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ghouljams · 6 months

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Let Me Keep You(Here's My Name, Burden Me) Rating: Explicit (MDNI) Word Count: 4k Tags: John Price x f!oc/reader, first time, fluff, virginity loss, dirty talk, oral (f!receiving), piv sex, minor breeding kink, confessions, fae au, witch!reader Summary: "When I fuck you," Price breathes, brushes his lips against yours, "and I will fuck you, Sweetheart," he assures you, "I want it to mean something.” That was months ago, months of wondering when he'd finally decide you meant something. Well, the dam can't hold forever, and when it breaks it's not courage that parts your lips.

“What was that perfume you were wearin’ when we first met?” Price asks you out of the blue. You glance up from your cauldron in time for a cloud of purple smoke to belch out of one of the oil slick bubbles.

“I don’t know,” You really don’t. You don’t even know if it was a perfume, or if it was a combination of herbs you’d been working with. You stir your potion thoughtfully. “If you could describe it,” You decide, “I might be able to tell you.”

Price hums, he does that when he thinks, it’s terribly charming. You like how he fills your space with noise. Both of you know that he’s as silent as fresh snow, but for you he’s as loud as an elephant. It’s comforting, in some strange little way, always being able to hear him near you. It’s harder to be alone. Clearly. You- Logically you know he’s there, but it’s- you shake the thought from your head, no sense tainting your potion with ill advised sorrows.

“Like dry grass on a warm day,” Vetiver you note, “and honey without the sweetness.” Citrus, potentially, wildflower likely. You tick mental boxes, sorting through your mental catalog. What were you shopping for that day? Were you killing time on a spell?

“Anything else?” You ask over your shoulder.

“Summer, but that was probably from-” you hear the rustle of fabric as he waves his hand behind you.

“From the garden,” you finish with a smile.

“Smelled expensive, dark, like that red dress you’ve got,” he leans back in his chair and you hear his heels tap against the wood of your kitchen table as he kicks them up, “Should wear that for me some time, hugs ya’ in the prettiest places.”

“The perfume, darling.” You remind him, and he clicks his tongue.

“Keep callin’ me that sweetheart, and you won’t remember either.” He smiles when you glance at him, arms crossed over his broad chest. The relaxed posture shows off his arms well, his sleeves wrapped tight around his thick biceps. Temptation in a man. You have to stop letting him in when you’re trying to work.

“Why are you asking about my perfume?” You redirect the conversation. You doubt Price has suddenly taken an interest in aromachology, and you doubt he’s looking to buy you a gift considering all his are magic related.

“I want you to wear it tonight,” He replies plainly.

“Are we doing something tonight?” You don’t think you’ve forgotten anything. No date night on your calendar for tonight, no holiday or witches gathering.

“I’m goin’ to fuck you.”

Your potion explodes. You cough and sputter against the smoke, the pink dazzle of failed intentions attempting to choke you as your entire body bursts with heat. Price snaps his fingers and the smoke is sucked out your garden door like a vacuum.The mixture is still bubbling in your pot, though now it simmers at a nice vibrant red. A love potion instead of a protection potion. You’ll have to start over.

“That’s hardly romantic,” You tell Price, because you have no idea how to respond in a way that doesn’t scream “I’m a virgin.” Price spins you to face him, silent in his movements, and draws up the apron around your waist to wipe off your face. You’re sure you’re a sight, covered in pink and barely able to look at him.

“I’m givin’ you time to say no,” He explains, patiently. You take your apron from him and finish scrubbing your cheeks.

“I can’t say no during?” You joke. Price settles his hand on the counter behind you and leans close.

“You can, but you won’t want to.” Another burst of heat courses through you at how serious he sounds. You swat him away to clean up your potion. You don’t think you’ll be able to get any magic done today.

Price monopolizes your day. Monopolizes your thoughts anyway. You can’t concentrate on any of your spells, your workspace tainted with him. He drips into every corner of your home, his smoke filling the cracks and crevices. You’ll have to cleanse the whole space the next time you want to do anything.

He’s quiet too, which is the worst part. It makes you nervous, like he might be rethinking. Yet each time you turn to look at him he’s staring at you, his eyes warm and full of open affection. You can’t look at him for long, and you always turn away with your cheeks burning. The way he looks at you, like you’re the missing piece he’s been looking for…

“You’re staring,” You tell him, after dinner, you mean it to be chastising.

“Am I?”

“It’s distracting.”

“Do you want me to stop?” He almost could pass as concerned, if it weren’t for the crooked smile, the slight smirk that says he wouldn’t even if you asked. Truthfully you don’t want him to stop, you like the way he looks at you.

“When are we going to-” You wave a hand, feigning nonchalance. He catches it and kisses your knuckles.

“Whenever you want,” He smiles more genuinely, his eyes crinkling at the edges, “Just say the word sweetheart.”

You shed your skirt on the way into the bedroom, his fingers tug down the zipper as you walk, and you’re more than happy just stepping out of it. Happier still when Price hauls you up and drops you on the bed. He crawls over you and you cup his face to kiss him. Each slick slide of his lips against yours makes heat pool in your stomach, something warm and anticipatory taking hold as he breaks away to slide down your body.

Price kisses your stomach, laves his tongue against the soft skin and sucks appreciatively. His beard tickles, and you squirm without meaning to. He explores the exposed skin with his mouth, his hands sliding your shirt up to give himself more room. There’s something reverent in the way he moves you, helps you tug your jumper off and smooths his rough hands over you. His hands knead your breasts through your bra, kissing them where they push against the fabric. His eyes meet yours as he does, and you bite down a smile.

“Take it off,” he orders, sitting back to give you room. You sit up and fiddle with the hooks in the back while he strips his shirt off. You get a little distracted by the broad well muscled expanse of his chest, the dark hair. He pushes you back down against the bed, a finger hooked in the front of your bra to pull it off as you fall. He’s rather good at this, you think before he’s kissing you again. His hands cup your breasts, thumbs rolling over your nipples. You press into his hold, feel his tongue slide against your lips, and open your mouth to suck on it. He pushes his hips against yours, the fabric of his pants making you feel all the more naked under him.

You want to feel him, really feel him.

His hand disappears, fabric rustles and Price lets out a breath. You glance down to see he’s taken his pants off, his hard cock standing proud against the swirls of hair that trail up his stomach. You snap your eyes back to his face, and his brows raise.

“See somethin’ you like?” He smiles, and you shrink down against the bed. Very much so, but you don’t want to stare. “Plenty of time for that later,” He tells you, “For now-” He sits back, tugs your panties down. He follows their journey down one leg, kissing your thigh, knee, your ankle, until he can toss them to the floor. Then his attention falls heavily onto you.

He presses your hips more firmly against the bed, holds them hard enough to bruise, and you watch the rise and fall of his chest as he stares between your legs. The usual ice of his eyes has been swallowed by the deep hungry black of his pupils. It makes you squirm to be under such a heady inspection. His brows twitch, his head tips, the slight movement making you twist your fingers in the bed sheets.

"Fuck," he groans, before snarling, "fuck." He falls into you, his hands gripping your thighs and pulling them up over his shoulders as he buries his face against your cunt. His tongue licks a broad stripe over you and you jerk against his hold, a nervous giggle falling unbidden from your lips. You've never done this before but you probably shouldn't be laughing.

"Wait, Price," you try, your fingers shake as you press them against his hairline, threading them through the short brown strands. He growls, glares at you, like a dog trying to protect its bone. Your breath hitches.

His tongue prods at your clit, rolling over it with firm strokes. It's wet, warm, and well practiced. It sparks in your stomach, making it jump as you shiver and tighten your grip on his hair. His fingers only hold you more firmly, anticipating every squirming movement of your hips as his tongue wiggles against you. You whine, press the back of your free hand against your lips and try to stifle the noises he draws from you. Though he doesn't seem to be doing the same.

Every low groan and slurp at your leaking cunt sends another shock of heat through you. You whimper when he sucks at your clit and he responds in kind.

"Good girl sweethear', taste so fuckin' good." Your cheeks burn, at the gravel in his voice. Your head feels hot and your body feels tight. His tongue presses into you, licks over you, like he's starving for it. He laughs when you buck your hips against his mouth, a deep throaty chuckle that doesn't help the heat in your face, "Knew you'd squirm."

You swallow, press your hand a little more firmly to your lips. Price lifts his head enough to let you watch his tongue flick against your clit, his eyes trained on the jump of your stomach, all the soft parts of you he likes best, absolutely burning for him. "Squirm for me baby," he tells you, amusement clear in his voice, "show me how much you like it."

You twist in his hold when he lowers his mouth back down to suck on your clit. You try to, at least. He's strong enough to keep you in place, almost like you hadn't moved at all. It's cruel really. You try a different approach, grinding your hips with the movement of his tongue. He allows it, guides your hips with firm hands, his nose grinding against your clit as his tongue presses into you.

You whine, short and high, your fingers tugging at his hair as you arch your back. Everything feels so tight between your legs, so slick and warm. Price’s tongue twists against your cunt, pushes in and out of you in a maddening dance. He presses sucking kisses to your folds, lapping up every drop of your slick with deep satisfied groans.

“God,” He growls against your cunt, drunk on you, “could eat you whole-” He hums, and you squirm as the sound vibrates around your clit, “-doing so good for me.” You nod, every inch of you blazing, you’re sure you must be a sight for him. “So good,” He mumbles. He sucks at your clit, the pressure tugging at the swollen nub released only to be started all over again. One of his thick fingers presses into you and your breath hitches.

“Price,” You tug at his hair to get his attention, your hips raising with tense tingly pleasure as he curls his finger against your gooey walls. He strokes inside your cunt firm and delicate, hardly listening to you. Your legs shake, on either side of his head.

“You gonna cum sweetheart?” The low timber of his voice makes goosebumps rush over you. You nod, mutely, and he wiggles a second finger in beside the first. “I know,” he coos, “I know baby, can feel it.” His fingers pump in and out of you, hitting something that makes your stomach jump and clench. “Go on,” He tells you, “cum on my tongue, give it to me, hard as you can.”

