guilty either.
“I borrowed it,” he says tightly. As if that means anything at all. And then he takes his robe and drapes it spiritlessly over your shoulders. “You could attempt communication before curses.”
“I could attempt communication,” you scoff, uttering a charm to partially close the gash on Tom’s arm, “Fucking h-hypocrite. I did communicate. You lied.”
“I —”
“Omitted information? Withheld the truth? Watch your mouth or I’ll steal your fucking dictionary, Riddle.”
You swear a great deal when you’re cold and mad, apparently.
“I won’t be caught.” His calm is infuriating. “It would hardly earn expulsion regardless.”
“It doesn’t matter! He knows it’s you! He was staring at you all class!”
“So nothing novel then.”
“D’you want me to blast you again?”
His lips form a flat line. No. That’s what you thought.
You sigh, clutching his robes in your fists to quell your trembling. “What’d you take, anyway? We never touch the encased stuff.”
That is, you assume, why Dumbledore was vexed enough about the whole thing to mention it in class today. A highly valuable book has gone missing, from a repository you dare conclude belongs to him, and he has to pretend all the while not to know it’s Tom who took it. You are out of the question. Theirs is some delicate vendetta you can’t begin to unfurl.
“Nothing anyone should miss,” Tom says, a complete non-answer as he stops to murmur a warming charm you could probably manage yourself by now.
“Tom.”
“It was an encyclopaedia. It’s entirely in Runes. I suspect it will take months for me to decipher.”
“God’s sake,” you groan. He really is exhausting. “I think Dumbledore’l take his chances and loot your dorm before that happens.”
Tom wipes a stray droplet of water from your cheek. His fingers are soft. “We should return. You look half-drowned.”
“I am half-drowned, dickhead.”
And you accost him in hushed tones the whole walk back. Runes, Tom, really? Threw me in the damn lake over a Runic Encyclopaedia? He accosts you just the same; You burned me first.
It does, in fact, take Tom months to decipher the Runes, and he’s quite secretive about it. He won’t let you see the book, won’t tell you what it’s about, won’t indulge your queries on how far he’s gotten or if it’s worth the way Dumbledore bores his eyes into the pair of you in the Great Hall with nothing but the glass of his spectacles to soften his censure. You consider — well — you consider taking your chances and looting his dormitory.
The day everything changes starts the same as any.
You muse over breakfast about muggle news and how the way Tom holds his wand when he casts defensive spells is too sharp when it should be circular. He argues. You soften the criticism by telling him his offensive magic is stellar but you’ll always beat him in defence if he doesn’t swallow his damn pride and listen to you for once. (So, really, you soften it very little.) He doesn’t take Divination so you don’t see him until Herbology that afternoon and he’s silent enough during the hour you share with your wormwood plant that you know he’s done it sometime between breakfast and now.
Tom has cracked the book.
It’s late spring and the night takes longer to settle than it did in the winter. Errant sunbeams still sparkle on the water when you meet him by the lake, and it’s warm enough to forgo a coat.
“Are you going to tell me what it’s about now?” you ask without preamble, arms crossed over your chest as he approaches.
He hands you the book like it’s worth something to you without his explanation, but you’re intelligent enough to gather something from the illustrations of two twined snakes embroidering the cover.
“I should have suspected it sooner,” Tom says before you can comment. “By the way Dumbledore acted when I told him… I should have known he would have wanted to keep it from me.”
“Tom, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“It’s an Encyclopaedia on Parseltongue and its known speakers.”
You flip through the pages and none of it means anything. “Parseltongue?”
“The language of serpents,” Tom supplies, and the two of you walk along the edge of the forest. “It’s almost exclusively hereditary.”
“Okay, so, what — you’re trying to learn it anyway?”
“I have no need.”
You frown. “You… you already know it.”
“I always have,” he says, and there’s something almost unrestrained in his voice. He’s proud in a new light, and it takes you a moment to understand and you’re not sure why exactly it makes your heart sink, but —
“You’re not muggle-born.”
“No, I’m not. And Dumbledore knows.”
“So, he —” You try not to sound crushed because why should you be? Why should it matter that he isn’t some exact reflection of you? He’s at your side, he’s still there, he’ll always be there — “How does he know?”
“When he came to Wool’s to inform me I'd been accepted at Hogwarts. I hadn’t known anything, certainly not that speaking to snakes is emphatically rare, so I asked him. He said it was ‘not a peculiar gift.’ Perhaps to keep my interest at a minimum.”
“Why would he lie?”
“Because it isn’t just that I’m of magical blood. I’m a descendant of Salazar Slytherin.”
You can’t be faulted for laughing. It’s not often Tom makes jokes, let alone funny ones.
“That’s good, Tom. Morgana used to have tea with my great-great-hundredth-great-grandmother, so that works out nice.”
He sighs, taking your hand and leading you further into the woods.
“Are you trying to murder me?”
“I might.”
“You’d be the first suspect.”
“No, I wouldn’t. You’ve far too many enemies.”
Not by choice, you start to scold, and then he stops, not so far into the Forbidden Forest that you’re afraid, but far enough you understand this is not something he’d chance showing you in the open.
He closes his eyes and whispers, and it’s — decidedly not English. And you know the sound of a few other languages, at least; this doesn’t sound like words at all. His consonants are pointed, his S’s stretched, the syllables repetitive but separated by a difference in cadence someone less perceptive might not notice.
It shouldn’t be surprising; it’s exactly what he told you, but it startles you how much it reminds you of a snake.
“Tom?” you murmur, unsure at the prospect of speaking some ancient, unknown language into the air of the Forbidden Forest, and, underneath that, still reeling with the knowledge that this is real at all. You’ve pinched yourself a few times to make sure.
There’s a low susurration in the grass, wet with dew that catches the moonlight, and you gasp, clinging to Tom’s arm when you see the blades part in helices for the space of an adder.
“It’s all right,” Tom says softly, almost elsewhere, his eyes zeroed in on the snake. “It won’t hurt you.”
You’re still by the balance of his arm and some petrifying awe as he extends a hand to the grass and the adder coils around it, weaving upward to his shoulder.
“Oh my God. Oh my God, Tom.”
The adder points its beady gaze at you, and Tom whispers something else in that strange language before it retreats in agreement or compliance or whatever could come close to expression on the face of a fucking snake, and maybe you’re dreaming this despite your pinching. Maybe you’ve lost your mind.
“Hope you didn’t just tell it to bite me,” you try, and it comes out half-choked.
He smiles. It’s partly for you and partly for this venomous little thing on his shoulder, and that’s a bit startling. Tom Riddle smiles for adders and you and not much else.
“Should I?”
And all you manage, for whatever reason, is, “Don’t be like them now that you’re not like me.”
It’s out before you can stop it, welling from a small, scared place that embarrasses you to return to. A hospital bed when you were eleven. The walls of a bedroom ravaged by bombs.
Tom’s smile fades. “We’re nothing like them.”
The thing is, neither of you know that’s the day that changes everything.
You celebrate your fifteenth birthday in the Deathday ballroom with Tom, a stolen dinner pastry, a green candle, and a few sad ghosts. You try to learn how to dance. Tom thinks it’s silly. You tell him that’s only because he’s upset he keeps stepping on your toes.
Summer blisters when it comes.
Some of the children take jobs as mail-sorters and steelworkers and you clasp for whatever you’re (one) allowed and (two) capable of, which isn’t much. You’re both old enough at the end of the day to explore London on your own, opting to spend as much time away from the orphanage as Mrs Cole allots, but you only have knuts and pennies and you warn Tom it would be unwise to swindle muggles and risk a letter from the Ministry. So you work where you’re needed and you eat the rationed nonsense you always do and you miss Hogwarts terribly. It’s much the same: you’re together, you’re hungry, and you’re nothing like them.
And then it’s different: Tom makes Slytherin Prefect, is suddenly tall, and you wonder in fleeting moments if his face has always suited him this well.
A stupid remark. You fervently ignore it.
Fifth year begins and you have almost the same number of electives as you do core classes, Tom has duties in his new role that take much of his spare time, and despite popular belief, you and him are not a mitotic entity, so this splits you up more often than it had in previous years. Which is fine. You still have plenty of things to talk about during meals and between duels, and you reckon you’ll share DADA until you graduate.
But in his absence, your attentions are forced elsewhere, and you should be grateful they land on something potentially promising.
It’s like Transfiguration just clicks for you this year. You’ve never been the greatest at Transformation (importantly though, you’ve also remained far from the worst), but fifth year launches you into Vanishment and something about that feels like a perfect equation. There are no complicated half-numerals and objects stuck between inanimacy and being — just unmaking the made. Nothing or not. You’re fucking excellent at it. You glean the theoretics fast and then the practise comes like breathing. Even the purebloods struggle as you Vanish Dumbledore’s Conjured garden snakes in brilliant tendrils of light. You exult unabashedly when you brush past them on the way out of class — who was it that didn’t belong in Slytherin?
You say the same to Tom and he rolls his eyes, but the amusement is there.
“Think you can talk to my snakes for me?” you tease, nudging him on the path to Hogsmeade.
“If they’re yours, I doubt they have anything worth discussing.”
And Dumbledore is… a hue nearer to the man you remember from first year. He praises your improvement and smiles when you can’t hide your giddiness as if equally impressed.
He doesn’t shelve people the way Slughorn does (you’re dismayed to find Tom has been invited to join the Slug Club and you have not) but you think if he did you’d be rapidly climbing your way to the top. Maybe get put in one of those neat little repositories he keeps all his best treasures in.
Dumbledore does, however, offer additional assignments for those who are interested, and tasks you with a few if you’re up to the challenge.
You always are.
The Tom-Dumbledore-Encyclopaedia debacle is apparently either resolved, or your part in it forgotten.
Tom humours you when you’re both singed at the fingers from duelling, yours dipped in the lake while he buries his in the cold moss, about how Abraxas takes the seat beside him at every Slug Club dinner. He tells you he pretends to be very interested in the Malfoy’s business affairs and their stock in the Bulgarian Quidditch team’s win this coming spring. He tells you he finds it amusing to let Abraxas think he can make Tom his pet. Tom says he considers searching for Salazar Slytherin’s fabled Chamber of Secrets and showing Abraxas what a real pet looks like. You smack him in the arm.
He’s had an ego forever. He just has a few too many reasons for it now.
And maybe that’s why you push harder in Transfiguration, dedicate the majority of your studies to it, spend your Saturday nights scrutinising advanced techniques while Tom makes nice with Potions experts and politics with people who don’t even know what he is but like him anyway. It’s patronising, of course — borderline fetishistic; not a real like — but it scares you. Tom Riddle would not allow himself to be anyone’s pretty mudblood show pony if he didn’t have an ulterior motive.
Everything changes but the observable truth that he is still insufferable.
You’re lucky to see him twice a week if it isn’t in class, and the way it starts is so slow you don’t even fully understand what’s happening until Christmas break when Abraxas stays a few extra days and leaves by Dippet’s Floo instead of the train.
You don’t dare ask where Tom has vanished to in that time or why the hell Abraxas Malfoy would willingly subject himself to unnecessarily extended time at school with all his lackeys gone, and it isn’t because you don’t want to. It’s because he won’t tell you himself. It’s because you’re terrified the answer will feel like a broken promise, and you’ve come to realise (it’s been there for so long; such an obvious, tiny thing that you’ve never stopped to really dissect it) that it’s quite difficult to know someone at every atom and not love them a little bit.
You’re suddenly aware of the risk of it: you love him like an inextricable piece of yourself, and, well, you’ve seen war. You know what amputation looks like. You’ve seen the remains of structures designed to stand forever, and you’re strong like them — casts and gauze in all the weak spots because you remember the pain of breaking them — but those were blows dealt without the complication of loving the bombs behind them.
Tom is the green on your robes, the dragon pox tinge you sometimes think never truly faded when you look in the mirror too long, and all the shades you never imagined. Apple, jade, moss. The beginnings of emerald. (No, he couldn’t be that.)
You wonder what the world would look like if he stole those colours back, and it’s much worse than some brutal decimation; it would leave you with too much. You would just be you without him.
So you love him into June like you always do, and you pluck his Prefect badge off on the last day of school and tell him it makes you jealous like a joke when it’s half-true.
It’s raining when you walk to the train together, miserable for what should be summer but not at all remarkable in Scotland. Tom wipes it from your cheek. Your wrists are sore from vanishing bits and bobbles all night while you still can, never truly prepared for three months without magic, and you curl into your seat as soon as you’re in it. Tom wakes you up when you arrive back in London, startling you to find that you fell asleep at all.
It rains a lot that summer. There’s nothing much to see in the city and you can’t get anywhere else (you note: the Trace cares little about broomsticks but you can’t afford one of your own and flying might be the only thing Tom is bad at) so you’re stuck to the library again with a noseful of old paper and a certain prose that magical literature cannot replicate. You theorise a lifetime of reckoning with the mundane forces one to be more creative.
Perhaps it’s the cold that makes you sick. Perhaps it’s the state of your meals. Either way, your final weeks before sixth year are hell. Biblical, blazing hell.
The nurses aren’t sure what it is — another influenza epidemic you’re the first in the orphanage to catch — but they isolate you immediately and there’s not much care they can offer.
You hear Tom arguing with one of them outside your door but can’t make out the words. Everything is dizzy, sweaty, halfway to unconsciousness but without its relief. You’d take dragon pox over this.
Some days later (though you can’t be sure because it feels like bloody centuries), he’s at your bedside, and you think even if you were lucid enough to ask what horrible thing he’d done to change the nurses’ minds, you wouldn’t.
But you know he’s not beyond breaking wizarding law, because he’s muttering healing spells with a hand to your damp forehead, and you hazily find yourself reaching for him, trying to shake your head no.
“Not allowed,” you mumble. Your throat is sore and your nose is stuffy. You sound terrible and you probably look worse.
Tom is slightly blurry but you think he’s staring at you. You know if he is it’s with the utmost incredulity.
“Not allowed,” he repeats slowly. It’s very easy to picture him clenching his jaw. “I wonder, if the Trace is so exact that it can detect all forms of magic, it can’t also detect malady. You’re burning — and I’m to consider whether saving your life might be illegal?”
He’s angry. He���s angrier than you’ve seen in a long time; and you can actually see it now. His magic courses through you and your vision clears, bit by bit, until your depth perception steadies and you realise he’s closer than you thought. His jaw is, in fact, clenched.
You move to catch his wrist and manage it this time. “Tom.”
“Don’t argue,” he says thinly.
“You’ll get sick.”
His face is far too neutral for the way his fingers stroke your damp cheek. “Hm. Then it’s a good thing you’d break the law for me too.”
Of course he’s right — you love him. Which makes it a good thing he doesn’t get sick.
Some of the younger children do. The fever comes overnight for a girl who wasn’t in the orphanage last year, and it takes her by the next.
When you get back on the train to Hogwarts, the virus is circulating Britain and you’re livid.
What Tom said is true; you consider the Trace’s precision and the details of the laws on underage magic — how one of the technicalities is that a young witch or wizard may be absolved of the consequences if the circumstances are life-threatening. You think about how it supposedly doesn’t care about broom-riding or Portkeys or Floo travel, and if the Trace is that complex, surely it understands sickness.
You only wonder if the Ministry would understand it. There haven’t been any epidemics in the wizarding world since Gorsemoor cured dragon pox in the sixteenth century, and when there isn’t healing magic there are antidotes and Pepper-Ups and herbs that muggles simply don’t have. The fatality of a fever of all things is not something you imagine could be comprehended by the sort of people who sent you and Tom back to London in the wake of the Blitz.
Of course, the Ministry hasn't written to you, you haven’t been forced in front of a representative from the Improper Use office, and you have no real reason to be upset.
You are regardless.
It shouldn’t even be a thought: you immolating into oblivion protesting rescue because one of you might get in trouble for it.
A world you’ve never much cared for is blanketed in ash and its people are dying and you can’t help them. A girl is dead. You’ll return next summer and there will certainly be more.
Life is for the magical, you find. The muggles can burn.
It’s what makes you start to panic this year, knowing you’ve only got one more after it. You have no idea what you’re going to do after school, and it doesn’t help that Tom doesn’t appear to share the sentiment. He’s got Head Boy in the bag and when he isn’t with you he’s with Abraxas, who can surely provide him connections if whatever game Tom is playing at works (and you have no doubt it will), but it’s like you said in third year: that isn’t enough for you.
You remember with a small ache that you no longer means you and him.
And then — it makes sense. You feel incredibly stupid.
“You told him, didn’t you?” you ask Tom the first opportunity you can get him alone, in the glum blue light of the Deathday ballroom on your way back from supper.
He sighs like it’s a conversation he’d hoped to put off for longer. “You’re referring to Abraxas, I presume?”
“You’re referring to — yes, you prick, I’m referring to Abraxas. Of course I’m referring to Abraxas, or are there others? Dolohov and Nott seem unusually enthralled by you, now that I think about it.”
“And for a reason I’m supposed to be aware of, this is an error on my part. Should I be apologising?”
“Why did you tell him, Tom?!”
“Why?” he deadpans.
You throw your hands up. “Oh, for fuck’s sake.”
“Shall I provide you with my itinerary as well? Would you accompany me as I tour the third-years around Hogsmeade? Or can you do me the favour of trusting me to make my own decisions with the nature of my ancestry?”
“You’re keeping something from me and there’s a reason,” you say, stepping closer to him, “and forgive me if I want to know what it is when you were willing to tell me you’re the Heir of Slytherin and you can talk to snakes. What — what could possibly be bigger than that?”
Tom returns your approach with one of his own. His eyes are steady, dark, thick with lashes and you can’t reminisce on the details of the rest of him because that would be strange for a friend to do. Stranger to do it now, when you’re angry with him and there’s two sleeping ghosts in the corner and he’s framed by deep indigoes like the ripples in the Black Lake and — you’re doing it anyway.
To be short, he’s close, he’s very beautiful, and sometimes you despise him.
“Trust me,” he says again, without the derision of the last time. “This will change things for us.”
You frown, but it’s a weak upset in contrast to the explosion you came in here willing to make. There were at least twenty questions you meant to ask and you only managed one.
You are not his keeper. You know that.
“Change them for the better, Tom,” you say on a sigh.
He blinks, and you think he’ll respond with a nod or a slightly offended ‘of course’ but he does not. He blinks and he just keeps looking at you. It’s disarming. It probably resembles the way you often look at him. There’s a rationale somewhere; you never see each other anymore, life is so incredibly busy, maybe he’s forgotten what you look like.
And he does nod, finally, but he does it with his thumb brushing the corner of your lip.
What? Sorry. What’s going on?
He pulls it away like he’s heard you. “You had something.”
You’re almost positive you did not.
Transfiguration this year brings Conjuration, which is an advanced and welcome distraction, and even more exciting when you consider no longer having to Vanish things you have no idea how to bring back. Dumbledore’s is one of three N.E.W.T classes you’re taking — Defence Against the Dark Arts and Alchemy besides. It’s easily your favourite.
You share it with eleven other Slytherins and twelve Ravenclaws. Four of them are muggle-born, and it’s hard to describe the ease you feel among them because you don’t think you’ve ever had anything resembling ease with anyone but Tom.
Your schedule is more crammed than it’s ever been, but it’s good. Two of the Ravenclaw girls invite you to Hogsmeade every other weekend, you share butterbeers when you can afford one, you study until you collapse, you take Dumbledore’s extra assignments and consider trying out for Chaser on one of your more restless evenings before waking up in the morning and resolving there is such as thing as too much of a good thing. Best not to get ahead of yourself.
Your contentment is remedied quickly.
Someone is found unresponsive in the dungeons. Dippet makes an announcement at breakfast that the boy isn’t dead, rather, petrified. No one is quite sure the cause, but the Headmaster warns a few minor precautions, suggests a buddy system, and says that after dinner studying should remain in everyone’s respective common rooms rather than the courtyards or library.
You know next to nothing about petrification, but the victim is muggle-born, and you suspect it was the result of a poorly performed statue curse by one of the many blood zealots in your house. The whole thing makes you hold onto your wand a smidge tighter, but you’re adamant not to let it drive you to paranoia like it would have a few years ago.
Tom nods at your theory when you manage to escape to the Black Lake together in November.
“That isn’t unreasonable,” he says. High praise.
You sink into the moss, sighing. “Do you think there’ll be more?”
He looks out onto the lake, the lapping waves, the crystalline beads that furrow them, midnight algae and flotsam you don’t think you belong to anymore.
You peer up at his silhouette in the dark. “Do you think whoever did it will do it again, I mean?”
“I don’t know,” he says finally, and after another pause: “but I don’t think it would be you.”
“How’s that?”
“No one would be senseless enough to try.”
And he sinks beside you with that, breath shaping the cold in steady, rhythmic clouds while yours are scattered. His robes brush yours and you take his arm with a sleepy hum, tracing patterns in the stars until your eyes feel heavy and he insists on taking you back to your dormitories.
One of the Ravenclaw girls, Marigold Wright, distracts you with a spare blue scarf and an invitation to her next Quidditch match. You watch from the stands and cheer as she catches the snitch to beat Gryffindor.
It’s a bit strange — having a distraction — having a friend. Mari is kind, smart, a good study partner who’s as keen on stepping into the advanced theoretics of Human Transfiguration a year early as you are. She’s funny in a vulgar way, introduces you to all her friends, shows you the best way to sneak into the kitchens, and you sometimes wonder if she was sorted wrong, but — her methods are creative, and she’s definitely intelligent. She’s also definitely not Tom.
You see less and less of him and more of her, Dumbledore, the Ravenclaw common room and the pages of progressive Transfiguration methodologies. He sees less of you and more of Abraxas, Dolohov and Nott and all the other purebloods, Slughorn’s soirées and Prefect meetings that cut into meals.
It happens again.
Second floor lavatory. A girl called Myrtle Warren. She isn’t petrified.
There’s a vigil the following week and her parents are there, two muggles whose sobs wrack the Great Hall even as the students clear out. Flowers descend from the charmed ceiling, little bluebells and white chrysanthemums.
You cry that night. You can’t remember the last time you cried.
This time, you don’t have to seek Tom out. He catches you on your way back from Alchemy and brings you to the Deathday ballroom with a melancholy glance in your direction that you don't hesitate to follow. You realise it’s an odd place to continue to end up in, but no one else goes there and you suppose that makes it yours.
You’ve seen Tom skinny and sickly and olive green, but today his eyes are circled with veined violets and the lack of summer sun this year has whittled him grey once more. He’s still beautiful. He’ll always be beautiful. But he’s tired and — sad — and for the six years you’ve known him you aren’t quite sure what to do with that.
You don’t spend too long pondering it. You just hug him with the dawning newness of a thing like that; a thing you’ve never done, and never really thought to do. (You ask yourself in bewilderment how you’ve never thought to do it before.)
He’s warm. He’s uncertain. He doesn’t reciprocate immediately.
And then he does, and you understand without caveats or concerns that you stopped having a choice in your destruction the moment you chose him. He’s home, and that’s going to ruin you one day.
Your arms tighten around him and his around you, the rhythm of his breath holding you to earth when you begin to float away. Nothing makes sense in this moment but the mercy that in all the death you’ve seen, you swear to God you’ll never see his. As long as you’re alive, he must be too.
And there’s something to be said about the innate self-slaughter of loving a person (of loving Tom Riddle, especially): that it’ll cleave you in two, that you’ll say feeble things in his embrace that you should be above saying, like ‘I’m scared’, that his hand will find the back of your head and he'll tell you he knows, that that should not feel like enough but it will be. You’ll clasp your hands under black robes and hold this singular embrace together by the faulty adhesive of your fingers. Maybe you’ll cry again, like your body can suddenly comprehend its capacity for it and is making up for lost time.
The first sign that something is wrong, more than the obvious grievance of the death itself, is the Ministry’s happy acceptance of Rubeus Hagrid as the culprit.
The boy is maybe fourteen years old, half-blood — half human, mind — and no one has a bad word to say about him other than he likes to keep eccentric pets. Which leads you to wonder what pet he possessed with the ability to petrify one student and kill another and what cause he’d have for it in the first place besides two terrible, miraculous accidents.
That question draws an even stranger path. Mari says over butterbeers (on her, bless her soul) that she read somewhere years ago that Gorgons can induce petrification, but that she doesn’t remember much else.
One of the boys in DADA says that his father’s an auror, and heard from him that Hagrid’s pet was some sort of arachnid. Tom deducts five points from his house after class with a scowl on his pale face, muttering about conspiracy.
The second sign that something is wrong is that only one of those things would need to be true for the entire case on Hagrid to be called into question. If Mari’s memory serves right, how the hell did Hagrid come into ownership of a Gorgon? (Could Gorgons even be owned?) If the auror’s son is worth your credence, then what species of arachnid is capable of petrification?
