ʙᴇᴛᴡᴇᴇɴ ʀᴇɢʀᴇᴛ ᴀɴᴅ ʟᴏɴɢɪɴɢ
ꜱᴜᴍᴍᴀʀʏ: ᴡʜᴇɴ ᴄᴀʟᴄᴜʟᴀᴛɪᴏɴꜱ ɢᴏ ᴏɴ ᴡʀᴏɴɢ, ᴀɴᴅ ᴛɪᴍɪɴɢ ɪꜱɴ’ᴛ ʀɪɢʜᴛ, ᴡʜᴏ ᴀʀᴇ ᴛʜᴇʏ ɢᴏɪɴɢ ᴛᴏ ʙʟᴀᴍᴇ ᴇxᴄᴇᴘᴛ ᴛʜᴇɪʀꜱᴇʟᴠᴇꜱ?
ᴛᴡ: ᴀɴɢꜱᴛ, ᴅᴇᴀᴛʜ, ʜᴀᴘᴘʏ ᴇɴᴅɪɴɢ, ɴᴏɴ-ᴄᴀɴᴏɴɪᴄᴀʟʟʏ ᴛᴏᴍ ʀɪᴅᴅʟᴇ, ᴏᴏᴄ ᴛᴏᴍ ʀɪᴅᴅʟᴇ, ᴋɪɴᴅᴀ ᴄʀɪɴɢᴇ ɪɢ? ᴇɴɢʟɪꜱʜ ɪꜱɴᴛ ᴍʏ ꜰɪʀꜱᴛ ʟᴀɴɢᴜᴀɢᴇ.
ᴀ/ɴ: ɪ ᴛʜɪɴᴋ ᴛʜɪꜱ ɪꜱ ᴘʀᴇᴛᴛʏ ʙᴀᴅ ᴀɴᴅ ᴄʀɪɴɢᴇ ʙᴜᴛ ꜰᴇᴇʟ ꜰʀᴇᴇ ᴛᴏ ʀᴇᴀᴅ ʟᴍᴀo
ᴡᴏʀᴅᴄᴏᴜɴᴛ: 2,0k
Play: Snowdrop - Song Jeong In.
Tom Riddle could only think about soft and intimacy with others is a weakness. Useless, he say.
Until, you showed up.
A small and timid girl with pinkish cheeks, quite adorable, he thinks. The world in Wool’s Orphanage was painted in shades of soot and rain, but you were always made of light, so bright that with you and him standing side by side is a big contrast, like the moon and the sun.
Tom had noticed you from the moment you arrived—a bright, warm presence amidst the damp corridors and shivering children. Where everyone else cowered from his cold, dark gaze, you simply smiled. You had soft, rosy cheeks that flushed red whenever the winter wind blew or when you laughed, a vivid bloom of life in a place defined by decay and dusts.
“You look like you need some company, Tom.” You smiled softly as you watched him—he reads beneath the tree and holding the book like a lifelibe. Tom’s eyebrow furrowed. He didnt understand why you always insisted to be with him.
“You’re not afraid of me.” He says, like its obvious. You furrowed your eyebrow.
“Why would i be afraid of you? You dont bite, right?” You let out a smile, the cheeks slowly grew rosy once more as the smile turn into a laugh, like a blooming red rose in the seas of the green garden.
“You should leave,” Tom says, shaking his head. “The other child will bully you if they see you talking to me. They say im.. strange.”
Silence.
“So what? Everyone is strange on their own ways.” You shrugged and sat beside him, you gently hugged your own knees. “Just because everyone say that you’re weird doesnt mean you’re weird too. Im weird too! I always like eating apple!”
“That’s not weird, that’s normal.” He says flatly, before continuing reading his book. You blink, softly. Before murmuring, “fair enough,“ you huffed.
Your eyes tracked to the grounds, to the sky, to the way the clouds are slowly moving to different ways, to the birds that are pitching now and watching as the ants help each other to bring a small crumbs of food to their mounds.
