For the Greater Good || Tom Riddle ||

Chapter One: The Winding Road

Her magic was restless.

Her bones and muscles shivered with a dread she had never been privy to before. Every step across the aqueduct felt as though the stone footings stabbed at her soul, sucking her closer and closer to her fate—closer to damnation.

Nevertheless, she persisted.

The sky had once again greeted the world with daylight. From her conversation with Dumbledore, Gwen was aware that what she predicted to be a legendary duel was slotted for the day after Yule. Dumbledore had already received an owl whose leg carried a message that berated him for hiding like a coward inside the confines of the castle. Grindelwald was always one to make haste.

Inferi had taken over Hogsmeade, with many fleeing to Dublin, Belfast, Galway, or cities in Wales like Cardiff or Swansea to escape the terror. People fled as far as they could via apparition while maintaining distance from the mainland—that was where the Muggle War was, after all. If magic didn't capture them in its clutches, surely shrapnel would. They were trapped.

Her lips twitched as she marched further up the path.

Like rats in a maze.

Spending the night with Tom Marvolo Riddle had fulfilled Gwen in many ways, but it had also cost her time. Time for planning. Plotting.

Dying.

Was she ready?

There was no telling. An early departure from earth was not something one could kindly accept. She had been dealt shoddy cards—Death and The Hanged Man in the Major Arcana. There was no escaping it.

The duel played out in one of three ways in her mind: somehow, she achieved catching Grindelwald by surprise, and that most likely resulted in casting a powerful enough curse that rendered them both decapitated, or, Dumbledore truly did crawl out of his cave, and they paired up, also most likely result in Gwen needing to make a sacrifice in order to gain the upper hand. The only other option left was that any plan to thwart her grandfather failed, the Statute of Secrecy fell, Muggles would be enslaved, and Gwen would also most likely end up dead. And if she didn't, she'd surely be locked up in Nurmengard for all eternity.

And for the sake of the many lives that hung in the balance, Gwen would do anything for the greater good.

Anything.

Her heart thudded in her chest, hollow; she could almost feel her blood laze around her veins, flowing to her lungs, flooding her brain. It became unclear whether or not her hazy stupor was the result of the strength it took to peel herself away from Tom, or the threat of her looming demise.

A fleeting thought crossed her mind. How strange was it that she had made love to an immortal man the night before her death?

A sick twist in fate, she thought dully.

But as she reasoned before, she could never stay. That simply wasn't her design. She was always meant to be a pawn, a tool. Whatever freakish power she possessed, it was not natural, not even to magic. She was unreliable. A liability, to herself and to others. It would be for the greater good.

But what about what she desired?

Her Darkness loved to remind her.

All she wanted was conversation and time.

"I need you."

The phrase hung heavy in her throat. Never uttered, it didn't dare move beyond her tongue. It had graced her ears, not once, but twice. Most surely not said as a sweet nothing, certainly not when voiced by the boy who couldn't feel the frothy epiphany of love. It was her turn to leave him, after all.