The tight heat breaks into desperate trembling, your stomach jumping as you squeeze his head between your thighs and try to wriggle away from the constant rolling pleasure of his tongue. You moan, rock your hips against his mouth, squeezing and pulling him as close as you can. Fuck do you want to get away or stay like this? You don’t know. It’s too much and not enough. You can feel your body fluttering, clenching on his fingers greedily. Price’s groans are desperate, hungry, indulgent, his eyes hot as they watch you fall apart.

Your cunt sucks at his fingers, trying to draw them in further, clench on them tighter. He keeps stroking that soft spot inside of you as his tongue laps up the slick that pools around them. His mouth is sinful, sweet torture that doesn’t stop even after you’ve cum. His beard scratches your thighs, smears your wetness over them as he kisses the soft skin. His fingers don’t leave you, even when his mouth does, they keep stretching you out, toying with your cunt. You shake and shiver for him, unsure what to do with yourself as he watches you.

“Could drive a man mad, lookin’ at ‘im like that,” He tells you, kissing your bent knee. You tug at the blankets, press your hips down against his fingers. Price hums, thinking, his eyes rake over you as he leans close. “Stick out your tongue baby,” He murmurs, and you do without fuss. You open your mouth and stick your tongue out, closing your eyes when his tongue presses against it, licking over the wet muscle with firm strokes before sucking it into his mouth. You do your best to keep up. The way he kisses you, dips his tongue into your open mouth, feels dirty, makes your head spin.

You whine against his lips when his thumb rubs against your clit. The calloused digit pressing firm against your sensitive bud, as he pulls back to watch his spit drip into your mouth. You swallow it all too eagerly, and pant against his lips. You grip his shoulders as he dips down to suck at your neck, your voice soft and high, pleading, in his ear. You need something to hold onto as he sparks pleasure up your spine. You’re just starting to shake again when he pulls his fingers from your dripping cunt.

You grab for his wrist to put it back, you’re warm and throbbing, and you’re so close. He just stares at you, chuckles a little when he grabs your wrist and brings it to his lips. Price sits back, holds your hand with slick soaked fingers, and grabs his cock around the base. You suck in a breath at the size of it. It looks so long and thick, is that really going to fit inside of you? Did he stretch you enough?

“Look at that, mm,” Price sighs, rubbing the tip of his cock through your wet folds, “pretty little pussy.” He feels bigger than he looks, the head of his cock just catching at your entrance with each stroke. It bumps against your clit, mixing pre-cum with your slick. You watch him move, watch the way his cock drools against you, with libidinous eyes. You chew on the inside of your cheek, raising your hips to try and convince him to fuck you already. He hums, his smile, his eyes flicking to meet yours, all too hot for a man from Winter.

“Beg for it,” He tells you, “You want this cock, I wanna hear you beg.”

You want to, you want to beg so badly, but you feel like all the words have left you feeling him twitch against you. You let out a shaky breath and give him the only word you have left. “Please,” you shudder, “Please, plea-”

He presses against your entrance, the fat head of his cock slipping inside, and you gasp. Price murmurs something to you that you don’t catch, too focused on the roll of his hips as he eases his cock into you. Your eyes roll a little, breath uneven as his girthy cock stretches you out. The burn of it is sinful, absolute bliss, and you feel yourself run a little hotter with each thick inch. There’s so much of him, and you’re so full already.

He stops, his breaths ragged, releases your hand to grip the backs of your thighs and press them up against your chest. The new angle forces Price’s cock deeper, letting the veins of it drag against that squishy soft spot in you. You squeak, and he shushes you. “Needed a better-” Price groans, “fuck sweetheart, you’re so tight, such a good girl.” He eases another inch into you, you try to raise your hips and find yourself pinned under his weight. “Just a bit more baby,” He drags his lips against your gasping mouth, “you can take it, know you can.”

You don’t know if that’s true, when his hips finally settle against your ass you’re shaking with the effort of keeping still for him. He lets out a sigh, smoke dripping down over you, filling your lungs the way his cock fills your cunt. It makes you a little dizzy, dizzy enough you don’t notice he’s pulling out until he snaps his hips and fills you again in one clean motion. Then that’s all you feel.

The maddening drag of his cock against your gummy walls, all slick friction and heat that pulses through you, makes you gasp and whine. Pretty sounds just for him, just for the way his hips smack against you. He hits some impossibly deep part of you, and doesn’t stop hitting it. Each thrust winds you tighter and tighter, makes you clench and drip around his cock.

He releases his hold on your legs, lets you wrap them around his waist as he settles comfortably over you. His lips drag along your jaw, the scratch of his beard making you tip your head. He’s so warm, or maybe he’s reflecting your own heat back to you. Either way you feel wrapped up in him. His smoke, his mouth, his cock. Fuck, his cock.

"Be a good girl and play with that clit, rub it real nice for me," Price mumbles, you whine and reach between you to rub yourself, "there you go sweetheart, clenchin' on me so well." You can feel him thrusting into you like this, grazing your fingers against his cock as you rub tight circles. Everything is hot and wet. Your stomach clenches as he pushes in deep. Each drag of his thick cock is a delicious build on the already tight heat coiling in you.

"I- mm," You squeeze your eyes shut, tip your head back as your back arches. You've never felt anything this good.

"No, no, eyes open sweetheart," He coaxes, his hands hold your face, tip your head forward, "Want you to look at me."

You don't want to, it feels easier to keep them closed, but you want to be good for him. Every time he praises you it feels like your skin gets a little hotter, and it's so- you always thought you were good at taking compliments, but the way he says them, so low and filthy, makes you want to stutter like a nervous little girl. He doesn't stop fucking you, but he does slow down, gives you a small reprieve to open your eyes in. When you do, you're immediately treated to his smile.

"Don't look away, unless you're looking at-" he tips your head forwards so you can look between you at where his cock pushes into you, "-that." He groans as your breath hitches, eyes fixed on the fluid motion of his hips. You clench around the stretch of his thick cock. You can see the dark curls at the base wet with your slick, the muscles of his thighs moving, the bruises he's left on your hips.

Your legs curl towards your chest again, shaking, the feeling of his cock pounding into you suddenly too much all at once. You bite your lip to keep quiet, as your orgasm breaks over you. Wet heat slapping slick noise to the pump of Price's cock, and snapping over your spine as you arch your back. You've trained yourself so well you don't even notice you're biting down your moans.

"Speak," Price commands and you can't help the tumble of noise that falls from you as your mouth opens. Soft swears and pleas and his name like a prayer, over and over. He groans, catches your desperate mouth with his own and fucks you. His full balls knock against your ass as his hips piston into you.

"Price, God, Price," you whimper, clawing at his back. His cock hits you so deep at this angle, your toes pointing as he keeps you full of him.

"John," he whispers, kissing into your vernacular. John. You breathe his name in. You knew it. John the conqueror, the morning's glory, the Highest exalted, remover of obstacles, dominator of will. Yours to be known.

"John," you sigh. Yours to keep, but never use. A shiver racks through him, you wonder how many times in his long life he's heard his name. He puts himself in your hands without asking for the same in return, but you want to give it to him. You want his admission to mean something. You whisper your name between kisses, feel the twitch of his cock as he rolls his hips against yours, the stutter in his breath. You love him, you love him, you love him.

It's real and terrifying and it strings between you so heavily you can't ignore it. He says your name, whispers it, and it’s like you’ve never heard it before. You shake, shiver with sensitivity as you feel hot cum flood your cunt. Price’s hips don’t stop, fucking his thick seed deep into you with a low groan. Fuck you could cum again just feeling him wiggle his hips against your poor cunt, like he’s trying to make sure it all stays in.

He sighs, more smoke pouring from his lips before he can kiss you. Sweeter this time, but no cleaner. You push your tongue against his, arching your back to press up into his chest, feel the click of your teeth when you press a little too close. Desperate, you’re so desperate for him. How could you ever not be? You could go again, you want to go again. He chuckles against your lips, and you do your best to swallow the sound.

“Easy,” He tells you, the low timber of his voice rumbling through you, “we’ve got all night.”

You wake up heavy and warm. There’s a pleasant ache low in your back, and an arm slung over you. You close your eyes against the sunlight streaming in the window, and cuddle back against Price, put yourself in his hold without fear. There’s a weight in your chest that feels too important to touch, so you don’t. You can feel it though, as clearly as you feel Price stir behind you, feel him hook his leg over yours. It’s natural the way you fit together.

You wiggle, turn to face him. He doesn’t open his eyes, just waves his hand to make the curtains close and lets you cuddle close. You kiss his chest, listening to his heartbeat. You gave him your name, and you’re still here. Still breathing, still laying here with him. Easy as anything. This is real, you think, he’s real. He’s not going anywhere, he’s not using you for anything, he wanted this to mean something. It does mean something. He means something to you, something you didn’t have a word for until now. Funny how sex makes things so much clearer.

“I love you,” you whisper to him, sure he’s still sleeping.

“Marry me,” He whispers back, like he’d been hoping you’d say something.

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da-birb-writes-sometimes · 9 months

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How You Turn My World; Chapter 1

Your day started with chaos, and my dear, it looks like it will continue to be chaos. But only time will tell. The Underground holds many surprises in store for you.

Characters; Grim, Lilia Vanrouge, Deuce Spade, Ace Trappola

Content; Gender-neutral reader, cat shenanigans, building the plot

Content Warnings; Swearing, illusion to marijuana but there is none

Word Count; 4.6 K

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 |

Don't put my work into AI; I'll make sure you go to the Underground and don't return. Mwah mwah, kisses~

Ah, the joys of cat parenthood. Days spent cuddling your little bundle of furry joy. That’s what your friends preached. That having a feline roommate was easy and rewarding. That you would benefit by having a cute and fuzzy companion that didn’t demand much of anything. That you would love your little kitty friend like a child. Well, either your friends were liars with questionable senses of humour, or you drew the short stick when it came to choosing a furry companion. And there’s always the possibility of it being both, what with having Ace as a friend and all, but you just hoped it was just your shit luck and not that you had shit friends.