Then, you sighs. Leaning to the tree, before picking an apple then bite it. Tom raised his eyebrow. “You’re not going to wash it? Its dirty. You can get sick.” He say.
You chuckled as you glanced at him, your eyes is teasing as you shrugs and bite it without careness. “It’s okay, it’s healthy. A natural vitamin from nature.” You laugh. You let out a sigh and lean to the wood once more, glancing up to the sky.
“You know, when i grow up, i want to be like the sun!” You exclaimed, grinning as you pointed your index finger to the sun.
“So bright, and i could help anyone just with my light. Those plants can grow thanks to the sun, the animal could search their food to the sun, and human could work in the day because of the sun.” You rambled. While Tom? He’s getting an headache by you talk, too much. He thinks.
But at least he’s tolerable with your presence.
• • •
You smiled infront of him, today is December 31st.
Tom’s birthday. You wished him the brightest birthday, a birthday that could lifted all the dark aura of him just with the shine of his birthday so that he could be bright as the other, you think.
“Hey, grumpy. I got you a gift.” You smile giddly at him, the gift is behind you as you hold it. Tom raised his eyebrow. But couldnt help the curious glint in his eyes. “What is it?” He asked softly, grown to be soften over her.
“Here.” You smile, shoving it to his chest, he blinks and stared at you, then to the neatly wrapped gift with a news paper.
You really do it with extra cautious as he realizes the dry cut in your hand because of the scissor and razor blade. The clean and steady cut in the news paper already showed it. He softens. “You dont have to do this.” He says, before pulling your hand, he wants to bandage it at least.
You shaked your head slightly. “No, no, no! Open your present first!” You pulled your hand and then smiled at him.
Tom frowned slightly, unused to receiving anything from anyone. He blinks, before sighing. And opening the gift, he appreciate it.
He carefully unwrapped the paper to reveal a simple, blank leather-bound journal. The leather was smooth, smell of fresh parchment wafting from its crisp pages.
It’s a diary.
“A diary?” Tom asked, running his fingertips over the cover.
“So you can write down all those brilliant, dark thoughts of yours,” you murmured, leaning in close so your warm breath tickled his neck. “Since you don't always like sharing them out loud. Promise me you'll use it.”
Tom looked up from the book, his dark eyes locking onto yours. The flickering candlelight caught the soft pink on your cheeks.
“I promise,” he said softly, clutching the diary a little tighter.
• • •
Tom sat against the brick wall, holding the diary close, his dark eyes fixed on you as you laughed, chasing a stray leaf swirling in the breeze. The wind kissed your skin, dusting your face with that soft, flushed pink he had grown so obsessed with.
To Tom, the world was a dull, gray monochrome—full of weak, foolish people he despised. But you were the sun. Radiance in human form, burning so brightly that even his cold, dark corners couldn't help but thaw when you were near.
“You're staring again, Tom,” you said, breath puffing softly in the chilly air as you dropped down beside him. You pressed your hand against your face, smiling warmly. “Are my cheeks red again?”
“Always,” Tom murmured, reaching out with a pale, steady hand. His thumb gently brushed the curve of your cheek, tracing the faint warmth beneath your skin. “It makes you look alive. Unlike the rest of them.” You bumped your shoulder against his. “We won't be here much longer anyway. Professor Dumbledore said so.”
A rare, genuine smile touched Tom's lips. Hogwarts was waiting. A whole world where they belonged, away from the misery of the orphanage.
You reach out, your fingers hovering near the diary in his lap before you stop yourself. “Do you think we would meet each other if we were never an orphan, Tom?” You asked, looking up at him with a smile. He blinks, only listening to your words.
“If you asked me... yes. We will meet each other again.” You say, as you look to the sky, enjoying the wind that breeze through her face.
“Why?” you ask softly. Closing your eyes. “Because destiny always finds its way." A smile touches your lips. "Same goes for this old diary. It found its way to you eventually, well, through me first. Maybe, we will meet in another place just like that, through another way.”
