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drawlfoy · 3 months

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benefits of journaling p.2

read p1 here!

pairing: diary!tom riddle x ravenclaw!reader

summary: you pick up an unassuming journal in diagon alley during an antiques sale without knowing that it's actually a part of a late dark lord's soul. sort of no voldy AU, set in the golden trio era where voldemort was defeated in the first war and thus harry has parents still.

warnings: recreational drug use, language, mild gore, snakes, a mouse gets eaten (thoughts and prayers), tom is a little bit gaslighty, the quality of my writing declines sharply

a/n: note that this is not finished at all, but i'm not planning on finishing this series unfortunately :/ i just have too much going on. this is unedited, unrevised, unoutlined, etc. so adjust your expectations accordingly. i just kind of want to get this out so i've given u guys at least *some* semblance of closure for this series. (UPDATE: now that i’ve written this i’ve changed my mind. i will be working on the next part. i forgot how much i love tom)

wc: 6.7k

enjoy !

This time you were unceremoniously dumped into a hard wooden library chair. You gasped as you braced yourself against the hard table in front of you, drawing in shaky breaths as you gathered your bearings.

A loud bang startled you into wrenching your gaze up. Tom had dropped a thick book with an ebony cover right next to you, nearly atop your hand.

“Here you are,” he said pleasantly. “Happy reading.”

“Do you think I can take this back with me into my world?” you asked. The cover was smooth under your fingertips.

“Unlikely,” said Tom, dropping elegantly into the chair beside you. “You’ll have to read it here.”

You gulped. “Alright.”

The papers were yellowed and fragile against your touch, and you couldn’t help but wonder just how old it was.

“Any section you’d recommend starting with?”

The book was around 700 pages with tiny, fine print.

“Perhaps the beginning.” Tom waved his wand and wordlessly summoned a stack of books, lifting one up and beginning to read for himself.

You’d thought that you’d be less intimidated knowing that he was also doing something besides staring at you reading, but the back of your neck still prickled as you pulled the book to the edge of the table and began to dig in.

It was bizarre, reading next to a boy like this. The only one you ever studied with before had been Ishan, and he hardly counted. It was different with Tom. His presence hung in the air around you, a tension so tangible that it wasn’t unthinkable that you might feel something if you let your fingers sift through the space between you.

Despite all you’d told Tom, spending time around him made you unfathomably nervous. He was too good-looking to feel even remotely normal around him, and it was all you could do to hope that he didn't notice how much you blushed whenever he spoke to you.

The book he’d given you was dense and horrific, detailing magic so ugly and foul that you felt dirty just reading it. It covered topics you’d heard of before, like cases of the Imperius curse or the misuse of love potions or the nature of dark magic.

But there was nothing pertaining to Tom’s situation.

“Can’t you at least point me towards a chapter? Or…a general section of the book?” you asked him.

Tom lifted his gaze from his work, quirking a brow. “Having trouble?”

“This is going to take me forever to read.” You motioned at the width of the book.

“Then I guess I’ll be seeing much more of you.”

You couldn’t fight back the flush that spread across your face. “Well, this is an easily solvable problem. You really ought to just point me to the most relevant part.”

“And here I was, thinking I was doing you a favor,” said Tom. His eyes locked onto yours, and for a moment you thought you saw the slightest suggestion of a smirk on his lips. “Given that you’re such a glutton for knowledge and not at all singular in your academic pursuits.”

“That’s not—” You paused when you saw the amusement on his face. He’d been playing with you. “I’m flattered that you remembered. I suppose you’re right.”

And since you refused to let him win, you flipped the book back open and picked up right where you left off.

It was really stupid to feel so light at the fact that Tom had remembered a sentence you’d said verbatim, because even if it implied that he’d thought about your last interaction enough to commit it to memory, it was hardly a surprise. It wasn’t like he had anything better to do in his empty version of Hogwarts except read books he’d probably already read many times before.

You snuck another look at him a few chapters later. A few waves had fallen across his face, dangling over his brow. For a moment, all you could do was keep yourself from reaching out to tuck them back into order, to know what it felt like against your fingers.

But that was a boundary you hadn’t crossed yet—if you even could. Who knew how the rules worked in this dimension?