You take to the library.
Unsure of where to begin and hesitant to draw attention, your research lingers into Christmas break and stalls some of your extracurriculars in Transfiguration. Tom is busy enough not to notice the new step in your routine, and you’re grateful not to have him breathing down your back, telling you you’re looking in the wrong places or you shouldn’t be looking at all.
The third sign is the end.
You wish to retract it all. There are time-turners and memory charms and potions that could dizzy you enough to manipulate the truth; there is anything but this. You’d suffer the consequences for the bliss of loving him with one more day before the ruin — you’d write it down to remember through the fog: look at him, duel him without wanting to hurt him, kiss him to know that you did it at least once, have him, be had. You never will again.
He’d shown you the adder. He’d joked about the Chamber of Secrets. He’d spent months disappearing with Abraxas, earning the trust of the sons of the Sacred Twenty Eight.
And he’d killed Myrtle Warren.
So it’s statue curses and Gorgons and Tom — speaking to serpents when no one else can, buttressed by pureblood boys who want people like you dead.
Don’t become like them now that you’re not like me.
He’s something else entirely.
What do you do in a moment like this? Panting into an empty library at a revelation you wish you could unknow, fingers digging into the hickory of your desk — another memory carved among the initials and hearts; how do you stand from your chair and leave like the world outside this room is the same as it was when you entered? There’s nothing to orbit. You are cosmic debris, tea dregs in a barren cup, flotsam.
You stand; and you tell no one. Not even Tom.
His presence in your life is so infrequent that you don’t even have to come up with excuses for your distance until three weeks after your discovery when you’re paired together in DADA to practise stretching jinxes.
You almost laugh. He’s standing beside you, tall (lanky like he was when he was a boy if you look long enough) and serious, and you love him without knowing who he is anymore. You’ve skirted corners to avoid him and sat with Mari during lunch and breakfast like he’s some scorned lover to escape confrontation from and not someone who held you through a grief inflicted by his hand.
“You look tired,” he says, inspecting the daisy you’d been tasked to elongate.
You glance at him. You are tired. It’s exhaustive, bone-deep, aching like nothing you’ve ever known, and maybe that’s why you can look at him and smile sadly instead of thrashing against his chest screaming for what he did. You suppose it happens enough in your head to satisfy. When you can sleep, you sleep to the thought of it. The waking moments are just blank.
“Mhm,” you hum, transfiguring the daisy stem back to its regular length.
Tom observes it with curious eyes. “You’re getting good at that.”
“I’ve been good at it.”
His lips turn, a small frown before he puts it away. You make the observation that he’s tired too; there are still bags under his eyes and his hands tremble ever-so-slightly with his wand when he loosens his grip on it.
His own doing and still you flicker with some relentless hope that he's drowning in regret.
“Sorry,” you say. A ridiculous thing. Do you intend to slowly push him from your life with weak disinterest and diverging academic avenues? As if he were something extricable. He’d never let you.
You’ll have to confront him, and that’s a revelation that holds its weight on your chest until you think you'll suffocate under it.
You’re in the blue light of the Deathday ballroom with a face you've never worn before when it happens, deep into spring, and you know then that you were wrong all those years ago.
He sees all of you.
Takes you in in the flash of a second and maybe it’s your quivering jaw that reveals you or the flint of betrayal in your eyes waiting to be struck and lit. Yes, you were wrong — Tom Riddle knows you at every atom too.
“Are you going to let me explain?" he asks before any hello. His jaw is tight but there’s nothing else to go on to judge his disposition. He's settling into impassivity like an animal drawing its shell. You will not be allowed in if you're going to make it hurt, and you might be the only one who can.
“Explain," you copy with a hard exhale, “Just tell me it wasn’t you. That’s all there is to say."
He stares at you. There’s nothing there.
“Tell me, Tom.”
Your breath catches on an automatic please but you don’t want to offer him that.
“I cannot.”
Then make me forget, you want to scream. Let it be summer. Let us work for pennies and breadcrumbs and be no one together.
It’s late winter and it’s too cold.
“You killed her,” you say quietly.
“If I told you I did not wish for it, would you even believe me?”
“What are you… so it was an accident?”
“There was — an opportunity presented itself that may never have come again; that does not mean I don’t find the nature of it regrettable.”
“Regrettable.” You’re laughing or crying or both, and you must look unwell. Halfway out of your mind.
He’s so composed in the face of it that it only makes you more incensed.
“You told me to change things —”
“You killed someone! Can you understand that?”
“You nearly died,” he hisses, “and if I am to apologise for recognizing it only as the first of many times, I will not. If I am to apologise for doing whatever is necessary to prevent it, I will not. The hand we were dealt will not be the hand we die to — so yes, I understand it. And one day so will you.”
“Don't," you spit, and your anger must look pathetic under your welling tears. “Don't you dare tell me that this was for me.”
“Do you want me to lie?”
“What could her death possibly bring me, Tom?”
“Her death is the first step to —”
“God, stop dancing around the fucking question!” Both hands have wound their way to your head, clutching at your skull like the brain matter might spill through one of the cracks he’s wearing down. “Just… tell me.”
“You recall Godelot's work," he says stiffly. The question of it takes you by surprise, peels the moment back like the rim of a fruit and you're left uncertain.
All you can do is nod, arms falling to cross over your chest.
“There was one form of magic he refused quite concisely to impart. I searched the Restricted Section for days, and under Dumbledore's watch that was not an easy thing to do."
You stole from him, you're urged to remind him, but it's something you'd say with a nudge of annoyance and a roll of your eyes. Such admonishment is small and far away.
“I found it at last in one of the repositories," he goes on, “Secrets of the Darkest Art."
“...What?"
“It's called a Horcrux,” he says. “Murder, by nature, splits the soul. The Horcrux simply makes use of the act; puts the soul fragment into something imperishable so that it is protected, rather than abandoned. In turn, your life cannot be taken. By malady, by magic, by sword — the vessel is destroyed but the soul lives on.”
You blink, feeling dizzy. “Myrtle was the sacrifice.”
“Myrtle was there,” Tom remedies.
“How lucky for you.”
“The circumstances could be ameliorated if one were to be made for you. I would have preferred it be someone who deserves it.”
“For — you’d do it again? Again, Tom?”
His brows crease, and even his upset seems contrived. There’s this barricade he’s placed that you, in all your infallible knowing of him, cannot puncture. It’s agony to begin to question what he could possibly be keeping from you in a confession like this.
“You killed someone, Tom. You — I would never ask you to do that. I would never live at the cost of someone else."
“No, you would not,” he agrees, though he shakes his head like it’s incredulous of you. “Do you think, even if I knew it were certain, a summons from the Ministry would have stopped me from saving you this summer? Do you suppose the threat of punishment would cause me to waver at that moment? I know it would not hinder you. So, you have your lines and I have mine — you never needed to ask.”
And now it hurts. The emptiness clears and you can't stand yourself for crying, but you do. It comes out in ragged, breathless sobs, clasped behind your palm as you turn away from him.
You've loved him since you were eleven. It's always been you two — it was always supposed to be you two. What is there to say to him? He's blurring in your periphery like in the midst of your sickness, and there's nothing he can do to heal you this time. Your vision will clear and Myrtle Warren will still be dead. He'll still be a stranger in the face of the boy you love.
“Why," you whine, a wet, hollow stain in your voice you've never cried enough to hear before. “Myrtle was — wasn't — uh —" You swallow, hysterics severing your words. You can't really think right now. Your body wobbles and your head feels puffy and hot. This might be shock.
Tom scowls like it irritates him to watch you push yourself, like this is just the unfortunate effect of you depleting your energy in a duel, not eating correctly, treating yourself carelessly.
Of course you can't stand or talk or think. You're you, contemplating a life without him.
“Sit," he says in frustration. You smack his hand away when he reaches for you, but the world has turned a shade darker and you're slipping into it.
He tugs a chair towards you with a silent charge and a reprimand, and your body doesn’t possess the wherewithal not to collapse into it the second it’s under you.
After a moment you can speak again, shaking hands steadied by your knees. “Did you… did you think I wouldn't find out? You know, the only thing that can petrify someone besides a serpent is a Gorgon. And — where would Rubeus Hagrid have found one of those?"
“I thought I would have time.”
“To come up with a good lie? Something I’d sympathise with?”
He bites his cheek. “Evidently the particulars matter little to you.”
Fuck him. “Fuck you.”
“Very cogent.”
“No, fuck you, Tom. We could have — we only had a year left and then we could — we could've done anything we wanted." You're crying again. You don't have the energy to be embarrassed. “And you chose this."
He’s indignant as he steps closer. “With what money? For what life? We are better than all of them and it’s never mattered. It never will; you know that. You told me that. You’re angry now, but you must know the truth of it. I would not forsake you. I would not lose you.”
You blink up at him, mouth stuck with some cottony feeling and cheeks stiff from crying.
“You have lost me, Tom."
He stills as if suspended. Some maceration must follow but it doesn’t.
You stand on weak legs to look him in the eyes. You wonder if he can see the love in yours. You wonder if he knows you will walk away despite it. (Of course he does. You’ve never lied to him.)
You think about how his fingers seem to always find their way to your cheek and you put yours to his. The bone there is sharp, but the skin is soft. Boyish.
There isn't a word for a goodbye like this. It shouldn't exist and so it doesn't. You just leave.
You fail your N.E.W.T courses. Quite spectacularly.
Mari sits beside you on the train with a soothing hand on your shoulder, and doesn’t ask what’s rendered you into a comatose husk since March. There’s no crying. You chew numbly on soft caramels from the trolley and stare out the window onto the hills.
That summer is spent in your bedroom unless you’re forced elsewhere. A new girl with skin so white it’s nearly translucent sleeps in the bed beside yours, taking meals on trays like you did in your first days here, tracing the cracks in the tiles, humming to herself in the dark. She makes you feel less pathetic for doing much the same.
You’d been right in your assumption that there would be more dead upon your return, and wrong that there would be more empty rooms. There are always more orphans being made.
And then you receive a letter. It isn’t delivered by owl (only for secrecy, you assume, because there are no muggles who’d be writing to you) but it’s stamped with a vaguely familiar crest. Not Hogwarts’ waxen seal, but something undoubtedly magical. A cockroach and a cup, you think, squinting. Transfiguration.
You tear the envelope open and pull the letter out.
It’s from Dumbledore. Some of it melds together, but the key words stand out.
Spoken to Dippet… Exceptional promise… N.E.W.Ts… May be reconsidered… Upon dispensation… Be well.
Be well.
You are not. You are something half-drowned and half-burned, never enough of one to quell the effects of the other. Sunlight is sparse through your side of the orphanage. On the radio, they warn a pattern of one bomb every second hour. The only other warning is the sound when they fly overhead, and if you can’t run fast enough —
You write your answer in a crowded tube station with a spotty ballpoint pen. Tom is there, looking between you, the dust, and your shaking hands as if to say: tell me I was wrong.
Some of your letter melds together but the key words stand out.
Thank you, Sir. Whatever you need.
It’s a shock that you live to seventh year. It’s a shock that you do it without him — though he watches, and in his gaze you feel regressed. You’re alive, yes, but there’s something there… his dead weight, death-grip; his haunting. They always speak of the dead as something heavy. Something that holds onto you even after it’s gone.
You find that to be true.
Dippet’s condition that you remain in Dumbledore’s N.E.W.T class is that you achieve more than the standard requirement. Essentially, your final exam will be much harder than everyone else's: Human Transfiguration, mastery of petty Transformation (through the means of Wizard’s Chess pieces), Conjuration and Vanishment of various delicate objects — all done nonverbally.
Even Dumbledore seems sceptical, but it translates to more rigorous practise rather than resignation, assignments he doesn’t even task to Mari, though she’s just as good, and you can’t begin to understand why he cares so much.
“I’ll entrust you with these while I’m away,” he says before Christmas break, sliding a sheet of parchment your way with a flick of his wand.
You frown, unfolding it. His instructions are always short now — you’ve learned to decode his meaning well enough without much exposition.
Teacup to gerbil — to cat, and inverse.
Inanimatus Conjurus spell (cockroach and cup, as instructed) to be Vanished when perfected.
Study Antar’s Doctrine. Miss Wright will act as your partner.
Due February.
It’s far too much to be done in that time. “Sir?”
Dumbledore lugs a messenger bag over his shoulder that appears small, but he carries it in such a way you suspect it’s magically extended. He smiles wistfully, pushing his spectacles up the bridge of his nose. “You know, I often regret how much this war asks of me. A consequence of my own doing.”
Right — Grindelwald. Sometimes you forget between awaiting the next muggle paper. War is everywhere.
You nod. “I hope… Good luck, Sir.”
Another half-smile as he twists open a jar of Floo Powder, and then he shakes his head with something you almost decipher as amusement. A brittle sort. Tired. “Good luck to you.”
And then he’s gone, in a swath of green flames that do nothing to inspire any desire for Floo travel in you.
Antar’s Doctrine is simultaneously prosaic and grandiose. They read like excerpts of a journal and you yawn into them over your morning tea, stirring amongst the first-years, who are the only people at the Slytherin table you can stand to sit with. Your blood status is apparently nullified by your age, and the worst they do is look at you funny. You aren’t sure what Abraxas’s — Tom’s (the new hierarchy never fails to stagger you) — lackeys would do if you sat with the other seventh-years instead. A part of you longs to know. They certainly don’t bother you in class the way they used to, you aren’t tripped in the corridors, but you wonder how far Tom’s influence can stretch. He is the Heir of Slytherin, and he’s earned them. But you are nothing.
You’d like it if he would let them hurt you. You think the incentive would be enough to hurt him back. And God — God, you want to. You want to hurt him almost as much as you want him.
You practise through the doctrine with Mari, as Dumbledore directed. When you’re able to sever Antar’s egotism from his abilities, you can see why Dumbledore would recommend his book to you. It feels like slipping through a crack in glass without shattering the whole thing. You weave in and back out, and Mari grins when she returns from the shape of a teapot to her body without you needing to utter a word to do it.
In the back of your mind, you’re aware what you’re doing is nearly unprecedented. It’s spring, you’re months away from eighteen, muggle-born, and mastering nonverbal Human Transfiguration like it’s a Softening Charm. Mari tells you you’re the smartest person she’s ever met. It makes your cheeks go hot to hear such open praise, worse when you snap out of the thought that you believe her.
Grindelwald falls. The school celebrates in whispers until the evidence is in front of them — Dumbledore, returned without a scar, a new wand in his hand — and then they’re cheers. The feast that night is a great one, and he toasts to you from the end of the staff table, a discreet tilt of his cup before he takes a sip and returns to converse with Professor Merrythought.
You take from your own, and your eyes land on Tom, spine of his goblet tight in his hand. He’s looking at you like you’ve affronted him somehow. You could laugh — by choosing Dumbledore. Of course. As if it was a choice at all.
But if it bothers him… if it feels anything at all like the betrayal you felt, then — good.
You drink, and don’t look away.
By the time your N.E.W.T.s arrive you have a renewed confidence that you’ll succeed, even with the obstacle of performing each exam wordlessly.
There are only twelve students who came out of your sixth year class, so to divide resources for the tests is no grand task. You’re given a Wizard’s Chess set, a desk with assorted vases and goblets, an intricate epergne (you had to whisper to Mari to learn its name), and a Ministry worker borrowed like some laboratory mouse. You suppose it makes sense, though — you’re all capable enough of Human Transfiguration not to mutilate anyone, and performing on a classmate could obfuscate the results. It’s far easier to Transfigure someone you know than someone you don’t.
You start with the chess set, Dumbledore and the Ministry worker observing you as you turn pawns to knights and rooks to kings, the minutiae of the pieces drawing sweat to your brow. They change, and change, and change, and you don’t mutter an incantation once. The Ministry worker puts the set away and directs you to the glass. You Switch the vases with the goblets, Vanish them, and Conjure them again. The Ministry worker takes notes. Dumbledore nods affirmatively at you and you can exhale. The epergne is the hardest; so kitschy and elaborate you don’t know where to start when you’re tasked to Transform it into an animal.
An animal — like that isn’t the vaguest instruction you’ve ever received.
You look at it on the desk, mirrors and glass and gold on protracted arms, and you go for the first thing you think of because the Ministry worker is staring at you like you’re inept and you see it in his eyes — this is the muggle-born one, this one can’t do it.
You’re better than them. You can do it forever.
The epergne spins at the dip of your wand, and emerges more than an animal. A big glass tank appears in its place, round and gold-rimmed, water lapping at the sides. Inside it is a jellyfish. Emerald green, bobbing, tentacles and oral arms coiling against the glass like the limbs of the epergne had spanned its centre.
The Ministry worker swallows. Dumbledore smiles.
“And — and back?” the worker says, like that will be the thing that stops you.
You point again, mouth tight with irritation, and reverse the Transformation. A droplet of water smacks your face and you’re lucky to be so hot you can disguise it as sweat. You suspect even an error that small would cost you a mark.
You wipe it away. A strange thing happens; you imagine Tom brushing the water from your cheek at the Black Lake. You imagine his fingers in the rain.
The Ministry worker steps closer with a shameless frown. He tells you to turn his hair red. You do. He regards himself in the mirror and scribbles something down. He tells you to turn it back. You do. To grow him a beard, to change his clothes, to make him taller, shorter, this and that — all read from a list he does not appear enthused to recite. You do it all.
He shakes Dumbledore’s hand when it’s done, duplicates his notes for him to keep, and follows the other Ministry workers through the fireplace when everyone’s exams are finished.
You find out you’ve passed with an Outstanding on your birthday.
Mari drags you to the Three Broomsticks to celebrate, butterbeers on her. (They always are.)
“Can’t believe we’re about to graduate,” she says into her cup, froth on her upper lip.
You sigh into your own, partially giddy and mostly nervous.
Mari squeezes your face between her thumb and finger so your frown is puckered. “Chin up, genius. You’ll be excellent.”
You push her hand away but can’t help a small smile. “Outstanding,” you correct.
“Outstanding!” She bursts out laughing. “Bloody ego on you now…”
“Well, I am the smartest person you know.”
“I take that back.”
She pushes out of her chair with a slightly inebriated wobble. “Going to the loo. Don’t touch my chips.”
Your hands raise in surrender, and you steal only one when she’s gone.
You aren’t the only ones here to celebrate. (Your birthday and your mutual achievement, yes, but the Three Broomsticks is filled wall-to-wall with seventh years drinking their final nights at school away.) There’s music charmed to reach every corner, even yours at the little alcove hidden from plain sight. It’s nice to watch from here — the stumbling, the kisses meant for mouths that land drunkenly on cheeks and noses, the barkeeps that roll their eyes as soon as they turn away from all the newly adult customers, not yet learned or careless in their drinking manners.
It is not nice to be occluded from plain sight in such a way that you don’t notice Tom Riddle until he’s inches away from your table. It is not nice that no one else notices either.
On instinct you don’t make any impressive exit. He slides into the booth next to you and your brain short circuits for a moment at the warm familiarity of his presence beside you. Then it occurs that it’s been more than a year since this was remotely commonplace — that you cannot forget the reason why.
There’s not much time to decide whether you want to be vicious or indifferent or to debate on past precedent which would bother him more. You haven’t attacked him despite being concealed enough to do it unnoticed, and you haven’t shoved furiously out of the other side of the booth.
Indifferent it is.
“Can I help you?”
“You’re causing quite the stir,” he says, taking one of Mari’s chips.
You’re allowed. It’s infuriating when he does it.
“Am I?”
“It’s enough to fail a N.E.W.T level class and be expressly petitioned back, but to have a special criteria set for your exams and manage an O on top of it all…” He inclines his head as if to appreciate your face so close after so long. You should not let him. “You are incomprehensible. It terrifies them.”
“They’re afraid of the wrong mudblood, then, aren’t they?”
Indifference effaced. You’re angry.
He seems to have come prepared, and shrugs your scorn off like a scarf you would have forced him to wear winters ago. “Of course, they have no reason to suspect Dumbledore might have ulterior motives.”
Ulterior — you certainly hope he isn’t suggesting this is based on anything but your merit, but then — you couldn’t begin to understand why Dumbledore cared so much, could you? You’d made brief inspections of his disdain for Tom in second year, his waning shades of kindness and the matter of his stolen encyclopaedia, but you hadn’t… you hadn’t thought at all about how his dedication to your progress only begun after you’d stopped sharing a class with Tom, how it had developed as you began to drift from one another in fifth year and accelerated in sixth after the first petrification and Myrtle’s death. How Tom had worn you down with a weighted glare at Dumbledore’s little toast.
It wasn’t because you had chosen Dumbledore, you realise. It was because Dumbledore had chosen you.
“Why don’t you worry about your pets, Riddle?” you snarl, “I’m sure there are bigger problems with your lot than my exam results.”
Something in his face shifts at the name. You swell with distorted pride.
He mends the reaction by looking you over in more detail, his features schooled into something he must know you can’t deduce. You try not to squirm under the intensity of it.
He reaches almost mindlessly for your collar (there is nothing mindless about it, you’re sure) and smooths the fabric gently with his fingers. “I always liked you in this colour.”
You blink. His thumb just barely brushes against the skin of your neck before retreating, and your mouth falls open.
“Don’t do that,” you say. Truly a sad attempt. Your repulsion is more with yourself than him, and that’s not at all right.
Where is Mari?
“Your friend was at the bar, last I saw her.”
You stare at him with wild eyes. How the hell — ?
“You were always easy to read,” he supplies, and leans in so you can follow his line of sight to the tiniest sliver of the bar visible between two columns, where Mari looks deeply engaged in conversation with Leo Ndiaye, one of the Gryffindor Chasers.
You take a sharp, exasperated breath at her antics. She might be more in love with the competition than the boy himself. They’d never last without Quidditch to bind them, but you can’t fault her for wanting a bit of fun.
“Well then —”
Right. Tom hasn’t actually moved away. You turn and his face is just there.
His eyes dart forthwith to your mouth, and — no. No, he won’t be doing that and neither will you.
“...I’m off to bed.” Stop talking to him like he’s your friend, you think miserably. Stop looking at him like he’s your —
“That would be wise.”
He’s still looking at your lips.
No one else is looking at you at all.
It could exist in just this moment, you deliberate; separate from everything else.
Except nothing about Tom exists in its own moment. He’s all over you all the time, skin and bone and soul. You hope you still have a place in the broken fragments of his.
“So I’ll be going now,” you say again.
“I haven’t protested.”
But he’s leaning in, and he has to know that’s impedance enough.
“But you will.”
His lips touch yours. “Yes, I will.”
You grab him by his shirt and you’re kissing him. You’re kissing each other like either of you know what the hell it means to kiss anyone, but you’ve learned the rest together, haven’t you? Your noses bump and you don’t care. You just need to kiss him, and — God, you make some noise against his mouth and the hand cupping your face spreads to capture more of you, greedy and wayward — he needs to kiss you too. It’s a horrible thing to know. It leads you to pose too many questions.
The need must have begun as want, and when did the want begin? How long has he looked at you and wondered what you’d feel like to kiss, touch, mark? (He’ll never have the latter. You swear that.)
You’re pulling away in intervals. “You don’t have me, you know.”
“I know,” he responds, lips on the corner of yours.
“You still lost me.”
“I know.”
“I hate you.”
He pauses for a moment. “I know.”
You kiss him again. Long and soft, memorising his cupid’s bow and the tip of his tongue, and when one of his hands moves to your waist you part from him like you’ve been burned.
“I —” You resist the urge to touch a finger to your lips, standing abruptly from the table and adjusting your shirt. Your body feels like an evolutionarily faulty vessel, too easy to please, though you can’t imagine it responding to anyone else this way. Or perhaps your mind is the problem. Not wired well enough to resist an evidently bad thing. “Goodnight, Tom.”
You thought there wasn’t a word for your goodbye, but that’s it. So simple it sinks you. Goodnight, Tom. I’ll dream of a morning where I wake up beside you, but you won’t be there.
He grabs your hand before you can go, licking his lips and it haunts you to think he’s savouring you. It stings a place deep in your chest you’d spent all year trying to heal.
“My door is always open,” he says.
He lets you go.
You graduate with Mari’s hand in yours, and you aren’t afraid.
Dumbledore requests that you stay for the summer to help him prepare for the first year’s curriculum in the fall. It’s a ridiculous opportunity for someone your age — free lodgings and a stellar impression on your resume, and — you can only accept it with an ire you haven’t felt since the spread of influenza in muggle Britain.
If he’s offering you lodgings now, he could have done it all along.