Seriously, though, what higher power did you manage to piss off to deserve the royal hobgoblin of a cat you have? He has shit and pissed in your plants on several occasions. Demolished every single curtain he laid eyes on like he had a personal vendetta against them. Stole your breakfast off your plate right as you were about to take a bite. Puked on your last pair of good white shoes, which still had stains on them because they wouldn’t come out. The cherry on top of it all though was that he insists on yowling and crying in the middle of the damn night for no good reason. Rudely awaking you from the dead of sleep because he demanded attention. With how loud he was, you were surprised that you hadn’t gotten a noise complaint from any of your neighbours… yet. But then again, you could hear the upstairs neighbours’ children screaming bloody murder every so often — what were their names, the Clovers? They were probably so used to it that they threw you a bone, or they didn’t want extra grey hairs from filing a complaint to the landlord. So maybe Grim wasn’t all that bad, but he was still a gremlin child.

“MROWWWWWW!!!!!” Ah, so tonight was no different then. Grim had decided that you needed to be woken up before even the birds started to sing, needed to be yanked out of the land of dreams. That whatever had caught the attention of his singular brain cell was more important than you recharging so you don’t accidentally say the wrong thing to your boss. Since last time you had slipped up and called him dad, even though no one in their right mind would leave him alone with a rutabaga unattended, and he went on a two-hour long monologue about how much of a kind and generous person he was for you to see him as a father figure. And your salary wasn’t high enough, nor would it ever be, to deal with his eccentric and maddening behaviour.

Maybe, just maybe, if you ignored him and stared at the ceiling long enough he would stop his caterwauling and go to sleep. “MROWWWW!!!!!” Apparently not.

Just one night, ONE NIGHT, of peace and quiet. PLEASE. But you knew that if you didn’t get up soon, he would get up on the bed and put his fluffy butt in your face… like he did last night and the night before that. Sighing, you begrudgingly got out of your cocoon of warm, fluffy, blankets, and hoped you would soon be back in them after dealing with Grim. Hopefully, he was just complaining about his food bowl not being as full as he would like it.

What was the time anyways? Three-thirty in the morning? Ugh, Grim! What did Ace say about it, ah, yes, “Primetime witching hour. Demons and all sorts of creepies” yada yada yada. But you didn’t pay any mind to him, as his annoying smug look would taunt you in your mind even though he was probably sound asleep, blissfully asleep. Something that you wanted to be doing, but woefully you were not.

Stepping out into the main living space, you shot the grey fuzzball the stink eye. “What the hell do you want? You absolute gremlin!” You hissed through gritted teeth, very much annoyed with your brat of a fur child and wanting nothing more than to crawl back to bed, hell, even the loveseat would suffice.

The offending feline just trilled at you in response, and his tail vibrated, happy that you had come out to see him. How is he so cute but so annoying? He rubbed against your legs before trotting off to one of his hidey holes, which also served as his nest of your stolen socks. He has a weird obsession with socks. But he popped back out, holding something in his mouth. Something small and fuzzy that didn’t look like any of his toys.

“Prowwww,” he dropped it at your feet as if saying that catching whatever it was, was the equivalent to paying his share of rent. Which, it was very much not.

You closed your eyes and pinched your brow. Please be one of his toys. PLEASE be one of his toys. You chanted to yourself in your mind and then opened your eyes. Unfortunately, it was not one of his toys. The small, fuzzy thing in question seemed to be a mouse or some other kind of rodent. It was too late (too early?) for this, and quite frankly you didn’t have the brain power to confirm whatever the hell it was. All you knew was that it looked like a mouse, therefore it was a mouse.

“Is this what you’ve been screaming about this whole time? A mouse,” you sighed. Shaking your head, you went to the bathroom, grabbing some paper towel so you could at least put it outside for something else to eat, or go back to nature in some other way. It was better than just being left to decompose in the communal garbage bin. When you came back out though, it was nowhere to be seen. Now, either Grim decided to eat it like a good kitty cat, or, with your luck, it was still alive and was now running amuck in your apartment.

Grim’s chattering was coming from the kitchen now, and he was up on top of the fridge. It was running amuck in your apartment, how lovely.

“Why, why, are you like this?! Get down from there!” You really didn’t have the energy for this.

Grim just blinked at you before his eyes dilated. He leapt down from his perch on the fridge and was pawing at a corner by the window. Looking down and you couldn’t make out anything on the floor. But you had the oh-so-brilliant idea to look up toward the ceiling. The ‘mouse’ was very much alive, and wasn’t a mouse at all, since it was flying around and banging itself against the corner.

“YOU CAUGHT A FUCKING BAT?!”

He had indeed caught a fucking bat. And bats were normally fine, when they were outside. Not when they’re flying around your apartment at three o’clock in the morning and your cat is losing his goddamn mind trying to catch it. So no, this was very much not fine.

The bat was about as pleased as you were with this whole situation and kept on flinging itself against the glass of the window, desperately trying to get back outside. How the hell did it get inside in the first place? That could be pondered on upon at a later time, as the first priority was getting it back outside.

“Don’t fly towards my head, bat. I’m just trying to get you back outside. You’re a nice bat, right? Nice bat, nice bat,” you whispered in a non-threatening tone. Could the flying mammal understand what you were saying? Mostly likely not. Hopefully it understood that you, unlike your cat, were trying to help and did not want some fresh bat as your late night snack tonight.

After what felt like forever fuddling with the window to open with a broom in hand, just in case the bat decided to dive bomb your head, you finally got the cursed thing open.

Grabbing Grim, who was still trying to catch the bat for a second time tonight, you got back to your bedroom and locked the door shut. You hoped that the bat would take the hint that it now had a path to freedom, but only time, and a bit of sleep, would tell. Slumping against the door frame, you sighed and looked over at Grim. He was playing with the door stop, the boing, boingg, boinggg sounds filling in the quiet. Whether it was to amuse himself, or to annoy you was a fifty-fifty bet.

Just as you were about to crawl back under the covers a string of anxiety connected in your head. Shit, did Grim get bit? DAMMIT GRIM! After leaving a somewhat desperate and tired call to your vet’s voicemail, alongside an apology for the late call (early call?), you peeked outside to see if the bat was still flying around. According to Google, the bat should be tested for rabies. You did not trust your no brain cell having fluff ball to know better than to get bit by a possibly rabid bat. But it was gone, so yet again, you were out of luck.

You had enough with today, even though it had just really begun. Pulling up the covers, you sighed in the dark warmth of your blanket cocoon. Grim was busying himself by trying to pounce on your feet, but you ignored him, falling back to sleep and hoping that the rest of your day wouldn’t bring any more shenanigans, migraines, or small flying mammals.

…

By some miracle, you managed to get Grim to the vet the very same day. Your boss agreed to let you work from home because he is ever so kind and generous… It did help that one of the other higher-ups nearly nagged off his ear upon hearing about the condition of your cat. Even through the phone you could hear it, and could only imagine the spectacle it must have been. Oh well, you had the day off and that is what mattered… but you would be lying if you said that you didn’t cough out a laugh just imagining the scene on the other side of the phone.

You were relieved, Grim on the other hand was not having it. To be fair, you did trick him into his crate with some tuna. He made his disdain known to all though by crying the entire way there. You almost felt bad for him, almost being the key word.

“You have no one to blame for this but yourself, ya know.” You huffed at him, feeling your shit sleep all too well. “Crying about it won’t help you any.”

Grim let out a pathetic little mew. His little, bright, blue eyes being the only visible part of him, which peered out miserably from the crate. Caving to the kitty manipulation, you poked your finger in as a peace offering. Grim booped his nose to your finger and then proceeded to nibble on it; such a vicious beast.

The vet visit went as well as you could hope it could, as Grim only tried to maim the vet a few times. Hey, it was an improvement from last time, as he had actually peed on them. So yes, trying to maim was vastly better than seeing your figurative child pee on the doctor. You’re pretty sure your vet didn’t go through years of schooling and thousands of dollars into debt just to get peed on by your unruly cat. But Grim was won over by the offering of that cat gogurt, his nose and stomach betraying him. Note to self, stock up on some of that stuff.

The rest of the visit went on without a hitch; he had some blood drawn, got his booster shot for rabies, and even managed to squeeze in a bonus nail trim. There was no evidence of any bite or puncture marks, so Grim by some miracle, did indeed have enough brain cells not to get bit.

“Grim will have to be watched for about forty-five days,” the vet hummed, checking Grim’s chart. “Since you don’t have any other animals it shouldn’t be too difficult to keep him in quarantine. If you see any symptoms be sure to bring him back, just in case.” They gave you a tired smile, and then turned that smile towards their cantankerous patient. “And thank you for deciding not to pee on me this time, Grim. I’m not so bad, see?”

Grim swatted at them, which was his answer to the vet’s question. In Grim’s book, the vet was that bad.

Ignoring his attitude, as you would whenever you came across a screaming toddler and exhausted parent while doing your grocery run, you turned back to your vet. “Thank you, and sorry for Grim. If it makes you feel any better, he’s just as much as a gremlin child at home as well.” At least today went better than last time.

The vet chuckled goodheartedly, “Don’t worry about it, I have more unruly patients than little Grim here.”

Damn, they have seen some shit, haven’t they? … Maybe I should, I don’t know, bring them a gift basket next time I’m in? Or maybe a gift card for a spa day or something??? You should really get them something for the amount of dry cleaning they probably needed to do.

With the visit over, and Grim having a clear bill of health, you shoved him back into his carrier with zero decorum, closing the door as fast as possible before he could escape and try to hide behind the counter like he did last time. I know your tricks, cat. Speaking of bills, the one that was waiting for you at the front desk was enough for you to point an icy glare at your unruly ward.

“You’re lucky that I love you, asshole.” And much like the vet you too got a swat as your thank you. Wonder if this is what the Clovers feel about their children? At least their kids didn’t wake them up in the middle of the night with a bat they caught… You shook your head, moving past those thoughts, and hauled your wailing cat back home.

…

...

By the time you got back to your place, it was just a little past noon. The rest of your day was wide open, and you didn’t really have anything else to do, since taking Grim to the vet was the most urgent of your tasks. Your place could benefit from some tidying, since your boss had recently been demanding more as of late and has been even less useful than he usually was… which was saying something. Seriously, how does he have his position? It was baffling. You swore you could hear his monologue playing on loop in your head whenever you thought of the man, which you tried to keep to a minimum for your own sanity… whatever little of it still remained that is.

Shaking your head to rid the annoying voice, you put on your favourite playlist and got to work. You took your time, putting away the dishes, vacuumed the main room, and even got rid of the dust on the high shelves. But your place was small, so it didn’t take very long for you to tidy up, and deep cleaning could wait for another day when you had enough energy to mentally and physically deal with that undertaking.