You resolved to believe that you couldn’t touch him. That it was impossible. Because if you believed that, maybe you’d stop wanting to.

“You never ended up telling me if you were a Parselmouth,” you realized aloud after you’d completed another gruesome section about ritualistic Dark Magic.

You watched him closely but didn’t detect even a glimpse of surprise.

“I didn’t,” he agreed smoothly. He didn’t look up from his page.

“So? I gave you a secret. Many, actually.”

“I think you already know.” He turned the page, dark eyes darting across the next.

“Well—” You paused, worrying your lip between your teeth as you realized that he was right. “What’s it like?”

That was what prompted him to finally lean back in his chair and lift his gaze from the book to your eyes.

“What’s it like?”

Repeated back to you, it did sound very silly.

“I mean,” you said, cheeks hot, “What do you even talk to snakes about? The weather? Whether or not there’s enough mice in the area?”

“It’s unlikely to find snakes that do more than listen to me,” he said. “Most aren’t very good conversationalists.”

“A boy in my—our, I guess—year has a pet ball python,” you told him. “I just don’t understand why he’d want one. They don’t seem like very good companions.”

“Why not?”

“Because they have no emotional depth,” you said. You could feel your voice slipping into the tone you used when you tutored younger students, but you couldn’t bring yourself to care. You’d researched this extensively in the library after the Incident in third year when you were looking for any good academic reason for how terrified you were of Malfoy’s pet. “They have no limbic system, so everything for them is about survival. There’s no—no mutual concern or love like you’d get from something normal, like a cat or an owl. As their handler, you only matter because you’re what keeps them alive. I don’t think I’d ever be able to get over that.”

“So all your companions have to love you?” Tom was resting his chin in his palm now as he looked at you. “They’re worthless otherwise?”

“That’s not what I’m saying,” you responded. “But I like my company to see me as something more than an avenue for survival or a means to an end.”

“Their companionship isn’t enough?”

You blinked. Everyone else that you’d given your reptile spiel to had completely understood. You couldn’t quite figure out why Tom wasn’t agreeing. “It’s just nice to be cared about, don’t you think? And it’s…it’s nice to care about something without it feeling meaningless.”

“I imagine that that’s true,” Tom said evenly.

Something deep inside you twisted at the implications of his answer. You’d sort of forgotten that he grew up in a muggle orphanage and likely didn’t have any sort of emotional closeness during his early childhood. But he was so pretty and sharp and witty that it was hard to imagine no one caring for him. Perhaps that had changed upon his admission to Hogwarts. He had said that witches and wizards found him charming. You could attest.

You passed the following Potions lab with flying colors and a perfectly brewed Draught of Peace that made even Snape nod approvingly. It was thrilling. It was incredible. All you wanted to do was get Tom’s diary out right then and there and document it as it happened—as if he were right beside you—but you refrained. You told him that night instead, when you were back again for another reading session.

You were falling into his world on a daily basis, devouring as much of the book as you could without forgoing any conversations with Tom. He’d been impressed to hear about your potion in his own very Tom way. He didn’t tell you outright that he thought that you were brilliant or smart or incredible. Instead he seemed entirely unsurprised, like he thought you capable of nothing less. Somehow that made you glow more than any explicitly stated praise that he could’ve offered.

When you weren’t reading, you were walking around the grounds with Tom and just talking, much like you used to write to him. At first you’d been nervous and uncomfortable with being as open with him in person as you’d been in writing, but Tom had a funny way of making you feel seen. Despite his slight aloofness and obvious air of pretension, he listened to you and appeared genuinely interested in your life by way of remembering things you’d said months ago.

Like when you’d told him off-handedly that it was raining back in the real world and that it was your favorite weather, and ever since the Hogwarts you were transported to was constantly overcast with torrential downpours unless you two were walking outside.

You still never dared to touch him, though. That was a line that you refused to cross. Tom seemed to hold the same opinion, keeping a wide berth around you whenever tactile contact was in the realm of possibility.

“How did you become a Parselmouth?” you asked him one day while you were taking a break from reading and walking through the Transfiguration Courtyard.

His eyes narrowed as he turned to you. “Do they not teach you about Parseltongue in Defense Against the Dark Arts anymore?”