It sends you down a horrible train of thought while you move your things from the Slytherin dormitories to a little chamber a few doors down from the staff room; Tom will be removed from Wool’s this year. Will he stay at Malfoy Manor? But Tom is still publicly muggle-born — Abraxas’s parents would never allow it. Will he find a job, a flat? Will he swindle muggles once he turns eighteen and the Trace is no longer an obstruction?
You think of him often. You think of his offer.
My door is always open.
Plenty of doors are open to you now. Why should you want to go back to his?
Still, the Second World War ends in November and you feel like you can breathe at a depth you never could before. The school doesn’t celebrate like it did with Grindelwald. No one but you seems to care at all.
It’s a tempting door.
The year passes in a blur of graded papers and lessons Dumbledore sometimes involves you in and sometimes does not. Most of the first-years care little for you, but there are two Slytherin muggle-borns who look at you like a new sun to orbit. Everything is worth it for that.
You see Mari when you can, and find she’s training with the Italian Quidditch team, who apparently are smart enough to care more about skill than blood. She says she misses the complexities of Transfiguration, but any career in it was always going to be yours. Smartest person she knows, she reiterates. Biggest ego too.
The next summer Dumbledore informs you of a posting at the Ministry. Something small with a smaller wage. He emphasises the weight of his personal recommendation, but that you won’t be respected unless you claw tooth and nail for it. You don’t take long to consider a chance to make an actual income with an actual career doing something muggle-borns simply don’t do before you’re nodding assuredly and asking him what you need.
Better clothes are first, and all you can afford until further notice. You take to Gladrags with intent to purchase for the first time in your five years of wandering in the shop with eyes bigger than your wallet, and the owner looks at you with distrust when you slide her your sickles.
The Ministry job is truly, infinitesimally, insignificant.
It’s far down in the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes. You’re a glorified secretary, and you recall the few times you’d worked as a mail-sorter during the war. It’s some sick irony that you’ve landed yourself in a pile of paper once more.
But the money, though offensively scant to someone with better options (and it’s infuriating the options you deserve), is more than you’ve ever had, and within the next year you’re able to leave the castle and take a cheap room at an inn in Hogsmeade. You’re close enough to Dumbledore to aid him when he needs you, but far enough to feel like your school days are departed, and you need not worry about memories lurching unexpectedly at every corridor.
A sick part of you still reaches for your mouth sometimes to remember what it felt like to be kissed. That part of you wishes for Tom. You could kiss him into oblivion. You could find a way to make it hurt him back.
My door is always open.
Then you’ll slam it bloody closed.
Mari invites you to her first professional game and you cheer for her in the stands, a green, white, and red scarf around your neck in place of her old blue.
She wins and you get drinks in a muggle pub. You kiss a man at the bar. You go home with him. His hair is dark, but not dark enough. His lips are soft, but the shape is wrong. He makes you feel good, but you wonder if in another life, the dream is true; you roll over in the morning to Tom beside you, and he makes you feel better.
When you can find time between the monotonous demands of your job, you’re in the Transfiguration classroom, staying behind to help the Slytherin muggle-borns with their Switching spells.
It’s one stupid accident the next fall that changes things.
A muggle bank has been robbed, and whatever idiotic, panicked witch or wizard was behind it apparently found themselves incapable of getting the deed done with a simple Imperius Curse (you can’t imagine, based on the scene, that they’re above Unforgivables), and somehow ended up leaving the building half-charred and teeming with at least six bank tellers Transformed into birds, two chirping into the floor tiles with broken wings.
“Renauld’s on it, though,” your coworker says when the news finds your department.
“Renauld?”
He’s a year older than you, a pureblood with parents in high places, and endlessly fucking hopeless.
“Well, yeah —”
You push out from your desk, files fluttering behind you. “Renauld will expose the whole damn wizarding world if he touches that building.”
“But McCormack sent him.”
“Where is it?”
“I… McCormack said that —”
“Where is it, Flack?”
“Um. Um, near King William, I think. Moorgate or, um —”
That’s good enough. You toss the Floo Powder into the fireplace and go.
The place is a mess. You don’t even have to look for it. There’s some ward around the street, bouncing muggles away like an invisible end to a map they don’t even register is there. At least that’s handled right.
But you slip through it and curse under your breath at the muggles trapped inside the wards. They’re like fish prodding at the dome of their bowl, and some run up to you demanding explanations when they see you unaffected by it. You brush them off — Obliviation is not your strong-suit — though you do shout at a pair of DMAC wizards uselessly standing guard outside the bank.
“What the hell are you doing?” you ask on approach. “Renauld’s supposed to handle the inside, yeah? You deal with fixing them.”
You point toward the frantic muggles, and the officials just regard you with vague confusion at your presence. “Renauld said —”
“Oh my God! Fix. The muggles.”
You afford nothing else before pushing past them to enter the bank.
It’s quite impressive, actually; Renauld, the result of generations of foolproof breeding, is waving his wand around like he’s just stepped out of Olivanders for the first time.
“Heal their wings,” you say without greeting.
Renauld jumps. “What? What are you doing here?”
“Heal their damn wings. They’re easier than human limbs and healing magic’s the only thing you aren’t completely shit at.”
“Who authorised you?” he hisses.
“I did.”
In hindsight, it should have gone horrifically wrong. Your wand could have been taken and your life might have been over in all ways that matter, flung back into the muggle world where you’ve always been told you belong.
But Renauld vouches for you. You Transform the walls, you fix the burns, you mend the bank to something presentable. A muggle robbery — dangerous, financially tragic, but believable. And your suggestion to heal the injured bank tellers in their animal forms might be the thing that saved them. When Renauld mends their wings and regenerates their blood, you Untransfigure them, and the other DMAC officials alter their memories with haste.
You were completely out of line and utterly right.
It isn’t something people like you are allotted.
Your probation period is dreadful. You hide in your room at the inn most days, Vanishing little stained panes on your window to feel the warm breeze of air before you Conjure them again. You help grade papers, though Dumbledore is displeased with you and the night is a silent one. He assures you curtly that he’s doing his best with the Ministry to amend this.
And… he does.
With Renauld’s help and the corroboration of the other DMAC officials, you’re back at work by the start of the school year.
It’s a slow process — almost eight months of meaningless paperwork — before the next incident occurs and you’re hectically ushered to the scene like a belated understudy. And then it happens again. And again. And again.
There’s really no choice but to promote you.
Your heroics are torn from a Gryffindor cloth, so says Flack. You urge him never to say such a thing again.
By your twenty-first birthday, you think about Tom almost exclusively in your sleep. You’re much too busy to think about him anywhere else.
The summer is warm and Hogsmeade is lively. You’ve vacated your room at the inn for a little house on the outskirts of the village, decorating it how you like — discovering what you like. You’d never had a chance to find out before.
Mari visits when she can once you have your fireplace connected to the Floo Network (you yourself prefer Apparating) but her name is slowly working its way from the Italian papers to the British ones, and she has so much to tell you there isn’t possibly enough time in her days to tell it. There’s also the matter of Leo Ndiaye, who has, recently, gotten on one knee and proposed to her. If there had been a bet on them ending up together, you would have been out enough galleons to put you in debt.
After especially gruesome days at work, you and a few colleagues make a habit of getting sherries at the Siren’s Tail, complaining that sometimes the nature of your work is akin to an auror’s but without the notoriety and pay.
“Oh, please,” says Emilia Alves, twirling her straw, “have you seen the shit the aurors are up to lately? I���d rather be a blimmin’ Unspeakable.”
“You’d have to be able to keep your mouth shut for that, Alves.”
Emilia punches Renauld in the arm.
“What are the aurors up to?” Flack asks.
“I dunno much. There was a murder all the way in Albania, s’posedly. Reeked of dark magic.”
“Nothing new,” you join, and then frown. “Why’s our Ministry dealing with it though?”
“I dunno. I got word from Hillicker that the Albanians didn’t know what to make of the mess. They’ve never seen anything like it.”
“Hillicker’s not a source,” Renauld scoffs.
“Yeah? Why don’t you ask your daddy for something better?”
“Alves, I’ll have you know —”
You lean in over the counter. “What do you mean they’ve never seen anything like it?”
She grins. “Why? Storming a bank robbery wasn’t exciting enough for you?”
You roll your eyes, taking a drink.
That ought to be the end of it. One extraordinarily lucky incident to push you up the career ladder was rare enough — there is absolutely no way digging around a case that has nothing to do with you or your department could ever end well.
But something about it itches.
You make nice with Hillicker. She’s a year younger than you and far too kind for her own good, and she gushes freely about her husband’s work as an auror (they must be a perfect match for him to gush freely about it with her). It’s a bit manipulative. You have no excellent excuse for it, but… ambition, and all that, you suppose. Flack’s Gryffindor theory is studded with holes.
You are green, through and through.
Emilia’s updates are meaningless when you garner so much information that you’ve already heard everything she has to say over drinks, and at this point her and Hillicker might be a step behind you. Emilia still only knows about Albania; peppery little details of half a story. Hillicker discusses an assortment of murders with no real string between them, and Dumbledore regards you with cool heeding when you bring up the matter with him.
You see him little nowadays but you’ve never been close in any true sense, traces of resentment budding over the years like rainwater collects on glass until the stream finally slips.
You visit Hogwarts mostly for your Slytherins, fourteen or fifteen now, unafraid of the distinction of their blood.
And then there’s one night after you turn twenty-two where drinks take place at yours for a change, Mari and Leo included and happily wed. You have no sherries but your ale is just as well, and it’s only you and Renauld who are sober by the time everyone else is vanishing into the fireplace and going home.
That makes it much worse when you sleep together.
There’s no excuse of having had a glass too many — so sorry, I’ll be on my way then, and him stumbling over his trousers to get out of your hair. Of course, he does that anyway, scratching the nape of his neck when he reaches your doorway in the morning.
“Thanks for the — well, you have a nice home — I do think I should —”
“Yes.”
“Right.”
“Oh!” He turns around at the last second. “Er — I know you’ve become a tad obsessed with… Hillicker mentioned another, anyway. Hepzibah something. Killed by her own elf, the aurors suspect.”
“Oh,” you echo, sheets pulled up to your shoulders. “Thanks, Renauld.”
“I thought you might like to know. Don’t be daft about it.”
You’re incredibly daft about it.
There’s something reminiscent about Albania in this case that wasn’t there with the others. The tide of dark magic ebbing across the scene, the cherry-picked information released in the Prophet, the claim of an old, dumb House Elf who poisoned her mistress like the Albanian peasant killed in some insoluble accident.
The itch exacerbates.
You see him in your dreams again. He peers over Runes in a stolen encyclopaedia, he whispers to an adder on his shoulder, he kisses the corner of your mouth and it isn’t enough. He kills you, again and again. You kill him too.
You wake up and he isn’t there.
It’s a new low when you’re invited to the Hillicker’s anniversary dinner and you end up digging through the drawers of their study halfway through the night.
The Albania file offers nearly nothing. There was the charred residue of dark magic imprinted on a hollow tree in the fields of the peasant’s hamlet, but nothing detailing more than a blank imprint of the Killing Curse in his eyes. Still, you tuck the knowledge away for the file of one Hebzibah Smith, whose tea did indeed have traces of poison, but whose den was also ripe with a layer of darkness that didn’t line up with the Ministry’s tale of senile elf.
And then there’s the forgotten matter of her being a purveyor of ancestral artefacts. The file doesn’t recount whether any are missing, since the woman was wise enough not to proclaim all her possessions to the world, but it’s something. A scratch.
You travel to Albania that Christmas. The neighbours in the peasant’s hamlet have skewed memories, so they provide little help, but the man’s house was left almost untouched.
You tear the place apart and Transfigure it back together when you’re done.
All you find, in the end, is a scrap of an old envelope in a suitcase.
R.R
It could be that it’s old. The cursive seems ancient enough. But you swear the letters have the distinct shape of quill ink — too artful for any pen — and maybe that wouldn’t matter if it weren’t for half a wax seal stuck to the torn edge of the envelope. Stained but silver, the barest hint of two ribbons, a crest, and the letter H.
You return to Hogwarts posthaste.
It’s snowing in the courtyards and you waddle with a duotang under one arm to pretend you’re here for something scholarly, an array of excuses prepared in case you run into Dumbledore, but you don’t.
The Grey Lady is as beautiful as she’s rumoured to be.
You ask her about her mother, and she’s silent, an expression on her face like you’ve struck her.
“Is it found?” she whispers. The snow floats through her.
Your heart hammers as you consider how to approach this. She thinks you know more than you do, which means there’s something to know.
“Yes,” you say. And you dare further with the context you know, “In Albania.”
“Oh,” she hums. “Oh…”
And if she means to say more she doesn’t seem able, washing away through the balusters, then the walls. You think of your house ghost and what he did to her, and you feel sorry for a second.
Madam Palles expels you from the library the moment you find what you’re looking for, and you rush past a throng of staring students to the staff room fireplace. It’s too far a walk to the border of the castle wards to Apparate. You bite back the preemptive sickness, get swallowed by the flames, and go home.
There are blanks to fill in but you do it easily. Rowena Ravenclaw’s diadem. Hepzibah Smith and her assortment of unregistered artefacts. The stain of dark magic. Something so rare not even the aurors recognized it.
But you do, because he told you.
You wonder on your search to find him what object he used when he killed Myrtle Warren. Nothing special, you think — maybe even the closest thing he could find. These murders involved more preparation. He got to mark them however he wanted.
It’s almost disappointing to find him here. In a little flat over Knockturn Alley with a view of charmed coalsmoke and the brick wall of another shop.
It’s as tidy as his room at Wool’s, the only dirt the irremediable age of the building itself. The whole place looks almost slanted, large enough only for the bare necessities; a kitchen, a toilet, a bedroom that looks more like a closet, and a study/dining room/den you can’t imagine he hosts many gatherings in. You rescind the mere thought. Whatever gatherings Tom Riddle is having these days, you’re sure you can’t begin to imagine at all.
You wait, legs crossed on an old loveseat, fiddling with your wand.
The door clicks open when the snow has turned to hail and there’s no light but the few scattered candles you’d lit on the mantelpiece.
It strikes you only when he’s standing before you that it’s his birthday.
You’re in Tom Riddle’s flat, on his birthday, adorned by the orange glow of half-melted candles, and you know everything.
He eyes you carefully, a hint of surprise at the sight of you after four years that even he needs a second to recover from. And then he's even, inscrutable Riddle again, and you dare to think, come back.
“I placed wards," he says, hanging his bag on a rack by the wall.
“I thought your door was always open.”
You see his posture change from just his silhouette.
“Wards never work in Knockturn,” you offer additionally, “not really. There's too much conflicting magic; one border cuts into another; leaves a little sliver behind if you’re smart enough to find it. You should know that."
He turns to you. You take in a moment to acknowledge how he's changed. It's hard to see in the curtained moonlight, and it seems unreasonable to imagine he’s grown, but you think he has. An inch taller, perhaps. Two. Maybe the dress shoes. His arms are bigger under his button-down, but not enough to consider him muscular. His black hair isn't as perfect as you remember, and you suspect a long day of work undoes his curls. You always liked him better that way in school, after a night duel at the Black Lake, his robes askew and his hair a mess. Evidence that you were the only one to dishevel him. Now you were — what? Did he even think of you anymore? Yes. You'd always think of each other.
“Duly noted. What are you here for?” He tries your surname like a foreign language.
You cross your arms, and you're acutely aware that he's observing your changes too. You're not the matchstick witch he once knew. Your emotions are cultured now, taut to mirror his. You wear dull, formal grey, and that glowing green tinge that should be gleaming on you is under a thick carapace. That’s for Mari, Flack, Emilia — even Renauld. Not for Tom.
You wonder if he knows it was Dumbledore who put in the word that got you this uniform. You wonder if he resents you for it.
“There’s been talk at the Ministry," you say finally, “A string of murders. Whispers of something — some dark magic they don’t understand. And you know they're careful about things like that after Grindelwald."
“A string of murders... Hm. That might imply you understand a connective thread. Is there some sort of accusation being made?”
“Oh, I'm sure you'd be flattered by accusations. There’s not enough there, as it stands. Just whispers." You sink more comfortably in the seat and the springs make a concerning sound. “But I know you."
His hard, sharp gaze falters for a moment. You watch the flames dance behind him, the firelight playing against the lines of his shoulders, and feel your heart skip a beat. “Who else is speculating?"
“No one." Your fingers brush over the book spines on the coffee table. “I guess their attention hasn't been drawn to a book clerk yet, even if you have taken residency... here." You say it with no shortage of disapproval.
Knockturn was never where Tom belonged. You'd once imagined a flat together in muggle London, taking the telephone booth to the Ministry together, changing the world together. It's a wish that's a lifetime away now.
“Is this a warning? I assure you, I don’t need the condescension.”
“I'm not warning you," you scoff, “I — I'm seeing you. God knows I'll probably never get the chance to do that again once you get yourself locked up in Azkaban, which you will."
You sound exasperated. You sound half-pleading. “What are you doing, Tom? Is this — this is really what you want?"
“Yes."
You shake your head. “I don't believe that." And then some of that fiery spit returns to you, and you feel like a child again, stuck in the London tube stations holding his hand at every plane that flew overhead, scowling that you needed his reassurance. Scowling that you were afraid.
“Well, your conjecture is ever-appreciated. Shall I lend you mine? Shall I congratulate you on your revolutionary position at the Ministry? Or is it Dumbledore I should afford my thanks?”
“I earned this,” you hiss.
“You deserve it,” he amends. “But do not lie to yourself and pretend that’s why you have it.”
“Fuck you.”
He smiles. “There you are.”
“I don’t need your congratulations, Riddle. Dumbledore doesn’t need your damn thanks. But,” you say, biting back the snarl that wants out, “you could thank me. After all, I could turn to the Ministry any minute with the truth of your heritage. I could tell them about Myrtle, the Horcrux — Horcruxes.”
The humour dissolves from his face and you despise the immense glee it brings you.
“Oh, did you think I didn’t know? Didn’t understand the connective thread? You are sentimental under all that… fucking posturing, you know. I’m sure it’s all very romantic to you — making Horcruxes out of Hogwarts artefacts. Shame it’s such an insult to your intelligence.”
“Very good,” he says after a long, terse silence. You’re sure he’s thinking just the opposite.
You hum, meddling with your nails. “So what’s your plan?”
“I’d need a Vow for that.”
You laugh. “I’m not that desperate.”
“You’re also not an auror, are you?” He tilts his head appraisingly. “And yet you’ve found your way here.”
“How many do you plan to make? How many people do you plan to kill?”
“A Vow.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Tea, then? Biscuits?”
“Oh, I shouldn’t. I read in the paper the other day about a poor old woman who had her tea poisoned.”
“Hm. Terrible shame.”
Your fist clenches around your wand. “Is it paying off well, Riddle? It must be a good life if you’re willing to split your soul to hell and back to have more of it.”
He smiles at the barb in your words. “You never were good with subtlety.”
“I wasn’t trying to be subtle. This place is horrific.”
“I was referring to your inability to see more than what’s directly in front of you.”
“Oh, really? And what more should I see than a boy who’s very good at getting weak men to bow and do very little else? I’d try to see the bigger picture, but I reckon it wouldn’t fit in here.”
Tom regards you colourlessly. You are slate, Ministry-grey, impermeable like palace portcullis.
“I suppose I should have killed you.” He says it with the nonchalance of a forgotten chore. He says it like you’re a stain.
He doesn’t say it like he feels any terrible urgency to remove you; and you think, this time, you’d feel more powerful if he did. You think it’s far more debilitating to sit here and be looked at like he regrets wanting you alive more than he wants you dead.
“Yes,” you concur, “I suppose you should have.”
You place your wand down on the table and scoot your chair away for good measure. “It’s never too late to rectify your mistakes.”
Tom, for a moment, looks surprised. That makes you feel powerful. You’d take more of that.
“You have wandless magic,” he tries. A weak recovery.
“Scout’s honour, Riddle.”
He doesn’t move for a moment, then fixes his wand in his hand and rises, doused in the same inscrutable calm that always used to drive you mad. Now something in you gleams with the knowledge that he only ever looks like this when he’s trying not to look like anything at all.
He steps closer and it gleams brighter. It trembles inside you and you know, distantly, that this is insane. You’re weighing your life on a childhood trust that was shattered years ago, and you don’t think you’ve ever been that good at faith, but he’s approaching you and that gleam you feel is reflected in his eyes and you just… know. Your spilled blood once crawled with his. There’s no undoing that. Half of you is made of the other.
“I should have killed you,” he repeats.
It’s a murmur. Stilted. Angry, even. Angry that you made him this and there’s no fucking rectifying it — what a joke that is. What an immensely you thing to suggest.
“Yes,” you agree.
It’s a breath. Low. Proud, even. Proud that you’re his only mistake and he’s going to make it again.
Tom kisses you. It’s a murder of its own kind. You kiss him back, and — you were always going to kill each other like this, weren’t you? It’s you and him whether you like it or not.
There should be no love in it. You know that. Love is far behind the both of you, stifled in a gasp at the back of your throat on your eighteenth birthday and the soft, selfish hands of a seventeen year old boy. This is mutual destruction. Spite and teeth and skin that’s cold under your fingers.
He was your first in everything but this.
You push back at him and feel the hunger, the need in him, like a flame as he kisses you deeper and harder, and you find yourself losing yourself to it all over again, like you're back in the dark alcove of a pub where you told him goodbye, pushing to extend the juncture. And then he lets out a hitched, gravelly sound; not a moan but enough to make you shudder.
You pull him onto the sofa and crawl onto his lap.
“How long?” he asks thickly.
You don’t have to ask what he means. You bite against his neck, nails under his shirt as you struggle to pop the buttons open. There must be a violence in all your want for him because if there isn't it's just loss. It's just another thing you'll give him without taking anything back.
“Sixth year," you pant, “in the Deathday ballroom when we fought for the first time. You — ah — you put your thumb on my mouth. Since then."
You hear a sharp intake of breath, and his hand moves up your back to pull you impossibly closer. His voice is ragged. “Should I tell you how long I’ve wanted you?"
You shudder a breath. “Since —" And it's a bit hard to talk with the way he's rolling your hips — “Since when?"
His lips twitch into a mirthless smile, hands spanning your thighs as you start to rock against him. “When you burned me, and I sent you into the lake."
You swallow, agonised by the slow pace his grip forces you to keep when all you want to do is go faster.
“Your uniform was terribly wet,” he says, mouth tracing your jaw. “Did I ever apologise for that?"
“N-no.”
He tuts, the hushed sound warm and deadly on your neck. “Bad manners. I must have been distracted."
Oh. Oh, you think. It seems pointless to flush in the position you're in now, but the knowledge that he wanted you then and you hadn't even known is... all the more devastating.
But you shiver at the question of how he’d wanted you, in what amount of detail, in what precise way. You almost want to ask. See it for yourself.
You don't think you'd manage the words. He’s hard underneath you and your head wants to lull toward his shoulder but a big hand holds you from one side of your jaw down the length of your neck, his tongue laving up the other. Instead you’re balanced only by his hands and his mouth, rolling against him because it’s all you can do like this.
He’s marking you, you realise with a gasp, and your fingers bury in his hair to remove his mouth from its descending assault on your collar. Not that. You’d sworn against that.
Your fingers return to his buttons and he copies you by finding yours, pulling at the fabric tucked into your trousers until it’s discarded entirely. You press your hands to the planes of his chest and watch him, your mouth agape as his eyes linger on your chest.
His heart is pounding and he must know you’re about to comment on it because his lips are on yours again and he adjusts his position and your fingers dig into his shoulders at the delicious new feeling of him pressing into your thigh.
You move for his belt. He moves for your zipper. It’s some sort of race, whatever you’re doing, and you’re at an unfair advantage when you’re still fumbling with his buckle when his hand is already carving a slow path to the band of your underwear. You're scalding under the journey of it, little stars pricking you under every new inch he explores.
He dips in and your eyes wrench shut, grasping frantically for his wrist.
“Shh,” he says softly, caressing your cheek with his spare hand, thumb finding your mouth how it did all those years ago and you want to curse him. The fucker knows exactly what he’s doing.
You shake your head, chest rising with heavy breaths as you return to his belt and scrabble to unbuckle it.
“So tense,” he murmurs. The hand at your cheek draws over your lower lip before it falls to your back to hold you closer. “Rest now.”
And his fingers trace you where you want him most, brushing past your clit as he pulls his face back to watch you.
You sink into the feeling, still swaying on his lap, a half-efforted attempt at finding friction in the hardness between his legs that feels fruitless because it won't be enough until he's inside. Your hand just grips onto the fabric of his unzipped trousers and stays there. It’s a pause. An obstacle on your path to him that you need just a moment to recover from before you’ll make him feel just like this. Better. Worse. It’s hard to tell which is which.
