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Chapter Text

Everyone would call her insane if they knew what she was trying to achieve.

Her best friends—Ominis and Anne—used to call her stubborn, incapable of letting go of the past. Before they turned their backs on her. Before they blamed her for Sebastian’s death. Before they decided that Renae Adair’s obsession with ancient magic and the darker sides of magic had gone too far.

Renae would call herself determined. Though, in the quiet confines of her mind, she admits she might have bitten off more than she could chew this time.

Time is fickle. It loops and turns and twists and repeats itself. Every credible source declares time travel too dangerous, too unstable, too unknown. Every book, every article, every whisper says the same thing: it’s impossible.

Renae thinks that’s bullshit.

There had to be more to it. She knew there was more to it. Her one year at Hogwarts—late-blooming, scandalous, exceptional—had taught her more than most ever learned. Not just because she was clever, or powerful, or because she could see ancient magic... but because she listened. She paid attention. Professor Hecat had let things slip. The Restricted Section held forbidden hints. Her instincts filled in the gaps.

If she were patient, she might have graduated, taken a place at the Ministry, and earned her way into the Department of Mysteries. She might have become an Unspeakable herself.

But Renae had never been patient.

She had a vast reservoir of ancient magic at her disposal, a talent for disruption, and one goal: go back. Back to before it all went wrong. Back to Sebastian. To save her first friend from himself. To do what Ominis and Anne never could.

It didn’t matter that they hated her now. It didn’t matter that she had been left behind, blamed, shunned. None of it would matter.

Unfortunately, she didn’t know the most important rule of time travel: the kind that changes the past is impossible.

She only wishes she’d learned that before she lost herself.

Before she met him .

Chapter Text

09/01/1891

At two in the morning, the first night back at Hogwarts, most of the older students were either drunk, passed out, asleep, or helping their less fortunate friends to the nearest lavatory. Hogwarts older students always did know how to throw a welcome back party.

Meanwhile, Renae Adair was far below the dungeons, deep within a great cavern carved under the school, staring at a charred apple still smoking in the pale yellow chalk lines of a complex runic array.

She sighed and scribbled down her notes in a worn, ink-smudged journal, one hand pushing back tangled strands of auburn hair. Her blue eyes, sharpened by determination and exhaustion, scanned the circle for mistakes.

“Too much power into dagaz?” she murmured aloud, the sound echoing against stone walls. Behind her, the orb of ancient magic buzzed with latent energy, a low hum in the silence.

Experimental magic—especially the kind no one acknowledged publicly—was frustratingly imprecise. Renae could only make guesses with the fragments she’d gathered from whispered warnings, locked-away documents, and the occasional careless comment from Professor Hecat. Most results didn’t match her expectations. But she refused to quit.

She couldn’t bear Anne’s vacant smile. Or the awkward tension in Ominis’s voice when he did speak to her. 

Images of Sebastian’s lifeless face flickered behind her eyelids.

One more time, she thought, forcing away the grief. Just one more try then I rest stop for tonight.

She reset the array, centered a fresh apple, and began again. Her theory was simple: if she could rewind time in a small, localized space, she could scale it up. Eventually. Probably.

She drew the ancient magic from the repository—down through her head, her arms, her palms—infusing it with intention. A radiant blue glow flooded the lines at her feet. The runes pulsed in reply. The apple began to shine.

Too brightly.

Lightning sparked off her finger tips blindingly.

Even with her eyes closed, the light scorched behind her lids. She gasped—and then everything went dark. Sudden. Absolute.

When the darkness lifted, she blinked hard, trying to clear the sunspots. The cavern looked the same—at first. But when she reached for her journal, she paused. Dust coated every surface. Cobwebs clung to the corners. Ivy curled around long-forgotten stone. All of it aged—except the precise circle she’d been standing in, which remained pristine.

Renae frowned.

Something had happened. Maybe progress. Maybe disaster.

Either way, she needed answers. And she wouldn’t find them underground.

-.~*~.-

09/01/1943

It was the first night back at Hogwarts, and the castle was still buzzing with the low thrum of returning students and rule-breaking upper-years partying. Most of them were either already passed out drunk or trying to sneak into someone else’s dormitory. Tom Riddle, of course, had no interest in such things tonight. He preferred the quiet of the dungeon corridors—dim, cold, predictable.

That’s why he was not expecting someone to crash into him headfirst.

A sharp breath escaped him as the collision sent her stumbling backward onto the floor, barely staying upright himself. The torchlight flickered, revealing a disheveled girl in an outdated Slytherin uniform: long skirt, green waistcoat, and a dusting of cobwebs across her auburn braid like she'd climbed through an abandoned shed.

Tom stared, taking her in with a critical eye.

She was clearly his age—or close. But he’d never seen her before. And Tom remembered everyone .

Her eyes, though—that was what caught him. Unsettlingly bright blue, lit like stormlight. There was something… unnatural about them. Not in the usual cursed way. Older. Wiser. Predatory.

She blinked up at him, stunned. Her lips parted slightly.

“Cat got your tongue?” he asked, voice dry with amusement, watching the color rise in her cheeks.

The dazed look vanished instantly. She climbed to her feet and dusted herself off with a scowl. “My tongue works fine, thanks.”

He almost laughed. She was mouthy. Interesting.

“Of course. My mistake.” He didn’t sound sorry at all. “Strange, though. I don’t think I’ve seen you around before, and I have an excellent memory. Hard to miss someone like you.” He drags his gaze up and down her form curiously. She seemed the type to clean up well.

She crossed her arms. “Maybe I avoid arrogant flirts.”

Tom’s smile widened. She had spirit, this one. He decided to test her further. “No name, then? Fine. You look like trouble. Or royalty. Shall I call you princess, maybe?”

She rolled her eyes. “Renae Adair.”

The name meant nothing to him, but she didn’t seem like a clueless muggleborn either. Half blood perhaps?

Still, he stepped forward, took her hand with careful grace, and pressed a kiss to her knuckles just to watch the heat rise in her face again. “Tom Riddle. May I escort you to your dorm, Miss Adair?”

She hesitated. “I still have something to do.”

“At this hour?”

“Is that going to be a problem?”

It was her tone—a challenge—that caught him off guard. Few people ever spoke to him like that. Not without consequences.

“I am a Prefect,” he said, tone cooling. “Depends what exactly you were doing to end up looking like you fought a broom closet and lost.”

She bristled, but before she could snap back, a voice interrupted.

“Ah, Mr. Riddle, my boy, have you caught someone out of—”

Professor Dumbledore appeared around the corner, his eyes landing sharply on the girl.

Tom turned slightly, watching both of them.

“Are you Renae Adair?” Dumbledore asked, voice uncharacteristically grave.

She stiffened. “I am...”

Tom glanced at her again. He wasn’t imagining things then—there was something strange about this girl.

“I think it’s best if you come with me,” Dumbledore added slowly, uncharacteristically paying no mind to Tom.

Tom watched the interaction with suspicion. Dumbledore rarely involved himself in minor infractions. Why this girl? What was he missing?

“Yeah. Alright,” Adair muttered, clearly thrown off balance.

“Good night, Mr. Riddle,” Dumbledore said with that same forced politeness he always addressed him with that made Tom grit his teeth.

He offered only a nod, then turned and walked away. But even as he disappeared into the shadows of the corridor, he could feel her eyes lingering on him.

-.~*~.-

09/02/1943

Renae woke to quiet light and the unmistakable scent of the Hogwarts hospital wing—clean linens, burn salve, faintly herbal tonics clinging to the stone walls. The bed beneath her was stiff, the pillow too flat, and the magic in the air hummed low and steady.

It was familiar. Almost comfortingly so.

She’d been here before for burns and broken bones from her escapades fighting wizards and goblins.

Feels like a lifetime ago now despite it only being two months ago that she defeated Ranrok.

She pushed herself upright slowly, muscles aching with the deep, echoing pull of magical depletion. Her hands trembled as she braced herself on the mattress. Her head throbbed. Her magic felt distant, like it had retreated somewhere deep inside to lick its wounds. 

Fantastic. I overexerted myself. Again.

A voice broke the silence.

“You’re awake.”

She turned her head and blinked at the man seated beside her bed. His robes were neat and a pale blue that complimented his equally pale blue eyes, his expression carefully composed. He looked middle aged with an auburn beard. 

“I’m Professor Albus Dumbledore,” he said calmly. “I teach Transfiguration.”

The name didn’t mean anything. Which told her more than it didn’t.

“I brought you here last night. Do you remember?” he continued. “You were drained—magically, I mean. I’ve only seen someone burn through power like that a few times before, and not in a controlled setting.”

Renae didn’t answer. She remembered the walk: the dim, echoing corridors; her boots dragging; the silence between them. She’d barely registered him as more than a shadow at the time.

“You weren’t in danger,” Dumbledore added gently, as if to reassure her. “But your condition was... exceptional.”

A long silence stretched between them. She stared down at her lap with a small frown. 

“I know who you are,” he said finally. “Or rather, who you were. You disappeared in my first year. I remember the whispers. You were the girl who brought down a poacher ring, stopped the goblin rebellion, and then vanished without a trace.”

Her shoulders stiffened.

“You were a legend.”

“I didn’t ask to be,” she said.

“Often legends never do.”

She took a breath. “I overshot.”

His brows lifted just slightly. “Ah. So it was intentional.”

She gave a slow nod. “I was trying to go back. To 1890.”

“I see. And instead, you landed here.”

“Where is here?”

“Hogwarts,” he said. “In the year 1943.”

She exhaled sharply and pressed her fingers to her temple, massaging the forming migraine. “Merlin’s bloody bones.”

Another silence. Not awkward, but heavy.

“You’ve been enrolled as a sixth-year transfer,” he said. “A temporary cover story, arranged with the Headmaster. The Ministry is unaware of your arrival, and I’d prefer to keep it that way.”

Renae nodded once. “Thank you.”

Dumbledore hesitated, mouth opening like he wanted to say something more. “You’ve met Tom Riddle.”

It wasn’t a question.

A memory of a handsome boy with dark eyes that appeared almost red in the torchlight drifts into her mind unbidden. He’d given off a weird aura, his magic giving the impression of being wrapped tightly around him like a cloak in winter. “That boy from the corridor?” she asked. 

“Yes,” Dumbledore replied, he looked a bit like he tasted something odd and wasn’t sure what to make of it. “He’s a gifted student. Ambitious. Highly intelligent. And dangerous.”

Renae raised an eyebrow. “You think I’m not?” Dumbledore seemed aware enough of her past escapades so it seemed a little pointless to warn her. He is just another teenage boy no matter how intelligent or ambitious and she hadn’t taken down a poacher ring by being soft.

He smiled, just faintly. “I think you’re used to fighting things alone.”

She didn’t respond to that.