“No,” you said. “I’ve only ever heard about it by reading a book from the Restricted Section. It was very vague. All I know about it is that it’s the language of reptiles.”

“No one becomes a Parselmouth.” Tom turned his attention back to the walking path, adjusting the cuff of his robes for just a second. “All Parselmouths are born. It’s entirely hereditary.”

“So did you have to learn it?” you asked. Your interest was piqued—you’d never heard of a language that was passed through genes.

Tom shook his head. That one rogue strand of black hair had escaped its orderly wave, just like how you remembered him from his yearbook picture. “I’ve never had to think about it. I’ve just always known how to say what I want.”

“Do you think that you could…” Your voice trailed off and you swallowed thickly. You weren’t even sure why you’d started asking him that question. Of course he couldn’t teach you Parseltongue. You didn’t even really want to know it, either. You’d never use it. But you hated being told that you didn’t know something. That you couldn't know something.

“We can give it a try,” he offered.

You dared to glance back up at him and found him already looking at you. “How did you know what I was going to say?”

“I don’t know.” He appeared to be making a valiant effort to quell a grin. “I suppose it has something to do with your approach to acquiring knowledge. One could almost call it…gluttonous in nature.”

You sent him a glare.

Tom shrugged, properly smiling now for the first time in front of you. He had shallow, almost perfectly circular dimples. “Anyway. I’ve never taught anyone before. I actually don’t believe it to be possible, but we might as well give it a go.”

“You’ve never tried?” you asked. “None of your friends at Hogwarts asked you to teach them?”

“No,” he said. “No one knew I was a Parselmouth. I kept that a secret.”

“Why?”

He shrugged again. “I enjoy my privacy. Right, then. Serpensortia.”

A large, hissing snake appeared at your feet, thrashing about in the grass as it unhappily acclimated to its new environment.

You yelped, leaping nearly a foot in the air. Tom simply stood still, watching you with an amused expression on his features.

“Having second thoughts?”

“No,” you said through gritted teeth, refusing to let your eyes move from the wriggling snake in front of you. “I’m just—surprised.”

“It won’t hurt you.” His voice was low, gentle. “Don’t be afraid.”

“I’m not,” you said, but the slight wobble in your tone betrayed you. “Just—get on with the lesson, alright?”

He stood silently, his head tilted in concentration.

“What’s it saying?” you found yourself asking. “Is it—I dunno—threatening my life or something?”

Tom sent you a look that you couldn’t quite decipher. “It’s scared of you.”

“Really?” A spark of smugness lit up within you.

“No.”

“Oh.”

“It’s expressing how upset it is at how suddenly I’ve conjured it. Apparently we’ve interrupted the start of its meal.”

“What do I say if I want to apologize?”

He appeared to consider your request for just a moment before opening his mouth and making a hissing noise that you didn’t think you could replicate if you had a thousand years.

The snake immediately quieted and stopped its thrashing, its tiny head lifting from the ground to regard Tom curiously.

He looked back at you, expectant.

“Again, please,” you said. “A little slower this time. I didn’t quite catch it.”

He obliged, going through each syllable separately.

You felt very much like you were back in muggle school before you’d found out you were a witch, being forced to read out a passage in French. The sounds that came out of you were clumsy and not at all what you thought they’d sound like.

“Don’t look at me like that,” you accused. “For the record, I know it was bad.”

He didn’t address it beyond just the slight upward twist of his lip before he repeated it again, syllable by syllable.

You tried once again with the same outcome.

“Your tongue should be a little behind your teeth,” he said. “You have yours too far back on the roof of your mouth, which is why you’re losing control. Try again.”

This time, it came out much cleaner. The snake took notice of you for the first time, its dark scales glistening under the cloudy sky. It hissed something back. Tom’s mouth split into a grin.

“What did it say?”

“It wants to know if you have any food,” he told you.

“What’s ‘yes’?”

Saying yes in Parseltongue was much easier than saying sorry—it only took two syllables, both of which were made up of sounds that you were pretty sure you had in the English language.

The snake was giving its full attention to you now. Its forked tongue stuck out for just a second.

Gulping, you accioed a small stone into your palm and cast a quick charm to transfigure it into a mouse—something that you’d learned years ago.