You knew that your email probably had a few messages, but it could wait. You weren’t on the clock and therefore didn’t have to check it. Only do the stuff you’re required to do when you get paid, it makes your downtime way more enjoyable.

But, you were bored. The cleaning helped with it, but with the majority of it done and the more intense stuff waiting for another day, you had nothing else to do. And while doom scrolling through social media may fill in the time, it too, was boring, predictable.

… There were two people though who were the exact opposite of boring and predictable. And yes, they did give you your fair share of migraines and questioning your life decisions more than you usually do, they were your best friends. And you were in need of having a movie night with them.

Opening up the group chat, you typed in a message.

| The Responsible One | You guys down for a movie night at my place tonight?

And almost immediately, Ace replied.

| Ginger, derogatory | depends | ya got fiid?

Deuce responded shortly after.

|The Responsible One | How does 6 sound?

| Mama’s Boi | 6 works for me

| The Responsible One | I took a screenshot of that btw love you Ace | Thanks Deuce for actually giving me an answer. | What FIID do you guys want?

| Ginger, derogatory | FUCK YOU | … but yeah 6 works 4 me | any is cool with me

| The Responsible One | Yes yes, fuck you too Ace | Bring your own snacks it is then | See you guys at 6!

That gave you about ninety minutes to hide your good snacks, since the last time, Ace had made himself too comfortable and ate all your fancy treats that you paid way too much for. But like they say, you deserve to ‘treat yoself’ … Ace still owed you for those snacks though. They were fucking expensive, prick.

…

Ninety minutes didn’t take very long, but you managed to hide some of the mess that you hadn’t tackled in your bedroom; it could stand to wait. And the first of your dork friends arrived right on time, count on Deuce trying to be punctual… even if he was panting like he had run a marathon to make it.

“You know,” you sighed, “you didn’t have to sprint here.” You grabbed a glass, filled it with some ice water, and handed it over to your flushed and heaving friend. Please don’t pass out on me. “It’s not a race.”

Deuce took the glass and downed it, still catching his breath. He lifted up the tote bag he was carrying, “Mom made brownies.” A series of coughs escaped him, but he gave you a bashful smile and showed off the multiple Tupperware containers filled to the brim with still warm chocolatey divineness. “Didn’t want them to get cold! Oh! She also made extra for you too!”

He is such a sweetheart… but he’s also pretty dense at times, still a sweetie though. You could have just warmed them back up in the microwave — yes, they weren’t the same as fresh from the oven, but still — you didn’t have the heart to tell Deuce that though. He looked so proud that he made it on time and that the brownies were still warm. What did you do to deserve Deuce as a friend?

“Also,” he fished around the tote bag, “I brought extra popcorn, since we ate all of yours last time.” And he pulled out an unopened bag of popcorn, the bashful smile turning bright.

Deuce took a step forward, but stopped and backpedalled, taking off his shoes. After he set them neatly by the door, he made his way to the kitchen, and set all of his assorted belongings on the meagre counter space. Once he unloaded the tasty cargo, he made his way over to your loveseat, which had seen better days, and sat down, getting comfortable.

He was looking at you, and there was a little crease in between his eyebrows. Deuce only wore that look when he was worried. “Are you feeling okay? You seem a bit… off.”

You gave him a tired smile, “Meh. Tired, stressed, not enough money. You know, the usual.” You noticed that his frown was only deepening, so you took a seat next to him and patted his shoulder. “Seriously, Deuce, I’m okay. Plus you got enough on your own plate without worrying about me. I’m going to be fine.”

Deuce pursed his lips, but let out a long sigh, accepting your answer without much fuss. You were capable of dealing with whatever it was, he knew that. You were one of the most capable, and stubborn, people that he knew. You would be fine in the end. “Whose turn is it to pick the movie this time?” He asked, stretching out, trying not to bump into you.

“Hmm, your turn actually,” you hummed. “But–”

Bzz! Bzzz! BZZZ! Someone was buzzing your door, repeatedly pushing at the button. Only one person you know did that. BZZZZZZZZ! And he wouldn’t let up until you answered the door.

Groaning, you got out of your spot and peaked through the peephole. On the other side was none other than Ace, who’s leg was bouncing and he kept on pushing your damn buzzer.

You only opened the door when he decided to lean on it, making him almost fall… almost. Maybe next time would be the day where you would see him eat dirt. “Happy you could join us on this lovely evening,” you drawl, doing a little bow.

Ace rolled his eyes at you, “Seriously? Feeling petty tonight I see.” He too took off his shoes, since the last time he wore them in and tracked in mud from outside, you made him clean it up. He learned his lesson that day, and really didn’t feel like cleaning your floor again.

You smiled at him, “Yeah, yeah I am~” You dropped the smile and went back to your comfy spot beside Deuce. “Also,” you turned around right as Ace was about to plunder your fridge. You glared at him, and he backed off, giving you a sheepish look. “Don’t even think about stealing my food, there’s popcorn and you have food at your home. Unless you want to start paying for my groceries, stick to what’s on the counter.”

Closing the fridge, Ace busied himself by making himself some popcorn, and sneaking a brownie or two in his mouth as he waited for the microwave to finish making his treat. While he was busy in the kitchen, you and Deuce were slowly going through the seemingly endless catalogue of movies.

“What are we even watching tonight? There’s no special occasion,” Ace mused, sitting on the counter, swinging his legs back and forth. “Action? Horror? Sci-fi? Perhaps,” he paused and made a kissy face, “romance?~”

You stared at him, until he dropped the kissy face. “Never do that again,” you deadpanned, turning back to the screen. “Found something?”

Deuce was hovering over a title, Labyrinth. “Can we watch this? Mom said it was one of her favourites when she was a kid.”

Ace plopped into the armchair, and started chowing down on his fresh popcorn. “Dude, your mom probs just had the hots for, uhhh, Jared? Or whatever his name is.”

You threw a pillow at him, but missed unfortunately, and Ace flipped you off. “First off, Ace, his name is Jareth not Jared. And yeah, we can watch it,” you said, stretching back and getting into prime comfortable blob position. Oh yeah, you weren’t getting back up.

Once Deuce got up and brought some snacks back in, you started the movie. And damn, these brownies are divine. You really needed to ask Ms. Spade for her recipe. The popcorn was decent, overall meh, but the brownies! THE BROWNIES!!!

You all settled down after being rationed your snacks, and you pressed play. Ace and Deuce both nearly choked on popcorn when Jareth appeared.

“WHY ARE HIS PANTS SO TIGHT?!” They both choked in unison.

You just rolled your eyes and ignored them, trying to focus on the movie. Other than you nearly having to do the Heimlich manoeuvre on the both of them, the movie continued without incident, until a certain gremlin decided to start crying right as Magic Dance began playing. Seriously Grim, must you choose the most inopportune time to act like Toby does in the movie? But that’s life with a cat.

You paused the movie and looked at Deuce. You were in prime comfortable blob mode, you weren’t getting up. Deuce patted you on the shoulder and went to go see what on Earth Grim was screaming about. Ace just continued to scarf back brownies, thank goodness you hid some away before he got here, or else you wouldn’t have any come tomorrow.

But Deuce came running back out of your room, since that was where Grim was. And you were about to question why he looked like he’d just seen a ghost when something blurred right past him; something small, fuzzy, and flying.

The damn bat is back?! Yeah, you definitely felt like you were cursed.

Now, you could either get up and deal with the bat, since Deuce was just trying to shoo it outside the window with a mop and Ace was screaming much like Grim was, or you could stay warm and comfy and hide under the blanket, pretending that this wasn’t your waking reality…

Option B was really tempting right now, to be honest. Sighing, you got up, massaged your temples to collect yourself, before arming yourself with a broom yet again. Grim has his rabies vaccine, you don’t, so you weren’t taking any chances.

“WHY IS THERE A BAT IN YOUR APARTMENT?!” Ace hissed, ducking as the bat swooped near him.

You opened the window right open, almost threatening to take it off its bearings, “Because the universe hates me, that’s why!” Was it dramatic? Yes. Did it contain a seed of truth? Yes. So that’s what you went with. Was it really an exaggeration though? In the past twenty-four hours it really felt like the universe was sending you a personal ‘Fuck You ♡ ' letter with a kiss mark on the envelope.

You and Deuce tried to work together as a team to coax the bat outside. Come on, the window is wide open. Come on bat, get your fuzzy ass out of my place.

All that was happening though, was some scene that belonged in a Three Stooges act. With Ace and Grim screeching — yes they counted as one collective unit — Deuce trying his best, but not getting anywhere, and you feeling like you were about to explode from the stress and noise. Even on an impromptu day off, you didn’t get a break, not really.

Getting whisked away by the Goblin King is looking real appealing right now. The bat swooped down close to you, and your instincts kicked in and you swung at it, making it crash land into your coffee table, right into the popcorn. And alongside the popcorn getting spilled everywhere, there was also a poof of green sparkles.

When the green sparkles subsided, there was a strange person with long black hair and red streaks, wearing something that looked straight out of a Ren Faire, and he was standing on your table. The strange man looked straight at you, and you looked back, blinking fast. Did Ms. Spade give us a different kind of brownie? Or is this actually happening?

He snapped his fingers, and you watched as he slowly disappeared into another poof of green sparkles. You were backing up, since hey there was a stranger in your place out of nowhere, but thanks to your shit luck, you tripped over your own feet, tumbling into them. And as the green poof subsided, both you, and the stranger, were nowhere to be seen. Leaving a very confused Ace, Deuce, and Grim to wonder what the hell happened to you.

And honestly? You were thinking the same. Where the FUCK am I?!

...

