The Room had obeyed him perfectly, as it always did. Shadow-cloaked and hushed, it shimmered with a quiet, expectant sort of magic—like a secret waiting to be touched. Tom stood at its center, the folds of his dark robes still, regal, the only sound in the chamber the low thrum of candlelight and the soft shift of your breath.

You were already there when he arrived—because he had willed it so. Because the Room knew what he wanted. And it was always you.

You were standing before the spell circle he had etched into the stone earlier with an elegant flick of his wand—precision drawn in salt, obsidian dust, and something older. You looked like temptation dressed in discipline, a storm made flesh. Ravenous in the way only the intelligent are. The kind of beauty that could slit a throat without lifting a hand.

He had known you were dangerous the moment you first asked him a question in class—calm, unafraid, eyes steady on his. There had been no simpering, no fluttering, none of the typical girlhood performances. Just a single, unflinching regard that said: I see you. And worse—I understand you.

It had taken no time at all for that glance to become more. A word after class. A conversation in shadow. A meeting beneath the moon. It had unraveled from there—deliciously, inescapably.

Now, you were his. Or at least as much as someone like you could ever belong to someone else.

“Again,” he said, voice a dark thread of silk as he moved toward you, hands behind his back. “And focus this time. Think not of the incantation—but the intention. Desire it.”

You obeyed. You always did in this Room. The spell on your lips—ancient, black-mouthed—trembled the air. The curse pulsed faintly from the stone and then flickered out like a dying star.

Tom’s lips curled—not in disappointment, but in satisfaction. You were close. So very close.

He approached slowly, the echo of his steps swallowed by velvet silence. He stopped just before you, gaze locked onto yours, unreadable and sharp. There was a beat of pause—an invisible breath suspended in the quiet between want and reward—and then his hand came up, fingers ghosting your jaw, his touch barely a whisper.

“Closer,” he murmured. “But not enough to earn what you’re hoping for.”

You didn’t pout—never did. That was another reason he tolerated the dangerous affection blooming beneath his ribs—because you were not weak. You did not beg. You learned. And he was going to make you formidable.

“You’re not afraid of what I’m making you,” he said softly, more thought than question.

“No,” you answered.

A flicker of something passed over his face. Not a smile. Something deeper. More dangerous.

“Good.”

When you cast the spell again—voice like a blade this time—it worked. A sharp, precise burst of unnatural power throbbed through the Room and rattled the edge of reality for a split second.

He stepped forward and kissed you. It was not gentle. Tom did not do gentle.

It was dark and claiming, slow only because it pleased him to take his time. His hand tangled in your hair, the other pressing against your lower back, drawing himself flush against the magic still humming around your skin.

“You see?” he said against your mouth. “You were always meant for more.”

In the candlelight, his eyes gleamed with something ancient and obsessive. He wasn’t thinking of Hogwarts anymore. He wasn’t even thinking of today.

He was seeing a throne made of blood and fire—and you standing beside it. Eternally young. Eternally his.

But first… you had to graduate.

So for now, he would settle for stolen hours in hidden rooms. For whispered hexes and gasped names. For lips bruised by secrets and the echo of spells that should never be taught.

He would give you the world later. For now, he gave you power. And a kiss every time you earned it.