For the Greater Good || Tom Riddle ||

Chapter Eighteen: Parasite

All at once, voices filled the room.

"What!"

"That's surprising," the Scottish woman surmised with a quizzical and wily eyebrow. She much resembled a horned owl with her ratty hair and beakish nose.

"Absolutely not!" Archie interjected, Gryffindor spirit and all.

Kenji apprehensively cleared his throat, "That doesn't seem the most appropriate way to go about this."

"Albus!" Elphias admonished.

Quillish obviously said something using Legilimency that caused the auburn-haired man to raise a brow.

The cacophony of words and emotions flowed over in an overwhelming torrent, a tormenting that pecked and pried at the mind as it threatened to settle into its new space. It begged to be let in, to be thoroughly reasoned—why are they afraid? Why do they disprove?

The questions were very inquisitive and instinctual, childlike in their query. It was only natural to wonder them. They sprouted like daises from the soil, nourished by the dirt of long held secrets and repressed shadows.

But these were the very questions that she wasn't yet ready to answer. And the more obvious their condemnation became, the more her conscious rattled in its precious cage.

Why?

Why?

Why?

She wasn't a fool. She knew the answer.

He was poison. The most glorious kind, the kind that felt euphoric as you swallowed, but as it sunk its fangs into your stomach, all you wanted to do was scream and spit and swear you'd never ingest it again.

But you would.

A thousand times, you would.

A million, maybe.

Gwen's hands were balled into fists, her gaze stubbornly fixated on her lap. Anger surged throughout her body, the pit of it settling in her chest and rising into her neck, which made her throat feel tight and heavy and coated in fire. She feared raising her eyes—she hated what she would find if she met their gazes.

Would they see right through her?

Could they sense her embarrassment? Her resentment? Her lingering feelings?

"The art of seduction and a little Dark magic."

She squeezed her eyelids tight as the arguing voices got louder and louder.

The Dark magic she could manage, but the seduction?

She had no idea how Tom felt toward her after all these years. He could hate her. Even worse, he could be indifferent. After all, she had left him in the Room of Requirement, alone and cold.

Gone, without a trace.

In truth, she had hidden from him.

She wrote but never owled. She spoke whispers into the night, when she was alone in her bed, but she made no effort of contact. She imagined him, but never sought him out.

She herself feared what would happen if they crossed paths again. It was the mixing of fire and oil, catalysts to each other's experiments—deadly and wonderful all at the same time. She feared that, together, they would swallow the stars with their supernova.

And for that, she hated herself.

Somehow, Tom Marvolo Riddle would always wind up abandoned and alone.