Tom's gaze holds yours. Something shifts in his expression-surprise, maybe, or curiosity.
“The story for me to get this diary might not have been a good way for you to meet this diary, since i work hard for it.” you say softly, “but it certainly gave you hope. Right? A place to pour your feelings inside.” You pause, searching for the right words. “That makes it special. Not for other people-but for you. Since it's the closest thing you have to pour from the inside. Your heart.” You say.
Tom is very still.
His dark eyes rest on your face, unreadable. The morning light catches the edge of his jaw, the hollow of his throat. For a long moment, he doesn't speak. Then, quietly, “no one's ever said that to me before."
His voice is low. Stripped of its usual polish. He looks down at the diary in his hands, turning it over as if seeing it for the first time.
“My heart,” he repeats, the word foreign on his tongue. A pause. “I don't know if I have one.” He shakes his head. You smile faintly. “Silly, you always have one,” you say, before pointing his chest, to where his heart at.
“Here.”
• • •
Tom held the book like it was a sacred relic. But as the years at Hogwarts passed, the darkness inside Tom didn't dissipate; it mutated. Driven by a desperate, terrifying obsession with mortality and his own grand destiny, he began to slip away into the dark arts.
He changed, cold to the world, cruel to his followers– yet whenever he was with you, the sharpness melted. He would reach out, his pale thumb gently tracing the warm rouge of your cheek, grounding himself in the only light he had ever known.
Then came their fifth year. The year the Chamber of Secrets was opened. Tom’s madness had consumed him. He sought immortality, a way to ensure he could never be taken from this world or from you. He needed a death to rend his soul, a sacrifice to seal his very first Horcrux inside the diary you had given him.
He intended for it to be a nuisance of a Ravenclaw girl named Myrtle. He didn't know you had followed him down into the shadows near the second-floor bathroom.
When the serpent struck, it wasn't Myrtle who fell to the deadly gaze. It was you.
Tom's scream tore through the subterranean pipes, a raw, jagged sound of absolute ruin. He caught you as you collapsed, your body going limp in his arms. The dreadful magic he had set in motion was already boiling over, latching onto the nearest vessel—the very diary you had gifted him years ago.
He had created his first Horcrux, sealing his shattered soul inside your gift, but the price was the only thing that made his soul worth saving. As he cradled you, the vibrant, warm rosy color slowly drained from your cheeks, leaving behind an icy, hollow marble. He had destroyed his own sun.
• • •
Decades passed in a nightmare of bloody ambition. Tom Riddle tore himself apart, shedding his humanity piece by piece until he was nothing more than Voldemort—a pale, snake-like shadow of a man driven by fear and fury.
He forgot the sound of your laugh, the softness of your voice, but deep within the blackened vessel of his heart, a phantom ache remained.
Then came the end.
The Battle of Hogwarts raged around him, a storm of spells and ash. When the final curse rebounded and the world dissolved into blinding white light, Lord Voldemort fell. Dissolved.
The blinding glare faded into a soft, golden warmth. There was no pain. No smell of ozone or blood. Only the gentle whisper of a summer breeze and the sweet scent of rain on grass.
Tom blinked, his vision clearing slowly. He wasn't lying on the cold stone of the Great Hall. He was lying on a soft blanket of green clover, his head resting in someone’s lap.
A hand was moving gently through his dark hair, not the bald, pale skull of Voldemort, but the thick, dark waves of the boy he used to be. The fingers were impossibly soft, warm, and familiar.
Tom reached up with trembling hands-hands that were smooth, pale, and human once more. He touched her rosy cheek, feeling the radiant, undeniable heat of her skin. A tear spilled down his face, washing away the decades of dark, wretched night.
“I lost you,” he choked out, his voice small, like the boy in the attic at Wool's.
“You found your way back, just like the book,” you whispered, leaning down to press your forehead against his. “You're safe now. Rest.”
Tom Riddle closed his eyes, let out a breath he had been holding for half a century, and finally let himself fall asleep in the sun or— her.
A/N: well that sucks.
