The World is Yours | Tom Riddle

chapter xliv.

It's pretty fucked up how okay

you were after hurting me.

- j.b.

Atarah.

The moment I see her I ignore all the pain as I go over to her and hug her. She's okay. She's alive. I draw back and begin to inspect her for any injuries but am relieved to find not a single bruise or scratch on her. "You're okay." For the first time in a long time I let out a sigh in relief after worrying about her for so long.

"You're bleeding." She looks down at my side where blood had bled through. She lightly touches the area and I wince. At her reaction to the pain she momentarily caused me she draws back and right away I begin to reassure her, "It's fine, I'll be okay."

"I don't understand any of this."

"Francis told us he told you everything and you ran, why would you do that? He loved you and he would have kept you safe." I realized my mistake as soon as I said it. I didn't want to tell her that Francis died, not yet. I can't do that to her now.

My words make her pause for a moment and I think she picked up on my wording but then she talks again, "He had just made me unconscious, I didn't believe a single word he was saying. I was scared." As much as I wish she would have reacted the other way I can't not understand her position. He went about it the wrong way. It was all too much at once, I've been learning this information over time. I've been given time to come to terms with what is the truth and what is not.

"I'm sorry you were put in this situation, I never wanted any harm to come to you."

"You can't put the entire blame on yourself, I know from the beginning I pushed you to go to the party and I began a relationship with Francis."

Neither of us speak after our confessions. Eventually we both move against the wall sitting shoulder to shoulder. I lay my head against the wall behind me and close my eyes. I've just begun to let down my guard and relax when Annalie speaks.

"I'm sorry about your parents." I take in that statement and draw in a shaky breath. The fact that they're really dead coming back to me again. However, just as soon as the grief hits me, anger overwhelms me. Anger directed right at Dumbledore. But then something comes to mind, I turn slowly to her and confusion crosses her face at whatever expression I am wearing.

"How do you know about what happened to them?" Tom didn't tell the others about what happened in the letters he sent, he only told them it was no longer safe there and to leave. So how could she possibly know about their death.

She stumbles over her words at first, "Dumbledore told me what he did while he was interrogating me. He let it slip as a tactic to scare me into giving up information but I didn't know anything that could help."

I drop my head into my hands, "I'm sorry. I've been so on edge that I rushed to accuse you without thinking it through."

Her hand runs along my shoulders, showing me that it's okay. "I can't even begin to understand what you have gone through." She continues comforting me and eventually I lean back against the wall and she uses this time to ask me another question.

"Francis mentioned everything having to do with a key. If you have it, why don't you just give it to him and put an end to all of this."

"I can't give it to him, if he has done all of this without that power imagine what evil he would do with it."

"So you do have it?"

I fully face her as I answer her question, "No I don't." Not completely a lie but I can't risk Dumbeldore over hearing and knowing for sure that I found it.