You set it on the ground and watched the snake lunge.

“Gross,” you said under your breath, wincing as it began to swallow it whole, its body twisting and contorting as it shoved it down. “I—I think I’m done with the lesson now. I’ve learned enough.”

“You really didn’t need to feed it,” Tom pointed out helpfully.

“Yeah. I know that now. I just felt like it deserved something for the trouble.”

Once the snake had succeeded and the only evidence of the mouse was a bulge in the adder’s scales a little past its head, it lifted its head again to meet your eyes, its tongue slithering out as it made a sharp hiss.

“What’s it saying?”

“It thanked you,” said Tom. He was giving you that look again—like he was reconsidering you.

“And if I wanted to say ‘you’re welcome’?”

“I thought you said you were done with the lesson.”

You rolled your eyes. “Consider this my last request. I’d like to be polite.”

Tom let out a sigh, then made a sound that glided from a long S to a few sharp, pointed consonants.

You clumsily mimicked him, feeling like your tongue was much larger than you’d ever bothered to notice.

To your surprise, the adder slithered towards you, dragging itself onto the rock of the courtyard and in front of you. It coiled around your shin, slowly pulling itself up your body.

“Tom!” you whisper-screamed through your teeth.

“It’s alright,” he said.

“Do something!”

The snake continued up your leg, looping once around your waist as it continued its ascent up to your shoulder. It was cold and oddly heavy, its scales clammy against the bare skin of your neck.

For one terrifying moment, you thought that it was going to coil around your neck and squeeze until you asphyxiated. Your breath caught in your throat as it came around behind your neck, both ends dangling around your neck as you were paralyzed with fear.

Then it did the most peculiar thing; it stopped, just hanging in a loose hold around the base of your neck, its face nestled into the collar of your robes.

“What’s it doing?” you whispered. You tried to ignore the lump in its body that you could feel at the side of your neck.

“It’s resting on you,” said Tom.

“Why?”

“Because it likes you.”

You stared at him, floored. “It does not.”

He hissed something to the snake around your neck. It responded with something you couldn’t even begin to understand.

“It just told me so,” said Tom.

“How do I know you didn’t just make that up?” you said, mentally crossing your arms across your chest but refraining since a snake was taking residence there at present.

“You don’t trust me?” asked Tom. “I’m hurt.”

Before you could respond, you felt the slow, languid movement of the adder as it lifted its head from your collar. Without thinking, you offered it your hand, watching in quiet fascination as it slithered around your wrist.

“Hi,” you said shyly, like you’d speak to a nervous cat.

“It won’t understand—”

“I’m aware, Tom,” you interrupted, sending him a look before turning back to your wrist. “We’re bonding. Bugger off.”

He held his hands up in exasperation. “Bonding? Are you going to take him back to the real world as your familiar?”

For a moment, you actually considered this.

“Because that’s a terrible idea,” continued Tom, crushing your dream right then and there. “Adders are venomous. Once you don’t have me around, you won’t be able to communicate with it. It’ll probably bite someone.”

“Then perhaps we should start brainstorming ways to bring you back,” you said. “For safe snake handling, if nothing else.”

Tom didn’t say anything to this; instead, he reached out and gently unwound the adder from your wrist, his skin not brushing yours once.

“Surely there’s someone wondering where you are,” he said once the snake had been deposited on the ground. “You’ve been here longer than usual.”

“Do you not want to get out of here?” you asked, frowning. “It hardly seems like you’re trying.”

“I’ve been doing research when you’re not around,” he said simply. “I think I just need to theorize for a bit longer—figure out the best course of action.”

“The process would be sped up significantly if you let me help.”

“I won’t ask that of you. It’s very complicated magic—” He paused for just a moment, noticing the derisive curl of your mouth. “—Not that I think you incapable, of course. But you’ve better things to do. It would distract from your exams, and I tend to work better alone in this stage of research.”

“Oh,” you said, hoping the hurt wasn’t showing on your face. It made sense that he would want to work on this alone. You understood not wanting to have to explain things to people when you could already be going down a rabbithole that you’d deemed important. Plus, your current Tom rendez-vous schedule was eating enough time as it was. But it still stung.

“You’ll be the first to know if I stumble across anything conclusive,” said Tom.

