Unexpected Encounters | Tom Riddle

XI: Fragile Connections

"I understand. Thank you for bearing with me." She gave them a small smile, heart sinking to her stomach when Abraxas didn't reciprocate like the others. "I'll head back to the bedroom then." They nodded at her in acknowledgement and she walked away, heart heavy. They didn't want to be around her for some time. They were not being irrational and she had appreciated the fact that they had taken her dislike of their actions pretty well. However, that didn't make it hurt any less. These people had been the reason for her serenity over the past weeks. They took her mind off her dilemma and she was grateful to them for it.

She went straight to bed, not bothering to change out of her uniform and quickly fixing the small injuries she had from her encounter with Tom. She was exhausted and all she wanted to do was look at pictures of the people she had loved and cared for.

She took off the charm on her bracelet and reached inside the magically reduced bag. She felt around for picture frames, feeling the vials with different potions that she kept for cases of emergency. She did a quick calculation that she had only about two days' worth of calming draughts remaining before having to brew a new batch.

When she felt the frames, she pulled out all the pictures. Her heart ached as she looked at the people who had become her family at Hogwarts.

They had all been taken at the Yule ball in her fourth year, and a fond smile covered her face. She had been proud of the dress she had worn to the ball: a long dark green dress that was strapless and that cinched at the waist before flowing loosely to her ankles. She had enchanted the lower half of her dress to sparkle like stars and it had been magnificent to twirl around in that dress. Her hair fell into loose black waves over her shoulders and she had worn dainty gold jewellery. Two simple earrings and a thin necklace that emphasised her collarbones. Theo had loved it.

In one picture, she was twirling around in her dress in the middle of the Great Hall. In another, Theo was smiling at her while she was laughing at something he had said.

In another photo, she was cheering with champagne flutes with Luna and Padma at her side.

In a fourth one, she was laughing with Harry, Ron and Hermione, and Draco was glaring at them from behind. Her lips curled upwards at the memory. She had just caught him off guard with something outrageous that she had said (Theo makes her horny) and she had run off to her brother and his friends.

In the last picture, she was sitting on a table with Harry smiling awkwardly at the camera. She had swung her arm around his shoulder and winked at the camera.

These were the people who had been her lifeline while at Hogwarts.

Her smile slowly faded when she remembered how things ended before she died. Harry and Luna were dead. Ron and Hermione had been fighting constantly after he had passed away, blaming each other for not killing off Nagini in time. Draco and Theo had both become death eaters, and she had been forced to cut off ties with both of them. They had never heard from Padma since the battle of Hogwarts and Lilia had been praying that she had just been forced to stay at school and study under the new curriculum set by Voldemort.

The only memory that she had of Remus was a knife made of pure silver. He had hoped that it would repel the werewolf in him everytime he transformed. However, he had never let his insecurity get in the way of his care for Lilia. From the moment he had met the young girl on the Hogwarts Express, he had taken a liking for her and had made it his goal to protect the girl as much as he could. This was what had cost him his life eventually but he didn't regret anything.

Lilia didn't even know about it, but he had died hoping that she would remain safe and alive until Voldemort's reign came to an end.

Lilia missed them all terribly and she fell asleep with thoughts of their happy moments swirling in her mind.

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

Evangeline and Celeste talked to Lilia occasionally, but they all felt awkward doing so.

Hence, Lilia decided to avoid them as much as she could until they felt ready to talk to her. She didn't condone the act of hurting an innocent student, but it didn't justify the reaction that she had, especially when she had managed to undo their curse. It had been just like she had been told: the boys were more strict when it came to pureblood ideologies than the girls.

Lilia hadn't even considered the fact that Tom Riddle's Knights of Walpurgis could have consisted of girls too. What families did they get married into? She hadn't recalled ever seeing a Selwyn or Meadows in the pureblood family trees after the 1950s.

She skipped mealtimes because she knew that they would be at the Slytherin table, chatting together while she would feel like an outsider. Tom had been allowed to resume his normal duties when he had mostly recovered. Lilia had put together notes for the classes they shared together and had left them on his desk, before sitting elsewhere. He had given her small smiles of acknowledgement and it had been enough to make her blush.

What was wrong with her? Blushing because a future dark lord smiled at her? She should have been embarrassed of herself.

Lilia managed to get special permission from Headmaster Dippet to use the potions classroom to brew the calming draught. She went to see Dumbledore who was curious to learn more about what she wanted the room for. "I have to brew a calming draught every five weeks or so." She had told him, not wanting to go in too many details. "Do you have any condition?" Albus had asked, curious. "Just tremors." That had been the end of the conversation and he had asked Headmaster Dippet to grant her special access. So now, she didn't need to ask Slughorn before using the potions classroom when she needed and that made her job so much easier.

Dumbledore had stared at the door of his office for a while after she had left.

Calming draughts were hard to brew. Did she have a lot of experience brewing them? Why did someone so young have tremors? He found himself wishing he could learn about the future again.

Tom Riddle would become a dark lord and bring chaos on the country. He still remembered the day he had met the young man, a frail and pale boy with pale bruises on his skin. He had been very lively when talking about how he used his magic to make the others regret hurting him. He had even shared that he could talk to snakes. The young boy was related to the Gaunt family, the only direct descendants of Slytherin.

Dumbledore had never told Riddle about that. It didn't matter anymore because Marvolo Gaunt had been imprisoned for life in Azkaban for killing off the remaining Riddle family members. The news said that he had done so out of revenge for ruining his sister, Merope Gaunt. Why had he waited more than a decade for that? Albus couldn't shake off the feeling that Tom was somehow involved in that.

There had also been the death of Myrtle Warren who had been killed.

Tom was the one who had found Rubeus Hagrid guilty of her death because he had illegal animals stored within the school grounds. Hagrid was expelled and Tom was awarded for his service to the school. Albus knew for a fact that Hagrid wasn't involved in her death. He couldn't be; he was a kind giant. So far, he suspected Tom of four deaths but he didn't have anything to prove it. If he was comfortable with killing off people, it wouldn't be surprising that he would eventually become a dark lord. He was notoriously involved with the heirs of the most powerful pureblood families in Britain.

Albus Dumbledore thought that Tom Riddle was devoid of emotions, but he didn't know that the young man did care for his friends. He did not want to acknowledge the way the Slytherin prefect genuinely laughed and relaxed around them.

That would mean humanising the boy and since he does turn out to be a dark wizard, Dumbledore could not work with that.