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Dataset card Data Studio Files
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Tom closes his textbook, his fingers sliding slowly, deliberately across the cover.
"I scare you," Tom comments.
Albus doesn't find the point worth arguing.
"In many ways," he permits.
"Do I remind you of someone?" Tom asks carefully.
The words tumble out without Albus" permission.
"No," he says. "You are nothing like him."
For a moment, they're both silent.
Then Tom straightens, and though Albus is quite a tall man, Tom is very nearly Albus" height.
"Do you love all your enemies, sir," Tom poses slowly, "or do you only make enemies of those you love?"
Albus closes his eyes.
He waits until he hears the door open and close, Tom's presence in the room swept along with it, before he opens his eyes again, struggling to catch his breath.
When he falls into his chair, Albus finds that he is shaking.
It's close to hell for him now, watching Tom watch him in class. He feels the quiet, piercing stare on his back, feels him following every line of his movements, and it takes all he possesses to concentrate. He avoids Tom, does not look him in the eye, does not pause beside him, intentionally does not call on him in cl...
"Professor," Tom says, his voice low, and Albus drops the teacup he has just transfigured, wincing as it shatters on the floor.
"Is everything alright, sir?" Abraxas Malfoy asks, and Albus curls his hand into a fist.
"Just a bit unsteady," he says, trying not to watch Tom's lips curl into a smile.
It's close to torment when Tom appears in his classroom that evening.
"We have to do something about this," Tom remarks.
Albus says nothing.
"My education is suffering," Tom teases, and Albus cannot bear it.
He closes his eyes again, unable to watch, unable to think, and hears Tom make his way across the room, his bag falling to the ground.
He hears the rustle of fabric, of buttons hitting the hard stone floor.
He holds his breath, hearing his own heart ricochet in the silence, and when he opens his eyes, Tom is rolling up the sleeves of his crisp, white shirt, having discarded his jacket on the ground.
"I'm quite good with secrets," Tom says. "I suspect you are, too."
"Don't do this," Albus begs, but Tom is already behind the desk, sleek and catlike as he takes Albus" hand, drawing it up to his mouth.
Tom brushes his lips against Albus" palm before sliding it down his torso, bringing it to the button of his trousers and then lower; lower until Albus can no longer deny that lines are being crossed; lower until Albus can no longer see anything but a precipice; lower until it's too late -
Until Albus is held captive by the lines of his own hands.
"How long has it been since you last ventured out from your cage?" Tom asks.
Albus says nothing, feeling his heart race, and Tom nimbly drops to his knees.
"I can free you," he whispers.
He reaches for Albus" zipper.
Albus shatters and breaks.
It's close to the end of the school year when Myrtle Warren dies, and Albus is certain he knows who is responsible.
The implication of the Heir of Slytherin; the particular creature responsible; the obvious increase in reverence for Tom from the boys he hangs around with.
Albus knows, and he is terribly bound by silence.
"Mr Riddle," he says quietly, calling out to him as his class is emptying for the day, and Tom pauses.
"So formal," Tom drawls, venturing over to his desk.
Albus can scarcely stand to be near it, but he forces himself not to falter.
"You killed Myrtle Warren," Albus accuses steadily.
He doesn't bother providing evidence; he knows he can't. He just wants to say the words. He wants Tom to know that he knows.
"Tell them I did it, then," Tom invites.
Albus swallows.
"Ah, you can't, can you?" Tom laments insincerely. "Why not, Professor?"
Albus flinches.
Tom leans in, his smile turning cruel as he whispers in Albus" ear.
"I'll always remember how you taste," he promises. "I thought you'd taste so sweet, Professor, but it was bitter in the end. Like desperation," he murmurs, "and weakness."
Albus makes a wordless, incomprehensible sound of pain.
"Have a nice day, Professor," Tom says gravely, throwing his bag over his shoulder and licking his lips as he exits the room.
It's close to too late when Albus learns the Riddles have been killed.
Not close to, he corrects himself.
"Why are you doing this?" Albus demands, gripping Tom's arm before he leaves the empty classroom. "You can't possibly believe this will bring you satisfaction - "
"You actually have no idea what satisfies me," Tom replies without expression.
Albus releases his arm.
"I won't let you do this," he says, and he means to be firm, but he's pleading. "I won't let you be this - "
Tom turns, his blue eyes leveling with Albus" with an unnerving, unsettling stillness.
"How will you stop me?" he asks. "You couldn't even refuse me."
