The fucking audacity. That’s what had been souring Tom’s mood lately. Not loudly, he didn’t do loud. But it festered beneath the surface, a quiet rot, slipping between his thoughts like blood in water.

Everyone respected Tom Riddle. Whether it was his sickeningly polished charm or the kind of presence that silenced prefects mid-breath, they fell in line. They always fell in line. And she had too, or so he thought.

Maybe it was his mistake, getting too close to a girl like her. Sharp-eyed. Slippery. Pretty in a way that knew it. But no. no. The mistake had been hers. Tom hated being deceived. It scraped at something primal in him. But there was a cruel, glittering part of his mind that relished it, too. That she’d dared to play with fire, knowing what he was. That she wanted to touch what she shouldn’t.

Her defiance was unbearable. And captivating. She spoke back. Corrected him in front of others. Pointed out things she wasn’t meant to see. She got in his way. He knew something was wrong the moment he stepped into his dorm. The air was too still. Not dead, butjust disturbed. Like a song played slightly off-key, only he could hear the discord.

Then he saw it.

His diary. Not where he’d hidden it, buried, warded, safe. No. It lay open, splayed across the bed, pages parted like a mouth mid-confession. Exposed. He went still. Not frozen, calculating. His breath slow, eyes flicking across the room like a scalpel gliding across flesh. Rage didn’t erupt; it unfurled. Elegant. Precise. Like smoke beneath his skin.

Abraxas wouldn’t. That sniveling, silver-spooned coward barely touched his own books. And Tom would know if it had been him. No, this was someone who thought they were clever.

And then he saw the note. Folded. Unlabeled. Unbothered. But he knew the handwriting. His body knew it.Slanted and deliberate, with just enough flourish to seem innocent. It was her. It reeked of her. Not just a trespass, a message. Left for him like a gift. Or a challenge.

That fucking girl.

But deeper than the rage, beneath the urge to rip her apart, was something else. Something quiet. Almost reverent. She’d touched him. Not his body, no, that would’ve been less intimate. She touched what he buried. She walked through the ruins of him with soft hands and smiled. He sat at his desk, ink gliding like a knife across parchment. The letter he wrote was immaculate. A discrepancy in Divination, he claimed. A polite invitation. An excuse. A net laced with civility and something sweeter, darker.

He waited.

Of course she came. Of course she did. She slipped through the door like she owned it. Like she’d walked these halls all her life, not a guest but a claimant. There was that smirk again, careless, curved like a blade she thought he hadn’t seen coming. She didn’t know what she looked like. But Tom did. She looked like sin. Like a problem he wanted to keep. Arrogant. Beautiful. Breakable.

His face didn’t shift, not even slightly. But inside, something purred. Something possessive. Unkind. She was his now. Whether she knew it or not. He moved slowly, each step deliberate, like drawing out a dance she didn’t know she’d already lost. He stopped just short of her.

The silence was suffocating. When he spoke, it was almost a whisper, soft, intimate, and laced with amusement he didn’t feel.

“Tell me what you did.”

A breath.

“Or shall I tell you what I think you did?”

Still, his voice wasn’t angry. Just… curious. The way a child might be, watching a butterfly twitch after he’s pinned it. Because deep down, he didn’t want to crush her. Not yet. He wanted to understand her.

So he could ruin her more beautifully.