Forever Yours, Tom Riddle (Completed)

Year Six: Part Three

Part Three

Professor Slughorn was glad I was there and asked me all sorts of questions but I noticed he wouldn't meet Toms eyes. What was going on? Tom gripped my hand as we left Slughorns office. "What's up with Slughorn? He was acting weird around you..." Tom put his arm around my shoulders. "I don't know, Harley." He kissed the top of my head. "Since when are you two together?" Rosier teased. "Shut it, Rosier." I hissed and Tom smiled as Rosier paled.

It started then. that very night, I started to let things slip. I pretended not to notice Tom reading books about Horcruxes even when I knew he was planning on making one. He was afraid of death, there was nothing wrong with that, was there? He even talked to me about it a couple of times. But I just smiled and carried on with life as if he hadn't admitted to wanting to live forever...

It was a Saturday, Tom didn't show up in the common room even though we were suppose to go into Hogsmead today. I walked up the boys stairs, it was unlikely Tom had slept in. Tom never slept in. But still I knocked on his door. LeStrange answered but put a finger to his lips before quietly closing the door behind him. "He's not here, Harley." He whispered.

I frowned, "How did you know I wasn't looking for you?" He rolled his eyes, "Harley we all know when you come up here you're looking for Vol- I mean Tom." I didn't think his death eaters had given Tom a new name... "What did you call him?" LeStrange paled slightly and went back into his room and I heard the door lock before I could ask again. Maybe he used the wrong name by accident. I shrugged, Tom had probably gotten up early and gone to the Chamber.

I walked up to the second floor bathroom and just outside the door I heard a scream and then silence. I pushed through the door and saw the chamber closing, and the mirrors moved back in place. "Close your eyes!" I heard Tom yell. Through one of the mirrors I saw big yellow eyes, just before I went to close my eyes. I felt my feet start to freeze and knew the paralysis would spread until I couldn't move. Tom must have found something in the chamber worse than we'd imagined. I froze completely, I couldn't even blink. Then I started falling backwards. I saw a flash of light and it didn't hurt when I fell. Tom materialized a stretcher and put me on it before pushing me into the hall. "It's going to be alright." His fingers brushed my face slightly but there was something more behind his eyes. Guilt?

Then he ran back into the bathroom. I couldn't move, I was so scared. Why had he left me? Finally he came back and ran me to the hospital wing. I heard bits and pieces of conversations. Mainly about turning me back, and closing the school. But what made me suspicious was Tom telling them he found me on Seventh floor near the Gryffindor common room. He was lying...

Tom and his friends visited me, and Tom seemed more and more exhausted every time he visited. I tried using wandless magic a few times and some things worked. When they finally made something that would fix me the nurse left it on her desk across the room after being summoned by the headmaster. Stupid lady couldn't take two seconds to set me right again? Tom was asleep in the chair beside my bed, it was late and he should have left by now. I called the medicine to me and used magic to swallow it. It took a few minutes and then my face was freed. I gasped in a deep breath and Tom woke up.

"Harley?" He leaned forward and smiled. One of my arms came back to motion and I reached up to touch Toms face. I'd seen him every day but missed him so much. I pulled his face down to mine and kissed him. It didn't matter that he'd lied to the professors, he was here and I was here. "Can we get out of here?" Tom shook his head. "You're not suppose to leave until you can move everything." I tried wiggling my toes and couldn't, but I could move my ankles. "I can move my lips, that counts. Please, Tom I've been stuck in here for too long. Just take me to my room, please." Tom sighed and walked to the desk. He bent over and wrote on a sheet of parchment. I swung my legs over the side of the bed and Tom helped me up. He placed the note on my pillow.

Walking down the halls became easier the longer the medicine was in my system. "What happened, Tom?" I asked simply. "A girl named Myrtle was killed by a monster, an acromantula that a fourth year Gryffindor was raising. I saw it going into the girls bathroom so I followed it, hoping to help. Then you came in and if you look it in the eyes, you die. Which is why I yelled at you. A girl died. It had already killed her by the time I got there, I couldn't do anything to help." I didn't mention that I'd overheard him saying he found me by the Gryffindor common room. In fact at the moment it had slipped my mind. "Tom I'm so sorry. You shouldn't have had to see that girl. Who was it? The Gryffindor?"

"Rubeus Hagrid. He's been expelled and his wand snapped in two." I remembered meeting him, years ago, he'd seemed so shy and nice. I guess you can't judge a book by its cover. "Wow." Was all I could say, it was all I had time to say really, for we were at the top of the Slytherin stairs looking down into the common room. There was something I didn't quite believe in Toms story, like how I hadn't seen him go in ahead of me and how he was suppose to meet me in the common room but wound up on the second floor. Was it just a coincidence the murder happened in the same place the chamber of secrets was? Tom didn't meet my eyes and I didn't know if he was telling me the truth, maybe bits and pieces of the truth. But I shook it away and smiled, "I'm so proud of you."