He’s stroking at you now, pleased by the way you lurch against him with every touch.
You have to recover, you have to make it even, you have to… you…
A finger presses inside and you moan.
“You came back to me,” he whispers, close enough to be kissing you but there’s just the stutter of his breath. It's a fucking religious thing to say, the way he does it.
“Doesn’t make me yours,” you breathe.
He shakes his head. “I know. You’ll still take it though, won’t you?”
Oh, fuck.
He makes a sound of approval. “Good.”
Good. Fine. Your hands slip from his zipper to the meat of his thighs, pushing yourself forward so the shape of him is firmer against you, and Tom slips another finger in.
You’ll take it, won’t you? Yes.
Maybe you don’t need to tear him at the seams (though you want to) to make it even. Maybe this is punishment enough. That he can have you like this and it still won’t make you his, that he’ll give you everything and you’ll lap at it with half the greed he possesses.
You ride his hand, clutching his shoulders, rocking your hips. You take all of it, and it builds something delirious inside you, that it’s him doing this, his perfect fingers, the shape of his lips, the soft dark of his hair when you find your hands in it again. The feeling makes you stutter, and he has to move you by the waist himself to keep the momentum when you can't do it yourself.
He’s painfully stiff, pushing up against you with a degree of self-control that feels like it can only end disastrously for the both of you, and you start smattering kisses down his cheek. You tilt his head back and lick a stripe down his neck. Rest now, you'd say if you could.
But he adds a third finger and your head falls, a cry planted in his collar when you come, and you don't think you say anything.
Tom holds your legs steady, guiding you through it like this is just another one of his studies. You are what he knows better than anything else, and still he wants to learn more.
“Look at you,” he mutters, dipping you back to press his lips down your chest, unclasping your bra while you’re still breaking, the sensation swelling again when he takes a nipple into his mouth.
“Tom,” you try to say. Your mouth is the sticky sort of dry that words refuse to come out of.
“Will you give me more?”
Give, not take. You fuss into a stolen kiss, grappling again with his trousers, pulling them down until you can palm him through his boxers.
He hisses, gripping your wrist like he hadn’t just done the same to you, and then he’s pulling you up and off the couch, trousers discarded with what must be magic because you blink and they’re gone. Greedy boy. (You have no room to judge.) Your back is to the wall an instant before his fingers are on you again, pushing your underwear down your thighs until it falls at your feet like they despised to ever part from you.
You arch to feel him press against your stomach, pushing off the wall so that you can meld to him but he just closes in on you to do it himself.
He goads the heat from you when his fingers push in again, still wet, coiling how you like, where you like —
“Want you,” you protest shakily, hand on his abdomen.
That must kill him a little, because he curses under his breath (a thing he never does) and the immediate absence of his touch is cruel when he goes to free himself from his boxers. You reach for him without thinking as he does, and he pins your hand beside you when your fingers so much as graze the length of him.
You sound frail, but you have to ask. “Is this how you wanted me?”
A cruder version of you would go on. Is this how you pictured it? Taking me against a wall? Have you waited for it all this time?
And you don’t belong to him but you’re so incomprehensibly, contradictorily his. You’ll want him forever. He could do anything, and you’d be his. You could haunt him into his lonely eternity, and he’d be yours. Then, you suppose — haunting him makes him yours by principle.
Maybe you already do.
Tom practically growls into your mouth, pressing against you and — God, it’s skin on skin. He's right there. You could push forward and —
He slides in. You cry out at the feel of him inside you, the angle of it like this.
“I wanted you,” he says lowly, your legs wrapped around him, “everywhere.”
You’re gripping him so tight you think he’ll bleed under your nails and somehow you still feel on the brink of collapse when he thrusts deeper.
“I thought mostly of your mouth,” he rasps. “It felt depraved to imagine it wrapped around me, but then I thought of you splayed out before me instead. That maybe you’d like it if it was my mouth on you.”
You whimper.
“Would you like that?” he asks, hands spanning your hips to snap them into his, like you are a piece removed from him he seeks to reattach.
If you wanted to answer you couldn’t. You’re clinging to him and the rising surge inside you, carved between your legs like something sweltering and unfixable. It rushes in and he pulls out of you. He pushes in and you cry for the release of it, the moment the wave lurches over the edge, but he won’t let you have it.
“But,” he says, and your eyes want to roll back at how heavy his restraint is, callous in the tone of his voice, some leash at his neck he must tug himself lest you take it from him — “If I knew how well you’d take me like this, I would have thought of it much more.”
Taking him, again — you don’t feel at all like that’s what’s happening. You feel possessed. You are buoyant in his arms: his and his and his.
“You can — uh — you can — ”
"Hm?" He brushes down the slope of your brow, your cheek, back to the edge of your mouth, wiping a trail of saliva from your chin. “Poor thing.”
And he slams into you again, drawing a mewl from you that slices your unfinished thought.
You clench around him, flames wild and fluttering at every contact of his skin on yours, and there are too many to count. Too many points where they intersect, just some blend of bodies connected at every curve.
“You’re going to give me more,” he says, like it’s an epiphany when you already told him you would.
You remember then. What you meant to say. “You can take me too.”
You feel him twitch inside you, his pace stilling for a moment, and the thumb on your lip slips into your mouth. Your lips close around him and he curses again.
He fucks you with a finger in your mouth and his teeth clamped over your shoulder, soothing the sting with his tongue. His pace is too slow when he drags his free hand between your legs, but you understand its purpose well enough that the mere recognition almost destroys you.
He’s patient in bringing you to the edge because there's time here. A slow agony that severs you from the rest of the world until it splits you down the middle. And he may not ever have it again.
You have to promise yourself he’ll never have it again.
But the movement of his fingers against the same spot he’s hitting inside you is too much at once, and you won’t last. You drool around his thumb. You let him mark you. You can see on his neck you’ve marked him too. And you hope impossibly there’s a scar. You hope the little death you coax from him claims him as yours for eternity, keeps him even when you're gone. You tighten, lurch for the edge, and make him mortal once more.
Tom holds you there, your cries reverberating as he sinks another finger in your mouth, and then he’s gasping at your neck, peeling back to look you in the eyes when he spills into you. Your eyes screw together and he releases the sounds you make by holding you by the jaw instead.
“Look at me,” he says, and for the strained need in it you do.
You come down to earth and you kiss him, wetness dripping down your thighs as he pins you to this moment. You love him. You’ll always love him.
He’s still inside you when he’s secure enough to bring you to his bed, only removing himself from you when you’re safely in his sheets, legs surrendering their grip on his waist as you pull apart. You pant into the cold linen of his pillow. Everything smells like him. There’s something empty now; the reason you came today; the reason you left four years ago.
You love him and it isn’t enough. Not even to look at him, the sleepy hint of the boy you knew in his eyes, and know that he loves you too.
“Goodnight, Tom,” you say, finding home in the warmth of his chest.
You’ll dream of a morning where you wake up beside him, but you won’t be there.
#tom riddle#tom riddle x reader#tom riddle x you#tom riddle x y/n#tom riddle fluff#tom riddle smut#tom riddle angst#(the trifecta)#tom marvolo riddle#voldemort#voldemort x reader#tom riddle imagine#tom riddle oneshot#harry potter fanfiction#wizarding world#ftltutbh
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Dating Tom Marvolo Riddle Would Include...
From my Wattpad!!
In my mind Tom is paired with a Hufflepuff. Bc thats what I am
Warnings: Sexual allusions, not proofed
- You are the ONLY person to call him Tommy
- he has a thing for you in your uniform... because of course he does
- something about that yellow tie...
- one by one his Slytherin sweaters go missing
- he HATES when you ruffle his hair
- jk he totally loves it
- but he'd never tell you that
- he keeps you out of all his "dark activities"
- he makes his followers respect you
- and if they don't?
- the hospital wing may have a new visitor
- he's a DOM
- SUCH A DOM
- Like, it's Tom Riddle... what'd you expect?
- on another note...
- you spend lots of time in the library, the Room of Requirement, and his dormitory
- you love reading to each other
- when you read to him...
- "Tom?"
- "Yes, love?"
- "Why are you staring at me like that?"
- "Like what?"
- "Like you're undressing me with your eyes."
- "Oh but I am, my love."
- And when he reads to you...
- "Y/N?"
- "Yes, Tommy?"
- "Stop looking at me."
- "But you're so lovely to look at, Tommy."
- He tolerates cuddles
- But he won't admit he likes them
- class with him can be... interesting
- secretly tugging at his hair turns him on
- and Tom being turned on in class, is not good for you
- good thing those tables are short and your skirt is long;)
- he pushes you outside your limits
- in and outside the bedroom
- especially in the bedroom
- He takes you to the Slug Club events
- He spoils you
- Even calls you "his princess"
- But that's on RARE occasions
- everyone wonders why you two are together
- dark, scary, Slytherin boy with preppy, fun, Hufflepuff girl
- but he likes you
- a lot
- for someone who can't love
#tom riddle#tom marvolo riddle#tom riddle oneshot#tom riddle x hufflepuff#tom riddle x reader#tom riddle x you#harry potter#slytherin x hufflepuff#tom riddle smut
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𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐤𝐞𝐝 - 𝐓𝐨𝐦 𝐑𝐢𝐝𝐝𝐥𝐞 𝐎𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐭 ⟡
warnings: suggestive, sharp blade, blood, a bit toxic but kinda sweet too at certain times
word count: 2,8 k
summary: Tom Riddle, the hardworking student, fascinated by you
Tom Riddle, known for his driven mindset but passionate behind closed doors.
It was hard to really get to know the real him, to break through those walls he built around himself. He had always told himself lovers and even friends would distract him from his goal to always over-succeed. He needed to be the best, he needed to know everything they taught at school. He needed to know more.
As a person, like yourself, who studied a lot, it wasn't hard to see him regularly. Tom practically lived in the library, often pulling an all-nighter at any given opportunity. He had his way of tricking Filch into thinking the library was empty and not being able to find him. He often spent time in the restricted section but that didn't give him a chance to analyze the behavior of people around him. So he only visited that part of the library if he really needed to. He didn’t like being around people but the library was the perfect place to really get to know a person.
It may looked like he didn't care about people at Hogwarts, but he was a watcher. In his opinion, watching people study was the best way for him to draw out their personalities. He was intelligent but plain enough to only link people's self-worth to their dedication to their studies.
People sleeping in the library. Those were the ones that didn't have their 8 hours of sleep during the night. Not because of the endless hours studying but because of their weak-minded behavior to party at any given time. They were often Gryffindors, but his own house succeeded in making him disappointed too. It's the reason for him to stay in the library so often, the parties in the common room giving him a headache. Mornings after parties weren’t better for him either. Hungover people all around the place, hoping someday Professor Snape might find them in this state. He’d love to see them get detention.
Ravenclaws. Always putting on the act of the perfect student, while he knew well enough that half of them didn't even study for desire for knowledge. Some of them lived under a lot of pressure, making him almost sympathize with them — no — that was not possible. They were always trying to confirm the expectations of the others. It wasn't a gift. They pained themselves to prove their worth through their grades. But he was always the one they couldn't pass.
Students not using the library for proper end-goals. The kissing in the library drove him mad. There were enough places for one to eat one another's face but they always seemed to decide to do it in the library. What about a room? Anyway, he had his proper way of handling these kinds of students. A way that may or may not make them end up in the hospital wing. Nothing serious, just gluing their lips together with a simple spell. It wasn't pleasant but certainly made them leave. And he didn't have to listen to the awful noises.
Loud students. Same consequences as the kissing students but this time their own lips shut together. It wasn’t a hard spell to reverse. Poor them for not knowing the counter spell, should’ve paid some more attention in class.
You. You were different, always driven to reach the top of the class. Your determination almost — ALMOST — made him feel bad for you not succeeding. Because no one would ever reach the top place as long as he was in school.
You were often the person sitting there too at night. He analyzed your behavior every night. You were different, you took your studies seriously too, and seemed to enjoy it just as much he did.
It seems as if DADA was your favorite subject, noticing the small smile on your face when you had your nose in those textbooks. It was intriguing to him, to see how passionate you were while studying. And especially passionate about his favorite subject too.
This was the first time he'd ever been interested in another student. He wasn't experienced in relationships at all, whether they were romantically or just a friendship. He soon fell into an obsessive spiral, wishing you'd be in the library too when he was there. Figuring out your schedule just by sight of your direction in the hallways. It was unhealthy but you never left his mind, it almost made his grades drop by some percent.
You also noticed him in the library, intrigued by him yourself. He was elegant and charming and the way he spoke made your heart flutter. The guy just radiated intelligence. You caught yourself staring at him quite some times in the library, hoping he’d never notice. Silly you, of course, he did.
It took him weeks to build up the courage to even make the slightest move. He left a small note between the pages of your book while you were gone to get another one. From his seat, he waited for your reaction, even dropping his work just to not miss the smile that formed on your face when you opened the pages it lay in between.
"If a certain someone is on your mind while reading this, take the risk.
-TR"
The moment you lifted your eyes from the small note, yours met his. Tom Riddle. Drawn to the darkness and mystery that surrounded him.
The strange desire that flowed through both your veins reflected in each other's eyes. Neither of you saying anything. When he stood up to leave the library, you immediately picked up his intentions. He wanted you to follow him. A few seconds after he left, you stood up too, following closely behind him.
He stood still in the hallway, his back facing you as you stopped a few meters behind him. The tension was palpable, the only sound in the corridor being both of your breaths. A pace of breathing that quickened every passing second.
"Follow me." His voice echoed through the hallway, it was alluring…
You were contemplating whether to do as he told, but something in you was so damn drawn to him. You were pulled to him like a magnet, your feet following without listening to the signals your brain was giving to you.
He then stopped in front of a wall...?
Suddenly a large door appeared in it and he looked back at you with that typical smirk of his, he was proud of showing this discovery to you. He extended his hand out to the door, it opened magically. "Ladies first, of course."
He looked down at you and behind the darkness that filled his eyes, you could sense a small light flickering behind them. Like a small fire in a deep obscure cave, pulling you closer into the cave. Like a moth to a flame, drawn to the light in the cave.
As you entered the door, your eyes almost fell out of your sockets. Has this always been hidden in the castle? You looked back at him, the surprise on your face was obvious.
"You like it?" He walked closer to you, your heart beating faster at every step he took.
When he was right in front of you, he leaned his head closer to your ear. His breath was warm against the side of your face, a shiver going down your spine at the sensation. "You can keep a secret, right?"
He leaned his head back again, his eyes tracing all your features, pupils dilating. His fingers came into contact with your cheeks, dragging them down slowly until he reached the top of your shirt. Gently he loosened your tie, still looking at you like you were his own personal art piece. "You fascinate me."
"What is it that interests you in Dark Magic?" He slowly traced your collarbone, waiting for a response from you. "Mhmm?"
"I don't know... The secrets and mystery draw me towards it." You didn’t know how to explain it, just keeping it to some simple words. He raised his brows slightly at your confession.
"Is that so? I can give you just as many secrets Dark Magic holds..." He pushed a lock of hair in your face behind your ear. "Even more."
"Are you interested in finding out?"
You probably shouldn't have been…
It was since that day, that Tom and you had these secret meetings. He often took you back to the Room of Requirement during several nights. He taught you new things, in more ways than you could imagine. It seemed as if he was experienced in everything. Everything except love.
As the year progressed, you woke up more times in that room than in your own dorm room. Waking up in his warm arms as he traced his fingers over your bare back. It was a habit of his. He traced every single mole he could find on you, worshipping your body as if it were his reason to live.
His reason to love...
Love.
Love wasn't always that convenient in a relationship with Tom Riddle. The kisses barely weighed out the tears you had spilled during only those few months. They were heavy but he was worth it.
It was the toxic kind of love.
But he was sweet, in a way Tom could ever be sweet.
Nights with Tom were rough, wild, and passionate. The aftermath coloring your body the day after and some even weeks after. He was rough but he knew how to fix you after he almost ruined you. He'd lie if he didn't like to see you in that state. Satisfied by the way he was able to feel unimaginable things again and again. Nothing pleased him more than him pleasing you. Your face was at its most beautiful when you reached the edge. The look of it haunts his mind every single day. Gosh, he believed you were the most beautiful person in the whole school, in the whole world. Your hair spread out on the mattress, your face left with an afterglow, your chest sweaty, and your neck covered in his love.
But there was always something missing, something that made you his. Something that screamed his name. Something that could remind everyone whom you belonged to. Something that would stay with you forever. Something that would bind you to him in a way that was unbreakable…
It was when you two were studying alone in his room that it came to his mind. His eyes averted to the blade that lay on his desk. It was richly decorated with small emerald stones, a snake hugging the handle. It was one of the objects that clearly displayed his heirloom. One of the only things from his heritage that he kept close to him.
He looked back at you, sitting on his bed. You looked so precious in that moment, your eyes tracing the words on the paper of the book you were reading. It was a book he gave to you. It gave an in-depth study of the unforgivable curses: their past, present, and future. His future...
"Darling?" You looked up at him with sparkling eyes, his stomach twisting at the sight of you.
"What is it, Tom?" You straightened yourself on the bed and put down your book, noticing he seemed serious about something. It was a look you knew oh so well. Either you’d be lectured and crying yourself to sleep or tears would stream down your face due to something completely different.
"Do you trust me?"
It was something he asked often but only during closer intimacy, it was weird for him to ask you just out of nowhere. Your heart felt heavy, anticipating something bad.
"Of course, Tom. Always.”
At those words, he got up from behind his desk and took the blade in his hand. The metal made a soft clicking noise against the rings around his long fingers. You had always loved his rings, they were his trademark. He wouldn’t look the same without them. Your eyes followed his actions, not diverting from the blade in his hand.
He pulled your legs so that you got pulled down into a laying position. You gasp softly at the sudden movement. He traced the blade with its blunt side over your legs, passing your knees and slowly reaching your thighs. The cold metal sent shivers down your spine, it was pleasant in a way even though you wouldn't admit it.
He trapped your body, clenching his legs around each side of your body. He looked down at you, seeing your flustered face. It ignited a fire within him and only encouraged him even more to continue. He unbuttoned your shirt slowly, not losing eye contact. He wanted to see your every reaction, the anticipation in your eyes growing.
You didn't say anything, you let him... Surprisingly, you trusted him. You always trusted him. How harsh he could be, he had never hurt you ever. Emotionally maybe but never physically. He’d hurt himself if it meant that you would be untouched by pain.
He pushed the shirt to the side, your chest now exposed to him. You collarbone to his reach, his goal was uncovered. He licked his lips and moved them close to your right collarbone, the one on the side of your heart. He traced them with his lips, soon covering them with his saliva. His tongue left a small wet trail, it glistened in the moonlight coming through the curtains.
He moved his mouth to your neck, up to your jaw until he reached the side of your lips. The teasing made you whimper softly and you put your fingers into his locks. They were soft in between your fingers, a feeling you craved every day.
"You're beautiful." The words hit your lips and you look up into his eyes as he stares back into yours. It's like he's looking into your soul, you feel completely naked in front of him though clothed half.
He dragged the blade across your collarbone, slightly pressing it into your skin to make you get used to the sensation. He looked back at your face to see your reaction. You were calm, and it surprised him. The amount of trust you put into him made his heart skip a beat, it was like falling in love with you all over.
"Can I try something, love?"
Words left your mind and all you could do was nod, You had a feeling about what he was about to do but just waited for him to confirm your thoughts. He traced his thumb across your cheek in the shape of a 'T', the same shape that was now forming right below your collarbone.
It felt cold, it felt warm, you didn't know what it felt like. It almost felt like the same feeling his thumb was making on your cheek like he somehow transferred that soft feeling to your collarbone. It was weird, the pain was almost nonexistent. Little did you know that he put a spell on it, the blade replicating the feeling of his thumb. Like you said, he would never hurt you...
'R'. The next letter now shaped in your skin too, forming his initials in the end. He brushed his fingers over it, immediately closing the wound and causing it to scar. He was making sure it'd stay there forever, like a tattoo.
"T... R..." You looked up at him as he moved his face above yours again.
"That's right, yours. Always and forever yours. Say it.”
“You’re mine and I’m yours, Tom…”
He connected both of your lips as he switched positions into the kiss and put you on top of him now. He pulled away and pulled his shirt over his head, putting the blade in the palm of your hand.
"Your turn now."
Your breath hitched in your throat as he said those words, your turn to do what...?
"Come on, mark me. Own me. Make me yours like you just said" He caressed your cheek and pulled you closer. His eyes were almost demanding, a look you were all too familiar with. He really wanted you to carve your own initials in him too. It was kind of thrilling honestly.
You couldn't deny his wish so you pressed the blade softly against his collarbone with a small sigh. You were focused on the shape, your first letter now leaving a red trace just below his collarbone.
"Good girl..."
Little did you know that this was as close as a blood pact he could get. It'd connect the both of you forever. The letters would turn into a wound again at only the thought of betrayal or disloyalty. You should've known better, for Tom had put another spell on you. Marked by his obsession, marked by his love.
#harry potter#fiction#slytherin#slytherin boys#tom riddle#tom riddle oneshot#tom riddle x reader#tom riddle x y/n#tom riddle x you#oneshot#wizarding world#voldermort#toxic love
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What Did You Do
masterlist
pairing: tom riddle x female reader, voldemort x female reader
warnings: angst, tiny bit of fluff
summary: throughout your years at hogwarts, you and tom were inseparable, now as a professor you see what happened to him at the battle of hogwarts - requested by anon
a/n: i'm going to age down voldemort and the reader (meaning because mcgonagall is a little younger than voldemort, the reader would be so old lmao. so i'm just imagining the reader is like remus' age, it wont affect the time line, idk if that makes sense sorry)
song: the night we met - lord huron
Tom was brilliant, so were you. You were both the top of your classes since your first year at Hogwarts.
That's how you two started talking. You would be partnered with each other in most of your classes, you made an excellent pair.
Throughout the years there, you two had grown a bond. Eventually, you both had feelings for each other.
You knew of your affections towards him, you didn't tell him because you didn't want to ruin your close friendship. But Tom had been in a sort of denial, seeing as how he was conceived under a love potion, he didn't think it was possible.
Around your sixth year, he had come to terms with how he felt. You two had confessed to each other after one of Slughorns dinner parties, he had attended as your date.
It came as a shock to most students when the news of you getting together spread.
They had know he had a soft spot for you, but he had never shown any romantic feelings towards anyone before.
It was seventh year and Tom had confessed to you of his plans and becoming Lord Voldemort.
He asked you to join him and be his partner but you couldn't. It was wrong and you knew it, he knew it deep down too.
You figured this was caused by his horrible childhood at the orphanage, he told you all about how he was treated.
He asked you one final time to join or he would have to continue without you.
You stood there in front of him with tears streaming down your face as you shook your head.
He wanted to wipe the tears from your beautiful face, but he knew it would make him tempted to give up the plans he worked so hard for.
So he turned his back on you and left you behind while you cried and begged him to stop what he was doing.
After that night, you hadn't seen him again.
"Harry!" you call your student, a student who was like a son to you.
You knew of how he got his scar, as did everyone else. It broke your heart each time you thought of what had caused it.
"Harry, be safe, I'll be right behind you," you kiss his head. He goes and runs off to find Voldemort as students and staff start to fill the courtyard and go into a circle.
You quickly walked through the empty halls of Hogwarts, making sure there were no student that needed help.
You finally went outside and saw Harry and Voldemort in a duel.
You gasp at how he looks, this wasn't your Tom. You hadn't seen how he looked since that night so long ago.
You rush over ignoring the calls of people to stop.
"Tom! Stop this!" you yell with angry tears forming in your eyes.
Voldemort blocks Harry's spell and sends one to knock him out for a little while he drops his arm to look at you.
People watching were frozen in their places as they took in the scene in front of them. There were very few people who were aware of your past relationship with Tom.
"Y/n."
"What did you do," you cry. He almost winces at the pain in your voice.
He slowly walks over to you and stops about three feet from you.
"I got the power I've always desired," he explains in a monotone voice.
"Tom... we could have had a future together, look what you've become," you whisper.
"You didn't wish to join me, you didn't expect me to drop everything I've worked for, did you?"
"Yes, I did, because you could have and I would have done the same for you," you try your best to keep your voice from cracking.
He knows you're right. He couldn't look you in your eyes. He looks around at the faces watching as he tries to not think about how beautiful you still are.
You had grown into a stunning woman, and well, he felt embarrassed by what he had come to.