“I’m not going to pretend to understand what brought you here,” he said. “But I do know power like yours comes with a cost. And I know what happens when people try to carry it without anyone to stop them.”

She looked at him. Really looked at him. Not as a stranger, but as someone trying—awkwardly—to offer help. It reminded Renae uncomfortably of the other professors that had tried to reach out to her during her time after Sebastian’s–

“Why help me?”

“Because history made you a martyr. I’d like to give you a chance to be something else.”

Renae sat in silence for a long moment uncomfortable, hands folded in her lap, a frown returning to her face.

Dumbledore rose slowly, smoothing his robes. “I imagine you’re still exhausted. I’ll let you rest.”

Renae didn’t answer, but she didn’t look away, either.

He paused at the end of her bed. “If you decide you need anything—a name to borrow, a lie to lean on, or someone to remind you that you are not your past—you may come find me.”

She gave the barest nod.

Dumbledore inclined his head. “Welcome back to Hogwarts, Miss Adair.”

And with that, he turned and left, his footsteps quiet against the ancient stone floor, leaving Renae alone with the weight of a world she no longer belonged to.

-.~*~.-

09/03/1943

“Oh no,” Melvin Rosier sighed into his pumpkin juice, spotting Tom approaching the Slytherin table in the Great Hall, the early morning sun shining hazily through the tall stained glass windows. “He’s got that look again.”

Callum Avery followed Melvin’s gaze. “What look—oh. That look.” His grin was slow and knowing. “Poor soul. Whoever they are is.”

“Which one is it this time?” Florence Lestrange asked as Tom slid into his seat across from him, already smirking. 

Tom sat down with practiced ease and, without acknowledgment, plucked a piece of toast from Florence’s plate. He took a bite out of it like it belonged to him.

“I’ve no idea what you’re all on about,” he said mildly after swallowing.

“Toast thief,” Florence muttered, eyeing the toast in Tom’s hand like he was considering charming it away in retaliation. He makes the correct decision to butter himself a new piece of toast.

Waylen Nott watched silently from behind his teacup, his eyes tracking Tom the way one might a chessboard. Abraxas Malfoy looked vaguely pained to be present at all, sipping his tea like he hoped it might end him.

It was a known thing among the Knights of Walpurgis that Tom was prone to... intense fixations. And every time, the same pattern followed: interest, pursuit, disillusionment—and the inevitable retreat into his own icy quiet. The Knights had learned to spot the signs. Had learned to weather them. Not that Tom would ever admit to something so base as loneliness.

“She hasn’t spared you a glance,” Florence then said, glancing curiously at Renae Adair who sits by herself at the very end of the table scribbling something in a journal while she eats breakfast, tone a shade too casual. “That’s unusual. They normally trip over themselves by now.”

Tom sipped his tea slowly, tracking Renae Adair with a look that could only be described as methodical. “Not everyone is so easily charmed.”

Callum leaned forward, elbows on the table, a teasing grin on his face. “Or maybe she’s the first one clever enough to make you work for it.”

“Charm’s a tool,” Tom said evenly. “It’s not meant for every lock.”

“Mm. But your pride does seem to want a turn at the handle,” Florence quipped.

“She hasn’t looked once,” Isabelle Rosier noted, eyes narrowed, gaze on Renae. “And she doesn’t strike me as simply shy.”

“She’s definitely not just ignoring us,” Melvin adds, agreeing with his twin sister thoughtfully between bites of egg. “She’s dismissing us.”

That struck a chord. Tom's jaw flexed. It was deliberate. It wasn’t shyness, or confusion, or even disdain. It was something colder—like she was already convinced nothing here was worth her time.

“She’s doing it intentionally,” Isabelle continued. “Staying separate. Like she walked in knowing no one here mattered,” she adds, voicing aloud the same conclusion Tom came to.

“Name’s Renae Adair. Dumbledore seemed to know her,” Tom said, voice clipped.

Florence blinked. “Dumbledore? Didn’t think he had time for Slytherins.”

Tom didn’t speak. He watched her—just as he had the past two days, since that strange night when she’d appeared out of nowhere like a secret the castle had been keeping. The way she held herself hadn't changed. Like she’d rehearsed this indifferent defense long before she ever stepped foot in Hogwarts.

Florence’s smirk was audible in his voice. “You planning to let her keep pretending you don’t exist?”

Tom stood, adjusting his cuffs, having spotted Renae leaving the Great Hall. “Hardly.”

Callum raised his eyebrows. “Place your bets, lads. Let’s see how fast this one goes up in flames.”

Florence laughs and says, “A galleon on two months.”

Callum snickers beside him, shaking on the bet with Florence.

Abraxas, finally stirring, exhaled and muttered, “One day, he’ll chase the wrong mystery and find teeth willing to bite back.”

No one disagreed.

Tom didn’t look back. He was already gone.

-.~*~.-

09/03/1943

Renae had chosen the far end of the library on purpose. Tucked behind a fortress of books, she could breathe—sort of. She wasn’t here to be seen, liked, or spoken to. She was here for one reason only: to correct her mistake.

The books around her whispered theories and outdated warnings. Nothing new. Nothing real. Time magic, temporal instability, magical anchors—all referenced like superstition. She had done something that wasn’t supposed to be possible. Now she had to survive the consequences of being out of her time and equally out of her depth.

Her notes were sharp, written in shorthand and cipher, as much to protect herself as to organize the chaos of her thoughts. Each scribbled line was a battle against the fog in her head, the effect of too little sleep and not enough time spent recovering from her most recent bout of magical exhaustion. Each reference has been checked, cross-checked, and ultimately dismissed as incomplete or useless.

She felt a watchful gaze—like a breeze through a cracked window. Tom Riddle she guessed.

He’d been watching her all morning, ever since their unexpected run-in in the corridor. Their short interaction had been apparently enough to spark something in him. 

Fine. Let him look. Let him puzzle over her silence. She wasn’t here to entertain curious teenage boys.

Besides, the rest of Hogwarts could fawn over him enough for her going by the looks she noticed he got from both girls and boys. She refused to be another of his groupies no matter how easy on the eyes he was. 

It would be better if she didn’t get attached to anyone anyways if- no when she found a way back to 1890.

She turned another page. Her quill moved steadily, even if her head felt a bit like it was stuffed with cotton, her magic sitting hallowly in her core, and her fingers ached. There was too much research yet to be done.

“You look comfortable.”

She didn’t jump but it was a near thing.

Tom Riddle leaned against the bookshelf like he was posing for a portrait, a smirk plastered on his face. 

“Do you have a hobby that isn’t hovering?” she asked, not looking up.

She continued taking notes, jaw tight. Her pen scratched a little too forcefully across the page, but she didn’t stop. If he thought standing there in silence was going to make her speak, he didn’t know her at all.

“Not going to go away, are you?” she muttered. ‘ Fucking creep ,’ she thinks to herself.

“Not until I understand what it is you’re trying so hard to hide,” Tom said.

She finally looked up, just long enough to meet his eyes. “Not everyone has something to hide. Maybe I just don’t want to talk to you.”

His expression didn’t flicker. “I don’t believe in coincidences. You show up out of nowhere and expect no one to take notice?”

“I expect people to mind their own business.”

“Most people aren’t very good at that.”

‘ Screw this ,’ Renae thinks, bristling with annoyance. She shut her book with a definitive thud, slides her notes into her bag, and stands in one fluid motion. “Then I’ll make it easier for them by not being around.”

Tom stands there for a long moment, watching the space she’d left behind. Still no answers. Just more edges.

Tom smiles.

Chapter Text

09/10/1943

The weeks that followed settled into an uneasy rhythm. Renae kept to herself—orderly, composed, and utterly detached. She answered questions in class with mechanical precision, attended meals only when necessary, and lived buried in the library stacks as if knowledge alone could tether her back to where she was supposed to be.

Tom, predictably, did not take the hint.

He began placing himself in her path more deliberately. If she sat near the front in Charms, he’d shift his seat to the next row up. If she lingered in the corridor after class, he’d fall into step beside her, commenting on a spell, a theory, a passing observation. If she turned into the library, he was already there—waiting with a book he didn’t care about and a reason he never explained.

He tried every method he knew—casual flattery, clever insight, strategic silence. None of it worked.

Renae met every approach with indifference so pointed it became an art. Her responses were clipped, her tone unreadable. The more effort he gave, the colder she became. Her eyes flicked past him like he was just another flickering lamp in the corridor, occasionally pausing only to glare if she caught him following her—annoyed, unimpressed, unmoved.

The Knights noticed. Of course they did.

Florence was the first to poke fun. “You’ve gone soft,” he said with a grin, watching Tom pretend to read a book. “Maybe she’s your punishment.”

Callum offered dramatic condolences. Melvin had been keeping a tally. Isabelle and Waylen mostly observed, trading glances like they were waiting for the moment the situation turned from amusing to explosive.

Tom knew exactly how it looked—how ridiculous he must have seemed, orbiting a girl who barely acknowledged his existence. It was beneath him.

And yet, he didn’t stop.

Renae Adair was an enigma, a perfectly crafted lock with no key. And Tom Riddle didn’t care if he looked like a fool—he wasn’t going to leave it unopened.

He wasn't fooling anyone.

That particular afternoon, nine days after Renae Adair had suddenly appeared, the Knights were sprawled in their usual corner of the library, books splayed open and parchment lazily scattered across their shared table. Tom sat with them, quill idle between his fingers, his eyes flicking now and then toward the library doors.

“Is this masochism at this point?” Florence asked with a crooked grin as he doodled in the margins of his Arithmancy notes. “Genuinely curious.”

“She’s clearly not interested,” Isabelle added, voice low. “You’ve chased girls before, but this is something else. You look—obsessed.”

Melvin, sprawled out with his feet on the empty extra chair next to him, hummed thoughtfully in agreement with his twin. 

Tom didn’t look at them, twirling the quill in his hand, a habit of his when in thought.

Abraxas sighed like he couldn’t believe he was party to this. “You’re making a bloody fool of yourself,” he says without looking up from where he’s diligently writing an essay for charms.

“I’ve handled worse than disinterest,” he said, tone clipped. “Eventually, everyone reveals what they want.”

Florence snorted. “And what if what she wants is for you to leave her alone?”

“She should say so, then.”

“She does,” Isabelle muttered. “Every time she glares at you and leaves the room you’re in.”

Waylen, quiet as always, finally speaks up, “She’s not playing hard to get, Tom. She’s not playing at all. And that’s what’s bothering you.”

Tom smiled faintly, almost to himself. “She’ll come around eventually.”

“She’s going to hex you,” Isabelle said. “And I won’t even pretend to be surprised.”

Callum snorts and whispers something to Florence who then snickers.

But Tom wasn’t listening anymore. His eyes were on the door.

Because right then, the door creaked open.

