» ʏᴏᴜ'ʀᴇ ᴀ ꜰᴏx || ꜰɪᴠᴇ ʜᴀʀɢʀᴇᴇᴠᴇꜱ

Part 38

• Please skim through part 29 again - I added some things - my updates won't be daily anymore either, I'll skip a couple days but hope to post at the very least one chapter each week until school starts again in February.

Also, happy new year!! I stayed up until midnight to specifically post this at the very start of 2021 for y'all •

Five cried in the inside - his own screams echoing through his head loudly.
Of course, he wouldn't dare to cry outwardly - not in the current company, he would never hear the end of it.
Although, his large cerulean eyes were glistening slightly like a salty dead sea, clenched fists going snow white.

"Just go Riddle. I'll only be a nuisance." He said weakly, voice faltering - there was no point in pretending to be his old sarcastic and cold self now, the dark haired boy had already seen too much.

Five didn't look up, he didn't need to - he could already hear the footsteps sounding.
The burnet's legs gave out and shifted from his small crouching position to a kneeling form - carpet rubbing harshly against the little stripe of pale skin the end of his navy shorts and oil black socks failed to cover.

He was extremely confused when a warm body engulfed him into a loose hug, smaller frame easily covered by the other kneeling figure like a blanket 

Tom smelt like books, both new and old - and the scent of solace chai tea, warm and comforting.
The boy found himself leaning into the unexpected touch, burying his face into the larger's cloaked shoulder - taking in a shuddering breath.

"It won't be your fault if it doesn't work out, Five." He said rather hesitantly, as if he wasn't sure weather he should have spoken all.

Emotions aren't exactly his strong point.

"You don't understand, what it's like to have the fate of billions of lives resting on your shoulders." The smaller said in a small, slightly muffled voice.
The warm arms around him became a little tighter, Five forcing himself to bite back the tears as best he could.

"Four days. If I don't figure it out quick, all of this will be gone in four days."
Tom hesitated in his words once again, what he may say next may both help give him and the world more time, and an opportunity to gather more valuable information - maybe even a complete puzzle.

"I could, assist you. For all we know, it could be related to the wizarding world." The raven haired boy offered politely, cautiously choosing his words.

"What would you know about stopping the world." Five asked weakly, as bluntly as he could muster.

"Well, I have more experience when it comes to magic - and I know my way around places that even the professors don't know, that you don't know - yet."

Five paused for a minute, breathing steadily becoming even - comforting arms around him never leaving nor faltering.

"It's seems that your now my only option."

The two were suddenly reminded that they were still in the library when a group of what sounded like girls a few book shelves away started chatting loudly, separating as if they had been harshly electrocuted apart.

Five was flustered for a moment, but only for that moment before he jumped - reappearing again with the soft blue haze Tom was now quite familiar with, the once crushed white chalk now gone.

"You'll have to know exactly what you're trying to prevent right now." The old teen told Tom, strength in his voice only just present.

"I won't tell the whole story because it'll just waste your time-"

"No!-" Tom quickly stopped himself and quieted his voice, scolding himself for loosing composure so easily to this - mysterious boy, jumping up gracefully so that he was now looking down at the shorter.

"- I apologise, I mean - I'm not planning on doing anything at the moment, tell me the full story."
The brunet looked up semi suspiciously at Tom, sighing before leaning back onto one of the mahogany book shelves - speaking solemnly.

"During a meal time seventeen of your years ago, I desperately wanted to do a jump - more specifically, a jump through time.
My father told me that one jump is like sliding along the ice, while the other is akin to descending blindly into the depths of the freezing water and reappearing as an acorn - ultimately hinting that I wasn't ready before telling it to me straightforwardly.

Of course, I didn't listen. I jumped nearly eighteen years into the future - one that barely exists for Earth.
I jumped into a time, where nothing but mindless cloaked creatures were the only 'living' things left, apart from me - floating around uselessly and giving off nothing but a cold and bitter feeling.

Everything had been reduced to rubble and ashes, everyone was dead, and I spent the next thirty eight years of my miserable life alone until the Handler recruited me.

The only thing that I found was the date it was going to happen." Five's foggy cerulean eyes looked up through his unruly hazel hair, catching deep forest green ones.

"The fourth of November, 2019 - the time is unknown, although I expect that it was around noon judging from the sun's position, and how clotted my sibling's blood was.
Four days from now. That's all we've got."

"So... " The raven haired boy started, mimicking Five's position by leaning on the opposite shelf to him.

"You're telling me that A: dementors become one of the only forms of 'life' on Earth- and B: that you're consciousness is now at least fifty three?" He asked, quickly doing some basic calculations in his mind - which were nothing compared to Five's own.

"Fifty eight, but I'm still physically a non ageing fifteen year old. And I'm presuming that you know what these dementors look like - so yes." The old teen replied quietly, the other nodding slowly.

Offering to help this boy was a propitious decision, and because of it Tom's puzzle was three quarters of the way through - nearly fully connected aside from a gaping gap in the very middle.

The burning question still remains.

What exactly happened to Five Hargreeves during those five years the Handler recruited him for?

Tom pushed himself off the mahogany shelf elegantly, walking up to the disheartened boy.

"You should head back, join your friends - they've been fairly concerned for you this past month. And if this is one of the last few days of humanity, then you'll want to spend at least one of them with those two." The raven haired boy paused just before he was about to stride past the brunet, winter ebony cloak brushing against the other's covered ankles.

"Oh, and... happy fifty ninth birthday, Five."

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