You snorted. “Obviously.”

“Well—” Tom stopped himself. You thought for a moment that you detected the slightest flush across his pale skin, but that was likely because of the chill outside. “That was more clever in my head. Sorry.”

“I imagine that being in solitary confinement for half a century might addle your mind a bit,” you offered diplomatically.

“My mind is not addled.”

“I was very graciously giving you an easy out.”

“Someone is probably wondering where you are,” he repeated, his jaw tense. “So I’m going to send you back now.”

Without giving you another chance to argue, you were catapulted back into your desk chair.

“You look like you could do with a night out,” Lucy observed as she watched you storm into your dorm and send your satchel flying through the air to land messily on your bed.

“Casting my first and last Unforgivable on McLaggen would be preferable,” you said through gritted teeth.

He’d been your partner today in Arithmancy to work on a partner problem set. It apparently wasn’t enough for him to be dreadfully stupid and slow—he had to be an absolute chauvinistic arse about it. Whenever you attempted to correct him, he’d look at you with so much amusement that it made your head pound.

He didn’t even need to say anything—the look in his eyes told you that he didn’t even see you as a person.

The last person to treat you so dismissively had been Pansy Parkinson, but at least she’d been smart. And a witch. McLaggen dripped with conceit and smugness and was disgusting towards the most pureblooded witch on a good day.

It’d been nearly 3 hours and your blood was still boiling.

“Well, I can’t arrange that,” said Lucy. “But I can tell you that Hufflepuff is throwing tonight. McLaggen probably won’t come—Ernie hates him, and he’s the one who put it all together.”

You considered this, looking longingly once at the bag on your bed. You hadn’t done anything with your friends in forever; nearly all the time you had was spent either studying or with Tom.

The Hufflepuffs were always gracious hosts, too. The last time you’d gone, they’d given you something to smoke that had smelled like a meadow on a sunny spring day and made you feel like you were floating. You’d giggled all night with Lucy, clinging to one another. You’d gone on some tirade about how much you loved her, touching her face and tearing up as you said something about how you didn’t know what you’d be without her. Lucy’d beamed back at you, her face wide open with raw gratitude.

It had been sappy, but it had been fun and one of the few positive memories you had from the disaster that had been O.W.Ls season.

“You know what,” you said slowly, watching Lucy’s face light up, “I think that’s just what I need.”

Tom could wait.

Lucy squealed and got right to work. In seconds, all the clothes you’d brought from home were strewn across her bed as she scrutinized each one.

“I thought this was just going to be, like, a chill thing,” you said.

Lucy picked up a sequined top, held it up to your chest, and wrinkled her nose. “Too loud.”

“Lucy—”

“I never get to go out with you,” she interrupted, yanking a black slip dress from the pile that caught the warm overhead light. “Thoughts? We could do some fun earrings or something to dress it up.”

“Are we not just going to sit in a circle and smoke again? This feels a little overkill.”

“Well, it’s not,” said Lucy, throwing it at you. “This is hardly a ballgown. Plus, this is your annual outing. Dress to impress.”

You rolled your eyes and slipped the straps off the hanger, throwing it over your shoulder as you turned around to change.

Lucy continued her rampage, ooh-ing and aah-ing upon seeing it on you and immediately cornering you with a scary looking brush.

“For your eyes,” she said, like that made you feel any better.

“What?”

“Close them.”

You squeezed them shut, willing this to be over. You’d had your own experience with muggle makeup, which was tame and not at all exciting. The Wizarding World always had interesting takes on beauty tools, like charmed kohl that could turn your entire eye black if you weren’t careful enough.

Something cool and wet swiped across the corner of your eyes. Lucy mumbled something under her breath, and there was a slight ruffling at the end of your lashes, like a light breeze had swept through them.

“Open.”

You blinked, your lashes feeling a little heavier.

“Pretty,” said Lucy, nodding seriously. “Hang on. Do you have a lip color preference?”

You stared. A lip color preference? “Er—whatever you think makes the most sense with my undertones.”

“You would say that,” Lucy replied, already holding a wand of lip gloss. “Put this on.”