Renae stepped inside, her bag slung loosely over one shoulder, her steps confident and practiced. Her eyes scanned the room once—never landing on the Knights—before she veered without hesitation toward her usual haunt: the shadowed corner in the very back of the library hidden behind the tall shelves.

Tom didn’t hesitate. The moment he saw her, he rose, a book in hand, and slipped after her like it was instinct, like it wasn’t the sixth time he’d done this that week alone and it was only Thursday.

“There he goes again,” Florence drawled, not bothering to hide his grin.

“Like clockwork,” Melvin added with a sigh. “Do we think he actually reads whatever book he grabs?”

“Doubtful,” said Isabelle, flipping the page of her own book. 

Callum stretched. “I’m giving it another week before she finally hexes him.”

“Honestly? I’d pay to see it,” Abraxas muttered, still not looking up from his essay.

Waylen raised an eyebrow but said nothing, his gaze drifting toward the shelves where Tom had vanished.

Tom didn’t hear a word. His world had narrowed entirely to her—again.

He watched her settle into the far corner, already retrieving books and parchment like she had no need to exist in the same plane as anyone else. She never once glanced in his direction. This is what drove him mad about her. Renae simply moved past him like he was part of the scenery.

She shouldn’t have been so fascinating to simply watch.

She wasn’t traditionally beautiful, nor did she try to be. Her braid was a little frayed. Her clean uniform pressed but with no attempt to dress it up like other girls do. He has never seen her even smile. But there was something about her stillness—about the way she radiated purpose like a second skin—that caught at something in him he refused to name.

It wasn’t attraction, he told himself. It always never was. That was a childish word for something base and beneath him. It certainly wasn’t curiosity anymore. She just didn’t fit —not into this school, not into his understanding of people. Not into the world he thought he finally understood more or less.

It was irritating. It was thrilling .

He inhaled slowly, composed his expression, and stepped out from between the stacks with the precision of someone who always had a reason to arrive exactly when he did.

This time, he was going to try something different. Not flattery. Not calculated questions or gentle prying.

This time, he would try honesty—or at least the closest approximation of it he could manage. A softened edge. A quieter tone. Still him, but stripped of the practiced veneer.

He was that desperate determined to get her to look at him, see him, react like everyone did to him. Something. Anything.

He approached slowly, not looming, just… present.

“You always seem to choose the darkest corner,” he said, keeping his tone casual. “Seems like a deliberate choice.”

Renae didn’t glance up. “It is.”

He shifted his weight slightly. “Most people prefer somewhere with a view.”

“Most people are looking for distractions.”

“And you’re not?”

She finally looked up, too blue eyes with tired dark circles beneath them, voice clipped. “I came here to work, not socialize.”

Tom didn’t back off. “So did I.”

Renae arched a brow. “Really? Because it looks like you’ve followed me here for the sixth time this week.”

“Coincidence,” he said, tone dry.

She gave him a look that said she didn’t buy that for a second.

He offered the barest shrug. “Maybe not entirely.”

Her expression was unimpressed, but less sharp than usual. “What are you trying now, then? Honesty?”

“Something close to it.”

She studied him like she was trying to determine just how full of it he was today.

“Fine,” she said, picking up her quill again. “Sit. Don’t talk.”

He took the seat across from her in silence.

To his surprise, he didn’t mind sitting across from her in silence—her scribbling, him pretending to read—settling into a rhythm that didn’t demand anything from him. She didn’t acknowledge his presence, didn’t try to draw it out or push it away. There was freedom in that. He didn’t have to perform.

It was almost… relaxing. 

She was consumed by whatever she was researching, her attention narrowed to a single, relentless goal. Her notes were frantic yet precise, her fingers stained with ink, her brows drawn tighter by the minute. Whatever it was, it mattered deeply—and it was fighting her.

He watched as her quill slowed, stuttered, then paused completely. Her jaw clenched. She flipped back several pages, reread something, then snapped the book shut with a sharp thud. Dust puffed into the air.

“Idiotic scholars,” she muttered under her breath, barely loud enough for him to catch as she scratched out several things harshly.

Tom blinked, surprised by the break in her usual stillness. She rubbed her temples, smudging some ink there, agitated, and pulled another volume toward her.

Her frustration wasn’t for him. She hadn’t even looked at him. Whatever she was after had just slipped further out of reach.

“What exactly are you researching that’s got you glaring like that book owes you money?” Tom asked, voice casual, his gaze stuck tracing over her features.

Renae didn’t look up. “Something beyond your intellectual reach, I’d wager.”

Tom’s brow ticked up. “Sharp tongue for someone who’s spent the week arguing with parchment.”

“Better company than whatever you’re offering.”

He smiled faintly. “Insulting and evasive. Is that your default setting, or am I just the lucky recipient?”

“I don’t waste time on lost causes.”

“And yet, you keep responding.”

She finally looked at him, expression dry. “Well, someone has to balance out your delusions.”

“Careful,” he murmured, eyes glinting. “I might start thinking you enjoy talking to me.”

“I enjoy silence. You just happen to be an asshole.”

His smile sharpened. “You wound me.”

She looked back at the book in front of her, flipping the page harder than necessary. “Not yet. But the day’s still young.”

“You do know how to make a person feel welcome.”

“If I wanted company, I’d have chosen a table not in the furthest corner of the library away from everyone.”

He leaned in a little. “So you are capable of holding a conversation. I was beginning to think you’d been cursed into silence.”

“I’m trying to save my energy for better conversations.”

“And yet, you haven’t walked away.”

“Because if I hex you here , I’ll get banned from the library.”

He chuckled under his breath.

A pause. Her mouth twitched upward.

Tom tilted his head. “That was definitely a smile.”

She presses her lips together into a line. “You’re imagining things.” 

“I’m many things, Adair. Delusional isn’t one of them.”

“Keep talking and I’ll make that ‘hospitalized’ regardless if you’re delusional or not.”

Tom didn’t respond right away. He sat back in his chair, studying her the way he studied anything new—carefully, deliberately.

He hadn’t expected the conversation to go anywhere. Not really. He’d expected another wall, another cold dismissal. But the way she engaged—the way her words cut, not for cruelty, but precision—it was refreshing. Honest. 

She didn’t try to charm and seduce him like some girls. She didn’t try to please. She didn’t care about who he was or what he could be. And for reasons he refused to examine too closely, he found that oddly... grounding.

There was something about watching her like this, too. Working. Fuming. Failing. Trying again. Most people were polished, curated… shallow. Renae was anything but, her edges on display almost proudly like a nail sticking out of a floorboard.

Tom exhaled slowly, then reached for the nearest book, something to distract him from the odd flutter his heart was doing, like a bird trying to escape his chest.

As he casually flipped open the book, giving it a half hearted look over, his eyes caught the heading halfway down the page: Temporal Theory: The Impossibility of Stable Chrono-Displacement . A wall of dense text followed, dissecting the fallacies of time travel.

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught it—a flicker. The smallest straightening of her posture, the sharp intake of breath she tried to hide. Panic. Sharp and brief, like a crack in a stone facade.

Interesting.

He didn’t look up, didn’t comment. But his fingers drummed lightly against the open page, feigning thought. His voice was casual when he finally spoke.

"Time travel," he murmured. "Bit of a fairytale, isn’t it? Dangerous, hypothetical, completely unsustainable. At least, according to this drivel."

Renae didn’t respond immediately. Her hand froze above her notes, ink blotting on the page of her journal where her quill hesitated.

"It’s theoretical because no one’s been reckless enough to test it properly," she said tightly.

Tom tilted his head slightly, amused by the strain in her voice. "Is that frustration I hear?” He smirks. “Or perhaps professional disagreement?"

She didn’t answer. But something in her expression shuttered—tightening like a lock slamming shut.

And that was when it clicked.

The way she moved through the castle appearing to already know her way around. The detachment from everyone around her. Her odd appearance that night. And now this seemingly overreaction to him questioning her choice in reading material.

Of course.

She wasn’t researching it out of curiosity. It was more then that.

Renae Adair wasn’t just unusual. She was out of place.

Out of time.

He feels a thrill go through him as the information settles in his mind. He’d been circling this puzzle that is Renae Adair he didn’t have all the pieces for, and now, suddenly, the edges seemed to be lining up. 

She was trying to get back. Wherever—or whenever —that was.

Tom leaned back slowly, savoring the revelation.

“You’re not from here,” he said, quieter now, less a question than a confirmation. “That’s it, isn’t it?”

Her eyes snapped up to meet his, sharp and cold. Guarded. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

His smile was razor-thin. “I think I do.”

Renae shoved her notes into her bag with short, clipped motions. “If this is how you entertain yourself, Riddle, I suggest you find a better hobby.”

“Leaving so soon?” he says calmly, “When I have just found something so very interesting about you, Adair?”

She stood abruptly. “Stay out of my business.”

“But you’ve made it so intriguing,” he murmured.

The look she gave him could have frozen fire. “I mean it.”

And then she was gone, boots sharp on stone as she disappeared between the shelves.

Tom didn’t follow.

He didn’t have to.

She’d given him more than he could have hoped for from their conversation.

-.~*~.-

09/10/1943

Renae didn’t flee .

She walked—measured, spine tall, steps exact—as if she hadn’t just felt the earth shift beneath her feet. Behind her, Tom Riddle’s voice echoed like a blade drawn quietly in the dark. Not loud. Just precise. And worse—certain.

He knew.

Not everything. But enough. Enough to start thinking. To start investigating.

Just as she had been getting used to going unnoticed.

Her grip on her satchel tightened. She didn’t break pace, didn’t look over her shoulder. 

Because she was not panicking. And she was definitely not something as silly as afraid .

But—Merlin’s bloody beard—she should have gone straight to the Room of Requirement.

The library had seemed safe. Neutral ground. Predictable. And she’d been so focused on deciphering and interpreting what she read, she hadn’t noticed him circling closer like a shark in the water. She’d been too visible. Too trusting. Too naive . If she’d just hidden herself in the Room from the start, no one would’ve connected the dots. No one could have . 

Dumbledore had only recognized her because he’d been at Hogwarts during her disappearance and that had been enough.

Of course it was Tom fucking Riddle. Of course he’d be the one to notice—the one sharp enough to fit the clues together. Dumbledore warned her that he was intelligent.

“I should’ve gone straight to the Room,” she muttered to herself, ducking behind a tapestry and into the narrow hidden stairwell.

Her boots struck the stone floor harder than necessary as she emerged onto the seventh floor. “I need somewhere safe to think,” she hissed.

The door appeared like it had been waiting.

She stepped inside, shut it hard behind her, and slumped against the wood like she could hold the world outside at bay.

The room had built itself into a study—high bookshelves, firelight, a desk scattered with parchment. It knew exactly what she’d needed. It always did.

Finally she could breathe.

But her thoughts were barbed with the knowledge she’d known deep down slowly being confirmed.