"Stop!" Voldemort shouts, annoyed at his now conflicted emotions.
He feels tempted to stop and apparate you and him somewhere to stay, like how you always dreamed of.
He couldn't, not now. He decided an apology was the only thing he could do, as he went to apologize to you, he suddenly felt pain all over.
He turned his head to see Harry with his wand pointed at him. It was then you both realized he was truly gone.
As he starts to turn to stone, he uses all the energy left in him to look at you, in the eyes this time.
He watches as so many emotions flash through your eyes. He memorized your features in the few seconds he has.
You look at Voldemort on his knees, almost all stone. You see him mouth something, it looks like 'I'm sorry', but you can't be sure.
You watch as he looks you dead in the eye, finally turning completely to stone and dissolving into nothing.
People around you start cheering and hugging as they all celebrate.
Harry turns to you and sees the devastated look on your face.
"I'm sorry that you lost him," Harry says as he hugs you, "not Voldemort, but Tom," he continues.
"I'm sorry too, but you're safe, along with everyone else," you sigh, "that's all that matters," you kiss his forehead and hug him back.
It took you a while to finally accept that Tom- Voldemort, was gone.
Things slowly got back to normal. Hogwarts was rebuilt and repaired. You continued your teaching career there.
You were sat in your room, in a cottage where you and Tom were supposed to be living.
You decided that if he couldn't be there to live life, you would do it for the both of you.
You pick up some letters he would send you when you were dating, you had saved them all. You look at the box and see one that hasn't been opened. Your eyebrows furrow as you open it. Then, a tear slides down your face as you read it.
My y/n,
If you are reading this, that means I have become Lord Voldemort, and am likely dead now.
I need you to understand that I am not the Tom you once knew. I also need you to understand that I have regretted walking away from you each and every day since I did so.
You were my family, my love, my everything.
I'm sorry I threw that away for power. I know now that it is far too late to go back.
I wish I could though, and spend life with you in that place you always use to tell me about. Unfortunately, it isn't possible. But know that if it was, I would take that opportunity in a heartbeat.
Stay true to yourself, don't turn your back on the people you love, I regrettably made that mistake.
You are a beautiful person, my love, I hope you accomplish all of the things you use to rant to me about.
Please forgive me.
Yours always,
Tom Riddle
#nina writes 🤭💗#tom riddle#tom riddle x you#harry potter#harry potter x you#tom riddle x reader#tom riddle imagine#tom riddle oneshot#tom riddle fanfiction#tom riddle fanfic#tom marvolo riddle#harry potter fanfiction#death eaters#angst#harry potter angst#tom riddle angst#voldemort#voldemort x reader#voldemort imagine#voldemort angst
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home
"In a chilling twist of events, you find your walls marred with splatters of crimson red, and at the epicenter stands your fiancé, a haunting nonchalance in his gaze."
• pairing: tom riddle x reader
• now playing: nfwmb by hozier
• word count: 4.2k
• genre: angst
“What have you done?” You ask, voice breaking in trepidation.
A heavy sense of unease permeated the air, leaving no doubt that what may come out of his mouth will only confirm your worst fears, yet, you still ask. Grappling at the little hope, that fading light, that maybe you might be wrong.
There was no response. The only audible noise was the eerie ruffling of the trees outside, swaying terrifyingly from the storm, paired with the endless ticking of the grandfather clock at the end of your entrance hall.
Hands turning cold and clammy, itching to scratch at the blockage in your throat. To plead with him to answer you truthfully, for once in the entire 10 years you’ve known each other.
“I wasn’t expecting you to be here.” He finally speaks.
Maybe it was a false light. One that he deliberately put himself in order for you to believe that he was still worthy of your time, of your saviour acts.
“Did I ruin your act, huh?” You entertain this show of his, one last time. Letting him believe that he still holds the reins. But his piercing dark eyes that are brazenly fixed on you with such a deep intensity urge you to cower back against the door.
“No, I was just surprised, is all.” He puts on that god-awful mask— making you wonder how painfully stupid you were before to not realise you were being played as a fool. The one that he quickly plasters on as he walked the hallways of Hogwarts back then. A gentle smile that mirrors the one in his eyes, inviting and comfortable. “Let’s go outside, shall we?”
He reached out his pale hands, fingers decorated by silver rings, one of which was a gift from you years ago. His hands that always housed themselves above your thigh, tracing mindlessly despite the evident warmth that followed it.
The normalcy that laced his visage made you want to throw up the bile that had been bubbling in the pit of your stomach since your nose registered the metallic smell that permeated the living room air. It makes you sick that he is capable of such atrocities.
“No.”
You let a moment of silence occur, watching the mask crack, his perfect smile flinching. You have got to give it to him. He was able to send waves of fear through you, willing you to succumb to his every whim. Even now, as the blood paints the once cream-coloured walls. The walls that you spent hours meticulously covering.
“Let’s talk here, instead.”
He nods slowly, for the first time, you see how the state of being unsure of your next actions leaves him unsettled and tense. Eyebrows creasing ever so slightly, the bulwark he built around himself getting thicker.
“Did you honestly think you could get away with this?” You ask, puzzled at his gall. “To pretend that you can barely even see the original colour of our walls now because of-“
Your breath hitches at the thought, unable to speak the words out loud. To do so is to acknowledge that someone has brutally died in the very place that you planned to raise your child in. Somewhere that should have been a safe haven for you.
“Nothing a little magic couldn’t fix, Darling.”
“Are you dense? I don’t care for the walls!” You shout, unable to keep your wits on you anymore.
“Then why are you complaining about it then?”
“I’m talking about how you just killed, no, murdered somebody in our house. Our home. the one place that I should feel safe in.”
“And you are…anywhere you are as long as you’re with me.”
Raising your hands to your pursed lips, dragging it down in exasperation. It truly baffles you how unstirred he is in this situation. You knew he had a qualm for unusual habits, but never did you think that this would be one of those.
“How am I supposed to feel safe when you are the reason for this? The reason why someone would be left wondering where their loved one has gone missing?” The irritation poisoned your speech, but the alarm wasn’t veiled by it. “He could’ve been a father, a sibling, or whatever!”
“Do you really think I didn’t take the time to snuff out every possible hindrance to this? What do you think of me?” He says, almost offendedly. Although you weren’t even sure why. As if that made it any better.
“I don’t know. My fiancé, who works diligently as an auror for the Ministry and wouldn’t do such a terrible thing?” You sarcastically reply.
“Well you got the first part right but don’t act like this wasn’t all because of you.” He points at you with that long, slender finger. It reminded you of your father’s back when he used to reprimand your mother for whatever mistake she had supposedly made.
You glare at him through your eyelashes. “Don’t twist this around, Tom.” A snarl escaped you and you could feel a twinge of anger coursing through you at his words. In your confused and irritated mind, you don’t notice how he flinches at the sound of his name. He forces himself to believe that it was just a slip of the tongue.
“I’m not. I am honestly delighted that I did such a great job, dismembering his face enough that you can’t even recognise this man.” He says as he steps over the body that lies unconscious with its limbs twisted in unnatural ways. Blood covered the canvas of his face, his eyes welled up into dark circles, and from your view, seemed to have been missing a few front teeth. “I want to say I’m sorry that I had to take away the pretty face that you were so enamoured with, but that would be a lie because I hadn’t enjoyed my time like I did while doing so.”
You finally dare to look directly at the body, at the unfortunate person who runs out of luck, and a tiny light bulb in the back of your mind sparks. Yet, you still couldn’t quite put a finger on it. By a few breaths, you calm yourself enough to continue observing the broken figure.
From the corner of your eyes, a warm golden ring hits your vision. The shape was distinct enough that your brain made quick work to make the connection.
It was like a pin dropped in the still silence.
The realisation of who it was sent you spiralling even further into the hollow space in your mind. Cowering in the darkest corner of the space.
He is leaning against the marble counter in your kitchen, where you are still within clear eyesight for him. His body was lined with tension, like a spring coiled to a point of painful traction and you were just waiting for it to snap back.
“Tom…” There it is again.
“Yes, hun?” He takes a tasteful sip of the amber liquid. Savouring the taste of every last drop. The sight honestly distracts you for a second before you forcefully pull yourself back. Horrified at the thought of being aroused when a body lies cold on your carpet.
“Is this-”
“The man from the bar?” He hums, “Yes. Yes, that is him.”
A wicked grin paints his face, cruel malevolence dancing in his eyes. The glint in his eyes flickered with genuine delight as if he was presented with a chance to show off his new toy.
“It was an easy catch, I will tell you that. I was expecting him to put up a bit of a fight seeing as he was all macho with you.” He divulges. Leisurely walking back to the living room, stopping at the person’s head, giving it a nudge with his speck clean leather shoes.
“Why did you do it?” You cut him off. Your mind was reeling at his words as an endless pit formed in your stomach. Talking about it as if it was something mundane.
But he ignores you and continues as if your words were only a gust of wind. While he expectedly should not be a fan of your blatant disregard for him, he doesn’t say a thing about it.
“I followed him the day after, tracking him for a while, noting if there was something else that would hit him harder but seeing him regularly forget he has a family by flirting with young women day and night…it was only right that I rid the world of vermin.”
“You mean to tell me that you had tortured this man to his death all because of his proclivity for cheating on his wife?”
He looks to you, and for the first time that night, a semblance of something else appears on his face. A cocktail of disdain and hatred. “Is that something not worthy of punishment? To swear your vows to a person you declared to be your love and then blatantly lie to their faces about your nightly habits. To forget that your children are waiting for you to pick them up from kindergarten so he could get his cock wet.”
Tom kept his eyes on you, his face breaking into pieces of anger and confusion. “Tell me. Is he not worthy of such when he deliberately chooses women who are half his age? All the while knowing his age gives him power over them?”
You shook your head, tears welling and blurring your vision. You blinked to keep them away as you didn’t want to appear weak in front of him. The way your emotions have dipped and hiked in the past hour has already been too much, leaving you utterly confused about what is even happening anymore.
“I don’t know anymore, Tom. I have no idea what to think, what to focus on and scorn you in particular. Your blatant disregard for our home, using it as your fucking slaughterhouse, now that we mention it, should be something to talk about. You just killed a person, no, you tortured somebody with pure malice.”
“He should’ve been hung, strangled, and quartered!” He pauses, realising his voice has turned a lot louder than he intended. “I’m sorry. But it’s true, Y/N, even if he has done nothing to you, he deserves all of those things and no less.”
His thumbs soothed over your knuckles that have turned pale from their tight clench, easing your hands until your palms are open to him. The twinge of pain from the pink crescent moons on the surface alleviated with his gentle touch.
He leans down, lips tenderly kissing the hand secured in his grasp, before twisting his head to press with the same gentleness on your other hand.
“I am well aware that you abhor these kinds of actions. It’s why I worked hard to keep it from you, I never wanted for you to think of me as some person who reverted to violence for no reason.” He kneels down next to your seated figure to level your eyes. “You are somebody special to me, and not a single word that I know of would be enough to perfectly explain that to you. Nothing in this world, in this reality, could take you away from me unless you wish it yourself. But please, I beg you to understand that I did this out of pure concern and love only.”
Tom raises one of his hands, letting it sit gingerly on your knees that, without your control, has succumbed to your habit of bouncing it in moments of tension. Pressing it with just the right balance of force and gentleness to calm you.
He swallows hard, his chestnut brown eyes flickering back and forth between your own. The previous edge in them is long gone as he looks up at you, instead, a hint of desperation takes its place.
“You love me, don’t you? I know you do and I never for a second have doubted that. I feel the same, and possibly even more than you do and it scares me. I was never made to know love nor ever experience it so when I met you, I swore that there would be nothing in existence that can forcefully keep you away from me.” He says in one breath until his body finally forces him to take one, then he continues. “When I told you how my mind and soul is yours only, I meant it. You are the sole person who can tell me that we are done but please. I will beg on my knees until they are bleeding so that you understand that.”
You finally look at him, actually, look at him. Not one of fleeting glance only. Stomach twisting.
“No law or morality will stop me.”
This is what worried you.
You were sure to tell him off. Take him up on his offer to be away from him without a hint of resistance. At least, more than halfway sure already, but those eyes. Those fucking eyes. You were worried that if you looked at them, every nerve in you that was ready to run would relax. That you would be catapulted into your foolishness, and all the right senses would be nothing.
To see that there isn’t an inkling of malicious ambition in those eyes, but instead, there was only unabashed determination and genuineness behind his words. An openness only reserved for you.
Your heart immediately starts hammering against your rib cage, and you try to resist the urge to give in to him. Forcefully diverting your mind to the monstrosity he committed in your home.
Tom sees this. He always did. He knows you better than you ever will.
“I won’t promise that this would be the last time because that would be a lie and I promised to you that that is something I will never do to you. But I can promise you that you won’t ever have to see this ever again, also because I don’t want you to.”
When he sees that you have finally cooled down, he slowly moves to sit next to you. Making sure that there is still enough space between the two of you so that you don’t feel uncomfortable.
“Tom…” You call out in a meek voice. He hums, patiently waiting for you to continue.
“I get the reason why, as much as it still baffles me, but you didn’t have to go through this much.” Exhaling shakily. “You didn’t have to beat him until he saw the pyres of hell. Report him to the proper authorities for his crimes! That should’ve been the first thing that popped into your head, for Merlin’s sake!”
Your torso swivels to face him, eyes wide as you let everything out. Emotions pouring out of you in the form of tears, staining your cheeks wet again. Tom wanted nothing more than to wipe them away and pull you to his chest, but he knew that you were like this because of him and he didn’t want to push further away from him.
“Why did you have to drag him into our home? Tainting our home with this kind of violence, hell Tom! This is supposed to be where our child would be raised, where they would be spending their lives and now I don’t even know if they should be.” You shouted, waving your arms around wildly.
“They can, darling. This is the safest place they would be in, I would make sure of that. If there is anything that I will prioritise more than anything is your safety and our future kid.” He assures you.
“I don’t want them to witness these kinds of violence.”
“And they never will, just as you never will also. Tonight was an unfortunate mistake for me, one that I will never make again. And I am sorry that you had to, please forgive me.”
“I don’t know.” A murmur, one that could have been passed for a breath. But his sharp ears strained to pick it up.
He was angry. Enraged at himself. This wasn’t how he planned tonight to go, it was supposed to be an easy work and toss. He hadn’t expected you to be a part of the equation, planning the events of the night around yours to ensure that you wouldn’t have a clue of what transpired in your home.
In all fairness, it was a dangerous game that he played. Taking that piece of disgusting waste to your home was a step that he had to take so that he wouldn’t be disturbed by nosy strangers. Taking the off chance that you wouldn’t be home by then.
He was angry at himself that he had broken the unsaid promise to keep this side of him away from you. A small part of him was terrified that you would turn your back on him just as the people before you did. Taking the life that he could have only dreamt of back then with you. The thought curses away the ridiculous calm facade that he has kept when around you.
“No.” Vehemently shaking his head back and forth, dropping your hands on the softcover of your couch as he jumps up to pace in front of you. Trying to calm himself at the prospect of his worst fear turning into a reality. “I’m sorry, okay. I really am. We could move far away, build the house of our dreams and forget that this happened. But I need you to forgive me, Y/N. Please.”
To your utter surprise, he harshly drops onto his knees. Taking your hands back in his trembling hands.
“Tom.” You begin before you are cut off, “You need to stop calling me that.”
“What do you mean? That’s your name.” You confusedly ask.
“Call me darling again, call me anything but that. It’s almost as if you gave up already and that can’t happen, please. I need to know that I'm not alone in this. Please, I’m so sorry.” He says, a slight tremor in his voice.
Your heart breaks at the sight in front of you. The once strong and unwavering countenance he puts on every day was nowhere in sight. Instead, there was a man who was unknown to you, placing his vulnerable self all out for you to see. In a sense that you’ve never before seen, he was gentle to you, yes, but never like this.
Tears lined his waterline until it couldn’t be controlled anymore and they were slipping down his cheeks like a torrential downpour. He was inconsolable.
No time would be enough for you to understand the emotions twirling behind those dark eyes. Overwhelming you to the point of giving in. There was anger, pain, sorrow, and all of it. And you knew he was trying his best to control it, evident by the way his hands were tensing, not wanting to fist them.
“I’m so sorry, ok, and I know that saying it repeatedly for the rest of our days together wouldn’t be enough, but I need you to know that I am. Words are the only thing I can give you right now, however, if you let me…I would prove it to you every day in any way possible to man.”
“I’m pregnant.”
A pause in the beat of sound.
His ears were ringing.
He had no idea if time had paused and his mind was left wondering in the abyss of time if he was hearing things that weren’t true.
“I’m about three weeks pregnant already.”
It was only when your tiny voice permeated through the silent room that he realised he wasn’t being delusional. His ears had not fooled him.
“You…you are?” He asks, with hesitation lining every syllable.
“I am. I found out today which is why I came home.”
If he was confused by the torrent of emotions and thoughts that waved over him earlier, now it was like he couldn’t comprehend a single exhale anymore. It was only at your touch and call that he let his lungs feel a wave of oxygen.
“I already had my suspicions earlier this week, but I wanted to be sure before I told you, hence why I made a plan with a friend to go to the doctor today. I kept it a secret so I wouldn’t get your hopes up, I know we have been talking about it for a while now so I didn’t want it to be a false alarm.” You explain.
“So here I was, so excited when the doctor told me that I was indeed pregnant with our child that I forgot to tell you I was coming home. I assumed that you were making dinner and I wanted to make it a surprise, so I got ourselves a cake to celebrate.”
A single chuckle leaves you. “Well, obviously that didn’t go well.” You said as you looked at the box of ruined dessert by the door from when you dropped it.
Although his mind was still haywire from what you had announced, he still made an effort to let you know he was listening intently. Giving you a gentle squeeze in the hand.
“I want them to have a normal life, one that is far from the atrocities of the world and I know that is a child’s prayer, a romantic dream, but I will try my very best to achieve that. That includes taking them far away from this home, from their father, if need be.”
He looked at you as he moved to sit back next to you, keeping hold of your hand still, an unfamiliar look in his expression.
“Y/N…darling, forget what I said earlier. I would never put a hand on another person again if it meant there wouldn’t even be someone for me to do it for. I will control myself, take the sessions you told me about.” He declares, with a finality in his voice that shows his determination to prove he was being true.
It was a lie, and you knew that. A little, white lie. You’ve been with Tom since 5th year, and now you are at the age of 24, if anybody knew his body language better than anyone, it would be you.
He would only be more cautious now, making sure that every grainy detail is there in its proper places. Ensure that he would never make the mistake of making you see what he is capable of.
You look at the dormant body that has long passed in the middle of your living room. Mind reeling back to what he mentioned earlier. Now that you have calmed down, you realise that your outburst was more because of shock and less of that piece of trash. He did indeed make you uncomfortable, and if Tom hadn’t been there, you had no idea of your fate then. Added on by the fact that this was apparently a pattern he does to other women.
In all honesty, you didn’t really know what to feel at the moment after all that had happened in the span of an hour. You suppose you should be livid, upset, hell, even guilty that you’re somewhat relieved that someone had enacted an act of revenge on a disgraceful human being.
Tonight was a whirlwind of emotions, to say the least, and you couldn’t trust yourself to make a just and coherent decision.
“If-“ His breath hitches, the thought that flashed behind his eyes making him gasp for air. “If I lose control again, I will never force you to stay with me.”
“Tom, I am not asking you to do all of that. Though, it would be great for yourself and for your mental well-being because you need to find more healthy ways to deal with your problems.” You sigh. “I just ask you to please never let our child see whatever violence you inflict on others, I don’t want him to grow up thinking that this is the answer to everything. They should grow up with the proper mindset that you didn’t that I know you want also.”
“I know but I’ll still try to better myself, for myself. I can’t promise it would be fast, nor can I even promise it would work, but I’ll try.”
“I’ll go stay at an inn tonight while you deal with this-“ Waving your hand around unfashionably. “mess. I’ll call you in the morning and please?”
“What is it?” He asks.
“Take another day off because we need to look at a new house immediately, I cannot stand to breathe in another particle from this place anymore.”
“Whatever the wife wants.” He smiles and pushes a whisper of a kiss against your soft lips. “Still a few more months, Mr. Riddle. I’m tired so I'll go now. Let’s talk more tomorrow because I don’t think I can last another second staying awake.”
“I’ll drive you there, I don’t want you apparating anymore.”
“No complaints here,” You mumble against his lips that gently press onto yours. Wanting to say the three words that you loved to say but before you could,
“I love you, too.”
— hello there ! moved my notes here becuase the intro was too long. this initially had a whole back story that lead up to the events here but i cut it out because that part was taking too much time to complete. also hello, i'm finally writing for my og crush in harry potter but uh i decided to use the tom hughes fancast since this is set way after they graduated.
masterlist
#harry potter#tom riddle#tom riddle x reader#tom riddle x y/n#tom riddle x you#tom riddle angst#tom riddle imagine#tom riddle fanfic#tom riddle fanfiction#slytherin#tom riddle oneshot#tom marvolo riddle
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Real footage of Tom Riddle on Hogsmeade after his date with Y/N - NEW FLASH *he got a kiss*
#not evil Tom#no voldemort au#tom riddle x reader#tom riddle x oc#tom riddle fic#tom riddle#tom riddle incorrect quotes#tom riddle imagine#tom riddle headcanon#tom riddle oneshot#tom riddle fanfiction#tom riddle fluff#tom marvolo riddle#harry potter fanfiction#harry potter series#hp incorrect quotes#hp imagine#hp headcanon#hp fanfic#incorrect hp quotes#christian coulson
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Tom Riddle, a man of sophistication
Tom: I don't play a barbaric game like quidditch. I prefer chess, a more sophisticated-
Y/N: We all remember you projectile vomiting in our first flying lesson.
Tom Riddle Incorrect Quotes
@buckysmetalhand @eclecticpatrolroadlawyer @percy-the-hufflepuff
#tom riddle fluff#tom riddle x fem!reader#tom riddle x gn!reader#tom riddle oneshot#tom riddle#tmr#tom riddle x reader#tom riddle incorrect quotes#tom riddle imagines#lord voldemort#tom marvolo riddle#harry potter incorrect quotes#tom riddle fanfiction#harry potter#tom riddle x you#tom riddle au#tom riddle fic#harry potter fanfiction
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#1J1624T ❞ LOVING YOU IS A DREAM COME TRUE.
── ౨ৎ ‧˚ ft. tom riddle/reader
synopsis: if tom riddle wasn't conceived under the influence of a love potion.
𐙚 drabble, ooc (out of character) tom riddle, fluff, the multiverse working wonders, a different kind of tom where things happen differently, you are married to a man with a nose, gender neutral, reader's appearance is not described, no use of y/n
navigation | harry potter masterlist
You were feeling quite sluggish today, bored out of your mind with nothing to do. So when you spotted your husband hunched over his study, a pen being chewed in his mouth, you laughed.
Noticing your figure standing by the door giggling at the sight of him, he pulled the pen away from his mouth tilting his head as he smiled back at you.
"Does my struggle amuse you, dear?"
Shaking your head at the teasing tone you skipped toward him.
"Nope," you chirp, hands placed behind your back.
He chuckled feeling yourself press against his back, your arms wrapping around his shoulders as you huffed, tickling his ear with your breath.
Tom grinned leaning back, your head supporting his.
"I missed you." He whispered, reaching up a hand to hold yours, rubbing your knuckles softly as his other resumed writing in his journal.
Notes: I wrote this 2 years ago and decided to revise it (the character I originally wrote this for is canonically dead so I made this at the time instead because I was sad)
#tom riddle#tom riddle one shot#tom riddle x reader#tom riddle imagine#tom marvolo riddle#tom riddle x y/n#tom riddle fic#tom riddle fanfiction#tom riddle fanfic#tom riddle fluff#tom riddle x you#voldemort#voldemort x reader#tom riddle oneshot#harry potter fanfiction#wizarding world
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Your girl - (tom riddle x fem!reader)
part 2
summary: you always watch him from afar, waiting for the day you would be able to call yourself his girl.
warnings: reader is pining & kinda obsessed with tom. also sloppy writing for this one, sorry folks.
A/N: inspired by lana's unreleased song 'your girl'.
༻♛༺
Your eyes travelled over the pack of chattering students in the Great Hall towards the Slytherin table where he sat with his group of friends. His wavy hair tumbled across his forehead as he kept his head down, focused on the book laying on the table, fingers idly fumbling with the page of the object before he turned it over. You watched him in a trance-like state, head resting on the palm of your hand as you released a small sigh.