Tags; @busycloudy, @eynnwwyjth, @identity-theft-101, @ithseem, @krenenbaker, @ryker-writes, @twistwonderlanddevotee, @xxoomiii

~~~~~~~

Author's Note; And I'm finally showing this to the world, after months of collecting dust in my Google Docs. I have no idea how long this fic will go on for, and the length may be dictated by how much feedback and interaction this gets, so yeah. General rating for this is Teen but might change in the future; I won't tag people if that happens though, cuz, yeah.

If you enjoyed this story, and want to read more of my stuff while I slowly work on more installments to this fic, check out my masterlist! Please ignore any spelling mistakes, I write and die with no beta.

#twst #twst x gn reader #twst x reader #twisted wonderland #twisted wonderland x reader #twisted wonderland x gn reader #twst grim #lilia vanrouge #deuce spade #ace trappola #there will be more x reader stuff in future chapters #soooo #lilia vanrouge x reader #lilia vanrouge x gn reader #loosely inspired off of labyrinth and some other fae media; but very loosely #majority of this should be original with some tie ins from the movie #i wrote like 9 K in may for this idea and haven't touched it since; it took me like a week to rewrite this 4.6 K and i deleted some stuff #don't be precious; delete your art (from drawfee)#the length of this may be dictated from how much traction and interaction it gets #gilf enjoyers rejoice #twst labyrinth au #<- kinda but not really; we shall see #to clarrify; there is nothing in the brownies; the brownies are just run of the mill brownies #will be making a masterlist for this series; just so i don't break diasomnia's sooner than the others #there's also going to be a break in fic updates in october; but more on that later #btw everything grim did; my cats have done; the 'bat' was a mouse though and not lilia vanrouge from twisted wonderland #also labyrinth gave me nightmares as a child cuz i was terrified of puppets; and i had the same reaction as adeuce at his pants #first time posting a multi-chapter fic; let's see how this goes

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fatesundress · 1 year

Text

⭑ 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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myfirstandlast · 2 years

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made my first dnd character yesterday :DD

#until 4am lmfao! i have an interview a little later today #no but idec it was rlly fun #im rlly terrible at backstory composition tho it’s been a long time since i’ve been successfully creative #also having a hard time sort of visualising her in a solid way even tho i see her in my head the look is still a little amorphous #but it was still rlly fun ehehehe im going to share #bc it was totally out of the blue and now i’m part of a campaign with no experience just the Smallest bit of understanding #so we decided on a fey wanderer ranger hexblood named cerise carambola obsessed w that last name btw #who’s a sort of fruit person the backstory is still a little in the works i may change some aspects #but essentially she was born of an enchanted fruit tree belonging to a witch requiring many servants/handmaidens/waiting ladies/whatever we #call it which are mostly sourced around guava and peach as far as inspiration #and this is the kind of workshoppy part but somehow as a wee fruit she was separated from the group so origin unknown brethren unknown #and we kind of sillily (sillily?) made up that with the woodcarving trade she was taken in and raised by a caravan of woodworking gnomes LOL #so a bit of a travelling spirit who one day feels compelled to depart and equipped with her skills she leaves the caravan to seek out her #origin. bit of a laugh with that very elf movie aspect but i still like it for now while we develop it #she also does custom engravings! let her whittle on your weapon she can put a heart with mom inside of it #she’s got a two handed crossbow and her little fey token thing i don’t remember are the iron scissors because i just feel like she will one #day need to cut a thread and if it were me i would certainly want the tool for it #as far as looks all i’ve gotten up to so far is very pale sage skin with dark green and brown speckling around the sun spots shoulders elbow #knees etc some might resemble more fruit bruising than speckling #and before we even came up with who the character herself was i was always envisioning this long slim frame like a needle-like silhouette of #being slightly over-exaggerated. im flip-flopping between the needle look and the more curvaceous gourd look to go with the whole guava shsp #shape but all i have on my mind rn are those bustiers that give u big round cleavage cuz they’re pressing u flat LMAO i just love those #um i think that’s basically what we’ve got up to now it was rlly exciting and it was kind of fun being able to sorta lean into the mary sue #of it all since u can literally do be imagine anything and be able to incorporate it. i am especially excited about my syrupy nectary #translucent blood hope that gets to make an appearance #but uh yea! if im able to take on the job i have the interview for it’s gonna fill up my days pretty consistently so i hope this will be #able to fit in comfortably and we can have a fun time. i was kind of nervous abt what sort of party i’d play w for the first time but the #one im in seems like it’ll be pretty interesting tbh and i’m looking forward to seeing how everyone will react in our battles #im kind of expecting a fantasy high everybody dies in the club moment but it’ll still be funny LOL

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hillbillyoracle · 11 months

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I’m working on some beginner materials to put out...eventually. But I think my advice is pretty much summed up with:

give thanks/offerings to your ancestors - even if you didn’t like the ones you knew, I promise you’d like someone back there; doesn’t have to be daily but regularly and water counts

give thanks/offerings to the land - I don’t care where you are or if you like where you are, you’re only there because the land allows it; doesn’t have to be daily but regularly and water counts

pick a divination tool and use it - ideally pick 2; it’s very fashionable to study things in witchblr but expertise rests on a solid foundation of use; tarot, geomancy, dice, bibliomancy, and scrying are all great

pick a guiding philosophy/source of wisdom - a lot of paganism consists of practices which do not in of themselves guide how you should move through the world or make decisions; can be a philosophy, motto, or other religion

these are to me is what I’d consider the bare minimum but here’s the bonus round:

on each planet’s day, give thanks/offer to that planet - moon on monday, mars on tuesday, mercury on wednesday, jupiter on thursday, venus on friday, saturn on saturday, sun on sunday - water counts but they do love frankincense

track the moon - a lot of people are big into phases, I prefer tracking what sign she’s in; each month she will conjunct with every planet in the sky so tracking her a good way to stay aware of those influences

learn a method of cleansing self + space - fav instructions here; physical cleansing should always be a part of it if at all possible; smoke (incense, bound herbs), sound (clapping, snapping, singing, ringing), and energetic scraping are all good options

learn a method of warding self + space - go beyond visualization; witches bottle, salting, symbols of protection above a door, creating or appeasing a guarding spirit are all good options

learn a basic method of petition or spellcasting - a simple way to start is asking the spirits you’ve already been working with like your ancestors and the land and giving them a little extra back

decide on a small tradition for holidays - as you add in holidays, pick one small tradition to try to replicate next year; eating apples at Mabon, leaving an extra plate out at Samhain, lighting a candle on the stove for Imbolc, etc

doing these sorts of things for a year will honestly get you a lot further than most in my experience. these are a solid foundation from which to build in basically whatever direction you want. earnest practice beats passive theorizing and consumption any day.

#witchblr #witchcraft beginner #beginner advice

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miupow · 4 months

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Just Like Magic! | K. TH

“𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙝𝙚𝙖𝙧𝙩 𝙝𝙖𝙨 𝙞𝙩𝙨 𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙨𝙤𝙣𝙨 𝙬𝙝𝙞𝙘𝙝 𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙨𝙤𝙣 𝙠𝙣𝙤𝙬𝙨 𝙣𝙤𝙩.” -Blaise Pascal

❝You're a novice witch in love with her mentor, something frowned upon and taboo, especially when it comes to magick; but you just can't help it, Taehyun is simply too talented and handsome! you're content with admiring from afar... but when you get ahold of an ancient spellbook with a recipe for a curious potion, your curiosity takes over.❞

✦ PAIRING: warlock!kang taehyun x witch!fem!reader ✦ RATING: NSFW, MDNI! ✦ WORDS: 6.8k ✦ WARNINGS: smut, dom!taehyun, sub!reader, fantasy au, dubcon elements, aphrodisiacs, oral sex (f. and m. rec), vaginal sex, unprotected sex, dirty talk, wet dreams, f2?, power imbalance, powerplay, name calling, degradation kink, rough sex ✦ A/N: this is not proofread! inspired by an ask from @napofamoon~~ your brain is so huge and i love it so much, so happy to be mooties w you :3

taglist: @wintertxt , @boba-beom , @wolfytae-exe , @takemehye , @naomiarai , @mapofthemazeinthemirror , @bunnie-hq , @doumachi , @numxra , @soobinsbuns , @taegimood , @jeniihss , @soobabby , @hhoneylix , @beargyuuzz , @fullbodyblankets , @xenkimmie, @ttaesoob , @shinyngirl , @lxnoluvr , @blxxsss , @ode2soob, @beom-gyubears, @ashiixari, @lurking-coconut , @horanghaelovr , @yyeonzi , @paegesoobin , @nightlyhyuka, @i814hue, @f4iryfever

Taehyun had warned you that this witch was a bit of a hoarder, but nothing could have prepared you for the marvel that was her cottage; from the floor to the ceiling old and rickety bookcases flanked every possible open space, packed to the brim with every book you could have possibly thought of, accompanied by all sorts of trinkets, herbs and crystals-- your eyes scanned over the washed-out spines, fading ink hardly legible on most of them; A Hundred and One Ways To Use Fairy Dust. Potionmaking for the Hearth and Home. The Greater Area Magickal Beast Encyclopedia. Simple Charms For Everyday Life. "Hey, Taehyun, look at this!" you called over your shoulder, already anticipating your mentor's irritated sigh. "There's a book all about magical mushrooms, wouldn't that help us with this stupid assignment we're on--?"

You reach out for the battered green textbook but Taehyun's quick to slap your hand away, brow furrowed over his big brown eyes-- he was cute when he was angry, and you delighted in annoying him to his wit's end. "I said don’t touch anything; Don’t make me look like a fool when we're only here for ingredients. And we're here on the behalf of the Crown, thank you, nothing about this is stupid. You're being childish."

"He's made us travel half across the kingdom for a fancy cologne, essentially. I think it's a little silly." you retort under your breath. Taehyun turns away from you sharply with an angry huff, and you bite the inside of your cheek to keep yourself from grinning.

"It's a luck spell, not a cologne. Don't you want our Prince to succeed at his first banquet?"

"He just wants it for all of the girls that will be there," you laugh. "You and I both know this has nothing to do with his royal duties and everything to do with his flirting skills."

"And that's none of our business." Taehyun answers curtly, though the tick in his jaw shows you that you've struck a nerve-- your mentor had known the crown prince his entire life, grown up with him, and while he cared about him like a brother the Prince also never failed to irk him (and you) with the most outlandish requests. "We're just doing our jobs. Now stay here and keep your hands to yourself, understand? Don't go anywhere, don't touch anything, and I'll be back shortly. I just need to get these mushrooms from the herbalist."