Every line she’d read in this time’s texts, every fragment of temporal theory—it all circled the same bleak conclusion: backward time travel just didn’t work. Not really. Time wasn’t a road. It was a weave. Tangles and turns, fragile as spider silk. And to go back—to truly change anything—you had to unravel the whole damn web.

And it was mentioned in between the lines of every book. Over and over. Behind every footnote and scratched-out margin. Time travel backward wasn’t just dangerous—it was impossible.

Not without destroying herself.

And now Tom knew she wasn’t from this time, knew she’d been pouring all her energy into researching this irritating topic.

She knew he wouldn’t shout it from the towers. Not yet anyhow.

He’d dig into her background first, find everything there is to be found on her. Then he’d likely try to blackmail her, manipulate her… Although maybe she is wrong and she had imagined that obsessive glint in his eyes…

"Merlin what do I do?" she asked the silent room.

-.~*~.-

09/11/1943

The next morning, the Slytherin table buzzed with its usual low-level scheming and typical preteen to teen shenanigans—except for one notably brooding prefect.

Florence clocked it immediately as Tom took his seat at breakfast. “Merlin’s beard, he’s pouting.”

Callum glanced over, then grinned. “Is our dear Tom Riddle being avoided and actually sulking about it?”

Melvin leaned around Isabelle to get a better look. “She still hasn’t spoken to you?”

“She left the common room as soon as he walked in last night,” Isabelle says with mock sympathy. “Didn’t even wait for an excuse. Just vanished to the girls' dorms.”

Florence clutched his chest dramatically. “I never thought I’d see the day. Hogwarts’ favorite snake outmaneuvered.”

“She’s not just avoiding you,” Abraxas said dryly from behind his cup of tea. “She’s dodging you like you’ve got something contagious. Something happened didn’t it?”

Tom didn’t respond. He lifted his tea with calm precision, eyes flicking toward the Great Hall doors where Renae had yet to appear. His frown soured further when she didn’t.

“She’s taken him as a threat,” Melvin observes, “and honestly, a correct assumption to make.”

The Knights speculation becomes background noise as Tom ponders the strange girl-shaped mystery that had made herself at home in his head without permission.

She hadn’t looked at him once since the library. Hadn’t spoken. Hadn’t so much as acknowledged his existence beyond the calculated evasion. She wasn’t just ignoring him anymore.

She was shutting down.

But now he knew what she was hiding.

The pieces had taken a day to gather. He traced her name to the records locked deep in the administrative archives, staying up late last night to break into the tower where such records are kept and find them.

Really it had been horrifyingly easy.

Renae Adair. Half-blood. Did not start at Hogwarts until she was fifteen due to being “misdiagnosed” as a squib. 

Then, in a single year, she had dismantled an entire poaching ring with minimal assistance. Had brought down Ranrok—the leader of the last goblin rebellion—nearly single-handedly, if the reports were to be believed. Ministry obfuscation had muddied the details, of course, but the traces left were enough. Her file read more like a myth than a student profile.

And now she was here. In his time. Pretending none of it had happened.

Tom’s fingers tapped once against his cup, slow and measured. 

She had been powerful. Respected. Feared even. And then she vanished. Disappeared into the kind of mystery even the Ministry didn’t talk about. Some said she died in a magical accident. Some said she was taken. Others didn’t speak of her at all.

But Tom didn’t believe in endings like that.

Not when she was walking the corridors pretending to be a student again.

He watched the door without really seeing it, his mind spiraling in tighter and tighter circles around what he now knew.

She wasn’t just unusual.

She was singular.

And it wasn’t just knowledge she had—it was experience. She’d faced real enemies. Played a major part in a war. Not the diluted versions this generation played with in theory and textbooks.

What he wouldn’t give to know everything she knew.

But she gave nothing. Guarded, silent—her mask not worn, but built. Not for survival.

For disappearance.

And Tom would not let her vanish.

He didn’t want to break her. He wanted to understand her. Possess that understanding like something rare, something sharp. 

Through the open door Renae slipped into the Great Hall, cool and seemingly unbothered, seating herself at the far end of the table as always. 

But he remembered the first time—her stumble, the blush, the moment her eyes lit with something startled, something curious, before slamming shut behind a veneer of defiance.

She’d seen something in him.

And he could use that.

Time to change his angle.

He lifted his teacup again and let the first shape of his new plan settle in place.

He didn’t need her to love him—just to want to trust him. Just enough to speak. To slip. 

-.~*~.-

09/24/1943

The opportunity to test his new plan didn’t come with fireworks or confrontation—just silence, and good timing.

Renae had made herself a ghost for the better part of two weeks. Always one step ahead. Slipping down opposite corridors, ducking out of rooms moments after he entered, answering questions with clipped short responses or cold silence when forced to interact with him.

Today, finally, she was alone in the far stretch of the library. The same stretch of shelves she’d circled almost every day like a storm cloud pacing the sky. Books lay strewn across the reading table nearby—open, rejected. Her movements were sharper than usual, more frustrated. Her finger jabbed a spine too hard. A whispered curse slipped from her mouth. Her mask, usually so meticulous, was cracking around the edges.

She wasn’t reading anymore. She was spiraling.

Tom watched from a distance long enough to see the moment her shoulders slumped with defeat. Her eyes scanned, but didn’t see. And the books weren’t offering answers.

Good. He didn’t need answers. He needed a moment just like this.

He approached without flair, without the practiced smile. Just quiet confidence.

“You look like you’re planning to hex the shelves,” he said smoothly.

She turned, her gaze sharp, her stance predictably going rigid. “You just can’t take a hint and leave me alone, can you?”

Tom tilted his head, calm and unfazed. “Not when you’re glaring like the books owe you an apology.”

Renae exhaled through her nose—a sharp, exhausted sound—and turned back to the books on the nearby table. “If you’re here to gloat, don’t bother. I’m not in the mood.”

“Not gloating,” he said, stepping closer. “Just observing.”

“You’re always observing,” she muttered.

Another book dropped from her hand, thudding against the table adding to the growing pile. Her fingers ran through her hair, down for once, and for the briefest moment, she looked tired. Real.

Vulnerable.

Tom took it in quietly, admiringly.

“You’ve exhausted this section,” he said, glancing at the scattered volumes. “If there was something in these books worth finding, you’d have found it by now.”

Her shoulders tensed. “Thanks for the reminder.”

He was quiet for a breath. Then, deliberately softer, “You could let someone help.”

Renae stiffened further, then shook her head. “I don’t need help.”

“You need something,” he said. “And it’s clearly not in these pages.”

She didn’t respond at first. Just stood there, jaw tight, fingers clenched at her sides like they wanted to punch something.

Then—barely above a whisper—“I don’t even know if what I’m looking for is possible.”

That, more than anything, caught his attention.

He kept his voice neutral. “But you keep looking.”

“Because if I stop…” she trailed off, swallowing hard. “Then none of this was worth it.”

Tom watched her for a long moment.

Then: “Come to Hogsmeade with me.”

Renae blinked. “Excuse me?”

“You need a break,” he said, matter-of-fact. “So do I. An afternoon. That’s all.”

She stared at him like he’d just suggested they rob Gringotts together.

“I’m not the type you want to take to Hogsmeade, Riddle.”

“Probably not,” he agreed. “But I’m asking anyway.”

A long beat of silence.

Then, with a resigned sigh, “Fine.”

Tom nodded once, controlled and measured, like he hadn’t been preparing for this opening all week. Like that weird fluttering in his chest wasn’t back.

Renae went back to thumbing through the nearest book and he quietly took his leave, hiding the small smile he allowed to grace his face.

Chapter Text

09/27/1943 

Renae Adair lay flat beneath the emerald canopy of her four-poster, eyes fixed on the ceiling’s carved stone ribs. Morning light filtered through the lake beyond the window in soft, green hues, but she felt it as an intrusive reminder that time kept moving whether she was ready or not. The blanket had been kicked to the end of the mattress, a single grey-socked foot hung uselessly over the edge, swinging in small frustrated circles.

What in Merlin’s name are you doing?

The other girls had long since gone, drifting out in clusters with easy laughter and carefree chatter—perfectly adjusted teenagers with no world-shattering regrets weighing them down and only the excitement of the first Hogsmeade weekend to look forward to. She’d barely registered their departure, too consumed by the dread pooling in her chest.

She was supposed to meet Tom Riddle in less than two hours, and she was paralyzed by uncertainty. Not because she wanted to impress him—Merlin forbid—but because she couldn't decipher what this was supposed to be. A distraction? A mistake?

A date?

The word twisted uncomfortably within her, sharp and mocking. She rolled onto her side with a frustrated groan, hoping movement might shake loose the thought. “Not a date,” she muttered stubbornly to herself, though saying it aloud somehow made it sound even less convincing.

It wasn't like she cared, truly. She just simply didn’t engage in casual strolls through picturesque villages, especially not with handsome boys. In fact, she didn't have time for such trivialities—she had urgent, impossible work to do.

She should be in the Room of Requirement or buried among dusty library books, meticulously dissecting theories, plotting equations, pushing relentlessly at the edges of magical possibility. She was chasing the impossible—trying to rewrite the past, desperate to fix a tragedy that should never have happened.

Sebastian’s anguished expression, his despair as he was led away to Azkaban followed by the cold, lifeless stillness of his body in St Mungo’s not two months later—memories that carved deep wounds she was helpless to heal. She’d sworn to herself that she would undo it all, that she would defy every scholarly warning, every cautious whisper about the perils of time manipulation.

And she had failed spectacularly. Instead of returning to a time where she might save Sebastian, she'd been thrown decades forward, abandoned in a time she didn’t belong, trapped in a future indifferent to her desperate attempts at redemption. A time where she became a footnote in the long history of goblin rebellions.

She scoffed inwardly at the remainder of her failings. 

And now—now—she was preparing to squander a whole afternoon on Tom Riddle, arguably Hogwarts most handsome guy with the brains to back it up.

Except squander was the wrong word, wasn’t it? He had seen through her defenses in a way no one else here had managed and had been almost respectful of the secrets he'd gleaned from her so far. 

Not that she didn’t believe for a moment he was just simply overly curious about her and looking for blackmail material.

With an annoyed sigh she rolled upright. Her reflection in the wardrobe mirror looked exactly how she felt: pale, ring-shadowed eyes, auburn hair escaping yesterday’s braid she’d been too lazy to take down. She smoothed the strands back, re-braiding her hair with precise fingers, and fastened it with a snap of irritation at herself for trying at all. It was only Hogsmeade. Only a few hours.

Afterwards she would dive back into runes and theories, determined to prove every dusty scholar wrong. But for now—just for one afternoon—she would walk beside Tom Riddle and see what shadows moved behind those dark, depthless eyes.

Maybe, she told herself as she swung her legs off the bed and reached for her cloak, a distraction could be useful for now.