He was otherwordly. Gods were cruel for crafting him with their own hands, making him to perfection, making him so irresistible that your heart ached every time your eyes lay on the chiselled features of his face. You could not help it. Your gaze would always find him no matter where you were. No matter what you were doing. You felt like a magnet being pulled towards a being that would swallow you like a black hole and leave you in a pit of nothingness.
Oh, how you desired him. It was agonising. Loving him from afar and knowing you would never be his girl.
He suddenly lifted his gaze from the pages of the book, and it landed directly on you.
You had been caught. You quickly looked away from his blistering stare, heat creeping up your cheeks in embarrassment.
Tom was used to being stared at. He was well aware of the effect he had on people. Everyone admired him. Everyone wanted a piece of him.
But you, you wanted all of him. For yourself.
༻♛༺
The chair dug into your back as you struggled to get comfortable, splatters of ink staining the skin of your hands as you scribbled hurriedly on your parchment. The clock was ticking, and the hour was late. The threat of curfew was upon you, yet you refused to leave the library until you got the essay done before the clock would strike midnight.
As you crossed out a word with a huff, a shadow settled upon you like a gloom of darkness. The air became still, and you slowly rose your head to look upon the intruder who had interrupted you mid-work.
Your breath caught in your throat when your gaze settled on Riddle, looming over you with an indescribable expression. His head was tilted to the side, stare narrowed on your face as if he was scrutinizing your features.
Gathering your wits, you cleared your throat. "May I help you?"
"The library is about to close. I advise you to leave before you stay after curfew."
Of course. He was doing his Prefect duties. He had only approached you because of duty. Nothing else. Disappointment settled in the pit of your stomach like a rock. You felt your soul sink slowly beneath the waves of heartache.
"Oh." You whispered, dropping your stare back to your parchment to hide your expression. "Right. Thank you." You replied meekly, yet made no move to pack your things up. You felt a gust of air, and you looked up to see him leaving, his robes fluttering behind him as he walked away from your form.
The first time he had spoken to you. And it had been a cold, indifferent exchange. Your heart ached once again as you snapped your book shut.
༻♛༺
You walked into the DADA classroom with a frown adorning your face, hands clutching your books as you quickly made your way to your seat, giving a small smile to your seat partner before plopping down in your chair. Almost instinctively, you glanced around the space to find him. And when you did, you felt your blood sizzle with an emotion you had learned to know all too well.
There was a girl leaning on the side of his desk, finger twirling around a strand of hair as she spoke to Tom with a sly smirk on her lips. She leaned closer to him, pointing at something on a book with a perfectly manicured finger, lashes fluttering as he began explaining something she had inquired about. His face was neutral, as it always was, showing no sign of interest.
It was a common occurrence— girls approaching him and asking about something in order to earn a fraction of his attention even if it was just for a moment. Had you been bold, maybe you could have done the same. But you were not. You were way too afraid of stumbling over your words in his proximity and therefore making a fool out of yourself. You would much rather admire him from afar. And dream of things you and he would never do.
You watched, fury boiling inside of you as she lay a hand on his arm and he produced a polite smile before slightly leaning away from the unwelcome touch.
The rejection eased your heart only slightly, but jealousy was burning ablaze inside you still. You watched, from afar, as you always did, heart yearning, aching to be his.
༻♛༺
If there was one thing Slytherins excelled at, it was throwing parties that would leave everyone second-guessing their actions the next morning. You rarely attended those monthly gatherings, the only time when the houses put away their differences and prejudices aside in order to have a great time and drink until their mind had no coherent thought left and was instead clouded with alcohol.
You sipped at your third—or was it fourth? could even be the fifth drink, you had lost count already. The buzz from the Firewhisky had already begun affecting your head, yet you did not stop and kept going drink after drink if only to drive the thoughts of him away from your mind. He had become a permanent resident in the root of your thoughts, and if people said this was the solution to all your problems, who were you not to at least try?
When you had entered the dimly lit common room, you had spied Tom leaning against the wall with arms crossed across his chest, dark eyes discerning, judging everyone who partook in these activities you knew he considered foolish. But for once in your life, you set aside your need to be liked by him and instead allowed yourself to attempt to forget him.
A call of your name drew your mind away from him, and you turned slightly to face the approaching figure who was watching you with a smirk on his face. "I have not seen you attend these things before," Avery said with a glint in his eyes, gaze dropping down to quickly give you a once over before meeting your stare once again. "Decided to give being a good girl a break?"
You squirmed, uncomfortable with his crude attention. "It's only for tonight. Don't get used to it."
"Oh? Perhaps we could make the most of tonight then? Well, don't just stand there, come dance." He urged, his hand dropping to your waist to pull you closer to his body, applying enough pressure to get you to follow him into the midst of mingling people.
You knew it was a bad idea. And you would have pulled away, declined his advances. But when you glanced over your shoulder to where you had seen Tom the last time, you saw his eyes already fixated on you, and you gave in to Avery. You lost yourself in his arms, not fully aware of what you were doing due to the alcohol already fuzzing your brain, but you moved along with him, allowing his hands to run over your curves until the night became a blur.
Yet over time, the intruding images of Tom invaded your head once again, and before you knew it, you were pulling away from Avery and the others to make your way to one of the velvet couches in the common room, plopping down and resting your head back.
Why could you not escape him?
Were you cursed to desire a man who would never be yours for the rest of your miserable existence?
"Pathetic." You murmured to yourself, raising your hands to run them over your face. Just as you began thinking about leaving the party, you felt the couch dip next to you, indicating someone had taken a seat. Your eyes snapped open, and you turned your head to the side to see who had joined you.
"Riddle?" You breathed out in disbelief. When he made no move to speak, you shut your eyes tightly before reopening them. "Merlin, what did they put in that Firewhisky? Great, am I hallucinating now?"
Tom only rose an elegant brow, and perhaps if you had been sober enough, you could have detected the light amusement on his face.
"Why would you assume you are hallucinating?"
"Uh...because, I don't know, you are here? We are talking? We never talk."
"We talked that day in the library." He stated.
You snickered, shaking your head. "I would hardly call that talking. You were kicking me out of the library."
"I was only doing my Prefect duties." He rebutted impassively, before shifting so his arm was resting on the head of the couch and his body was fully facing yours. "Are you enjoying yourself?" He redirected the topic.
"Hardly."
"Why is that?"
You stared at him for a moment, regarding his sharp features before lowering your head to answer his question. "I came here to forget. And I still cannot forget."
He hummed thoughtfully, cocking his head to the side, gaze never leaving your face. "Forget what?"
As if remembering who you were talking to, you snapped out of your wistful trance and waved your hand as if it was of no importance. "Nothing important."
You were well aware he did not believe you, but you were grateful nonetheless when he did not press the subject. Silence settled between you, and you refused to meet his piercing stare.
He was the first to break it. "I have noticed you watching me." He stated boldly, causing you to swallow heavily at his words. Why would he bring that up out of nowhere? Was he here to humiliate you?
When you gave no response, he brought his hand to grab your chin lightly, tilting it up so you would look at him. And when you did, his eyes were clouded with an expression that had your gust twisting in most unwelcome ways.
"I want to know why."
"I—uhm—" You stumbled over your words, unsure how to proceed with the turn of events. "Plenty of people watch you."
He gently shook his head from side to side. "Not in the way you do."
"What way is that?"
"Nothing that could be described with mere words." He replied. You were aware that his touch had not left your skin still, fingers holding onto your face to keep you in place. You sensed his body heat, his knee brushing against your own, and those small contacts had your senses overlapping with need.
"...And how could it be described then?" You asked, tentative, cautious. You were trudging on unfamiliar territory with him, unaware, and unknowing of his intentions. His stare upon you was heated, eyes flickering between your eyes and lips as if he could not decide where to look. He was close. Closer than you had imagined possible.
You gulped, and he brought a hand to rest on your thigh, leaning further to crowd your personal space until there were inches left between you. "With touch." He whispered, breath fanning against your mouth as he spoke. The hand on your thigh was searing on your skin, evoking feelings deep in your gut that you had never felt so explicitly before.
Desire. It was desire coiling in your stomach.
"Touch?" You repeated but he did not give you a reply, only nudged your nose with his before brushing his lips against yours. You froze only for a moment, from shock, before you eagerly kissed him back, heart lurching in behind your ribcage, about to burst through your chest from the overwhelming sensation of his skin on yours. At last.
You moved your lips against his, hand coiling around his neck to tug at his hair— hair you had been dreaming to run your hands through for as long as you could remember. His hand squeezed the flesh of your inner thigh and you whimpered against his mouth.
When you pulled away for air, he licked his lips, as if savouring the taste of you on his tongue. He gazed into your darkened eyes before his lips curled upwards. "That is how you look at me."
༻♛༺
You were searching for him again.
But this time it was different. This time, you were perturbed. You felt ill at ease just thinking about what last night had meant for you. But that was not the main concern. What worried you, was the question of what last night meant for him. Did it mean anything at all?
You shifted in your seat, nursing a goblet of water to hide your anxiety as you watched the doors to the Great Hall, waiting to see a glimpse of him.
And when he finally appeared, with his posse trailing behind him, your body stiffened, and tension coiled around your body like a venomous snake ready to strike.
Look at me. Look at me. Look at me.
You pleaded inwardly, hoping he would somehow sense your internal dilemma and ease your worries even with just a fleeting glance. You waited, eyes trained on him, unwavering. You had longed for him for too long to be kissed and discarded in such a manner. Surely your heart would not be able to handle the ache that would come with his disregard for that kiss. The kiss that had felt more. It had been intimate, passionate, everything and much more.
And perhaps he heard your silent pleas, because the next instant, his eyes were locked onto yours and you watched with your breath caught in your throat as he smirked at you knowingly before looking away. He had caught you watching him in that manner again. And he was enjoying it.
You would be his. You were going to make sure of that. You would do anything to be his girl.
His. His. His. His.
༻♛༺
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#tom riddle#tom marvolo riddle#tom riddle x reader#tom riddle x you#tom riddle x y/n#tom riddle one shot#tom riddle imagine#tom riddle oneshot#tom riddle fic#tom riddle fanfic#tom riddle fanfiction#tom riddle angst#tom riddle fluff#tom riddle x fem!reader
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Really, the last time?
◇ Pairing: student!Tom Riddle X professor fem!Reader
◇ Warnings: smut, dubcon, somnophilia at first, adult x adult, kissing, blowjob, Tom Riddle
◇ Summary: Miss Y/l/n finds herself pleasuring her student for the third time.
◇ Note: Sorry for the mistakes and the English. Part 3 of The Beginning. Here the part 2
The cool night air continued to blow in through the open window of Miss Y/l/n's bedroom, the sky was cloudy and a drizzle was threatening to come in but the difference in temperature that the teacher felt on her skin was pleasant and calming— calming enough to put her into a deep but peaceful sleep.
Her smooth, feminine body laid on the soft mattress, a blanket lightly over her exposed thighs and in her arms while the rest was loosely covered by her lace nightgown and her noticable tiny underwear— which obviously matched her clothes.
It was probably part of a set. A set that Tom Riddle really liked, especially on his DADA professor.
Her chest continued to rise and fall, her breaths as calm as the atmosphere in that room— despite the intrusive presence of one of her students, who was standing in the darkness right next to the still magically lit fire of the stove.
His gaze was intense and dark, almost as calculating as his long, silent steps— Tom Riddle knew what to do and why he was there, he knew the inappropriateness of his actions but he didn't care at all.
The young adult craved his teacher's body, he had reached an almost physical need to receive her attention and feel her body against his.
Reason because he was there, standing over her limp body, his gaze studying everything she was unconsciously gifting him during that dark british night.
Tom stared for a few minutes before reacting, using his wand to slowly move Miss Y/l/n's sleeping body, removing the blanket with his pale long fingers as he slowly climbed onto the bed to get closer.
His breath got heavier when his hands started to stroke her smooth legs, starting from her ankles— he crawled between them slowly while his touch became more intense.
His fingertips slowly traced the length of her exposed legs as he brushed his nose against her warm skin, stopping a couple of seconds more against her inner thighs as soon as Miss Y/l/n moved slightly in her sleep.
After making sure that she wasn't waking up he continued his journey, pressing his nose against her clothed cunt to take a long sniff of her sex, earning a soft whine from her when his nose brushed against her clit— he wanted more, he really wanted to explore that part of her, feel that warm and wet feeling that his fellow Slytherins kept describing.
Not that night though, he was there for other reasons and he was going to fulfill his own needs before going back to his own room.
Tom moved further, opening slowly her nightgown, starting from the last button, exposing that way her lower tummy and slowly her round swollen breasts.
His gaze darkened as soon as he laid his eyes back on her tits, he studied their movements and how her nipples became hard in a couple of seconds because of the cold soft wind that hit them.
It was tempting and very arousing for the young man, he was already trying to keep his hips from grinding against her stomach— intrusive thoughts kept telling him to wrap his lips around one of them and suck at if like there wasn't a tomorrow.
So he did, he leaned down with his rosy lips slightly apart, stopping just when her right nipple was inside of them— he wrapped his lips around it, after licking them slowly and starts to suck almost like an infant. His hands went carefully to his pants and worked quickly on his buttons to free his painful hard cock, before using a spell to lubricate his left hand and started to tease himself without stopping to suck.
Miss Y/l/n kept letting out soft noises of pleasure, arching her back more into him before finally waking up, her hand in Tom's hair to press his face more against her right breast— her breath was quick and her face flushed, she should have pushed her own student away from her vulnerable body but she didn't.
She arched her back more, moaning his name softly, waiting till he moved to her other nipple as well to push him away from her chest; Tom didn't understand at first, he thought that she was trying to make him leave or just protest since his action where really unprofessional.
That didn't happened, Miss Y/l/n just bit her bottom lip as she pushed her breasts together, looking at him in an inviting way, letting him know that he could move closer so that she could adjust Tom's position and make his cock slip between her round boobs.
The sensation was new but still welcomed, Tom replaced her hands with his, holding and squeezing her chest together as he pleased while he moved his hips in a quick pace, fucking her breasts roughly— her tongue kept licking his tip every time she could reach it, tasting his precum, and her hands went in her lacy underwear to play with herself while her star student used her for his own pleasure.
It was messy and Tom's first time, his movements where sloppy but precise, his grip was tight and rough while his breath became heavier as the time passed.
His climax approached in a fast way when Miss Y/l/n placed her free hand at the base of his cock, lowering it just to play with his heavy, full balls— her mouth now wrapped around his tip, sucking it and accepting all his load as soon as the peak hit Tom like a train.
She came too, just by playing with her wet pussy and suck his cock dry, before letting go of him, allowing Tom to slowly lower his body breathless.
His body limp and exausted against hers, his forehead now resting on hers like his soft cock rested against her lower abdomen— their lips brushed against each other and he almost dive for a sloppy french kiss before disappearing in the dark and leave her alone in her room.
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#tom riddle oneshot#tom riddle fic#tom riddle smut#tom riddle#tom riddle x you#tom riddle x reader#tom riddle x y/n#tom riddle fanfiction#professor!reader
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⭑ observations ii. tom riddle x reader
part i here.
summary. two weeks after your last encounter with tom shatters all of your previous observations, tensions are high, and eventually, something's gotta give. (it's tom. he’s giving head)
tags. smut (so. so much. minors BE GONE TO WHENCE YOU CAME!), fem anatomy + reader is referred to as a woman by someone, fingering, cunnilingus, piv, again implied tall!tom or short!reader (take it however you prefer), jealous tom does not understand friendship but then again neither does reader apparently, a little wine is had, the room of requirement is used shamelessly as a plot device, did i mention smut, i’ve lost my mind etc etc.
note. this is a part two, so go ahead and read the first part and come back if you'd like :) obligatory preface: it's safe to assume any smut i write within hogwarts is a university au — these people are all 18+ tyvm. also woahh was not expecting the love on my last post so thank you! i'm still trying to figure this whole acc out so support, questions, (requests? never done those before) anything is appreciated ♡
word count. 6.3k
The next two weeks are agony. You don’t, in fact, stop meeting with Godefrey to study, because you do, in fact, still need a good mark in Ancient Runes and for all his faults he can reach the tallest shelves and he’s a faster writer than you. Also, Tom Riddle is fantastic with his hands but this does not make him God.
You find pureblood politics a bit archaic. You find muggle courting a bit stifling. This leaves very little space for what took place between you and Tom in the middle of a corridor two weeks ago (you can’t stop wincing at how insane that sounds) and very little patience for his utterly original and not-at-all entitled request that you halt your studies with Godefrey. Godefrey doesn’t stick his hands up your skirts while the two of you are studying, doesn’t silence your gasps with a shush and a finger to your mouth, doesn’t — wouldn’t (you’re so imaginative when you want to be) — tell you to keep reading as his thumb draws circles between your legs, tell you to repeat the words that get caught in your throat, tell you how much he likes it when your eyes go dumb and glassy and all you can say is his name. So, really, Tom should have nothing to worry about.
“I swear,” Selwyn says, picking at a plate you don’t think she’s actually eaten anything off with how distracted she is, “he’s looked over here at least three times.”
You don’t dare glance at who you know she’s talking about. “You’re obsessed.”
Pot. Kettle. Whatever.
“Are you sure you didn’t do something to upset him in Potions? Didn’t botch something that might mar his perfect record?”
You flick her forehead and she scowls. “I’m not an idiot, Selwyn. I handle myself just as well in Potions as he does — he wouldn’t —” Wouldn’t have complimented your rapport if that weren’t true, wouldn’t have said you communicate efficiently, make a good pair, probably wouldn’t have — fingered you in the hallway? — yes, that too. Slipped your mind. So easy to forget.
You take a long exhale, and smile impassively at her. “I didn’t botch anything, trust me.”
She finally takes a bite of food. “Maybe I did something…”
And then she’s lost in thought again, eating now, at least, and you shake your head softly as you watch what are likely a million different theories flitting through her head.
“Morning,” Tom says to you when you enter Potions after breakfast, a delicate smile tugging at his lips.
You have, of course, trained for this.
It’s your fifth — sixth? — time sharing a table with him since that night and it is somehow easier by nature and harder by anticipation (of what, you have no idea) every time. The first was terrible. Unsalvageable and without a silver lining. It had taken almost an hour that morning to charm the violent hues of red and purple spanning the column of your throat, and ultimately, the marks were so persistent you’d forgone the glamours and decided to just wear a turtleneck. You’d been fortunate it was completely inconspicuous to wear such a thing in December, but that was about all there’d been to be grateful for. You hadn’t been able to look at Tom all class and his hand had brushed yours once to take a phial from you and you’d flinched so sharply it would have shattered on the floor if he hadn’t caught it. And he’d smiled, like he’s smiling now, a soft, “Careful,” that honestly, for a short moment, made you want him dead.
Now you could speak just fine, look him in the eyes in practised intervals, and almost, impressively, make articulate conversation with him again. Make stupid comments about Slughorn and Lestrange and bear the weight of his grin knowing it was there for you.
His, he’d called you. A very funny thing.
“Morning,” you answer on a smiling sigh, sleepy but jovial all the same.
You deserve applause for this.
“Tired?”
“Mhm — Essays for Ancient Runes are due Friday and it’s been keeping us up all night.”
His eyes flash with something you’ve yet to ascertain. Your research has been put temporarily on hold, scattered and splintered by the revelation that your first observation was, admittedly, a little bit off, and you have no means of figuring out a look like that when you can’t even begin to figure out anything else.
“Has it?” he asks, a tinge less friendly.
“Well,” you say, grinding the lacewing flies, “that’s commonplace, isn’t it? You take all sorts of advanced classes, I’m sure you understand the work it takes.”
“...Hm.”
That’s it. That’s all you get from him.
And if Selwyn’s concern over you botching your work in Potions wasn’t already, obviously dispelled, the glee on Slughorn’s face as he assesses your and Tom’s cauldron should do it.
“Brilliant! Just brilliant!” He claps a hand over Tom’s back, regarding you both with pride so thick it clouds his eyes, like he's drifted into a revery of the future (you and Tom, you expect, are his most prized graduates, making history under his name, proving his immense wisdom) before he appears to return to Earth. “Ten points between the two of you, hm? Very, very good — though, of course, no surprises there!”
He chuckles to himself as he evaluates the other students, and you catch a horrified wheeze of Godefrey’s name (bless his heart) as one of the cauldrons in the back begins to sputter and froth.
You look to Tom with some droll little comment at making it to the end of term with top marks, but his gaze is burning into Godefrey’s table in such a way you wouldn’t be surprised if it was what was causing his cauldron to boil.
Well. Perhaps not, then.
You and Godefrey hand in your essay that Friday with more relief than apprehension — you both decide it’s quite good — and you laugh loudly and breathlessly as he picks you up and thanks you a thousand times, spinning you until you’re dizzy. You refrain from making any promises to attend his Quidditch games, but he vows to let you have the snitch he catches.
And Slughorn, you come to find, was not exaggerating his elation at your skill. After trotting after you on your walk back from Ancient Runes to invite you to the last Slug Club dinner of the year, your spirits are high with the blissful satisfaction of a job well done and a night to celebrate it with.
You can breathe, finally, when it’s the last week of school before Christmas break and Selwyn’s zipping the back of a last-minute dress you purchased in Hogsmeade.
“Gorgeous,” Selwyn says with a grin. “Wish this school would have a bloody ball so I could really dress you up.”
“Buy a doll, Selwyn; you can dress them however you like.”
“You are such a —”
You burst into laugher, swatting her wand away as she pokes your side with it.
“Just — go then, before I hex you.”
“All right, all right!” you concede, arms raised in surrender. “Don’t ruin all your hard work now.”
“Oh,” she calls on your way out the door. You turn and there’s a mischievous look in her eyes as she tucks her wand back in her pocket. “And do tell me before I leave tomorrow if Riddle stares at you all night.”
You groan as if it’s a truly abominable thing to imagine. Riddle, staring with those dark eyes of his? You, the centre of his attention? Ghastly. You daresay you’d never recover from the horror of it.
“Don’t leave before I tell you how remarkably uneventful a night it was,” you say with a sidelong glare, and leave before she can edge in the final word.
You have no idea what a Slug Club supper typically consists of, but you imagine for Christmas he’s gone a little further with his festivities. His office is glittering in hues of green and red and fleecy, snow-dappled gold. The lights overheard (some similar charm to the one in the Great Hall but a tad less complex, you think) drip and then vanish into the air like squeezed berries, and the berries — served with pastries and ice cream ��� taste like they must be enchanted with something.
Selwyn was right that the standard dress isn’t quite formal enough for a ball, but it’s… formal. The boys are in clean-cut dress robes and the girls are in fine gowns of different lengths. By the overwhelming number of them you recall being archetypes of Slytherin pureblood fanaticism, it makes sense how expensive they all look. You yourself brush up nicely, if not a bit more frugally, but you haven’t been to an event like this at the school yet, and that’s exciting on its own.
It’s another degree of training (is there going to be a marathon? Are you at war?), a step up from your preparations before Potions every other day, to be ready when Tom Riddle enters the room a respectable five minutes late with a gleam about him more captivating than any of the lights.
“Ah, Tom!” Slughorn exclaims, and ushers him into a seat you remark before Tom is even in it is discomfitingly near to yours. “We’re all here at last… Supper, then? Hope you aren’t too full already, I’ve got the House Elves running laps!”
You’re spared Tom’s closeness by a Ravenclaw couple sat in the chairs between you, their hands clasped under the table while they sip wine from their goblets, and you only realise the length of your observation when Tom glances at you from the spot over, and you startle yourself into reaching for your own goblet and pretending to enjoy Slughorn’s bitter wine.
You eat. You listen to cluttered, unending tales of Slughorn’s time at school and how he earned his post. You drink, and then you regret not drinking before eating because there’s only a very light, very nice buzz that warms you when you finish your cup, and the Ravenclaw couple is — oh, wait, it isn’t just them — they’re standing up to dance as a gramophone sparks to life and a low, dulcet instrumental begins to play. There are now two notably empty seats separating you from Tom.
What had you said this night would be? Blissful satisfaction?
You couldn’t blame Selwyn for suggesting you’d blundered Potions — you didn’t feel exceptionally smart right now.
“I didn’t know you would be here tonight,” Tom says, pulling the chair beside you.
Where is the bottle of wine? No. Nevermind. You behave regrettably enough sober.
You manage a simple, “And yet.”
“...And yet.” His lips quirk before he takes a drink from his goblet.
You lament for a second that you’ve only actually kissed those lips once. They spent a great deal longer on your neck.
“Will you be here over break?” he asks, and it isn’t an unreasonable thing to ask, you suppose.
“I think so. Why?”
“I’d like to know whether to expect you or not.”
Expect you… No, yes — revert to observation two: unusual is not an apt enough word for him.