When you turned to look into the mirror she was holding out, you nearly started at your reflection. Lucy had done something insane with your lashes, curling them up and adding length that didn’t look too obvious. That weird tool she’d used on your eye had created a sharp, clean line that followed the contour of your lashline and licked out at the end.

You looked really pretty. Not quite Tom Riddle level pretty, but pretty nonetheless.

“Thanks,” you said, turning back to Lucy after you’d applied the gloss she’d given you. It smelled faintly of something that you couldn’t quite place—like old parchment and the memory of walking through the library in the middle of the night. It was the strangest scent you’d ever encountered in a lip product.

Ernie and the rest of the Hufflepuffs did not disappoint. They’d bribed house elves into bringing an entire spread of food that was fragrant and under a constant stasis spell to keep an optimal temperature. You spent the evening chatting with your Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff friends and feasting on ripe slices of pineapple and bites of strawberry that stained your already glossy mouth a vibrant pink.

Then Hannah Abbott reached into her pocket and pulled out a stash of corked bottles.

“Party Potions,” said Lucy in wonder as you both stared at the swirling liquids.

You’d heard of them before but had never personally had one. You weren’t entirely sure what they did, in all honesty, and that stressed you out enough to keep you from giving them a whirl.

They were different vibrant colors—one an opalescent pink, one a vibrant orange, one a blood red, one a deep, midnight blue that reminded you of your house colors.

“Anyone want one?” asked Hannah, motioning to her pile. Terry Boot raised a hand and plucked the orange one from the table, uncorking it and downing it in one go.

“What do the different colors mean?” you asked. The longer you looked at them, the more you were mesmerized.

“I don’t remember,” admitted Hannah. “Nothing crazy, I don’t think.”

“You don’t think,” you repeated.

“Just because I don’t remember why I bought each color doesn’t mean that I would’ve purposefully bought something that did bad things,” Hannah told you. “Here. Take one. It’ll help you relax.”

The midnight blue potion sat on the fingers of Hannah’s outstretched palm.

“Oh, I couldn’t—”

“I promise it’s nothing too intense,” said Hannah. “You’ve smoked before, right? I’ve had one and it was honestly just like getting crossed. You’ll be fine.”

At the mention of smoking, common sense flew out the window. The last time you’d been offered an illicit substance in the Hufflepuff Common Room, things went really well. Who were you to deny that again?

“If you’re sure it’s alright for me to have it,” you said. The bottle pulled easily from Hannah’s hand and into your grip.

“Who are you and what have you done with my best friend?” Lucy was grinning at you widely.

Up close, the midnight blue wasn’t solid—there were specks of silver in there, like thousands of stars littered across the night sky. It was stunning. You felt almost bad uncorking it and downing it, but you didn’t give yourself a chance to second-guess.

It tasted like lavender and honey and something burnt that was horribly gross but faded away with time and went down like water.

“You didn’t save anything for me?”

“Sorry, Luce,” you said, swiping the back of your hand across your lips.

You weren’t feeling anything yet. Or were you? Was this how you normally felt? The ceiling of the Hufflepuff common room definitely didn’t move, right? And Lucy typically wasn’t outlined in a fuschia pink. That you were sure of.

“Whoa,” you said dumbly.

“I think Y/N’s feeling something!” called out Hannah. “What’s it like?”

You stared at her, watching as a warm brown that reminded you of English Breakfast tea with milk stirred in surrounded Hannah’s edges.

“You’re such a good person,” you said, feeling tears prick at your eyes, because Hannah Abbott truly was. “And so are you.”

You turned to Lucy, trying your best not to cry. “Did you know that you’re the color pink?”

Lucy nodded gravely. Later she would laugh about this, but not now. “That’s very kind of you.”

You spent the evening in a daze, staring open mouthed at your friends as you saw different colors swirl around, some overlapping and blending.

It was beautiful. Then the sadness kicked in. It wasn’t clear to you exactly what caused your sudden rush of melancholy—but all of a sudden you were staring at the happy people dancing around you, the colors blurring and mingling, and all you could think about was Tom. Tom, who was all alone. Tom, who might never get out. Tom, who was destined for an eternity of loneliness.

“I’m going to go back,” you said to Lucy, tugging at her sleeve to get her attention.

She frowned. “Aw, why? Are you not feeling well?”