Or maybe it would simply feel good. And after everything she had lost, feeling good for a heartbeat did not seem like the worst kind of rebellion.

She cinched her cloak, squared her shoulders, and headed for the Great Hall, already rehearsing the lie she would tell herself when she came back:
It was just an afternoon. Nothing more.

-.~*~.-

09/27/1943

Tom lingered just beyond the wrought-iron gates where the castle’s manicured lawns surrendered to the first up-sweep of wild meadow. Black bars arched overhead like skeletal ribs, their shadows banding the gravel path at his feet. Beyond the gate the road unfurled in a pale ribbon toward Hogsmeade, hedgerows still frosted at their tips.

He stood as though merely admiring the view—hands settled in robe pockets, shoulders angled back, chin lifted to catch the watery sun—but inside, motion churned. Waiting was useful only when he chose it; today the minutes felt insolent, collecting around his boots like blown leaves. Each time a student group tramped past, arms linked and weekend chatter bright, Tom’s gaze snapped to the bend in the castle path, measuring angles, recalculating the precise instant she ought to appear.

If she changed her mind…

He refused to finish the thought. The idea unsettled the careful order in his chest—an unnamed flicker he would not dignify with words like disappointment or nerves. 

At last a lone figure emerged around the bend. Purposeful stride, braid swinging like a metronome behind her, Renae Adair emerged from the path’s curve, cloak skirts snapping with each step. She’d pressed her robes to parade-ground neatness, polished the silver at her collar. Yet the faint sheen on her lower lip betrayed a moment in front of a mirror she would surely deny. The discovery sent a clean, private thrill through him: proof she’d weighed this meeting, too.

Tom let a slow breath steady his features. By the time she drew level, his expression was the very model of composed welcome.

“You clean up nicely, princess,” he said, pitching his voice low, as though the compliment were merely an observation about the weather.

Renae’s eyes narrowed a fraction—annoyance, or perhaps the same wary curiosity he felt tugging at his own thoughts. “It’s the same uniform I wear every day, Riddle,” she drawled.

He allowed the faintest quirk of a smile. “Ah, but attitude is part of the ensemble. Yours looks freshly pressed.”

A flick of colour rose in her cheeks and she huffed in annoyance. “Are we going to stand here trading fashion advice, or are we leaving?”

A rhetorical question, but it pleased him that she didn’t bolt. He stepped aside, sweeping an arm toward the open path. “After you.”

They set off down the hedge‑lined path, gravel crunching under their boots. A dozen steps passed in a companionable hush before Renae broke it, eyes on the road ahead while her fingers fussed with the cuff of her sleeve. “I was promised a distraction,” she said. “Try not to disappoint.”

“Is that all I am?” Tom tilted his head, letting a sliver of mock injury colour his tone. “A convenient diversion?”

“Believe me, if Peeves had offered tea, I might have taken it just as quickly.”

Soft laughter escaped him—low and genuine, surprising himself. “Careful, Adair. I might develop a complex.”

“I believe you already have,” she shot back, though the corner of her mouth tilted up in amusement.

Hogsmeade’s steep gables rose beyond the hedge line, chimneys trailing pale ribbons of smoke into a bright blue sky dotted with white clouds. Weekend bustle—bright laughter, a vendor’s sing‑song pitch—washed toward them like a welcoming tide.

“You’re less aggravating than usual,” she observed, sounding half‑annoyed by the fact.

Tom inclined his head, dark hair catching sun where it slipped from out behind a cloud. “I’m making an effort. It’s difficult to charm someone who sees every conversation like a battle.”

“You say that as if I don’t win my duels.”

“Trust me, a duel’s only worth winning if the other duellist can strike back, princess.” The admission left his mouth more earnestly than he’d intended; her quick side‑eye proved she’d heard it.

At the village boundary he offered his arm with exaggerated courtliness. “Shall we indulge the customary absurdities of an afternoon pass?”

She eyed the proffered arm, then his face, then the arm again. “If you think I’m linking elbows like some swooning debutante, you’re mad.”

“Utterly,” he agreed, leaving the choice hanging, a smirk tugging at his lips.

After another moment of hesitation, she slipped her hand into the crook of his elbow—stiff at first, then settling. A small surrender, but it sent a bright, traitorous spark through his chest. He buried the responding smile, smoothing his expression into polite neutrality as they stepped into the sound of weekend revelry.

Cobblestones clicked beneath their shoes as they joined Hogsmeade’s midday tide—clusters of students drifting shop‑to‑shop, house‑coloured scarves fluttering like small pennants. Steam from enchanted kettles stitched the air with the scent of spiced cider and roasted honey‑nuts, layered over the sweeter smoke wafting from cottage chimneys.

Ordinarily Tom found the village cacophony intolerable—an undisciplined orchestra of chatter, squeaking shop doors, and jangling coins—but with Renae anchored at his side, chin tilted in a duelist’s poise, the bustle felt almost… ordered. Her hand remained tucked in the crook of his arm, a steady pulse he could sense through the layers of his wool cloak.

She slowed when the swinging sign of the Three Broomsticks appeared ahead. Lantern‑light poured from its doorway, washing gold across the muddy street. “Can we stop in?” she asked, and there was a surprising softness in the request—as though the promise of warmth and anonymity held genuine appeal.

Tom lifted one shoulder. “Unless lace curtains and tooth‑rotting tea at Puddifoot’s appeal to you more.”

Her nose wrinkled. “I’d sooner duel a banshee.”

“That makes two of us.” He adjusted his angle, steering them through the threshold.

Inside, candle stubs floated in glass bubbles overhead, scattering light across oak tables and brass rails. A hush of privacy spells dampened the sharper edges of noise, leaving a comfortable murmur. Tom threaded past a knot of Ravenclaws to a curtained booth—secluded but not hidden.

The barmaid arrived in a swish of apron and warm air. Tom ordered before Renae could say anything. “Two butterbeers. Please.”

A spark of challenge glinted in her eyes. “Presumptuous,” she says, watching the barmaid walk away.

“Efficient,” he countered, folding his hands on the table. “If I’d given you a choice, you’d refuse purely for sport.”

She rolled her eyes. “Arrogant, as always,” she said—yet when the barmaid set the mugs down she cupped hers with both hands, soaking in the warmth. She lifted it, breathed the butterscotch‑spice foam, but paused before drinking, as if she wanted to savor the moment first.

Tom watched steam wreath her features—softening the sharp line of her face, silvering the tips of her lashes—then broke the hush: "You don’t make this easy," he observed.

"Good," she said, eyes still on the froth. "You don’t deserve easy."

He angled his head. "Then what do I deserve?"

"A throbbing headache," she replied, deadpan. "Perhaps a broken nose, if I’m feeling charitable."

A genuine laugh slipped out—quiet, startled, undeniably real, the second she’s coaxed from him,  which is more than anyone else could claim. “Violence already? We’ve only just sat down.”

"I like to set expectations early." The ghost of a smirk tugged at her mouth.

Warmth—unwelcome yet insistent—stirred in his chest. He disguised it behind lazy amusement. "You say all that, but you’re still here, drinking with me as though we’re civilised."

Her gaze flicked up, crystalline and steady. "You’re not boring." No softness, simply fact.

Silence settled, comfortable as an old cloak. Tom let it breathe before nudging: "Leaping fifty years forward must rattle the nerves. Does the strangeness ever dull?"

She traced the rim of her mug. "Strange is a way to put it I suppose. It’s like stepping onstage mid‑play while everyone insists you know the script."

"Yet you never miss a line," he said.

“Maybe I’m simply better at pretending than most.”

He tipped his head. “It does make one curious about what lies beneath the mask.”

“Something I’d rather not show to just anyone.” Her tone warned and invited all at once. “Which is why you should let the questions rest.”

"I can’t," he admitted, voice softer than intended. "You fascinate me."

She scoffed, incredulous. "You really don’t quit."

"When I find something worth the effort, no." The honesty surprised even him.

Renae took a measured sip, using the motion as a shield. "Don’t expect me to start spilling my guts any time soon."

"I can be patient."

Her shoulders eased, just perceptibly. She leaned in, eyes narrowing. "Then answer one thing: why me? You could have anyone from the looks of it. Yet you ask me to join you in Hogsmeade…"

Tom tapped the tabletop twice, then offered the plainest truth he dared: “You aren't impressed by me. And I’m still deciding whether that unnerves me or gives me exactly the thrill I’ve been missing.”

Her breath hitched; candle‑glow caught the faint colour climbing her cheeks. "That is possibly the most unsettling thing I’ve been told."

A rueful smile tugged at his mouth. 

She huffed a laugh despite herself.

They lingered over their butterbeers, conversation thinning to the lazy clunk of their mugs being set on the table after a sip. Around them voices dulled to a pleasant smear, candles drifted in and out of focus—everything folding down to the amber glow caught between their mugs. Tom, who mistrusted silences he didn’t orchestrate, discovered he liked this one.

When they stepped back onto the High Street the sky had cooled to pewter, and a sharp breeze folded around them like a fresh cloak. They drifted from storefront to storefront, the chatter of classmates fading to a distant chorus Tom could almost ignore.

He rarely indulged in idle wandering but beside Renae the aimless stroll felt oddly vital, a counter‑weight to the low heat still coiling in his chest. Her shoulders, once braced for impact, had settled into something looser; her hands tucked in her pockets, yet the line of her spine no longer ram rod straight.

“So,” she ventured after a pocket of silence, tone deliberately light, “let’s try small talk. Favourite subject?”

A corner of his mouth lifted. “Are you trying to be friendly?”

“Am I not allowed to?”

He glanced sideways as they walked, pretending to study a window display of self‑stirring cauldrons. “Allowed, certainly. But I’m still adjusting to the idea that you want to be.”

“Call it practice,” she said, deadpan. “Even sniping needs a warmup.”

He gave a soft huff. “So I’m merely target practice?”

“Only if you stand still.”

A smile crept across his mouth. “Challenge accepted.”

She huffed in amusement. “Very well—favourite subject?”

“Defence Against the Dark Arts,” he answered.

“I suppose I should’ve guessed.” This time her smile touched her eyes.

“And yours?”

“Arithmancy,” she said. “People underestimate numbers—they don’t realise you can build entire worlds with the right sequence.”

He hummed—part amusement, part admiration for the warmth in her voice when she spoke of magic.

They drifted past Honeydukes, where pastel jars glimmered behind misted panes, sugar crystals scattering pale rainbows. Renae’s gaze snagged for a beat too long.

“Sweet tooth?” Tom asked, slowing.

She lifted a shoulder, all faux nonchalance. “I enjoy a bit of chocolate now and again.”

Impulse overrode his sense of logic. “Let's get some," he said and, before she could protest, he nudged the door open, ushering her inside on a bell‑chime draft that smelled of caramel and peppermint.