It takes you a moment to conjure a response befitting polite dinner conversation. That is, after all, still what this is.
“I suppose you can. I’ll be busy, of course.”
Well, you didn’t say you conjured something good. It’s a big fat lie. Placating, vague, empty. And you suspect Tom knows that.
“Pity.”
Yes, he knows. He’s all quiet amusement again.
You stare off, satisfied to be left alone —
"And what is it that'll be taking so much of your time?"
“Well, I'm —” And now you have to build the lie — “I’ve told Godefrey I’ll attend to his Quidditch practise. Since the pitch isn’t in use.”
God, it’s so stupid it’s almost impressive — you don’t even know if Godefrey will be here over break, and you could have chosen any number of excuses that would pique Tom’s interest less than it’s apparently consistently piqued by the mention of your study partner.
There’s that strange, indecipherable look again. Riddle is a perfect surname for him, you decide then, and you almost laugh at yourself for it, but that would probably not go over well should he ask what’s so funny.
“Have you, now? That’s very kind of you.”
“It’s hardly charity.”
“Hm, it’s kind of you to think so.”
You huff, tipping your goblet back to swallow the last meagre dregs of your wine.
“You look lovely.”
It’s just a little bit — just a tiny, straggling little bit of elderflower that captures your throat — and you cough into your goblet. “Thank — thank you.”
And, well, he looks lovely too. Obviously. Sickeningly so. You know little about his personal life but you’re positive he’s at least a half-blood, if not muggle-born, and it makes you wonder the influence of his renownedly plain black suit in a crowd of neat, long robes.
He manages with little effort to look better than all of them at their best.
His eyes drift over you appreciatively, quick enough not to be rude but — enough. (Enough that you daresay you might never recover from the horror of it.) You adjust under his gaze even when it’s situated on your face, far too heavy a thing for you to carry. “Does Godefrey call you lovely?”
What?
You blink at him, your mouth is probably open and you probably look stupid but he’s so… irritating. Yes, of course Godefrey calls you lovely. Godefrey tells you you’re the smartest woman he’s ever met (after his mother), and he drowns you with sherbet lemons at no cost, and he writes at the speed of light to match the quickness with which you recite your textbook, and none of it means anything. Tom is just —
“Unbelievable…”
He quirks a brow. “What was that?”
“I said you’re unbelievable, Riddle. Is it impossible for you to comprehend that I might have friends? That Godefrey is my friend?”
“Well, memory serves me right that you seemed a bit confused on the conventions of friendship last you mentioned it. Do forgive my uncertainty.”
He — that was —
“Well, that’s because we are not friends.”
“No.” He leans in. “We are not.”
You push your chair from the table with all the grace you can manage for such an abrupt thing: a tight, impersonal smile on your face as you walk away and approach Slughorn, only realising when you get there that your empty goblet is clutched in your hand like you’re trying to strangle it.
Whatever he sees on your face, he isn’t drunk enough not to frown at. “Ah, our newest gem — hardly seen you all night! Not leaving already, are we?”
You glance at the clock. It isn’t as though you’re being impolite by abandoning his party in the middle of the event. It’s quite late, the servers are stuck to the walls with little to do, and most of the room has divided into waltzing pairs.
“I’m taking my friend to the train station tomorrow, sir. Unfortunately I need to be up quite early.”
Yes, yes, it’s all so tragic. You’re depressed to go.
“Such a shame,” Slughorn frets, wobbling a tad and balancing himself on the wall. “You’ll be all right getting back? Not at all dizzy, are you?” His laugh is cleaved by a loud hiccough, and then he laughs even more. “My, well, I myself will need to be carried!”
“...I’ll be fine, sir. Thank you.”
“Oh, no trouble at all — there’s — hm… ah, Tom!”
No, no — is it bad you almost reach over and slap your palm over your professor’s mouth? Is it at all impressive that you don’t? You should look on the bright side in moments like these. You should admire your restraint.
But of course, Slughorn’s eyes don’t fall upon Tom for nothing. He's halfway across the room already, and Slughorn must have spotted him approaching to achieve this brilliant solution. “Tom can escort you back, no?”
Tom (unforgivably) is beside you now, a very mean, very pretty smile on his face.
“Not too much to ask, I should think? You know the castle best. Head Boy — sometimes I still can’t believe it!”
You look up at Tom and your jaw is clenched where you’ve since put down your goblet. There is too much tension in you to know what to do with, and he looks positively thrilled.
“It’s hardly charity, sir.” He holds out his arm.
You wonder what spell would catch him most off-guard if you were to blast him in the face right now.
Slughorn claps his hands together. “Ha! Yes, well… perfect, then! Off now, the two of you, off now. Do have a good — ” He hiccoughs again — “rest!”
You don’t even bother the diplomacy of smiling at Slughorn as your arm loops through Tom’s and you’re exiting the party.
Neither of you say a word on the journey, and that’s very well.
If you could just get back to bed without speaking to him you may still consider it a good night. You may be able to push his strangeness and his entitlement and the annoying way his hair falls to another day, when he pesters you about Godefrey’s nonexistent Quidditch practise, which — come to think of it — you do think he told you he'd be headed home for the holidays. You really fumbled that one.
And then Tom’s thumb is brushing the bare skin of your arm and your walk stutters a bit. But he doesn’t mention it, and so neither do you.
And then he’s drawing down your elbow to your forearm so softly it almost feels like he isn’t touching you at all. He doesn’t mention it. Neither do you.
And then your arm, without really meaning for it to, is slipping from his and his hand is holding yours instead, feather-light as his fingers clasp yours and your breath is not the same as it was when you left.
He doesn’t mention it. He just keeps going.
His fingers work back up your arm and you shiver as they drag across your shoulder, gaze searing your neck as the soft digits find their way to your jaw, and you get the sense he’s remembering just how much he liked the taste of it, and you’re… you’re allowing it all again. You’re leaning in, you’re seeking him out, you want him flush against you and even that might not be satisfactory.
You are, in the end, a half-decent observer and a terrible liar.
You’re grabbing his hand with a small amount of direction and a great deal of meaning. You suppose it's because, historically, you’ve proven to have trouble with words in moments like these, and you don’t really know where you’re taking him but god, you know where you want him. Somewhere soft, this time, thick enough that you can fist your hands around it and melt. Somewhere he can hover over you, maybe hold you down a little, just until — maybe, miraculously — you might make him break a little too. Clamber over his lap. Make him yours.
“Tom,” you mouth, some question in the way your eyebrows knit.
The moment you say his name — the instant — he’s pulling you in, crushing his mouth against yours. And, ah, right, that’s what his lips feel like. You’d almost forgotten.
This kiss is not chaste, hardly tender. It resists in that it asks you to push, to plead, to take this for yourself to prove how badly you want it, and he smiles into it when you do. And then, sated by your efforts, he lets you have him. You’re gripping the collar of his suit in your hands as his wander appreciatively over the back of your dress, pulling you into him as the kiss deepens. He’s savouring you like you’re something religious that’s been offered to him, and there’s the taste of wine on his tongue and you’re still here, aware enough that the symbolism isn’t lost on you.
“I've been thinking," he says between kisses, “about the way you felt when I touched you. I've been thinking about how long it might take before you need it again."
You gasp at the sensation, and god, god, you've been wondering too, haven't you?
You’re pulling him impossibly closer and something hard is pressing into your hip and you clutch tighter onto his shirt as you moan into his mouth. You need it off, you think, and — has your dress been clinging to you like this all night? You need that off too. You need skin on skin. You careen him backwards without aim, your mind a muddled mess of all the many things your body is screaming it needs, like this is fucking imperative; to give it up would be catastrophic.
You suppose, based on what you’ve read, that that’s how the Room of Requirement works, but it’s still funny to think it would apply to this.
It hurts to remove yourself from him to watch in dumb awe as the door forms in the stone (to see the dark, languid shape of his eyes bearing down on you, the wet, stained pink of his lips), and Tom seems to recover from the revelation much faster than you.
His mouth is on yours once more, a hungry kiss; his free hand at your waist, guiding you through the door and shutting it carelessly behind him.
He’s like fire against you, radiating as he presses down on you, his hand tangled in your hair and his hips flush against yours. You shiver as his mouth starts to move down (a cheap trick — he hasn’t forgotten how much you liked it the last time) from your jaw to your throat, as his lips trail down your chest and you're shivering into the warmth of him.
You’ve heard it said before, in some romantic sense, that it’s sometimes hard to tell where you end and someone else begins.
This is not like that.
You've never been more aware of anything than the point where you and him meet.
You’re tugging at him blindly again, trusting in the nature of the Room like this isn't the first time you've been in it, and then you're stumbling down onto a bed you're quite sure wasn't there a moment ago (people say magic is a neutral force but evidently this is not the fucking case), fingers carding through Tom's hair as his body pins you into the mattress.
His mouth is molten hot as you squirm and pant beneath him, your breath coming faster than it ever has. Everything feels sharper and deeper and more intense under his touch, every sensation heightened until it's almost impossible to tell pleasure from pain, his tongue from his teeth.
How did it take you this long to do this again? To need him like this?
And his — you should really have the mind to see the mistake in all of this but perhaps that's for later — his fingers are pulling your sleeves down, propping your back to arch as he reaches under you to unzip your dress, apparently too impatient to sit you up and take it off properly so he just bunches it around your waist instead. There’s a moment where he stops to look at you, your chest exposed to him in the dim sconce-light, and then his mouth returns to circle your breast and you're biting down on a pillow to hold back the whimpering gasp that seeks to escape you. He hums around your flesh, and then he’s at your sternum, kissing a stripe to your belly button before pushing past the dress he's left ringed around your abdomen.
You shimmy under the weight of him to prop your head up — to see past the mass of silk that obscures his face from you as moves lower and lower, hands spanning your hips to keep you still.
His face hovers above your thighs, and he doesn’t move.
“Did you enjoy my fingers?" he asks.
At that you freeze, thighs pressing together to bury the hand that's rising between them.
Tom smiles. “Hm, you did."
And then he spreads your legs apart, one hand pushing your underwear aside and regarding you with delicate, shameless appetite — something that might even be adoration: like this is all he ever wanted you to want.
“Do you think you'd enjoy my mouth, too?"
Words are gone. There's nothing left in you.
His head moves happily between your knees, holding them apart, pressing kisses to the base of your thighs. Your hands flail from the sheets, desperate to grip something else and you hold back a sound that feels like irritation and need at the same time. You need him closer, higher than this. He knows. You can feel his smile biting into your skin.
And then you manage a nod though you're not even sure he's looking at your face anymore (and what a picture to imagine he is) and you worry momentarily it won’t be enough for him — that he’ll ask you to be nice and say it out loud for him — but he hums with something merciful, and — his chin dips. You catch the smallest glimpse of his tongue before it’s on you, wet and slow and unrelenting and you say his name, but it’s a mewl; you choke on it. It sounds like a cry.
Pitiful, needy, undone. Just how he wants you.
You think all efforts to remain even remotely composed are thrown to the wind as soon as his tongue is lapping at you, fast and then slow, everything you want and not even remotely close. He sinks all his weight down as if he can predict the moment you'll writhe before you do — and you do. And with his grip he tells you to endure it. You only need him to say it with his hands and his mouth but he breathes back, licking his lips and he actually says it. “Be good.”
That makes your breath hitch and your cheeks swell impossibly hotter, and reality is a small glint in your peripheral where everything else is burning red. “Y-you’re—”
His mouth returns to you, tongue catching your clit in a drawn-out, agonising motion, and you gasp and lurch forward to inch through the sensation, craving more, more, more. Reason is lost on you, a throbbing familiarity forcing you to grind your teeth down on the pillow to stop yourself from telling him to — you don’t even know. Finish you. Abandon all reluctance. Just let you come as hard as you know he wants you to.
But he pauses, observant as he starts to work his fingers against you. Watching how your slick coats them like it’s the most enthralling sight he’s ever witnessed. Slowly, ever so slowly, he starts to push one inside of you, hearing your breath catch above him and the moan that comes tumbling out of your throat, pillow be damned.
You do your best to breathe through it, and you know he knows how to make you unfold like this, so the meticulous lightness of his ministrations tells you he’s trying to keep it from you now. You’re almost embarrassed about the fact that you’re dripping onto his hand regardless; his lips puffy, his gaze unnervingly, dizzyingly carving you in two.
“Just,” you rasp, clutching desperately at his wrist. “Tom, please.”
Your begging must be music to his ears. (It’s a rare, unplanned fifth observation: that you think he’ll never get tired of hearing you say his name like that.)
He adds a finger. It’s encircling you, first, and no amount of restraint can stop the harsh gasp that leaves you, but then it’s his tongue and two fingers and he’s pushing into you how you wanted, and he makes a pleased sound against you, gripping you tighter with his free hand, still not allowing you movement and fuck, are you trying. What you're feeling now — the need, the want, everything — is more than rational thought. Your mind goes blank, and all that matters is this, him, right here and now; nothing else exists, not even for a second. You moan, a low, throaty noise that's a little too loud, a little too intense; you can't recall if anything has ever come from you quite like it and Tom devours you at the sound.
More, you agree; it's almost an obsession in you now; more, more, please, anything and everything.
It’s the precision of his touch — not some bored, hurried transgression — that brings your hands helplessly to his hair.
“Tom,” you whine, holding him tight, and the purr of his mouth finding you again is something destructive.
As soon as you feel another swell of something deep down, your mouth is dropping open.
His tongue is sliding through you, fingers curling, and then your clit is in his mouth, and he’s watching you between your thighs as your eyes clench shut, and you’re coming.
Your voice breaks somewhere in the catastrophe of it. Your body spasms, electric down to every atom, and he pins you down through it. He doesn’t grant you the reprieve of escaping the frenzied, glorious torture of it. His mouth still lingers. His tongue moves thankful and unrelenting.
He takes all of you, and you think this is destruction — creation — both. How terrifyingly similar they suddenly feel.
His lips are swollen and slick when he finally detaches them from you and you want to kiss him, but he’s leaning back to admire his work. You swallow, unable to blame him for it because you look down at yourself and — this is something else. You’re dripping down his chin. You're shaking. Your legs are still clenching around his torso. They’re holding him so tight you can’t imagine it doesn’t hurt.
But he just rolls off of you. Adjusts his trousers and your abdomen flutters and you think, don’t.
You don’t even realise you’re reaching for him until your hand is around his wrist and you’re still fucking sighing through the come-down, panting into the hot air.
He presses a kiss to your forehead, fingers damp on your chin as he holds you. You make a note that that’s the second time he’s done that. That you thought it was strangely intimate the first time and nothing’s changed other than how much more you like it.
And it doesn’t really feel like you can help it but crawl with gooey, trembling legs onto his lap. Doesn’t feel like you can help it when you lean in and capture his lips with yours, moan unabashedly into his mouth at the stiffness that presses against your core when you do, steal his tongue and the taste of you on it.
When he pulls away he’s looking at you like he doesn’t think you can actually do this. Like you’d just crumble the moment you tried.
A low, determined protest rises in your throat and you’re kissing him again. You’re unbuttoning his dress shirt, you’re trembling to reach for his trousers.
When you can finally shrug his shirt off, press yourself against him, feel that skin on skin you wanted so badly, you find it somehow even more suffocating than its absence. You’re left wanting a more you aren’t able to even conceptualise, but you’re grinding involuntarily against him and his teeth are scraping your neck and he's hissing at the sensation, and — yes, there’s more.
Your breath is staggered when your hips stutter into a roll and you — fuck. You’re tugging desperately to remove his belt and he smiles against your throat as he takes your hands and guides them to him. You can feel his bulge against your thigh and you’re spreading your legs to usher him where you want, clawing at his chest without even meaning to.
Tom’s taking off his belt, and he’s pulling down his trousers just enough to bare himself to you, and maybe he’s right that you can’t manage it yourself but he stops his assistance like the intrigue of finding out is too good to resist. There's something both intimate and imperious, in a way, about the way he's looking at you now; it's a kind of focus and intensity and withheld hunger just for you; and you're more than happy to give yourself over to it, to let his hands and his eyes and his mouth claim you for his own. To claim him for yours, at last.
You do. You struggle for it. He’s very patient.
But then it’s there — more — as you finally sink down on him and bite his shoulder and he shudders a low, pained exhale, his hands clutching your waist.
There’s a silent, suspended moment where neither of you move. The room feels entirely still.
Your lips quiver over his pulse, and your stomach flips at the intensity of it, the undeniable rate of his desire beneath you. You smile against him now, like he always does to you, conscious enough to mumble into his neck, “Mine.”
Tom stutters inside you, fingers gripping you impossible tighter as you dare to think he even gasps. You dare to think he likes it.
And then one of his hands grabs your jaw and his kiss is searing. He thrusts upward and you cry into his mouth, searching to match his pace in a way that you appreciate, for once, he seems unlearned in.
It’s all a bit messy, a bit new, palms in fists, in skin, in hair, digging for every part they haven’t already taken from. The sound in the back of Tom’s throat is divine, the feeling of him inside you as he slips his hand back between your legs — like he needs everything, like he knows you do too — it’s ineffable. It coils somewhere deep, touches something you didn’t know existed. Your hips are rotating, thighs still soft and slack from coming apart on his tongue, but you’re determined. It feels like finding even ground. It feels like something you deserve: to make him feel how you did.
Your head rolls back, eyes pinching shut in bliss, but Tom is there at your jaw again, forcing your blurry gaze back to him.
His hips are inching even further, the intensity of his pace as he adjusts to you making you dizzy. You think, realistically, there’s sound coming out of you, but you aren’t entirely sure when it’s so close to him, when your mouth is between his fingers and your ears are ringing and he’s looking at you like you’re made for him.
“Mine.” And it isn’t a dismissal of your own claim but a confirmation that one will not be without the other. His voice is raw and breathy and something about the way he says it makes you contract inadvertently around him, hands swatting his chest like they don’t know what else to do. There’s just too much.
You recognize you’re trying to say something. Some plea, a moan, his name (is there anything else left?), but you’re just babbling into his mouth and he holds you there. He doesn’t kiss you. It’s your failing words against his lips. He swallows whatever syllables try to shape them.
It’s there again when you need it most; the heavy, swirling feeling inside you as he snaps his hips, his fingers returning to your waist with punishing firmness. His breathing accelerates, low in his throat, and you push harder against him. Your vision is gone again, head held in his hands to keep from rolling back so that, you suspect, he can watch defeat split you down the middle again — not over your shoulder, not with his head between your legs — with his eyes on yours, with every broken moan you let out so close to his face he can feel the breath of each one.
You’re grappling desperately at skin that doesn’t feel like enough, even though he’s rocking inside you, and you see the insanity of it, you see that it isn’t logical. Too much and not enough at once — you’re smart enough to know that doesn’t work, but it just is.
“Please,” you manage in a voice you don’t recognize. “Please, Tom, pleasepleaseplease —”
Had you said before it was foolish to call him forgiving? You take it back. He’s very eager to oblige you.
He finds some place inside of you and you don’t know quite what it is that he changes but it's new, uncharted, and you break there. You dissolve. You’re liquid in his hands as you sob, stuttering around him, trembling like you didn’t know was possible, and you swear — you swear you’re going to take him there with you. It isn’t that you could stop yourself if you tried but your body is gripping around him, fingers carving halved spheres into his skin, and you’re pushing down on him through the ecstasy — you’re forcing your eyes open so he can see you break, watch them flutter back all soft and pretty.
And you're sated by your ruin when it ruins him too.
The sound he makes is ragged. Undone. He can only bury it halfway with a kiss you think is actually more of a bite, twitching inside you as he fucks you through it.
You’re both lost in each other for a moment that feels detached from time, feeling his hips stutter to a halt, feeling your body soften. And he’s pulling out of you like it hurts, mouth falling open as he does. You wince at the loss, the sweet soreness between your legs, and you’re held only by the weight of him. You think — and you actually sway like the mere idea is too strong — that if it weren’t for his hands, you’d fall flat off the bed.
But he sort of lifts you off him, lays you down and watches you for a long time as if to decide something important before he's laying down beside you. You watch him too. His fingers brush your hair out of your face, and when there’s not a single curl left clinging to the sweat on your skin, he continues anyway. You let him trace your lips, your jaw, your nose, and somehow, a bit terrifyingly, your final observation: nothing about it feels unusual at all.
You did say he was yours.
#tom riddle#tom riddle x reader#tom riddle x you#tom riddle smut#tom riddle x y/n#tom marvolo riddle#voldemort#voldemort x reader#tom riddle imagine#tom riddle fanfiction#tom riddle oneshot#NO LONGER!#but it is only a two-parter sorry. this is it#harry potter fanfiction#wizarding world
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tom riddle—a certain romance.
.ೃ࿐ྂ tom riddle x fem!reader
summary: tom provides a distraction when your period arrives.
word count: 1.1k
fanfic no. 024
tom wasn’t used to being stood up. he’d had no chance to harbour a dislike for the act because it had never happened until now—not that he could recollect anyway. but now that it had, he hated it.
it was basic manners to turn up to something you’d organised, or at least let him know sufficiently in advance if you weren’t able to attend. he felt cheated. and not that he was particularly concerned with his reputation at hogwarts (but he was), he couldn’t let this go.
currently, unbeknownst to tom riddle, you were hauled up in your dormitory, cradling your stomach, hoping that this change of position would relieve some pain. the water on your bedside had long been empty, and the food you’d taken from breakfast was hardening. on the brink of tears, you slipped a blanket over your shoulders and stared at the ground, wishing it would swallow you whole.
tom, on the other hand, was storming through the castle with a stone cold face, lips pursed and hands in his pockets. it wasn’t unusual for tom to strut through the halls like this, but something about his blank stare caused some alarm with the younger students.
“watch out!” a second year hissed, pulling his friend back by the collar as tom flew past.
he barely noticed.
there was sharp knock at your door, and at first you thought someone must’ve gotten the wrong dorm, but it persisted despite you not answering. stomping over to the door, you whipped it open before another knock could disturb the little peace you had left.
“what?!” you seethed, only recognising the person in your doorway afterwards. “oh, tom. what are you doing here?” you asked.
tom screwed his eyebrows together. surely it was obvious what he was doing at your door. he had waited for you in the library for nearly forty-five minutes—he must have looked like an utter fool. how he hated to be humiliated.
“i-”
“oh! oh, tom, i’m so sorry. i completely forgot,” you threw your hands over your mouth guiltily.
tom looked past you and into your room, noticing the strewn sheets, blankets, stale food and tipped over glass on your bedside. then he looked back at you, expression softening slightly.
“are you unwell?” he questioned you.
“in a matter of speaking, aunt flo has come to visit,” you said delicately.
tom made no answer, only continued staring as if asking you to elaborate further to relieve his confusion.
“that time of the month, tom.”
he shifted. “oh.”
you nodded, leaning against your doorframe. the pain had subsided momentarily in tom’s presence, but now that the excitement had died down, it was coming back full force.
tom said nothing, but his eyes poured into yours, and suddenly his anger had vanished and in its place was a much softer emotion he didn’t care to name. he brushed past you into your room, ignoring the questions you threw his way. retrieving your glass and plate of food, he exited your dorm and placed them on a nearby table.
he was back in an instant, pressing his hand to your lower back and silently ushering you back into your own room. he stopped in front of your bed, and you sat down. the next moment he was gone, and you weren’t aware of how long he’d been away, still trying to understand what he was doing and whether he was coming back or if that was the end of your odd exchange.
but before you knew it, he had returned with a full glass of water and a bowl of fruit. he could barely believe it himself. he didn’t care to look after people other than himself, it wasn’t in his nature, nor in his interest. and he seldom did things that weren’t in his interest.
but he found himself in the hogwarts kitchen arranging fruit in a bowl and asking specially for blackberries because he’d seen you eat them frequently.
“thank you,” you whispered, looking up at him through your eyelashes.
he looked down to you, his gaze sliding down his sharp face and onto yours. he didn’t speak much, not unless he deemed it necessary, and sometimes you appreciated this.
“you’re welcome,” he replied, sitting in the chair in the corner of your room, his ankle resting on his knee and hand gracing over his lips as his elbow rested on the arm of the chair.
it was as if he was examining you. you tried not to wince or react to the pain in your stomach for as long as you could, but eventually you couldn’t help it. tom didn’t move a muscle as he watched you.
“do you like to read?” he asked finally, cutting the tension in half.
“yes,” you answered, “my books are over there if you’d like to have a look.”
tom’s eyes flickered to where you had pointed, and he could see several titles from where he was sitting. in one swift movement he got up from the chair, slipped his hands in his pockets and stepped over to your shelf.
he selected a novel from your collection and returned to the chair.