“The potion Hannah gave me is making me feel really tired,” you said. It wasn’t a lie. Your eyelids were heavy and the thought of curling up under your blankets sounded better than anything. Well, almost anything. There was something you needed to take care of first.

“Booooo,” said Lucy, rolling her eyes. “Fine. Do you want me to walk you back?”

“No! I mean—” You gulped. “You’re having fun. I’ll be fine getting back. I think Ron’s on the rounds in our part of the castle. He’s not going to write me up.”

“You sure? I’d be happy to take you.”

You started pushing her in the direction of the other party-goers. “Very. Go have fun. I’ll see you when you get back.”

By the time you’d burst back into your room, your chest was heaving with exertion from sprinting up the stairs as you wrenched open your desk drawer and pulled out the journal.

Tom you wrote. Can you let me in?

He didn’t answer; instead, you were falling through space and into the warmly lit Hogwarts library from the 40s.

“Tom!” You couldn’t stop the grin that came across your face.

“Oh—hello.” Like always, Tom was standing tidily a polite distance from you, his hands tucked neatly behind his back. Unlike always, he was staring at you like you’d just shot his dog.

“Is everything okay?” The potion you’d taken was definitely still in effect. An inky blackness was hanging around his shoulders—a stark contrast to the paleness of his skin.

He swallowed, his eyes darting up and down. “Yes. Sorry. You just look a bit different.”

“Oh. Yeah, I was at a party. Did you know you have a black aura?”

“What?”

“Your aura is black,” you repeated, slower this time.

He just stared at you.

“Sorry,” you mumbled, averting your eyes. Maybe he was insecure about having such a lame aura color. It had been a bit rude of you to point that out all willy-nilly.

“I’m not—” Tom stopped, pressing his lips together before continuing. “I’m sorry, is there a reason why you asked to see me? Surely you don’t mean to read after you’ve just stepped out of a party?”

“Oh,” you said, and suddenly you remembered why you’d come. A somberness dropped over you. “I was just…I was having so much fun tonight. And then I thought about you.”

He stayed silent.

“What’s going to happen to you if I can’t get you out?” Your voice wobbled as tears pricked at the back of your eyes. “Are you just going to be stuck here forever? Won’t you be lonely?”

When he didn’t immediately answer and opted to stare at you in shock instead, you continued.

“Because I keep thinking about what might happen if something happens to me or I lose your journal,” you confessed, now ardently choking back tears. “I really worry about you. I’d never forgive myself if I didn’t help you leave.”

“Are you…” His eyes darted up and down you again. “Drunk?”

“Hardly,” you said, swiping angrily under your eyes as you collapsed onto the loveseat that you so often read on, pulling your knees to your chest. Then, quieter: “It was just some potion a friend gave me.”

“If you’re so worried about something happening to you so that I’m left alone…” You weren’t looking up at him, but the increase in volume told you he was coming nearer. “...May I suggest not taking mystery potions?”

Before you could issue a retort, the loveseat cushion shifted to accommodate the weight of a second person, sending you toppling over to the other side.

Right onto Tom.

Your hands went flying to the opposite armrest, fingers digging into the worn blue velvet with a death grip as you righted yourself, pushing your knees from where they’d landed sprawled in Tom’s lap.

Which you could actually touch, by the way. The implications began rolling in once you were back on your respective side. He’d been solid and warm and completely void of any attributes that may suggest he was a ghost. Which meant that it was probably possible to…

No. No. You weren’t going to think about that right now.

“I didn’t realize I could touch you,” you heard yourself saying, staring at him in wonder. “I just assumed I couldn’t.”

His throat bobbed as he swallowed. “Oh.”

And for purely scientific purposes (no reputable academic came to a firm conclusion based off of a single trial), you reached your hand out and experimentally poked his forearm again.

“Wow,” you said.

“Will you stop that?” said Tom.

“Yes.” You retracted your hand and placed it firmly in your lap. Then, because your manners hadn’t completely abandoned you: “Sorry. That was rude of me. I just sort of assumed that since you’re—well, whatever you are—it’d be like touching a ghost or something.”

“Whatever I am,” he echoed, looking off into the distance with what you could only describe as a very harrowed expression.

