Consuming Shadows

Chapter 40

Broken.

Broken.

Broken. Broken. Broken.

Hadrian stared down at the bag between his feet. The bench he had collapsed on was cold, and it seeped through his clothes, burrowing deep into his skin.

It had rained earlier. The ground was still damp, and the air smelt crisp in the way it only ever did after a storm.

His hands hung limply over his knees, dangling down as he curved over himself.

His ears were still ringing with her words.

She had called him broken. Like he was a thing. An object. A tool that did not work anymore. Like he was not even a person.

"You're not my son."

He squeezed his eyes shut, and his throat ached as he struggled to control himself. He let his head drop low, hiding from the world.

Was he really so awful? Was he such a disappointment that even his own mother had pushed him away?

Hadrian's shoulders trembled.

He had known that he had made some mistakes, that he had screwed up and let things get out of hand – but he had never really believed that she would cast him away like this.

His hand came up to rest against his mouth, his blunt nails digging into the skin.

A mask.

That was what she had called him.

Was he? Was that all he was? If Hadrian Evans was a fake, then everything he had ever done in his life – did it even mean anything?

He pressed his nails in harder and dragged them across his face. The flare of pain barely registered as he brought his hand down for inspection.

Blood sunk under his nails, more dripping down onto his palm from how deep the scratched were.

"Not a mask." He whispered, relief coursing through him. "I'm not a mask. She's wrong."

But the doubt ate at him. His mother knew him better than anyone, and if she said he was not real, that he was just a curtain draped over her true son –

"No." Hadrian snarled, rejecting the thought immediately. "No, I'm me. I've always been me. She's wrong."

She had to be.

He would know. If he was some conjuration, or a shade of another person, he would know it. Spells like that were not sustainable. There would have been signs over the years. Breaks in his mental holds, cracked where the other one would have peeked through. He would know.

Hadrian clenched his hands, feeling the way his muscles bunched and his knuckles curled.

There was no possible way she was telling the truth. He was himself. He had always been this way. She had raised him like this, had told him to study and apply himself and make allies. She had trained him, had sharpened his mind and his skills, and pushed and pushed and pushed –

He was Hadrian. He was Harry. He was both but he felt like neither.

"Maybe she didn't mean it." He muttered to himself, staring blankly out at the park. He licked his lips. "She was just mad. She didn't mean it. She just wanted to..."

To what – control him? Punish him? Make him so angry he finally snapped?

He buried his face in his hands. He wanted to cry. He laughed instead.

"Gods," he said, "what the fuck is wrong with me?"

Nothing, a voice like Riddle's hissed.

Everything, his mother's spat.