“Why can’t I go with you?” You pout. “You always make me stay behind.”

“Just do as I say.” Taehyun snips, jaw clenching as he begins to walk away.

"Yes, sir." You reply, rolling your eyes at Taehyun's retreating head.

"Good girl," He replies over his shoulder, curt and clipped. An all-too-familiar heat rushes to your cheeks at his words. You used to hate it when he addressed you like that.

You hardly ever listened to what Taehyun told you anyway, so you were quick to continue browsing through the countless shelves once your mentor was out of sight-- you couldn't pass up an opportunity to surround yourselves with the things you loved most; spellbooks. After spending a childhood surrounded by those who hated the craft, your fearful family forbidding you from ever practicing the natural talents you had been born with… you couldn't get enough of reading anything you possibly could. Besides, Taehyun just adored leaving you behind like some squire, never including you in any of his duties– you had to learn for yourself one way or another.

You tip-toed your way through the winding labyrinth of bookshelves, eager fingers and eager eyes analyzing every tome, scanning any title that piqued your interest. It all seemed to be standard fare, however, things that you had read and studied before, so you left them unbothered on the shelves… except…

You had glanced right over it initially, gold title too weathered and faded to read, but its cracked leather cover kept calling to you as you continued down the shelves, making you turn around and walk back to its spot nestled in-between two much larger tomes. Dust stuck to the pad of your finger when you ran it down the book's spine, marveled at the purple cover-- most of the cottage's windows were covered up by all of the piled-on clutter inside, keeping everything veiled in comfortable shade, but cracks and beams of the bright, warm sunshine seeped through and caught the little book in the most mystifying shimmer. You'd never known leather to shine like that, like little crystals embedded into the fabric. Your curiosity gets the better of you; without much self restraint, you pull the small book down in a cloud of dust, tickling your lungs-- you resist the urge to cough the best you possibly could, lest you alert Taehyun or, Gods forbid, the owner of this cottage. You managed a strangled little wheeze instead.

You turn the book around in your hands, inspecting it's cover from all angles; there's nothing on the back, just smooth, purple-ish leather, and the writing on the spine is illegible, but the title is still bold and striking on the front. In careful, hand-written penmanship the words "Love Magick" were written, nothing else. No author's name, no description-- you should just put the book back and carry on, keep yourself out of trouble, but you just couldn’t help from cracking open the pages.

"What an interesting little spellbook you picked, that one." a withered old voice creeps from over your shoulder. "Wouldn't have been my first choice."

You yelp, fumbling, rushing to shove the book back on the shelf-- the old woman behind you laughs, bright and cheerful, and a spindly wrinkled hand comes to pat you on the shoulder.

"I'm so sorry, I didn't-- I mean, I wasn't--!"

"Oh, don't apologize now, dearie. Books were made to be read, after all." She snatches the little spellbook out of your hands, catching you off guard, and takes a hold of the small crystal bifocals that hang around her thin swan neck on a beaded chain. You gaze at her quizzically, taking in her odd appearance; several large gold rings adorn her crooked fingers, matching the gaudy bauble earrings hanging from her ears, so large they made her short, thin frame even frailer-- swathed in a shapeless, faded periwinkle dress that had leaves caught in the hem, grey hair frazzled and reaching up towards the sky, she glittered just as brightly as the spellbook did. She moves the little glasses up to perch on her hooked nose, squinting deeply at the cover of the book, and it took a few moments of perplexed investigation before her wrinkled and sun-spotted face lit up in recognition. "Ah, I remember this one! I haven't looked at these pages in quite some time."

You supposed this must be the herbalist, but you distinctly remember Taehyun describing her as much younger than the woman standing before you. "I'm sorry, madam," You apologize again, twisting your hands together nervously. "I wasn't snooping around, I promise--!"

"Don't lie, now." The old woman chuckles, tracing one long and painted red fingernail over the book's cover. "You were snooping. But that's quite alright, a little curiosity is good for the soul."

You blink owlishly.

"You know, this is one of the rarest books on these shelves," she continues, beady eyes looking upwards to regard her enormous collection. "I've been here for a very long time, and I have many, many books, but there is only one of these little books right here."

"Only one?" You ask quietly, giving the spellbook a wide-eyed stare. It twinkled back at you like it was winking. "Why is that?"

"Why, because I wrote it, of course!" She smiles, flipping quickly through the yellowed pages, regarding them like old friends-- you supposed that they were, in a way. "Many, many years ago. It's nothing fancy, darling, just some home recipes. You can take it if you'd like, I'm far too old for this kind of spellwork now. I think you'd have much more use for it anyway.”

"What, really?" Trying not to seem too eager, you take the book back when she hands it to you, run your fingertips across the title. "What do you mean? I couldn't possibly take this, ma'am--"

"I saw the way you were looking at that handsome wizard you came with, you know. You're ever so obvious." the old woman giggles, her deep set eyes twinkling with mirth. "I remember being young and in love… magick could always help with that, you know."

You squeak and flush hot, head whipping around to make sure no one else was near-- if Taehyun heard any part of this conversation, you'd never be able to look him in the eyes again. "No, it isn't like that! He's my mentor, that's all!" And that's all it will ever be, you thought sadly. Nothing more, nothing less.

"If that's what you would like to believe…" The old woman shrugs, a smile still gracing her wrinkled face. "But I insist, take it. It was calling for you, dearie… it told me itself! Now hurry along before we both get in trouble--"

"Grandma!" another unfamiliar voice calls, a pretty young witch twisting her way through the bookcases to approach you and the old woman. Taehyun followed her with a covered basket nestled in his arms; the ingredients that you had come here for, you presumed. You shove the book haphazardly into your satchel, praying neither of them had noticed anything amiss. Taehyun had irritatingly sharp eyes. "Grandma, I thought I told you to stay in the garden!"

"I was just talking to this lovely young lady here," The old woman-- the Madam's grandmother-- replied brightly, briskly hobbling over to the young witch's side. "You know old hags like me never listen."

"You're not a hag, Grandma, don't say that… I'm sorry about her, she's gotten a little wild in her old age." The Madam sighs, intertwining her arm with her grandmother's. The old woman seemed to find this entire ordeal incredibly amusing. "You're both free to leave now, thank you for your patience. I hope those mushrooms serve the Prince well."

"Thank you, Madam," Taehyun bows, always so polite. He turns and begins to walk to the cottage door, motioning with his fingers for you to follow-- you scramble after him like a lost puppy.

"I like him," You hear the old woman say as the two of you depart.

You had walked to the cottage and therefore had to walk back to your shared hut on castle grounds; you had spent the entire time getting there complaining, but now you followed Taehyun quietly and with your head down as you both trekked through the trees. "You're awfully quiet." Taehyun remarks casually, turning his head to regard you with an unreadable expression. "What are you thinking about?"

"Oh, nothing." You reply, maybe a little too quickly. Taehyun raises an eyebrow. "Just thinking is all."

It felt as though there was a hole burning through your satchel.

You waited until late that night to finally take a proper look at your new spellbook, having shoved it haphazardly under your pillow when you and Taehyun had finally returned home-- only after you had triple-checked that your mentor was sound asleep did you feel comfortable enough to pull it out and read it. Certainly you were making it a much bigger deal than it needed to be, it was just a book after all… but something about it and what lied in it's pages felt forbidden and sacred to you, something that you should keep hidden from Taehyun, his condescending smirk, and his prying eyes.

Maybe he would get the wrong idea, quite like the old woman. You had no intention of using any of these spells on him.

Holding the candle you kept by your bedside for light, you took in the spellbook's cover once again. Its deep purple color was faded and washed out, dusty and dirty and ages old, yet it was even more beautiful in the moonlight. The night sky shone through an open window near your bed, catching the cover like little stars captured and woven into the leather… You could never place it inconspicuously on Taehyun's bookshelf, amongst his boring canvas-wrapped manuals and journals. You could never place it anywhere where he could possibly find it at all; it was far too brilliant, too eye-catching. You would simply have to keep it tucked away in the safety of your bedroom.

You crack open the book, it's spine cracking from disuse. Instead of a proper book, like you had expected, your eyes met the pages of what seemed to be a journal; pages and pages of messy scribbles and notes, crammed on small pieces of twine-bound parchment, recipes and spell incantations and notes about any spellcasting ingredient you could possibly think of. There were even diary entries among the notes, meandering paragraphs about that old woman's personal life many years ago… No organization, no cohesiveness, just pretty cursive words muddled together and jumbled on top of each other in a confusing mess… It was endearing, an insight into her youth, and you adored every page.

And then you saw it. Halfway through the journal, tucked away between two uninteresting diary entries, you discovered a folded up and torn out page. With careful fingers you picked it up and peeled it open, casting the spellbook aside for now-- and to your surprise you were confronted with the recipe for a love potion.

Simple but Powerful Love Potion

Ingredients:

-2 quarts of standard potion base; fresh moonwater charged under the full moon

-a large handful of dried rose petals and a single thorn, ground in a mortar and pestal to the consistency of a fine powder.

-a small spoonful of crushed siren scales

-one large mother of pearl

-2 small sticks of Licorice root

-a few strands of unicorn mane hair

-a single droplet of pure love

Directions:

Over a burner, prepare the moonwater in a small pewter cauldron, keeping it away from sunlight. Bring the base to a boil before adding the licorice root and mother of pearl, and then lower the heat and leave the potion to simmer overnight. The next day, add the crushed rose petals and thorn, unicorn hair, and siren scales. Stir clockwise until the potion turns a bright pink, and then leave to sit for another night. Last, add the droplet of love, give one clockwise stir, and your potion is complete.

P.S. Please use sparingly, a little goes a long way! Perfect for stupid men who won't take a hint.