Shelves soared to the ceiling, paneled in sugared pastels that glimmered like a cathedral of sweet glass. Boxes of Fizzing Whizzbees quivered on their springs, Sherbet Lemons whispered against their paper linings, and slabs of treacle‑fudge lay stacked like ancient grimoires, runnels of syrup catching the light. Beside a bank of enchanted snow‑frosted windows, Renae paused at a tower of chocolate bars mottled with sea‑salt crystals, their aroma a heady mix of sugar and cocoa.

“Humour me,” Tom coaxed, tipping his head toward the tray. “Pick the one your willpower can’t ignore.”

She arched a skeptical brow, but dutifully used the tongs to drop two salted‑dark squares into a striped paper bag. While she turned to read the label, Tom slipped a third piece in over the top.

He was already striding to the till before she could notice. The clink of sickles ended any protest she might have raised.

“Riddle—” she began, catching up. “You’re impossible,” she muttered as they stepped outside, though the twitch at her mouth belied true complaint.

He pressed the striped bag into her palm with a light, “Call it considerate.”

Renae eyed the extra weight, suspicion flaring. “How many did you sneak in?”

“Only one,” he said, entirely unconvincing. “Think of it as interest on the loan of your time.”

She shook her head and reached into the bag pulling out one of the squares, snapping it in two clean pieces and offered him one. Their fingers brushed—quick heat. “I suppose I'll offer this as repayment then.”

He bit off a corner. Salt sparked against dark cocoa; the contrast made him hum before he could catch it. “Acceptable currency,” he admitted, licking a fleck from his thumb.

She tasted her half, letting the flavours settle. “Glad the exchange rate meets your standards.”

Tom gave a small, crooked smile. “It may need regular adjustment.”

Renae rolled her eyes but the curve of her mouth softened. She tucked the bag into her cloak and nudged his shoulder. “Come on, before you bankrupt yourself on sugar.”

They resumed their stroll, passing Zonko’s trick windows and the owl post, where a tawny owl turned its head and regarded them with royal disdain.

Tom nodded at the owl, smirk slipping free. “Look familiar? Same lofty glare.”

“Rude,” she muttered, but her grin flashed, quick and real.

She pointed to a second owl on the upper perch—a squat, round creature with feathers puffed like a winter coat and eyes half‑lidded in permanent judgement. “That one’s definitely you,” she said. “Looks ready to deduct points for breathing too loudly.”

Tom tilted his head, studying the bird’s unimpressed stare. “A fair likeness,” he allowed. “Though I’d argue my feathers lie flatter.”

“Debatable,” she said, a smile tugging wider, cheekier.

He narrowed his eyes in mock offense. “Careful. I might take points for insolence.”

“See? Exactly what that owl would do.”

When they completed a lazy circuit of the village, clouds had gathered in a pewter ceiling, heavy with the promise of rain. Conversation thinned to a companionable hush. Renae looked more at ease, and Tom felt the difference like a chord resolving.

The walk back to the castle unfolded in companionable quiet, the hush warm rather than brittle. Renae sent him a sidelong look once, then again—clearly testing a thought—before letting it drift away. Tom held his tongue, content not to be the one who cracked the gentle stillness settling between them.

At the serpent‑guarded entrance to Slytherin they paused, dungeon hush folding round them.

“Well,” she said, tucking a stray strand behind her ear. “Thanks… for the drink. And the chocolate. And the walk.”

Tom inclined his head, that near‑smile ghosting his mouth. “And the company?”

She returned it, wry. “Verdict pending.”

He dipped a courtly nod. “Have a good evening, Adair.”

“You as well, Riddle.”

She turned down the corridor toward the girls’ dorms, boot‑heels soft on stone. He watched until the torch‑glow swallowed her silhouette.

By the time he reached his own dorm, curtains drawn against dorm‑room lamplight, Tom sat on the edge of his four‑poster, fingers steepled beneath his chin. Her laughter, her unguarded smile—they replayed unsettling precisely because they were unplanned.

He—Tom Riddle, who mapped every variable—had no ready counter‑spell for the ache her absence left. Nor the thrill the thought of seeing her again, of talking with her again brought.

“What are you doing?” he muttered, pressing thumb and forefinger to the bridge of his nose. The curve of her mouth when she teased, the hint of steel inside her vulnerability, the way she simplified the world to two clear steps all clung to his memories like smoke in clothes.

The question echoed unanswered into the dark.

And yet he would not allow the silence to shape the answer for him. Feelings —that sloppy, juvenile word—did not belong in his lexicon. Affection was leverage in other people; in himself it would be a fracture line waiting to be struck. Whatever seditious warmth unfurled when Renae laughed was nothing so sentimental as falling . It was interest—sharp‑edged, containable, useful.

Tomorrow he would stand a fraction farther away, keep his hands clasped behind his back, measure every look before he spent it. He would remind himself that the world— his future—did not bend for walks in Hogsmeade or shared salted chocolate and butterbeer.

And if her voice threaded through the silence of his thoughts, he would label it curiosity , nothing more.

He left the lamp burning low, its wick a pin of gold in the gloom, and paced the width of the narrow floor instead of lying down. Names, plans, contingencies—one by one he stacked them like parchment files in his mind, hoping the rigid order would crowd out the echo of her laughter.

It didn’t.

Chapter Text

09/28/1943

Renae hadn’t expected Tom Riddle to linger. Not really. She reminded herself of that the morning after their almost‑perfect afternoon in Hogsmeade, when she woke beneath the green canopy of her four‑poster with a treacherous flutter in her chest and the dull ache that follows poor judgement.

There had been no nod across the Great Hall, no tall shadow haunting the library alcove where he used to hover just far enough away it could be considered a coincidence by most. Tom had disappeared—smoothly and deliberately, erasing his existence from her routine as though she'd never existed.

A choice, then. A retreat.

Fine.

She folded the memory like a precious letter and slid it into the back of her mind, careful not to crease it further with the unwelcomed bitterness and disappointment that settled at the back of her throat. Discipline filled the space he vacated: dawn runs along the grounds, silent breakfasts, class, study, research, sleep, repeat. Ink‑blotted pages piled up; theory replaced all her thoughts; purpose drowned the pulse that said she’d been foolish to hope.

Of course she still crossed his path—Hogwarts corridors were too few to avoid ghosts of the living. When it happened, she kept her posture loose, eyes ahead. If he glanced through her as though she were a portrait on the wall, she made sure not to flinch. 

She never asked what had shifted. Never wondered aloud whether Hogsmeade had meant anything to him at all. Wondering led to hope, and hope was fragile; she’d learned to cut fragile things away before they tightened into unescapable nooses.

Still, pretending indifference took energy. Tom had gotten closer than anyone since Sebastian, Anne, and Ominis—closer than she should’ve allowed. For one stolen afternoon he’d treated her like a whole person. In that moment she’d felt almost real, almost grounded.

Almost.

She remembered all too well how such trusting feelings had ended for Sebastian. How trusting Ominis and Anne hadn’t stopped them from abandoning her afterwards. 

Attachment, she’d decided, was a cost she could no longer afford.

So she stacked her walls brick by brick—ink stains for mortar, late‑night candles for scaffolding. If Tom wanted distance, she would give him miles. And if the ache of being unseen scraped at her ribs, she told herself scars were proof she was still alive.

Still, on nights when the castle finally quieted and the scent of old parchment couldn’t drown the memory, she sometimes caught herself replaying that crooked grin he’d worn when she shared the chocolate he bought for her with him. It lingered just long enough to remind her what ease had felt like—and why she couldn’t risk feeling it again.

-.~*~.-

10/04/1943

The Slytherin common room glowed with its usual twilight warmth—green-tinged light casting long shadows across velvet armchairs and the glistening surface of the lake beyond. It was late enough that only the truly studious or socially entrenched remained. Among them, the Knights of Walpurgis were sprawled with practiced elegance in their usual corner, claiming the best seats not by rule but by unspoken decree.

Florence was midway through an embellished tale of a scandalous duel between two Ravenclaws—“for a textbook, of all things, as if either of them need anymore”—when the common room door opened.

Tom Riddle stepped through causing the Knights conversation to pause momentarily.

He was composed as always, but something in his expression was carefully held. His eyes flicked around the room with idle calculation before they inevitably found Renae.

She was tucked into the alcove she’d claimed for herself these past couple weeks beneath the windows, surrounded by parchment and ink-stained books. Her focus was fixed, chin propped in one hand, brows slightly furrowed in concentration as her quill moved in steady rhythm. The glow from the green-glassed sconces lit the edge of her cheekbone.

She didn’t look up.

Tom’s jaw tightened.

He hovered a moment longer, watching. Waiting. Hoping she might glance up. Give him something. A sign. Even just a flicker of a reaction..

But Renae didn’t glance up. Didn’t pause. Didn’t react.

And that—somehow—bothered him more than he wanted to admit.

With a sharp intake of breath and a roll of his eyes, Tom turned abruptly and strode toward the boys’ dormitory, robes snapping behind him with more force than necessary.

The door clicked shut.

“What’s up with him?” Callum asked, blinking.

Florence leaned forward with a gleam in his eye. “Our glorious leader has, dare I say, been rejected.”

“He’s certainly been broodier than usual as of late,” Melvin Rosier says, tipping his head. 

“He thought ignoring Adair would keep her waiting,” Isabelle said, examining her cuticles. “But now she’s not even trying to get his attention. Definitely not a tactic we’ve seen before.”

“She’s not ignoring him,” Waylen said, ever the observant one. “She’s just not looking for him. That’s what’s throwing Tom.”

“He spent the last two weeks flipping between ignoring her existence and watching her like a kicked dog,” Florence mused. “She got used to it. Now she’s adjusted. Moved on. And he hates it.”

“More than hates it,” Callum said. “He’s spiraling by the looks of it.”

Florence grinned. “And trying desperately to pretend he isn’t.”

Their attention drifted back to the girl at the window. Renae shifted her ink bottle closer and bent back over her page. She was calm. Focused. Entirely unaware—or at least convincingly so—that she had caused any disruption at all.

The tension faded, replaced by the soft rustle of parchment and the clink of cooling teacups as quiet conversation resumed among the Knights of Walpurgis.

-.~*~.-

In the boy's dorm room, behind the curtains of his bed, Tom sat frozen. Spine straight, hands clasped too tightly in his lap, the shadows cast by the bedside lamp flickered across green silk. The thick velvet muffled the dorm, the silence loud. It felt like a coffin.

He had thought the feelings would fade. That if he distanced himself, buried the distraction beneath cold logic and silence, they’d die the quiet death of all his past fascinations. But they hadn’t. Not even close.

They’d sharpened.

Worsened.

He told himself he didn’t care. Repeated it like a mantra. But the truth wouldn’t stop hissing in the back of his mind.

She hadn’t even looked at him.

After everything she was just… fine. As if he’d never existed at all.