“you can sit over here, you know.”
tom turned, looking at the space next to you on the bed. “very well.”
the mattress dipped with his weight, and you tried to control your pulse from racing just by him being so near. but his scent was intoxicating—he smelled expensive—and his thigh was almost touching yours. it was the perfect distraction from the pain, though you wouldn’t have guessed such a thing.
tom, too felt nervous, and he didn’t like to feel this way. but he suspected that this type of nervousness wouldn’t be as bothersome as the rest. he pushed the tremble in his voice down and opened the first page of ‘a room with a view’.
his deep voice was calming, diverting, too. though lucy honeychurh and george emerson’s story was also, over time his body had inched closer to yours subconsciously, and now you were touching like it was the most normal thing in the world. after a while, you’d moved back on the bed, head resting against your pillows and legs curled up into you. tom had been resistant at first to make himself comfortable, but had done as you asked and situated himself against your headboard.
bravery had taken hold of you nearly an hour into the reading session, and you dared to rest your head against tom’s shoulder. he didn’t stop reading, he didn’t move, but you could feel him stiffen ever so slightly, and then let go.
after a while, he even ventured to twist his pinky finger around yours, forcing himself to awkwardly turn the pages of the book one-handed—though neither of you were bothered about this.
it was quiet, it was intimate and private, and the moment was yours. and though it was only george and lucy who had shared an embrace, you hoped that it wouldn’t be too long before you and tom would share one of your own.
🏷 @imabee-oralizard @mad-elia @velvetcloxds @garfieldsladybird @flesh--amnesiac
#tom riddle x reader#tom riddle x you#tom riddle x y/n#tom riddle x fem!reader#tom riddle imagine#tom riddle fic#tom riddle fluff#tom riddle fanfiction#tom riddle oneshot#tom riddle era
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𝐑𝐨𝐬𝐞𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐬𝐢𝐥𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 - 𝐓𝐨𝐦 𝐑𝐢𝐝𝐝𝐥𝐞 𝐎𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐭 ☆
warnings: suggestive? honestly not really, nothing much tbh
word count: 3,6 k
summary: you being the only good chess player (you thought), could it be that you found a shared interest with Tom Riddle?
@thatdammchickennugget ‘s Hogmarch challenge prompt 3
Tom loved wizarding chess, it was the thing that he was best in. Yet he hasn't found anyone yet who was enough of a challenge for him to compete with. He wasn't just good, he was just absolutely phenomenal at chess. He gave up on finding a match for himself, playing against nothingness, preparing moves for god knows whom.
That was until he saw you, you were practicing in the courtyard. Your feet were pulled under your legs, sitting cross-legged while focused on your game. There was a slight frown on your face, lost in concentration to beat the air. There was a way to enchant an opponent, but for the best, those weren't even good enough to win. It was boring not having a partner to play with, but it was the best you've got right now.
He leaned against a pillar close to you and observed your game. You were good, but were you good enough to beat him? He knew it was sort of an advantage, watching you play for a while before he'd ask you to play against him. But no one said Tom was a fair guy, he'd do anything to win. He'd never recover from a loss in wizarding chess, the game he was supposed to be best at. The game that was supposed to be his talent to always win in.
But you seemed good too. You knew great opening moves, you checkmated the fake opponent in 5 moves sometimes. You knew a lot, things he didn't even know others knew about. Moves he thought only he knew about. Even openings he thought he came up with himself. It seemed as if you knew the game through at through, he had never met anyone like you. You were different, fascinating, yet so different than the rest.
It was extremely enchanting to watch you play, to watch you win every single time. You, you were the person he'd been looking for, for months now, for years even.
Wizarding chess didn't start for him when he started attending Hogwarts. He didn't even know it was a thing before. He found a way to enchant the pieces himself back when he lived in the orphanage, the great wizard he was back then already. He crafted stuff he found around the home into pieces to use during his games.
He endlessly played, going again and again. It was his favorite thing to do, besides cursing other students at the orphanage. It wasn't on purpose, his anger sometimes just got the best of him. Before he knew it some of his classmates fell down the stairs. Was it his fault? No, because he didn't know how to control it. Did he enjoy it though? Probably yes.
He watched you sigh as you won another game once again, seemingly bored by the lack of competition. That's when you started talking, his heart almost dropped. "You know, you can also play with me instead of watching me from a distance. I can see you're studying the way I play, don't you think that's a bit unfair?"
He almost looked shocked. You couldn't have possibly seen him standing there? You didn't even look up once to be able to notice him, yet you did. "To answer your question, you aren't subtle." That's when you looked up at him, and that's when he first saw your face clearly.
You were beautiful to him, the only thing that bothered him was the yellow tie you were wearing. A Hufflepuff? That couldn't be possible, right? To him, there was no possibility of intelligence in any other house than Slytherin. Someone needs to tell this man that his house isn't superior. It caught him slightly off guard before he decided to speak up.
"Play with me." He got straight to the point. He saw you as a challenge and he wanted to test you, see if he could beat you. Of course, he could, he was sure of it. Always so goddamn sure of himself.
You laughed at the way he was so insistent. "Fine." You got up and made the board disappear with a flick of your wand. "Tomorrow evening in the great hall." You smiled softly and walked off into the castle.
He was intrigued. He often saw you walking in the hallway, you had a lot of friends. It seemed like people adored you. He always connected having a lot of friends with being unintelligent but now he was rethinking those prejudices. He even was thinking of giving you the first chance to become friends with him. He'd view it as an honor, getting to be friends with him. God, he was so full of himself. He should feel honored himself to be friends with you. Everyone wanted to be friends with you.
The next day, you sat in the great hall, setting up the pieces as you waited for him. The hall was dimly lit by the floating candles hanging over the tables.
When he came in, he noticed you sitting at the Hufflepuff table. It didn't feel right to him to not sit by the Slytherin table but he put his pride aside and decided not to annoy you by asking to switch places. But he was thinking about it the whole evening, hoping no one would walk in on it. Every other Slytherin could care less, they sat at other tables all the time.
He sat down in front of you and you immediately lifted your head to look him in the eyes, a small smile forming when you noticed him. Why were you always smiling? It was so weird to him, you didn't even have a reason to smile. But you never needed one.
"Are you ready for me to beat your ass?" You raised your brows and he scoffed mockingly.
"I bet you've mistaken me with someone else because I never lose." He had such a competitive glint in his eyes, you've never seen anyone this serious about chess.
You chuckled at his confidence. Oh how disappointed he'll be, poor Tom. "We'll see..."
You were white, which allowed you to make the first move. It wasn't always an advantage but you were always white, it had never been different. Good thing Tom always played black. It was like both of you were made to play against each other.
"Pawn to e4." And the game was on.
It took you probably less than 20 minutes to checkmate him. Easy... He was probably too confident, thinking he could easily win. His confidence played into his disadvantage.
The second game, won after 40 minutes. He was already fuming by now. You saw the determination in his eyes, he couldn't lose again. He must win. At least once.
The fourth time, won again. It was a longer game, it took up to an hour. But you did it once again without any flaws. Oh, but he was so mad by now. His knuckles turned white by the way he was clenching his hands into fists.
"Filthy cheater, we go again!"
Could it be that the Tom Riddle was a sore loser?
"What is it? Can't stand that I'm easily winning? When will you give up Tom?" You were so enjoying getting him all worked up, it was quite the sight.
"I'll play again on one condition. The loser grants the winner a wish this time. What do you say? Are you in?" You extended your hand for him to shake, you loved making deals like this. It's because you always won, and that way always were granted a wish.
"Deal."
"You're going to regret this, y/n." You so wished you could wipe that smirk off of his face. You were going to win.
Oh, but how so wrong you were...
After 50 minutes, of a heavy and hard game, you lost for the first time ever in your entire life. It felt awful, especially since now you had to grant him a wish. You didn’t show it though, too prideful to give him this kind of satisfaction.
"Won. Guess you'll grant me my wish." He raised his eyebrows and leaned back in his chair, he analyzed your reactions and was satisfied to see an annoyed look on your face.
"What is your wish? Want me to announce to the whole school that you won, because I'll do just that." You were expecting that to be his wish so you already stood up to do it.
"Sit back down, it's something different."
Something different? What exactly could he want from you to do?
"Go on a date with me. Tomorrow night in the Room of Requirement." He sounded so confident, so determined to take you on that date.
A date?! Why in the world would he want to take you on a date? It almost sounded ridiculous to your ears. You never spoke before now, he didn't even know you. Why in the hell would he ever want to take you on a date?
"A date? Like… you and me?" He must have seen the confusion on your face, it was as obvious as the red color painting your face. You were blushing, unwillingly, but oh you were blushing hard.
"Well, I mean unless you have another definition for a date. Yes, you and me, tomorrow night. You can't say no, we made a deal."
And so you got yourself a date with Tom Riddle, you've never ever been on a date before. It'd be nerve-wracking enough with someone you knew well, but you didn't know Tom all too well. You felt like dying from the stress.
Was it even like a serious real date? You didn't even know what to wear, you lay out almost your whole closet on your bed but weren't satisfied with anything.
You even had to get your best friend to your room to help you out. Eventually, she chose a short black dress for you, it wasn't too short, classy and elegant even.
While you were almost eating your nails, you didn't know Tom was freaking out himself. Unlike you, Tom didn't have anyone to get advice from. It was all by himself, and not being experienced in these kinds of things, he was nervous. You wouldn't expect the calmth himself to be nervous, but he was quite literally freaking out.
He prepared everything since noon, he wanted it to be perfect. But also he started to think if it was too much? Or was it too little? The evening couldn't come soon enough or he'd have walked around the Room of Requirement twenty times.
You've never been to the Room of Requirement before, you've heard of it though. It'd show up when you most needed it but you didn't even feel like you needed anything at the moment. You just hoped it'd miraculously show up as you were walking through the corridors. That's when you heard a strange sound, it made you look up at the wall next to you. A large door appeared, guess this was it.
When you entered the room you were immediately greeted by the smell of freshly made food and a faint smell of roses. It's a smell you've always loved.
"Y/n, you came." He was wearing an all-black suit. God, he looked hot. Why haven't you noticed that yet about him? You were stunned, nailed to the ground. Your eyes on him that way put a smirk on his face, you were too easy.
It was different than you imagined, the way people described the room. It was often described as a large place with piles of stuff and goods but this place was clean not all too big and almost felt like a place to live. It was an open room with a book nook, a bedroom, a kitchen, a fireplace with a large couch, and a dinner table in the middle of it. It seemed to match his personality quite well.
Large iron snakes decorated the walls and the roof was painted with constellations. The room was mostly green, but not an unpleasant kind of green, a warm cozy green. It was pretty and the more you looked around, the better view you got of his personality. It's as if this room was painted to show what he was like.
It was obvious he loved silver. All the decorations were silver: the small snake details, the cutlery, and even the rings he was wearing. That's when you noticed his hands. Even during chess, you didn't pay them much mind but now you did...
His fingers wore several silver rings, some fingers covered by more than one. It was surprisingly attractive in a way, you almost felt wrong for staring at him that way but you couldn't help it.
He decided not to say anything about it but just let it slide. It'd be something he could tease you about later this evening, he just needed to find the right opportunity.
"You look beautiful." His eyes roamed your body like it was a piece of art, a piece of art he wished only he'd be able to admire. It wasn’t a creepy kind of look, you felt pretty under his gaze. He suddenly felt this weird feeling of possessiveness, something weird.
"Thank you, you look handsome yourself." That smile that painted your face again, was something he'd never get enough of. Something he wanted to get to see every day and together with that red blush on your cheeks. He felt powerful to make you feel so flustered. You weren't flustered quite often, however, he was someone who finally succeeded in doing so.
"Sit down, I'll bring the food."
The table was covered in red roses, thorns still attached. It was beautiful honestly, simple but stunning. The cutlery was engraved with roses too and a snake circling it. It was obvious that he was proud of his family history.
During dinner, you both talked about yourselves, explaining how you acquired the talent in chess. It was something your grandfather had taught you. He took care of you quite often while your parents were at work.
"They were great aurors, but not so great parents. I can't blame them honestly, I know they have a duty. I just sometimes wished they spent a bit more time with me. But it's honestly fine, my grandfather was a great man."
He always wished to have that kind of bond with a family member, it's something that always had been absent in his life. A void he so desperately wished to fill.
You motioned to the roses on the table. "They're pretty, but the school grounds don't grow roses... Where did you get them?"
He gives you that mischievous smile. "It's my secret."
It was a nice evening, the food was good and he was so much nicer than you expected. He was like a totally different person than when he was losing in chess.
A week passed and you hadn't heard from him since. You didn't dare to speak to him, scared he might not want to talk to you. Guess this was it, it was a nice evening but probably only a one-time thing. Maybe this is what he did with all the girls, getting a taste of their personality and going on to the next. You didn't view him like that at all but your view on guys wasn't all too great, so what else were you supposed to think?
It was until one night when you entered your dorm, a rose lay in front of your door. The thorns were removed and a small envelope was attached to it. You entered your room and sat down on your bed to open it.
"Meet me at the front gate just before dawn. - TR ps. check the envelope"
Check the envelope? It didn't feel like there was something else in there but decided to check...
A ring.
A silver ring, one of the rings he was wearing last week. It was the one that stood out the most, a green emerald covering the middle. It was a thick ring but it was so magnificent, you were drawn by the beauty of it. It must've cost such a great fortune. Why would he gift you this?
Just when you were about to put the envelope away, something else fell out: a thin silver chain. Did he want you to wear it as a necklace?
You decided to attach it to the thin chain and put it around your neck before getting ready to leave for the front gate. You didn't see the need to get all dressed up like last time, just something to keep yourself warm in this cold weather.
Approaching the large gate, he was already standing there. He was leaning against it, his eyes searching for something... "Come here." He motioned for you to come closer. There was something else in his eyes today, something mysterious but not scary. Just mysterious.
He traced your jaw and moved his fingers down your neck until he felt the cold touch of jewelry. He took it from underneath your shirt and lay it over your sweater. "Don't hide it, wear it with pride."
Without letting you answer he entered the courtyard, expecting you to follow him. "To answer your question..." You didn't even ask one, however, you'd like to know why he gave it to you.
He entered the school grounds, pausing his words before continuing. "I thought you would've liked it more around your neck than around my fingers. But I bet you didn't really mind staring at them, did you?" He caught you.
He looked at you with a smirk, enjoying seeing you flustered once again. "I wanted to show you something, I just needed to find the right day. Tonight seemed perfect."
He stopped for you to catch up with him and once you did, he took your hand in his. "You seem nervous, princess?" The cold of his rings touching your hand caught you off guard before deciding to answer. "Maybe I am."
"You shouldn't be." It was all he said before he stopped in front of a large rock, casting a spell on it before it revealed a large meadow.
"I know you're surprised, but we have to get in fast before it closes again." Once you both stepped inside, you noticed the meadow was covered by a bed of red roses.
This must be the place where he got all the roses... He moved behind you, his chest pressing against your back before he moved his hand around your neck to the front. He slowly moved it up to your chin, making you look up to the sky. "Look up, y/n."
Above you were the same constellations painted on the roof in his Room of Requirement. It was an exact copy of this place here, he made it exactly alike.
His fingers now moved back to your neck, taking the hair in front with him to give him access to your neck. You sensed him moving his lips closer to your ear, slightly touching the shell with his lips. "Do you like it? You're the first person to know."
Your breath caught in your throat once his lips touched your neck, he slowly moved lower. "Mhmm?" That's when he stuck out his tongue slightly to get a taste of your neck. "Answer me, y/n."
"Yes, I do... I do like it."
"Mhmm, good." He slowly started sucking on your neck, biting it every few seconds before turning you around to make you face him. His hand moved to the piece of hair covering your face, moving it behind your ear.
You couldn't help but take a glance at his lips, he was being extremely tempting right now. A sudden urge pulled you closer to him, you wanted to be closer to him. His gaze averted to your lips too, both of you almost touching now but not quite yet.
"Kiss me."
And that's exactly what you did, there was no shame in your actions, you weren't ashamed of how you were truly feeling. It felt right and natural...
He pushed his fingers through your hair and grabbed it softly, earning a soft moan from you as a result. Exactly what he wanted. He wasted no time to push his tongue inside your mouth, exploring it like it were a map. He needed to have tasted every part, twice to remember it.
The kiss became more intense as you both pressed against each other. Your bodies were pressed up against each other so tightly it was as if you were one entity. Your kisses were filled with heat, each kiss made his heart skip a beat. Your lips were so soft and your kisses were so passionate. It was almost as if your lips were made to please each other.
His hand moved away slightly to take his wand and with a flick, all roses grown in the ground immediately got rid of their thorns. Without a warning he picked you up and lay you down with him, his body on top of yours.
He pulled away to admire the sight of you lying on the bed of roses, your hair was spread all over the ground and he almost couldn't contain himself. He moved closer to whisper in your ear once again. "This is quite the sight but I’d much rather enjoy it without clothes..."
#hogmarch challenge#hogmarch#harry potter#fiction#slytherin#slytherin boys#tom riddle#christian coulson#tom riddle x you#tom riddle x y/n#tomriddle x reader#tom riddle x reader#tom riddle oneshot
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Muggle Activities
masterlist
pairing: tom riddle x female reader
warnings: fluff, kissing, a snippet of protective/jealous tom
summary: you finally convinced tom to go to a carnival with you
a/n: guyss i have a small something planned when i get just a few more followers and im excited :) also i have no clue what the cost of the wristbands are so i just made up a price.
song: best song ever - one direction
"I cannot believe I agreed to this," Tom aggressively sighs.
"You did it because you love me." You stand on your tippy toes and kiss his cheek.
He lowly grumbles something along the lines of, "Yeah, yeah."
You were wearing a pastel blue, knee length sundress. Along with a matching pastel blue ribbon holding your hair back behind your head.
Tom was dressed in black dress pants and white button up. His put his hands in his pants pockets and you grabbed his elbow, pulling him to the ticket stand.
The elder woman looks at you two, "Hello."
You smile at her and fidget with one of the rings on Tom's finger. "Hi! Um, may we please have two wristbands?"
"Sure, that'll be $65."
You go to take the money from your purse but Tom grabs your wrist and shakes his head. He pulls his wallet out and hands her the money.
Before you came, you and Tom went to change some of your wizard currency into muggle money.
You sigh and look at him, "Why do you never let me pay. I feel bad, you're always spending money on me."
He leans over as the lady moves to grab the wristbands. "Who's to say I don't enjoy spoiling you, darling?"
You blush and mumble, "Well, thank you."
"Alright, here you go, enjoy."
You thank the woman and excitedly move away from the stand to put the bands on. "May I see your wrist, sir?"
"Yes, ma'am."
He holds out his wrist and you put it on, he then does the same for you.
"Alright! Where should we go first?"
Tom looks around and shrugs, "I don't know, you're the one who's familiar with these things."
"Hm, let's start with... Zero Gravity!" You grab his hand and start walking towards the ride.
"Do we have to go on rides?" Tom practically whines. "Why not those things over there?" You look at him and see him watching the carnival games. "Muggles think this stuff is fun?" Tom asks as he looks at the ride that swings back and forth as people scream.
"Yep! Oh and don't worry we'll do the games. After a few rides," you grin. "Come on."
You make it to the line and to your surprise, the line was decently short, so you were able to get onto the ride quickly.
You two stand next to each other and the ride starts a minute later, spinning so fast that you two are pushed back against the padding behind you.
After it stops, you two walk off and stand out of the way. "So! How was your first ride experience?"
"It was... nauseating. I don't know what the point of that was."
"I think it was fun!" You bounce on your feet and look up at his hair which got a bit messed up.
You reach your arms up and comb your fingers through his hair, neatening it.
"If anyone else were to touch my hair, I-"
"You would use an unforgivable curse, blah blah blah."
"You know me too well," he gives you a boyish grin. He puts his arm on your shoulders and turns you. Running his fingers through your hair and tightening your bow.
"Thanks, love," you kiss his hand. "Okay, next let's go on the swings!"
He nods and follows you like a lost puppy, although if anyone were to say that they wouldn't have a tongue to say anything again.
You two show your wristbands and find your seats. The ride begins and the swings start going around as it rises into the air. Tom has to admit it's a good view since it's nighttime and everything is lit up.
It spins for about two more minutes before slowing and going low again. When it's stopped you turn to Tom, "That was great, wasn't it?"
He shrugs as you both unhook the straps, "I don't know if I would use that word, but it wasn't bad." You walk over to him and take his hand in yours, walking through the exit. "Where to now, angel?"
You bite the inside of your cheek. "How about that roller coaster?"
He looks at where you're pointing and starts to shake his head immediately. "No. Abso-bloody-lutely not."
"Come on Tom! It's not that bad." You start pulling him and you look back at him, "It's practically the same things as the Gringotts Mine Cart."
"I suppose."
You wait a bit on the line and get put in your own cart. You hold his hand and put your free hand on his bouncing knee. "Don't be nervous, love."
He scoffs, "I'm not nervous."
You narrow your eyes at him, "Mhm."
The ride starts and you go all directions at a great speed. It goes in loops and goes up before it drops.
You look over at Tom and see his eyes closed. You smile and poke his cheek. He opens his eyes and looks at you when you laugh, "You're so cute."
He doesn't have time to scold you for calling him cute because the cart takes a sharp turn before going back to where you started.
The man running the ride comes and lifts the bars. You two step out and go down the stairs. "That was amazing," you lean against Tom's side.
"Whatever you say, darling."
"Okay, why don't we get some cotton candy and then play a few games. It's already 10:45."
"Okay," he kisses your head. You two walk over and purchase two cotton candy and then walk to one of the games.
"Tom! I need to win a fish! The poor things are probably miserable in those tiny bags."
"Okay only one though because I don't think Hogwarts allows pet fish."
"Bloody hell," Tom says holding two large buckets full of bagged fish.
"I can't leave them to die in there!"
"As much as I love how caring you are, was winning thirty-four fish necessary?"
"Yes, Tom. That lady was nice enough to let me play for almost twenty minutes. Okay! Next game."
You two walk up to the game with darts you throw to pop small balloons on the wall.
You smile at the guy working the game. He seemed about your age. "Hi!"
He looks up from his phone and Tom places the buckets on the ground. "Hey," he says, lips curving into a small smirk.
"Mind if I play once?" You ask, handing him a five dollar bill.
"Not at all," he winks and hands you three darts. You hand two to Tom and keep the last one.
Tom throws his, popping two balloons. You throw the last one and pop a balloon.
"Great aim," the guy says. "Pick whatever."
You glance around, spotting something before turning to Tom. "That looks like Novalie," you beam at him, referring to your owl. Tom looks behind you and sees the guy looking quite low in a place he certainly shouldn't be.
He turns you around and wraps an arm around your shoulder while he glares at the guy, "We'll take the owl," he says coolly.
The guy grabs it and hands it to you with a charming smile. He opens his mouth but Tom cuts him off, starting to walk away. "Let's go, sweetheart."
You glance back at the guy who's watching you two walk away. "Bye, thank you! Oh, the fish!"
"I'll get them, wait here." Tom walks over and picks up the buckets. You see him lean over and mumble something to the guy who looks like he's seen a ghost.
You hit his arm when he gets to you, "What did you say to the poor guy?"
"Nothing," he says.
"Didn't look like nothing to me."
"Nothing that you should hear."
"Tom."
"Don't 'Tom' me. We should get going, don't you want to get the fish a thing to live in?"
"A fish tank?"
"Yes."
"Yeah, luckily I saw a place called 'PetSmart' on our way here. I'm going to buy so many decorations for it."
You two walk to the car and put the fish on the floor in the back. You two sit down and as soon as you put your seatbelt on, Tom's lips are on your.
He puts his hand on the back of your neck and holds you in place.
You put a hand on his arm and the other on his shoulder. He bites your bottom lip and you lightly gasp. He slides his tongue in your mouth and slides his against yours.
You kiss him for another few seconds and then pull back breathing heavy. "Goodness me, Tom."
"I love you, you know that?"
You furrow your eyebrows, "Of course I do. I love you, too."
"You wouldn't leave me, right?"
"Tom," you peck his lips. "Never in eternity would I leave you."
"Okay. Let's go get that fish tank," he puts a hand on your thigh and starts driving.
#nina writes 🤭💗#tom riddle#tom riddle fluff#tom riddle x reader#tom riddle x you#tom riddle oneshot#tom riddle blurb#tom riddle fanfic#tom marvolo riddle#harry potter#fluff#tom riddle imagine#harry potter x you#hogwarts#harry potter fanfic#harry potter oneshot#harry potter fluff#harry potter x reader#harry potter imagine#harry potter fanfiction
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