Tom Riddle

You did not knock.

There was something strange about returning. Not just to the place, but to the person who made it feel unbearable to leave. You moved through the quiet halls like a ghost wearing borrowed skin, unsure if he’d see you, or simply sense you—like he always did.

The door creaked faintly as you pushed it open.

His back is to you, but you could feel it; the wrongness of him. He was bent over his desk, head buried in his hands, and even from this distance, you could see the cracks.

His shirt was misbuttoned. His tie was forgotten on the floor. And his hair— usually combed back with surgical precision—fell in disordered strands across his brow, like a boy lost in grief or fury, or some monstrous combination of both.

He didn’t lift his head, not at first.

“You’ve finally returned.”

The words were low. Not soft—Tom Riddle was not soft. But something in his voice had been filed down, dulled by days spent gnawing on silence. There was bitterness there, yes—the kind that bites deep, but it rode on a thread of something else. Something ragged. Relief, perhaps. Or the hollow echo of it.

“Do you have any idea what your disappearance did to me?” He lifted his head. And the moment your eyes met, the world contracts. His stare could have hollowed stars, that same impossible intensity, now laced with something far more volatile.

“You vanished,” he hissed, rising with sudden, fractured grace. His movements were sharp, uncoordinated, as if his body forgot how to hold him in your absence. “No letters. No owls. No explanations.”

You inhaled—not in fear, but to keep yourself from collapsing beneath the weight of him.

“I searched for you,” he said, quieter now, but there is no calm in the softness. “Everywhere. I checked every hallway, every forbidden corridor, every hollow space that might have held you.”

He stepped closer. The light caught the pallor beneath his eyes—he has not slept well. Or much. And still, he moved with that old, snake-like elegance.