antebellum [t. riddle]

lxvii

march 1945

he could feel she was alive.

he could feel her dead—

but then he could feel her alive.

the feeling of it woke him hastily, having gone from deep sleep to unnaturally alert. it was quite late at hogwarts, when he felt it, and he'd fallen asleep awaiting her return.

words couldn't describe the feeling of her heart-stopping. it felt like every cell in his body was moving in a different direction, ripping him and shredding his very existence.

what has she done to make him so weak and piteous? why had he let himself become so weak? to want for someone who didn't even want to be alive?

and the worst part—

was the fact that he felt sorrow and grief before anger and vengeance.

he felt the pain of losing her before he felt the desire to avenge her (though, he of course felt that burning murderous rage less than seconds after).

it— it had to have been a dream. he could feel her, very much alive, and not particularly happy. she was in a state of spectacular distress, but not life-threateningly so or in an impaired mentality. her heart rate wasn't constantly changing, meaning she likely was not being tortured, but it was abnormally high, as though she'd been overexerting herself for an extended period of time.

he hadn't made the horcrux yet; so she couldn't have truly died and returned from the dead. perhaps it was a mixture of the feeling of her condition with his own reservations about her wellbeing. the stress of it all had created a nightmare. that was all.

he knew it wasn't true, but it would do nothing to panic.

it was fine. it had to have been a dream; some sort of unforeseen consequence of his split soul. he'd had nightmares before, but none that had featured her, and none that had felt so very real.

no matter, he'd ask her about it in the morning.

but then the sun started to rise, and she was still gone.

whenever she came back from macusa, he'd wait in the common room, hoping to even get a glimpse of her, but it never happened. she never came back to the dorm, at least not in the hours he waited.

but as that day went by, and she still hadn't returned or sent any sort of message to him, tendrils of dread and unease settled around his bones. alarm thrummed in his blood each time he thought of her, and since he was never not thinking of her, tom was in a constant state of worry.

he found himself needing to be away from his knights during this period— it was hard to field their questions and admit he knew nothing but sit there and listen to their theories. tom couldn't really feel guilty for it, but he knew it was a callous thing to do. he'd make it up to them later, but placating them was nowhere near the top of his priority list.

another day went by.

tom hadn't eaten.

she has been gone for nearly three days. a full seventy-two hours.

time seemed to tease him with every tick of the hands in the clock. taunting him as the minutes flew by and she wasn't back. their window was closing.

he summoned her again, only to be ignored, again.

she's not hurt, i'd feel it if she was, he kept telling himself. she's just being spiteful. she's fine.

but he could not be certain.