You stare at the paper in disbelief. Is this what the old woman meant by you making "good use" of her spellbook? Surely not! She was a woman of the craft, she knew as well as you did that any romance between apprentice and mentor was looked down upon, not to mention when it was aided by magickal intervention… The herbalist must have truly been telling the truth when she said her grandmother had started to go mad! You couldn't even fathom the consequences if you were caught doing anything of this sort-- you'd be stripped of your titles, expelled from your studies, exiled even… and Taehyun…

Taehyun would never forgive you. He'd be disgusted by you.

You shove the recipe back into the book and shut it with a dull snap, toss it away from you like it was poised to attack; you hated yourself for entertaining the thought for even a second. Taehyun wasn't just your mentor and your crush, but your friend, and you couldn't possibly do that to him! He trusted you, with his pretty dark eyes and his cocky smirk, and his big, warm, veiny hands with thick calloused fingers that rested on your lower back when you were nervous in public and needed comfort. His thick arms with muscles that bulged out of his tunic sleeves when he rolled them up, his sharp teeth that he liked to bare when he sneered. His gentle, soothing voice and his never ending generosity and politeness that were a pinnacle of him even when he was one of the most stuck up people you could think of. You couldn't ever do anything like that to him, even if you died a little bit inside every day that he never seemed to glance your way.

But… you thought, reaching back over to the discarded spellbook with a shaking hand, it wouldn't hurt to re-read the recipe, just in case.

"Taehyunnie?" You ask sweetly, peeking your head into his study. "Can I ask you something real quick?"

Gathering most of the ingredients had been relatively easy. If anything, you were caught off guard by the ease in which you put together your secret potion, hidden and bubbling away in the safety of your bedroom, a place Taehyun never dared to enter. You snuck to and from Taehyun's packed pantries whenever he was sleeping, prepared everything exactly as the recipe had stated-- you had never made a potion before, but you had a fairly good feeling that you were doing a fine job. Most of the ingredients were common potionmaking faire anyway, things you had observed Taehyun fiddling around with in the past, things you had on hand and the basic knowledge needed to prepare… except for one small detail.

Your potion sat simmering a pretty opaque pink, which meant it was ready for that little "drop of love" the recipe called for, and then it would finally be done… but you could not for the life of you understand what that could even mean. How in the world could you possibly get your hands on a droplet of materialized love? Was that even possible?

Taehyun looked up from the book he was reading with an annoyed sigh, hooded eyes searching the room before landing onto yours with a quirked brow. You never bothered him when he was studying, and you most certainly never called him 'Taehyunnie'. Not unless you were trying to weasel something out of him, at least. "Yes?" He drawled, returning back to his reading as you tiptoed closer, took a curious look over his shoulder; you caught snippets of something about astronomy and equations, the pages mostly filled with numbers and symbols you couldn't even pretend to understand. You wondered if it had anything to do with the Prince again.

"I was doing some reading…" you begin slowly, scattered mind racing to come up with a proper preface for your question. You had practiced what you were going to say at least a dozen times, you were sure of it, but every line had fled your head the moment you called Taehyun's name.

"'Reading?' That's not like you." Taehyun retorted with a snort, turning the page. He didn’t even bother to look up when you huffed in response, but you could see his grin hidden behind the hand he rested on his cheek.

"I read plenty!" you bark, taking the bait, but regain your composure when you catch a glimpse of Taehyun's smirk widening. "It’s for my studies-- I'm to be tested by the Magickal High Court soon, you know."

"I'm well aware. I’m sure you’ll do just fine." Taehyun responds tersely, picking up his quill and scribbling a note down into his journal. He must have felt your eyes glaring daggers at the back of his head, because he waved a dismissive hand at you. "But go on."

"Well… I was reading up on potions and I came across an ingredient I haven't heard about before. I was wondering if… if you knew anything about it."

Taehyun's quill stopped moving. "I see." he says, far too cryptically for your liking. "Well, what is it? It’s getting dark— it’s about time you go to bed.”

“The recipe– I mean, the spellbook I was reading mentioned something about a ‘droplet of love.’” You stumble, fidgeting nervously. “ Do you know what that is?”

Taehyun doesn’t say anything for a moment,stares down at his spellbook long enough to make you sweat, before turning to re-dip his quill in his inkpot. “Well, that could mean many things.” he says, uninterested, continuing his notes. You let out a relieved sigh you weren’t aware you were holding.

“What do you mean?” you prod gently.

Taehyun lets out an irritated sigh. “Some spellwork can be left up to interpretation, made unique and personalized for the spellcaster. Often when instructions are not clear, it's because you're supposed to figure it out yourself.”

“Figure it out myself?” You echo, a little outraged. This explanation wasn’t helping you at all.

“When practicing magick that involves complex ideas like emotions and memories, things begin to blur between the literal and the figurative.” Taehyun elaborates. The way he was hunched over his desk made his shoulders look much broader than they were, and it was getting increasingly harder to focus on what he was saying. “More advanced spellwork sometimes requires the spellcaster to work with physical manifestations of these ideas.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.” You retort combatively, crossing your arms over your chest. Taehyun’s non-answers were only serving to piss you off. “I can’t manifest love.”

“Sure you can.” Taehyun answers vaguely, shaking his head. You wished you could see the look on his face. “A ‘droplet of love" may just refer to some sort of representation, whatever that may mean to you specifically. Though "droplet" tends to refer to some kind of liquid, so you can start there.”

“Liquified love? What would that be, though?”

"Honestly, I'm not exactly sure either. But you're a smart girl, I'm sure you can figure it out." Taehyun once again raises his hand to wave you away. “Go off to bed now, you can spend all of tomorrow thinking about it if you have to; I need to finish this before I go to bed, and you’re keeping me up.”

“But–”

“Go to bed. Don’t misbehave now.” Taehyun looks up from his notes and meets your gaze– the look on his face is as unreadable and stoic as usual, plush lips stretched into a thin line, but the swirling darkness in his eyes makes your head spin; he knows something, you can feel it. A strange familiarity that panics you deeply, pisses you off; why does he love so much to keep you in the dark? Is it because he enjoys leaving you confused and ignorant? Or is it because there’s knowledge he genuinely doesn’t want you to know?

You trudge back to your room dejectedly, peel off your robes and climb into your bed like a defeated soldier– you might have just tipped off to Taehyun that you were up to something, and what did you get out of it? Absolutely nothing. Just some cryptic words.

Going to Taehyun was a bad idea; you wallowed now in your own stupidity.

Droplet of love, you repeat to yourself as you drift off to sleep. Droplet of love…

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Taehyun hisses venomously, eyes narrowed and wild. You’ve never seen him this angry.

“It isn’t what it looks like, I swear!” you cry desperately, try to cover your still brewing potion with your body– Taehyun is too quick, grabs you rough by your nightgown and pulls you up against him. His face is so close to your own you can feel his hot, panting breath fan across your cheeks.

“Isn’t what it looks like?” Taehyun spits. “My stupid little assistant being a little whore, making a love potion behind my back? How stupid do you think I am?!”

You open your mouth to defend yourself, but Taehyun doesn’t let you utter a single word. “Were you gonna use it on me, huh? Gonna get me to fuck you? Needed some cock so badly that you were willing to throw everything away for it? Stupid fucking whore. You could have just asked.”

Taehyun lets go of your nightgown and you crumple at his feet on the floor, groveling and sobbing for his mercy. “Please don’t tell anyone, I’m sorry!” you beg, too distraught to catch the last part of Taehyun’s rant. “I won’t ever do it again, I won’t ever go behind you back agan, please!” Big fat tears stream heavy down your hot face, chest caving as you beg for your mentor's forgiveness... yet still your thighs squeeze together at his venomous words and his nasty tone, poor pussy throbbing for attention– Taehyun notices your quivering thighs with a sneer, eyes dark and cold.

“Such a fucking slut… you like this, huh? Me yelling at you?” with his big rough hand he tugs you up to your knees, holds your chin in place as he unbuckles his belt and undoes his trousers. “Want me to put you in your place? Trying to sneak around behind my back, bad little girl… need to remind you of who’s in charge. Let me use that pretty throat and I’ll forgive you.”

Taehyun pulls his cock out, flushed and leaking, flared tip shiny and begging for your tongue— in one violent thrust he sheaths himself in your throat all the way to the hilt. You gag and splutter, tears still streaming down your face, but even with your blurry vision you can see Taehyun’s sick smile as his cockhead kisses the back of your throat. “Good girl,” he hisses, “Take it like the whore you are.”

Using the hand he has tangled in your hair as leverage, Taehyun begins thrusting his hips in earnest, heavy balls slapping against your chin— your whines come out like garbled chokes, pathetic and dizzy on your knees while your mentor uses your throat like nothing more than a toy for his own pleasure. “so fucking good at this, aren’t you?” He sneers, “Such a good little assistant you are.”

You keen around his cock, pussy fluttering around nothing and dripping slick, your poor panties soaked through and ruined completely. You feel so empty it almost hurts, gummy walls aching for the cock fucking your throat open, but you can hardly find it in you to care— you’re distracted by the warlock’s taste, the nasty wet sounds, the way your scalp burns from his grip on your hair. Your hands, previously laying limp at your sides, reach up to claw uselessly at his thighs, which only seems to spur him on, hips slamming hard against your face as he moans deep in his chest.

“No one else fucks this throat like me, huh? Think anyone else can use you like this?” His chest is heaving, cock twitching violently in your mouth— he’s about to cum, and your cunt clenches with excitement. “Should just slut you out right in front of the entire kingdom, even the Prince— fuck! show everyone who you belong to, who your master is!”

You whimper pathetically, one of your hands leaving his thigh to play with your neglected covered clit— Taehyun growls, pulls hard at your hair, snickers darkly when you rush to place your hand back on his thigh. “Don’t you dare touch that cunt, that’s my cunt, you think you deserve it?”

Your pussy is throbbing, hot tears streaming down your cheeks as Taehyun continues fucking your face, “I said, do you think you deserve it? Answer your master.”

You shake your head no, as best you can speared on his dick, sobbing snotty and broken and so desperate for his cum. “That’s what I thought.” Taehyun laughs humorlessly. “Good little witch.”

You can’t focus on anything other than making sure to breathe and hollow your cheeks and stay perfectly still so Taehyun can have his way with you– your jaw aches, but you swirl your tongue around Taehyun‘s shaft the best you could anyway. “Fuck, gonna cum!” He whimpers after a particularly harsh suck, hips stuttering, his big hands moving to cup both of your cheeks. It would be sweet in any other situation, so gentle and loving if he wasn’t bruising your throat with the force of his thrusts. “G-gonna— pretty little throat gonna make me cum, shit! ‘m cumming–!”

