For the Greater Good || Tom Riddle ||

Chapter Thirty: Into the Future

In the golden liquid, the horror unraveled and sucked her into its reality.

The first image she could fully distinguish was the slowly forming skull with a serpent tongue hanging in the sky like a warped version of the moon.

The sight of it made her skin crawl with the feeling of newly hatched Acromantulas and a shiver only felt from the sound of a werewolf's desperate howl. A deep sense of foreboding hung in the night air.

Then, jutting out from the bottom of the scene, was a dark tower, familiar and looming—the Astronomy Tower. Framed by storm clouds, Hogwarts stood in stony silence; its cobbled façade strikingly grey and the moon nowhere in sight.

Although she had no clue what was happening, fear swelled inside Gwen like a venomous bubble, compressing her lungs and dragging an ominous aura over her mind.

The vision guided her closer, her incorporeal essence lurching forward as she became angled toward the balcony of the building.

She peered into the tower from the outside, as if she was riding a broom—although she was merely omniscient presence with no body—and noticed a figure standing near the edge.

She noticed the plum-colored robes and a long beard, stately flowing hair draping down the wizard's back. Others seemed to be in the room as well, but she couldn't make out their features.

The plum-colored robes sharply caught her attention.

The flash came very quickly and startled her.

A jet of green light shot from the end of an unseen wand. The figure was hit squarely in the chest, blasted into the air, nearly suspended beneath the shining skull visage before he slowly fell backwards, tumbling over the battlements and out of sight.

Her mind careened after it.

Dumbledore.

Gwen's jaw slackened with terrified surprise, and felt a scream rising in her throat, but the scene was already changing, morphing, and with it, swept away all of her emotion.

Soon, she was staring into a living room, standing next to a table with a typewriter and a lamp and crocheted coasters.

A Muggle television was playing some sporting program with static in the corner, and as Gwen inched into the room, she noticed broken glass on the floor. It crunched underfoot; a vase seemingly broken; its contents spilled on the carpet.

Gwen studied the room, filled with a cozy fireplace and floral couches. The décor was a mix of magical and Muggle, with various magical herbs in jars, Quidditch team banners, mixed in with Muggle technology and comforts like the television and a telephone—modern designs Gwen had never seen before.

She was watching her step to avoid glass, and when she noticed it.

Small red drops on the light tan carpet, right below the fireplace. Questioningly, she looked up at the mantle, where a portrait was hung—a moving picture of a lovely family of four.

A young woman with freckled light brown skin and tightly curled, rust colored hair smiled widely as she put an arm around her little brother—her twin despite the sex and age difference of four or five years.

Two adults stood next to them, smiling, most likely in their late forties or early fifties. The beautiful woman with brown skin and a kind grin was held dearly by her husband, a man with pale skin, freckles, and strawberry blonde hair with hints of red and grey.

Framed next to the family portrait were two pieces of childhood art—handprints and depictions of bowtruckles crudely drawn in primary colors.

The names signed at the bottom of each individual page were scrawled messily, in rainbow letters.