“I’m sorry,” you said again, but you weren’t entirely sure what you were apologizing for.

Instead of responding, he buried his face in his hands, heaving a heavy sigh as his fingers tangled into his hair.

“What’s wrong?” you asked.

He just shook his head, scrubbing his face with his hands once before he let them fall.

“Er, all right then,” you said. “Would you like me to leave? I’m sorry for bothering you.”

“You really shouldn’t worry about me,” he finally said. The awkward, slight pauses between his words gave you a sneaking suspicion that he was choosing his words very carefully.

“Of course I’m going to worry about you.” Now that you knew that you could touch him, nothing stopped you from reaching out to flick his arm indignantly. “We’re friends, and I like to think that my friends would worry about me if I was stuck in journal jail. Or whatever this is.”

He was still staring at where you’d touched his arm.

“...Unless you don’t want to be friends,” you added, suddenly feeling a little silly for jumping to such rash conclusions. “Which I’d understand. I can give your journal to someone else. A Slytherin, maybe. Someone a little more your speed.”

You decided to blame the potion for the obvious hurt that had seeped into your voice at the prospect that there was someone else who was better suited as his confidant.

“I don’t want you to do that,” Tom eventually said. He wouldn’t meet your eyes.

“Then what do you want?” The strength in your words surprised even you. “I don’t understand you. You tell me you want to get out, but you still won’t let me help you. You let me talk to you and come visit you and read with you, but then you expect me not to care. It doesn’t make any sense. You don’t make any sense.”

“It’s more complicated than that,” said Tom, thumbing the ring he always wore around his finger. “I don’t expect you to understand.”

“So help me understand!” Your voice rose sharply, echoing off the walls of the empty library.

Tom finally turned to you, his face split open with something so uncharacteristically raw and open that it takes everything within you not to gasp.

“No.”

“What?”

“No.” He drew in long breath. “Not right now. I need more time.”

“Oh, a half century wasn’t enough?” you retorted. “Need another?”

“It doesn’t work like that,” said Tom, an edge of franticness in the way he spun the ring around his finger quicker. “I never thought that I’d—I didn’t think I’d ever be found. I wasn’t supposed to be found.”

You didn’t know what to say to this. Instead, you sat there with your hands clasped tightly in your lap, eyes set on the floor, your mind racing with all the implications of everything you’d learned.

A moment passed. Then another. Once it appeared clear that you weren’t going to say anything back, Tom spoke up again. “You’re angry with me. I understand that this is…” He paused. “Unconventional. But I am grateful you’ve found me, and I’d really rather prefer that you don’t give me away to another student.”

You were just about to respond when—

“But of course I’d understand if you did,” he added hastily.

It was the most unnervingly emotional speech you’d ever seen come from Tom, ever the stoic, and under the influence of the potion that Hannah had given you, it was almost enough to make you give in and move on. But not quite.

“You said ‘supposed to’.” Your eyes still didn’t move from where they were trained on the scuffed wooden floor of the library. “You said ‘I wasn’t supposed to be found.’”

“That’s right.”

You turned to look at him, inky black aura spilling over his equally dark hair. “‘Supposed to’. Like you knew this was going to happen. Like this wasn’t an accident.”

And the change you saw in him was so miniscule that if you hadn’t been spending enough time studying his face, you might not have noticed it. But you had, and the slight dilation of his pupils and twitch of his jaw was enough to betray his panic.

Then his mouth split into a smile and his face smoothed over, his eyebrows furrowed with just the right amount of concern. The shift was startling, like he’d slipped on a mask. “Of course this was an accident. Do you really think that I’d choose to be stuck here for eternity?”

“That’s—” You paused, shaking your head. “I don’t know. I’m not sure.”

“I wouldn’t,” he pressed, and this time his arm came up to drape over the back of the couch. You tried your best not to think about how you could feel warmth radiating from it, how if you tilted your head back, you might brush against it. “Are you sure you’re well?”

“I’m fine.”

“I’ll send you back,” he said, a polite smile set on his lips. “You should really get some rest.”

And for the first time since you’d first discovered the journal, you fell asleep feeling a little bit afraid of Tom Riddle.

#tom riddle x reader #tom riddle imagine #tom riddle x y/n #tom riddle x you

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