It twisted inside him, low and ugly. He should’ve known better. Should’ve never allowed her to take up space in his mind, let alone wedge herself into the fragile, secret parts of him he never let anyone touch.

He was Tom Riddle. He didn’t spiral over girls. He didn’t dwell on the brightening of blue eyes when she laughed or soft glossy lips upturned into a smile.

And yet.

All he could think about was how easily she’d moved on. How natural she looked beneath that window, bathed in green light, her soft face perfectly composed without him.

It was maddening.

He’d hoped distance would dull the ache. That by stepping away, the infatuation would starve and die. But instead, it grew teeth. It gnawed at his composure.

She’d gotten under his skin without even trying.

And now he hated how much he wanted her to look at him again. Just once. Just long enough to see if there was still something there.

He cursed himself for caring.

He cursed her for making him.

And still, the thought lingered—half-hoped, half-despised: Would she smile at him again, if he just said something first?

He squeezed his eyes shut and leaned back against the headboard, frustration simmering beneath the still surface.

He didn’t know what he hated more—her indifference, or the fact that it hurt.

-.~*~.-

10/18/1943

Something had shifted. It whispered first as a chill across the back of her neck when she slipped out of Potions, then as a darting figure two aisles over in the library where no one should have been. Each time she turned, the corridor seemed perfectly empty, yet her pulse climbed anyway.

A shadow that sank into a deeper shadow, a gaze that vanished the instant she tried to catch it. The precision of it irked her, how carefully he measured distance, how cleanly he avoided being cornered.

Tom Riddle was trailing her again. She knew it in her bones before the thought solidified.

One evening she crossed the quad and paused to fuss with her satchel buckle beside the fountain. In the warped silver of the water she saw him twenty paces back, half‑turned toward a statue as though reading its plaque. He didn’t come closer, didn’t speak. Just watched until she walked on.

What did he want? An apology? A rematch? Another borrowed afternoon? Renae set her jaw and decided: if Tom wanted to play in the shadows, she would choose where the light fell.

-.~*~.-

10/20/1943

Hogwarts always exhaled after dinner. Hallways emptied, candles dimmed to a softer glow, and conversations retreated behind common-room doors. Renae preferred these quiet hours; fewer eyes meant fewer questions, fewer interruptions to her relentless pursuit of answers. 

Yet tonight, the silence felt wrong—weighted and charged, like a held breath. Her steps echoed softly against the flagstones of the east-wing corridor, silver moonlight striping the floor in quiet patterns. But beneath her careful tread came a second, lighter rhythm. Familiar, measured, and precisely distant.

Of course it was him.

Her muscles tensed involuntarily, frustration and something else prickling at her nerves. She slowed deliberately by an empty niche, pretending to study the suit of armour gleaming coldly in the moonlight, before pivoting sharply to face him.

Tom Riddle paused a polite distance away, composed as always, his hands neatly clasped behind his back. His head tilted slightly, dark eyes carefully neutral as he considered her.

"You're getting sloppy, Riddle," she drawled softly, hands tucked casually into her pockets, voice carefully cool though frustration simmered just beneath. Internally, she bristled at his blatant disregard for subtlety, questioning what game he was truly playing now. "Or maybe discretion isn't as important to you these days?"

A faint smile tugged at his lips, carefully measured. "Simply appreciating the quiet. The castle feels different when it's empty."

Renae's irritation deepened. That casual charm of his—carefully placed, perfectly executed—was becoming predictable. She stepped forward, deliberately into a bar of silver moonlight. "Convenient how your routes always match mine."

He shrugged smoothly, the gesture almost elegant in its simplicity. "We're both predictable creatures, it seems."

Her jaw tightened slightly. Predictable was the last thing she wanted to be, especially to him. "Your predictability is becoming a nuisance. Stop following me."

Tom tilted his head thoughtfully, dark eyes glittering faintly with amusement. "And if our paths naturally align?"

"Natural alignment doesn't match stride for stride," she snapped back, heat rising under her collar. His charm was carefully designed to mask his true intentions; Renae saw the cold calculation behind every carefully placed word. "You disappeared entirely, and now you're lurking around corners again. Explain yourself or leave me alone."

He studied the moonlight patterns briefly, as if carefully weighing his words. "My intentions are still... evolving. Yours, however, seem perfectly clear."

Renae crossed her arms defensively. "Mine?"

"Your constant drive for solitude," Tom said quietly, watching her closely. "You move past people like they’re not even there—ghosts in your way. It's an interesting approach."

She can't help but scowl. "Understanding me doesn't mean you have permission to shadow me."

"No," he conceded, voice softly persuasive, "but understanding invites curiosity."

Curiosity. The word twisted uncomfortably inside her, sharp and intrusive. "I'm not a research project, Riddle."

"I never said you were," he replied smoothly, stepping just a fraction closer, close enough for her to sense the carefully masked tension beneath his veneer of calm. "Distance hasn't provided clarity. Perhaps a conversation could."

Her heartbeat quickened in an unwelcome response, yet she held firm. "Conversation implies mutual interest, and I assure you, I have none."

"Then call this an inquiry," he said softly, something sharper and more genuine briefly breaking through his polished facade. "To determine what exactly it is about you that refuses to fade."

The honesty surprised her, cutting momentarily through her anger. She felt an unwanted warmth rise within her, quickly masked by practiced indifference. "Fine. Prove your sincerity."

"Is that a challenge?" His tone held the faintest note of genuine amusement.

She lifted her chin defiantly, holding his gaze steadily. "Consider it whatever you wish. But either speak plainly or find someone else to follow around in the dark."

His expression shifted subtly, becoming more serious as he studied her. "Very well. Tomorrow night then—somewhere less public."

Before she could reconsider, the words slipped out. "The astronomy turret, just before curfew."

Tom's eyes gleamed briefly, surprise and satisfaction quickly hidden beneath practiced neutrality. "Agreed. Goodnight, Renae."

Her name echoed softly down the hallway as she turned away without another word, heart pounding far harder than she'd admit. Even as his quiet footsteps retreated, she couldn't shake the uneasy certainty that she'd just agreed to something far more dangerous than she realized.

Chapter Text

10/21/1943

Breakfast in the Great Hall felt half‑dreamt, a soft wash of clinking teaspoons and rustling parchment, the ceiling’s pale October sky reflecting lavender clouds. Renae occupied her habitual place at the far end of the Slytherin table, shoulders squared, textbook propped in front of her like a folding screen. She turned a page every few minutes, though the words slid past unfocused. Her quill hovered over a fresh sheet but never touched parchment.

A sliver of steam drifted from her teacup. Beyond it, the room blurred—house scarves, drifting owls, a thousand small morning rituals. Yet her attention kept catching on one point of stillness across the hall.

Tom Riddle sat with his friends as though the entire space had been arranged to frame him. Ceiling‑light poured over the stark contrasts of his appearance—dark hair brushed into obedient order, skin so pale it almost caught the shine like porcelain, and eyes a shade deeper still, bottomless and watchful, absorbing every detail while revealing nothing. He listened to Florence Lestrange’s new dramatic gossip, fingers tapping a lazy rhythm against his goblet. Occasionally he offered a comment pitched too low to carry.

No furrow between his brows this morning, no restless sweeping of the hall. Whatever storm had shadowed him lately had lifted. Renae noted the change with an uncomfortable tug of curiosity—and annoyance at herself for caring.

She forced her gaze to her book. Focus. Rune decay rates. Not him. But while her eyes skimmed diagrams, her thoughts doubled back: He’s almost pleased with himself. Smug, even. All because I agreed to talk to him?

A brush of movement in her periphery: Melvin Rosier leaned closer to Tom, murmuring something behind a raised cup. Tom’s reply was brief. Whatever it was pulled a quick puff of laughter from Florence. Renae couldn’t hear the words, only the cadence—light, self‑assured.

He’s enjoying the attention, she thought, irritated. Of course he is the egotistical prick.

She returned her attention to her notes. Ink pooled at the tip of her quill. When she finally looked up again Tom’s eyes were already on her, meeting gaze.

It wasn’t a stare, more a gentle catch, like a sleeve snagging on a hidden nail. A fractional lift of his brow, a suggestion of amusement, as though he’d been expecting her to glance exactly then. Renae’s chest tightened; she felt absurdly as if she’d walked into a net.

She lowered her gaze deliberately. She traced a line beneath a rune diagram, willing her heart to stop trying to beat out of her chest. She doesn't get flustered. That would be ridiculous.

Down the table, the Knights couldn’t help noticing the change in their leader.

Callum nudged Florence. “Look at him. It’s like someone slipped a cheering potion into his drink.”

Florence leaned back, studying Tom with theatrical interest. “No scowl, no dark muttering—almost cheerful. I’d call that evidence.”

“Evidence of what?” Melvin asked, though the sly tilt of his mouth suggested he already knew the answer.

“Clearly,” Florence said, lowering his voice to a stage whisper, “someone cracked Miss Adair’s ice wall. And judging by our dear Tom’s posture, he thinks it was him.”

Tom lifted a brow, not bothering to hide that he’d heard. “Cracked her wall? Don’t be absurd.”

Isabelle gave a delicate laugh. “We’ve eyes, Tom. She didn’t once look at you for weeks. Now she glances, you preen. Cause and effect.”

Tom buttered his toast with impeccable calm. “Observation doesn’t equal causation, Isabelle.”

Callum grinned. “It equals a crush, then?”

Tom’s jaw clenched. “Ridiculous,” he huffed dismissively.

Florence steepled his fingers, enjoying himself far too much. “So you’re telling us your sudden good mood has nothing to do with Adair?”

Tom set his goblet down, expression smooth as still water. “I won't indulge in your speculation,” he said evenly. “If you’re bored, I recommend the Prophet’s crossword.”

Waylen, who had been silent, spoke at last. “That dodge says plenty.”

Isabelle tapped her teaspoon, studying Tom’s composed features. “Whatever the reason, you look almost… content.”

Tom folded his napkin with precise care. “Some mornings run efficiently, that’s all.”

“Efficient,” Callum echoed, laughing quietly. “That’s one way to put it.”

A fleeting spark of irritation crossed Tom’s eyes, but he said nothing more, refusing to give them the satisfaction of a real reaction.

Across the hall, Renae gathered her books and swept from the Great Hall. Tom’s gaze lingered for only a heartbeat—long enough for the Knights to mark it—before he resumed buttering a slice of toast.

“There goes your lady love,” Callum murmured, smirk curling on his smug face.

Beneath the table, Tom’s wand dropped into his hand and twitched. A silent stinging jinx shot across the bench. Callum jerked, knee slamming wood with a dull thud he barely smothered.

Tom reached unhurriedly for the jam, expression placid. “Careful, Avery,” he said, voice level and low. “Some remarks have consequences.”

Callum pressed a hand to his throbbing leg, forcing a strained smile. “Message received,” he muttered.

