Hogwarts: a school of Witchcraft and Love (Tom Marvolo Riddle x F!reader)

Chapter 4-04

Who better to keep you safe from the Forbidden Forest and its inhabitants than someone who couldn't grasp the concept of fear and insecurity?

The tips of your noses were barely touched by the circles of light from your wands. Beyond that, you couldn't really see anything with the blackness restricting your vision.

There weren't even any owl calls. No hooting or scampering of wild life on the ground. You would have preferred to hear their chirps and cries—they would have made the atmosphere feel a bit more alive.

Tom's autopilot wandering made you all the more vulnerable to the surprise attack no fifteen minutes into being here. One minute you were listening for crickets and owls, and the next,

Hisss...

Hissing. Hissing? There hadn't been any animals...

SNAP.

You stepped back, bumping into a mass.

Bumping into Tom. By the time you finished a blink, you were no longer on the ground. Soaring through the air, the harsh pull of your coat from behind shocking the whistling tea kettle-like scream out of you.

What you could make out in the darkness was the shine of fangs. For all his bravery, his spells were so weak that they didn't even slow the snake down—one spell, another spell, stronger on his third and the muscular twitches of its scales were still pulling it nearer to you.

Fight or flight response raged inside of you and you were not going with the former.

Your legs took off as fast as they were capable of running, though sluggish really wasn't fast at all. You were sleepy and couldn't see beyond your own hand.

ThErE Is NoThInG To WoRrY AbOut, he said... I CoMe HErE oFtEn, he said...

Jinxed it!

Your legs were fast enough to outspeed the reptile. The thud, thud, thud of footsteps hitting the soil didn't grow softer behind you and even if they did, the thuds happening inside of your ear canals were louder. They expanded to all corners of your body, traveling down to your moving heels with an earthquaking force.

Forcing one leg in front of the other, you weren't even worried about finding a trail, just hoping to get far away. You covered quite the distance when his footsteps weren't audible anymore.

Looking behind you was a really silly thing to do when your body pushed you forwards at full speed. You felt weightless as your feet found nothing to stand on, slipping on the leaves when they made contact.

Your fall happened quickly, body splayed out, face buried in the leaves as you groaned. The dizziness of your descent was not little, but not enough to stop you from sitting upright.

Tom was nowhere to be seen. Going back or not was not even a question.

You needed to find him, but where to start? In the darkness, all of the trees looked the same.

Onwards was a lot less fast now. Not because of any pain, but because you were on your last reserves.

You didn't know when you lost him. You didn't know where you lost him. You could go back to the castle for help but maybe by then the snake would have...

No, no, you couldn't think like that! Tom was strong, the strongest person you knew aside from professor Dumbledore.

He was going to be just fine. But a little help from you wouldn't hurt.

The area seemed to grow colder, the trees closer together, and the silence, louder. Your wand was not helping you in seeing when a blow of the wind snuffed the light out, so your sight lost its purpose.