Tom Riddle didn’t believe in softness. Not really.

Softness was how you got hurt. Softness was how the other boys at the orphanage ended up with skinned knees and broken things. It was how you got stolen from, pushed aside, ignored, forgotten. And Tom Riddle refused to be any of those things. Not anymore.

But then there was you.

You, who had been there from the beginning. The only other child in the orphanage he didn’t despise. The only one who didn’t flinch at the strange things that happened when he was around. You didn’t call him names, didn’t snitch on him when the lights flickered or someone’s precious toy exploded into shreds in the night. You just watched. Quiet. Clever. Unafraid.

He didn’t treat you like the others. Never had. Not when you were children, and especially not now.

He helped you.

God, he liked helping you — though he’d never admit it in so many words. Not to anyone but you, maybe. When the castle overwhelmed you that first year, when some cruel older students made fun of your hand-me-down robes, when you cried after you couldn’t master a spell the others got on their first try — Tom had been the one who found you. Who walked with you through the empty corridors at night when you couldn’t sleep. Who slipped you charmed notes with translations when your Latin faltered. Who never said anything when you sat next to him in the library, just turned the pages a bit slower so you could keep up.

To everyone else, he was cold. Untouchable. Mysterious. Dangerous.

But to you, he was Tom.

Now, years later, that difference had grown into something… sharper. Brighter. Hogwarts had given you both more than just magic — it had given Tom power. Reputation. Control. And it had given you something too — a name people whispered with curiosity in hallways, a smile that made even older students trip over their words. You didn’t flaunt it, but you had it. That glow. That untouchable air that meant people either admired you or hated you.

Tom wasn’t sure which he preferred.

He watched you from the far side of the Slytherin common room now — parchment spread across your lap, the fire catching on your hair as you furrowed your brow in concentration. Third-year Charms essay, he assumed. Something Professor Flitwick had probably overcomplicated again. He saw the way your lips moved silently as you re-read a paragraph. The way you absently chewed your quill when stuck on a thought.

She’s going to ink her teeth, he thought vaguely.