Florence let the moment settle, then rolled his shoulders and launched into a breezy critique of Slughorn’s latest homework assignment. Isabelle shifted the conversation to next weekend’s Quidditch fixture, while Melvin debated the finer points of broom polish with Callum. The table’s energy drifted back to ordinary gossip and half‑serious boasting, as though Tom’s brief flare of irritation had never happened.

Tom drifted on the surface of their conversation, nodding at the right moments while his thoughts tunneled elsewhere. The chatter became background noise—rustling leaves under a single, fixed star.

Thirteen hours until he met Renae Adair at the astronomy tower. Thirteen hours to decide how much of himself to place on the table. 

He smeared the last ribbon of jam across toast, considering the thin line between confession and leverage. Offer her enough truth to earn traction, he reasoned. Keep back the pieces that matter.

-.~*~.-

Tom Riddle took the steps two at a time until his pulse outpaced the echo of his boots. Half‑way up, he forced himself to slow. Deliberate, he reminded the impatient tug in his chest—an unnamed flicker he refused to call excitement, wary of giving it shape. He brushed one hand along the clammy inner wall, letting the stone drain the warmth from his skin. Higher, the torches thinned to smouldering stubs; moonlight replaced them, spilling down the last wind of the spiral like silver rain.

At the top landing he paused, hand on the iron latch. The air smelled of old mortar and the faint tang of tobacco. She’s here. His heart gave one hard knock of relief—odd, how he hadn’t realised he feared she might not come until that worry vanished.

He eased the door open and stepped onto the tower’s time‑worn flags. She was sitting on the floor one leg folded beneath her while the other boot dangled over the eleven‑storey drop. There was no parapet—only the yawning abyss of the night spread out before her where night air rolled into the tower unhindered and the castle grounds fell away into nothing. The scene should have looked precarious, but she seemed carved in place, steady as any gargoyle.

Moonlight caught the scar under her eye, turning it into a fine sliver of silver, his gaze sliding over where it followed the curve of her cheek until it disappear beneath her eye. His gaze continued to the cigarette held between her fingers and lips, each drag painting her features in quick strokes of orange—focus, tension, and a quiet fatigue that reminded him abruptly of smoke‑filled London back alleys, orphanage cellars, moments when rules loosened just long enough to breathe. 

Unexpected, he admitted, oddly taken with the contrast. The little vice softened nothing in her—if anything, it highlighted the steel: clean‑lined, no‑nonsense, and edged with just enough recklessness to hold his gaze.

Renae didn’t turn, but he caught the subtle tensing of her shoulders. He let the hush stretch. A breeze threaded the tower, fluttering the loose end of his scarf; he waited until the wind quieted before speaking, wanting his first words to drop cleanly into the space between them.

“Didn’t picture you smoking,” he murmured, the stone swallowing half the sound.

“Most people don’t picture anything beyond the tip of their own wand,” she replied, voice drifting like the smoke curling from her lips. 

Tom stepped fully onto the worn flagstones, boots gritting against ancient dust. From his inner pocket he withdrew a tarnished silver case—one he’d nicked when he was ten from a Soho antiques shop after giving into his magpie tendencies. He flipped it open, took a cigarette, and lit it with a precise wand‑spark. The first drag scraped pleasant warmth down his throat, as familiar as the memory of damp dungeon walls.

He lowered himself to sit beside her on the ledge, maintaining a polite amount of distance. Close enough to feel the heat of her; far enough not to spook her. The lake lay black and motionless beneath, the Forbidden Forest a ragged dark mass against a dark sky.  Strange, he mused, how height reduces danger to a silhouette.

“Everything down there presses in. Up here, it’s all too far away to bite,” she said, as if reading his thoughts. 

He tracked the line of her gaze—moonlit battlements, pinprick windows glowing across the castle face. “Some monsters grow larger the more distance you give them,” he countered. “But perhaps that’s a conversation for another night.”

She hummed—non‑committal, yet curious. The sound threaded into his awareness, tugging at a place he usually kept locked up. For a stretch they smoked in silence. Tom found himself cataloguing details the way a jeweller examines facets: the uneven knot in her tie, the way moonlight traced the ridge of her knuckles, the faint tremor in her lashes each time the wind shifted. Not beautiful in the way most people polished themselves—too wild and untamed in nature for that—but vivid , utterly impossible to filter out.

He thought back to three versions of her: that first dishevelled night—dust‑streaked cheeks, cobwebs clinging to her braid, a flush of embarrassment she couldn’t hide; the Hogsmeade afternoon—uniform pressed, lip gloss, a deliberate ounce of polish she’d likely resented; and her usual classroom guise—practical, neat, unconcerned with ornament. Tonight she was none of those and a little of each: hair loose enough to catch the wind, vest rumpled from work, moonlight sanding the sharp edges of fatigue into something quiet and real. Oddly raw, oddly serene. He realised, with a start that felt like a miscast charm sparking in his chest, that this unguarded version pleased him most of all.

“I tried ignoring you,” he said, letting the truth land without ceremony. 

She snorted, a wry puff of breath. “I noticed.” She stubbed out her cigarette on the ledge, vanished it with a flick—wandless, effortless. The precision of her control sent a spark of appreciation—and caution—down his spine. “It was relieving,” she said first. “Then irritating. I’d apparently acclimated to you hovering like some very persistent fly.”

She missed me. The warmth that flooded his chest was immediate, treacherous. “I can work with irritation,” he said, tone eased into something almost gentle.

“Don’t flatter yourself. You’re still a distraction.”

“The feeling is mutual,” he volleyed back, exhaling smoke that the wind tore away, then stubbing out and flicking his cigarette butt off the edge of the tower. “Although it feels pointless to burn energy fighting it. Don't you agree?”

She shifted, studying him. 

He clarified: “Meet me here again. Same time. We can talk or not. Your choice.”

Renae weighed him with that unnerving stillness of hers—like she could see load‑bearing cracks in him if she stared long enough. He resisted the absurd urge to fidget, keeping his face bland.  If she says no, do not chase, he warned himself. Wait her out.

“Every night?” she asked finally, voice low.

“Unless you choose otherwise.” The gentle edge to his voice surprised him. 

Wind sighed between them, colder now. She shivered, tucking her hands under her armpits, and before sense could intervene, he shrugged out of his cloak and draped it over her shoulders. Her eyes flashed—startled, but she didn’t remove it.

“One night at a time,” she said at last. “If you’re late by so much as a minute—”

“I leave you alone,” he finished, offering a small nod. “Agreed.”

He extended a hand. She took it, her touch cool against his palm, slowly warming. Her hand in his felt... right . He released her first but the phantom touch lingered.

The distant bell tolled curfew’s edge—three resonant chimes that rolled through the timbers. Tom rose, dusting ash from his trousers. “I know which patrols can be coaxed off course,” he said.  Bribed, his mind amended, or blackmailed. “Allow me to walk you back.”

She acquiesce with a nod and a barely there smile, pulling his cloak tighter around her.

They descended side by side, boots striking a slow counter‑rhythm in the stairwell hush. He kept a deliberate half‑step back, but the urge to brush her hand dangling at her side with his, to feel if that sense of rightness was just a fluke, grew until he shoved his hands in his pockets to quell it, willing the thoughts away.

It was absurd even to consider reaching for her, and more absurd still that the thought quickened his pulse.

Just outside the Slytherin common room door she paused, turning just enough for the dim torchlight to cast shadows over her face. “Good night... Tom," she says quietly, his name rolling off her tongue experimentally.

“Good night, Renae.” He let the syllables settle between them before following her into the common room and parting ways to their respective dorms. One night at a time, he repeated, already drafting questions for tomorrow and, against his better judgment, anticipating seeing her beauty casted in moonlight again.

-.~*~.-

The common room lay in charcoal hush when Renae slipped through the serpentine archway. Someone—perhaps a conscientious prefect—had banked the fire; the remaining coals pulsed like dragon‑hearts, smearing an amber glow across sagging armchairs and forgotten parchment scrolls. She padded past, careful of the one stair‑tread that creaked, and began the climb to the girls’ dormitory.

Inside, emerald hangings sealed most beds into private cocoons. Only her own curtains gaped slightly, lit by the lake’s dim green sheen seeping through the underwater windows. A single night‑globe glimmered on Amalie Burke’s trunk, throwing off enough radiance for silhouettes.

Renae exhaled into the hush—and only then remembered the cloak still looped around her shoulders. Tom’s cloak. She caught the lapel between thumb and forefinger, surprised anew at its weight and warmth—as though it had decided to stay on her back of its own volition.

At her trunk she hesitated, senses tug‑of‑warring between practicality and something softer. Eventually practicality won a partial victory: she folded the cloak with almost fussy precision, smoothing a crease with care she didn't observe for too long, then set it atop the lid rather than inside. Tomorrow, she promised the neatly folded wool, you go back.

She slipped out of her uniform, changing into loose cotton night things. She unwound her braid with a murmured charm—auburn strands tumbling free—then caught the hint of tobacco still clinging to them. Another spell cleared it, yet a faint ghost of smoke seemed to linger, more memory than scent.

She settled cross‑legged on the mattress and opened her journal, the pages stiff with arithmancy tables and half‑inked rune diagrams. Quill poised, she waited for the habitual ache—the press of loss, the need to fix a timeline that no longer existed. Instead, a quiet settled in its place, like dust finding the floor after a storm.

I can’t go back. Not without shattering more than I mend.

The thought still hurt, but the pain felt old now, catalogued. Sebastian’s fate was ash; Ominis and Anne belonged to a yesterday she could no longer reach. What she had was today —hushed corridors, cold towers, a boy of sharp contrasts—dark hair falling neat against pale skin, eyes darker still and always calculating—whose quiet laughter somehow felt familiar, and who, inexplicably, had draped his cloak over her shoulders so she wouldn’t feel the night air.

She touched the page of her open journal with her fingertip, tracing dried ink. A distraction, she’d called him—yet tonight the word tasted less like warning, more like relief.

One night at a time, she thought. 

Her pulse lifted, subtle but undeniable, at the idea of tomorrow’s climb. She let herself feel it—briefly. Then slid the journal beneath her pillow, and swung her legs under the blankets.

The dunes of the lake cast wavering shadows across the curtains. She watched them drift while bargaining with herself: Return the cloak after the next meeting; after the scent fades; after the wind loses its bite. Each excuse felt thin, but she let it stand for now. Night was kinder when wrapped in borrowed wool and mystery.

A soft snore rose from the bed opposite. Renae turned onto her side, cloak‑scent lingering in memory like a promise. For the first time since tumbling into 1943, the future felt neither locked nor lost—it felt unfolding.

Sleep found her quickly, carrying with it the image of a handsome clever boy and a silent vow to meet night halfway, again and again, until the tower itself grew weary of them.