You wake up with a gasp, heart pounding in your chest so violently it was painful– it takes you a few moments for you to recognize your own surroundings, realize that you’re tucked safely in your bed and not caught red handed by your mentor; you can hear the soft bubbling of your potion at the foot of your bed, undisturbed and simmering away…

And between your legs was a sticky wet mess, your thin panties soaked through, arousal dribbling down the insides of your thighs— you’re humiliated but so turned on from your dream you could hardly think, fingers trailing down to dip into your panties and run along your slit… and you marvel, intoxicated, at the way thick droplets trickle down your fingertips when you pull them back.

Droplet of love…

Taehyun had fallen asleep at his desk that night, slumped over his scrolls and spellbooks, so you felt it was only right to wake him up with a treat— a steaming hot cup of perfectly brewed tea, complete with a little wooden teaspoon and a saucer full of freshly-baked cookies. Taehyun stared it down like it was staring back at him.

“You never make me tea.” he says flatly, brown eyes flickering between the cup and your face, making no moves to take the teacup from your outstretched hand. His sleepy, raspy voice and disheveled appearance would have made you swoon if you weren’t going half-mad with anxiety.

“Well, you’ve been working so hard! You know, for the Prince and all.” you chirp cheerily, voice only trembling slighrly. “I just wanted to show my appreciation!”

“Right.” he gives you an odd, side-eyed look but does eventually take the cup, takes a good long look into the amber liquid before stirring it slowly with the spoon. You were starting to sweat. “You’ve been acting odd lately. I’m a little concerned.” he says after a few moments of painful silence, making your sweating turn into full on chills. “Is there anything you aren’t telling me, ___?”

“No!” you bleat out immediately and far too quickly, making Taehyun turn his head to regard you quizzically. You didn’t have any time to process the fact that he cared for you at all. “No, nothing at all! Everything’s totally normal!”

Taehyun blinks. You give him a smile, but you’re fairly sure it turned out more like a grimace.

“If you say so…” Taehyun concedes, placing the saucer on his desk. “If you’re certain everything’s in order, would you mind running a little errand for me?”

“Of course!” you agree quickly, a genuine smile creeping onto your face. You thank the Gods above that Taehyun actually took the tea, now all that was left was to wait… and you supposed that playing errand girl was the perfect task for the meantime.

Taehyun picks up a small, parchment-wrapped parcel from among the clutter of his desk and hands it to you. “Would you be a doll and hand this to the Prince for me? And tell him to be sparing with it, for goodness’ sake, it’s not one of his perfumes.”

You take it gently, blushing— the package was much lighter than you expected it to be, and it gives a light rattle when you turn it over in your hands. “What is it?” you ask; you can never stop yourself from being nosy. Taehyun sighs, but there’s a mirthful glimmer in his eye that makes you giggle.

“The luck spell, remember? Now go on, he needs it to take effect by the evening.”

You waltz back into the cottage as the sun was just beginning to creep behind the treetops, having made sure to take your sweet, sweet time delivering the Prince’s package– you even stayed for tea and a chat, just in case; it wasn’t really your fault that the crown royal never knew when to shut up, was it?

“Taehyun?” you call out as you step inside— everything seemed perfectly normal and nothing was out of place, and perfectly still silence met you as you continued through the front room and into your winding, rickety hallway, at the end of which was your mentor’s study. The door was left slightly ajar.

You peeked inside, tentative; back facing you, you could see Taehyun hunched over his work desk, head hung low as he gripped onto the wood with white knuckles. He was panting, shoulders heaving with the force of his breaths, his arms shaking— your heart soared with euphoria. The potion must be working, you thought with zeal.

“Taehyun?” you call again, voice barely above a whisper dripping with faux concern, trembling with excitement, and you gently push the heavy oak door farther open with an ear-ringing creek. Taehyun’s head snaps up at the noise, startling you with his expression— his eyes were wide and wild, face flaming red, and he stares at you in shock and in rapture for a deafening few moments before averting his gaze and tugging hard at the collar of his tunic. He turns back to look at the scrolls on his desk with a cough. You could still see the blush coloring the tips of his ears.

“Taehyun, are you okay?” you ask, this time not having to fake the worry. You take a few tentative steps towards the warlock— he looked almost as if he was in pain, and you anxiously wonder if maybe you should have been more faithful to ‘a little goes a long way.’

“I’m fine.” Taehyun grunts, his usually light voice gruff and strained. The sound of it hit you deep in your tummy. “Just feel a little hot, that's all.”

You take a few steps closer, slowly and cautiously, and reach out your hand to touch his shoulder. “A-are you sure?”

“Don’t come any closer.” Taehyun warns, voice flat but dark, dripping something that makes your thighs clench together.

Your fingertips just barely brushed the top of his shoulder.

As if possessed, Taehyun spins around within an instant and grabs your wrist tightly, staring you down for a long, intense moment with a primal, dangerously dark look— it frightens and excites you, leaving your head spinning.

He uses your wrist to pull you roughly to his chest, faces centimeters apart and bodies flush; within the same breath he cages you against his desk, traps you tight between his muscular arms.

You can feel his breath fan your face as he pants like a dog, lowers his head closer and closer to yours. “I’m not sure what’s wrong with me; I just need you…”

His pillowy lips crash onto yours mid-gasp, passionate and dominating— you lean into the kiss immediately, moaning high in your throat when he deepens it, tilting your head back to stake a possessive claim that leaves you dizzy and gasping for air. He moves to run his hand up your thigh and grind his hips against yours, pushing your skirt up your hips. His thick hard cock presses hard up against your dripping slit, soaking your thin cotton panties. When he pulls away, hissing, you can see a damp spot on the crotch of his pants, outlining his straining bulge obscenely.

“Tyun—“ you whimper, but he’s quick to cut you off. He lowers himself down and takes a hold of your thighs, tugs them over his shoulders and dangling in the air; he chuckles out a breath that blows icy cold against your sopping panties.

“Just need a taste of you…”

His nose bumps gently against your throbbing clit and he mouths hot and heavy against your folds through the covering fabric. You keen desperately, nearly shriek when he begins to run the flat of his tongue up your slit and towards your clit. “Lemme taste you…” Taehyun breathes against your cunt, his long finger coming to tug at the hem of your panties.

“Anything you want!” you whine, twisting your own fingers into his thick hair. Taehyun grins wickedly.

“Anything I want?” he coos, poisonously sweet. “What a good little assistant I have.”

With a rough tug he pulls your panties to your knees, leaves your legs tangled in the wet fabric and up in the air. Taehyun devours your cunt like a starved man, his thick lips sucking tight on your clit and his tongue slow and nasty around your entrance. He drinks up your arousal as if it were some type of ambrosia, only going faster and faster with his motions until you cum all over his face with a cry, until you’re tugging hard at his hair and whining for him to stop.

He pulls away from your pussy with a longing glance, his lips and chin dripping your slick, the tip of his nose shiny. “You said whatever I want,” he pants, standing up to begin unbuckling his belt. “Gotta fuck you now, gotta fuck this pretty little pussy…”

Taehyun’s cock springs out of his trousers, slaps against his belly before standing to attention, veins throbbing— he fists his shaft loosely, enough for you to catch a glimpse of pearly white pre-cum leak out the slit of his thick pink head. Your tongue ached for the taste.

“Yes, yes, please,” you beg, pulling him closer so he can grind his cock between your weeping folds, getting his shaft nice and wet with a sloppy mix of his spit and your arousal. His cockhead pushes at your hole teasingly, and Taehyun lets it slip against your rim and slides up your folds to bump your clit. You whimper and attempt to spread your legs any bit farther, restricted by your panties— Taehyun chuckles before readjusting his cock and sheathing himself entirely in your cunt in one deep stroke. His cockhead kisses your cervix, your walls stretched so suddenly and so painfully good that you cry out in surprise and ecstasy. “You’re so deep!” you gasp, your eyes rolling back into your head when Taehyun starts rolling his hips in a ruthless rhythm.

“Take it like a good girl,” he laughs, repositioning his hands to grab tight at your hips so he could thrust into you in earnest, hips slapping together loud and wet, impossibly fast. “So tight, shit! Feel so fucking good, you’re so wet— perfect cocksleeve, perfect pussy.”

He splits you in two, your gummy walls stretched past your limits, hugging tight on his throbbing cock. Your cervix gets pounded with every hard thrust, his cock so deep you could feel him in your lower belly. “I’ve wanted to fuck you so bad,” Taehyun confesses, pussy drunk. “Wanted you since I first met you— You’re mine now, pretty thing, you hear me? Perfect pussy for me, never letting you go.”

“Yes!” you wail, too fucked out to process any of what he had just said. All you could think about or focus on was how good Taehyun was fucking you, how his heavy tightening balls were slapping against your ass, how that fiery hot knot in your belly grew tighter and tighter. “I’m yours, I’m yours!”

“Fuck yeah, that’s right. All mine, baby.” Taehyun groans deeply, hips stuttering. His hand lets go of your waist to circle your clit with rough, calloused fingertips.

You’re sent barreling towards your climax, that fire in your belly all-consuming as your pussy flutters around Taehyun’s cock. “Feels so good!” you sob, gripping his thick bicep for support. “I’m gonna cum, Taehyunnie, ‘m gonna cum—!”

“Fuck, I’m gonna cum too. Beg for my cum, baby; I’m gonna cum inside you, fill you up!” Taehyun’s cock twitched and throbbed inside your cunt, his thrusts wild and desperate. “All mine…”

“Cum inside, please! I need it, I need your cum so bad!” you hiccup, big fat tears rolling down your puffy hot cheeks from overstimulation. “Want your cum in my pussy!”

Taehyun does so with a broken moan, shoving his cock as deep inside of you as he could go, up against your cervix. He paints your walls white, floods your womb with his thick hot seed. You can feel his cock twitch with every spurt— you cum yourself a second time from the sensation, pussy clenching hard around Taehyun's slowly softening cock. He grunts, winces and grits his teeth.

Your chest is heaving as you pant for air and so is Taehyun’s, both of you sweaty and spent and trying to catch your breath. He dips his head to rest his forehead against your own, something so touchingly intimate it makes your heart clench, and you’re just about to close your eyes and bask in your euphoria, you catch Taehyun’s evil sneer.

“Silly girl thought I didn’t know? how stupid do you think I am?”

#txt x reader #taehyun x reader #taehyun hard thoughts #taehyun hard hours #taehyun smut #txt smut #txt hard hours #txt hard thoughts #nightly.nsfw #nightly.tyunnie

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