The air turns cold, and Albus" veins turn to ice.
"So this is it, then," he says, taking a step back. "There's no turning back for you, is there?"
Tom laughs callously, letting his head fall back, and promptly convulses in silence.
"No," he confirms simply. "And I thank you for that. For proving me right," he says bitterly, "and proving that everything's mine for the taking."
Albus bends his head, his spine bowing to consummate suffering.
And then, in a breath, Tom Riddle is gone.
It's close to half a century later when Albus finally understands what Tom has done; he finally confirms a half-baked theory, an accusation he has never been able to prove, when a young boy brings him a diary that's been stabbed by a basilisk fang.
"What is it?" Harry Potter asks curiously, but Albus doesn't tell him.
Albus speaks of very little anymore.
It's close to deafening silence, a screeching in his ears, when Albus sees the familiar parchment waiting for him on his desk. The owl who delivered it is gone.
You know I can see you, Tom tells him in the letter; it's not signed, but after countless letters like this one, Albus knows to expect the meticulous script whenever Tom is lonely, whether he is soaring at the highs or suffering the lows. I can see you through Harry Potter's eyes. Is this what you wanted, Albus? Anothe...
Albus resolves to keep himself out of Harry's sight, explaining nothing.
Better silence, he thinks, than another betrayal.
Better silence than to make Harry suffer his mistakes.
It's close to the end by the time Albus realizes he has destroyed another boy's faith, when he watches Harry's face lose its innocence after what he sees that night in the cave.
"Forgive me," he wants to say to Harry, but his throat will not permit the words, and his mind is still somewhere else, still trapped behind a desk in a Transfiguration classroom where he might have made a different choice.
"I always thought you'd be the one to kill me," he deliriously says aloud, or thinks he says aloud, reaching for what he thinks is Tom's face as he stumbles back over the Astronomy Tower railing.
For a moment, Albus imagines the world not as it is, but as it might have been if he'd been stronger; if he'd been as strong as Harry thought he was, and not as weak as Tom had known. He stretches a hand out, pressing it to the curl of Tom Riddle's lips, and closes his eyes.
For a moment, he possesses it.
For a moment, he's so close -
And it isn't fear, he realizes, feeling a slight tilt to the world as he falls.
Pairing: Tomcissa (Tom Riddle x Narcissa Malfoy)
Universe: Canon
Rating: M for general darkness? Elements of macabre.
An updated summary, in Aurora's own words:
"Ever been disappointed by canon? Desperate for more details about horcruxes? Unconvinced that Tom Riddle would simply cross his fingers and hope for the best? Well READ THIS because I fixed it, you're welcome."
The castle was much like he had been; dark and foreboding and multifaceted, beautiful in the light and ominous in the shadows, sharp and solid and yet, in a strange, intangible sense, as gossamer as a spider's web. It made sense to her that he had chosen this, a castle on a rocky island, a mimicry of the founders of Ho...
He'd built all of it from nothing, and they would never understand that, either, beyond some nameless sense of awe. In the end, they had never truly known what he was made of.
They'd only held to the hope he wouldn't destroy them with it.
She'd run through these corridors once, feeling the castle twist and curl around her, leading her somewhere she didn't know or want to know or care to understand. This had been his castle, his magic, his rules. From the brine of the ocean tide to the salt of the breeze, everything here had been his—herself included.
She paused against the wall of the west battlement now, inhaling the wind that whipped against her cheek. She could no longer hear his voice, but she could feel him still. She shut her eyes and watched him again in her mind; the frame of his shoulders, the line of his back. The parts of him that were unworldly, godlike...
The flash of his eyes, the shape of his mouth, the motion of his fingers.
The sound of his breath, the taste of his lips, the searing poetry in his touch.
The way he made a room stand in fear, in awe, in wonder.
She'd told herself the world was so much bigger than just one man, even a man like him, but nothing had ever been more than he was. There was a time she could have worshipped him, exalted him, knelt at his altar like religion. If he'd told her he created the universe with his bare hands, cobbled it from nothing, she'd ...
But that time had long, long passed.
I know better than anyone what you're made of, he'd said to her once, and she heard his voice now, as clearly as if it carried on the wind.
"In the end," she whispered to him, "you never really knew, did you?"
He was gone now.
She was the one left standing.
"Wait here. Don't touch anything."
Narcissa bristled internally at the command, but forced a nod.
"You'll want to hold your tongue, too," her husband continued. "Don't speak unless spoken to. Do you understand?"