Dead Love || Tom Riddle

Chapter III - October

Trigger Warning 

Self-harm and mild violence 

If you are suffering from this too, know you are not alone <3

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During lunch, Aurelie went to the window bench in the east stairwell. Rain pelted the stain glass window with the force of the angry tempest. She pushed her copy of Advanced Charms away with her feet. Her stomach felt like a pit, and it was becoming difficult to breathe, her lungs felt like one of Laurie's spoiled potions that melted the cauldron. She didn't have a cause to feel this way. There was no terrible thought behind it. The feeling was just there like a school of dead fish floating on the surface of the lake.

She traced the jagged scars on her wrist with a shaking finger. About a year ago, before her brother died, Aurelie found a knife with a blade the length of her thumb in her attic. Eventually, she couldn't help but carve into the skin of her forearm and watch the blood trickle down the stretch of her arms. One was still pink and puffy on her skin. With the knife out of sight, she pushed the sharp edge of her thumbnail into the fresh cut. She whined a little pushing deeper into the flesh that blood poured out from under the force of her finger.

"Miss Black?" Aurelie quickly pulled her black sleeve over her marred arm. The new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher waited on the steps with a raised brow. He wore a pressed muggle suit in simple colors and design and silver rings on his fingers. Her heart was pounding in her chest, she couldn't imagine her parents' reaction to her being found carving apart her own skin. Did he see? "Don't enjoy dinner?"

She let out a small sigh, "No, sir. Just too loud."

"Fair enough."

"Are you enjoying teaching, sir?"

"Very much." He was about to say goodbye and walk to wherever he was planning but he took another step up the stairs and turned his body toward her. "I knew your brother." Aurelie looked up at Tom from her lap with wide black eyes. "We went to school together."

"Oh."

Aurelie didn't know what to say. Not many people had talked about Augustine since her fifth year. Teachers and students hinted at the subject, asking how she was and to come to them for help—of course they didn't mean it. She knew not to talk about it. It had been the Black family's goal to progress undamaged since Augustine's death. On the day of his funeral, Merula slapped Aurelie across the face until she stopped crying.

"Stop wailing like a banshee, Aurelie! You know not to cry!"

Eventually, holding back tears, her mother was satisfied enough to stay her hand and button Aurelie into a black dress. Maue dapped white powder on her face to dull some of the redness from her mother's palm, but the next morning, she woke up with purpled cheeks. She didn't leave the house during the summer, she had nowhere to go. Her parents never spoke about Augustine, less it was to mention how she paled in comparison, and the staff hardly spoke to her before. Even when he was at Hogwarts and she was left at home, she knew she was not alone. His death left a gaping hole in her life. And no one spoke about it.

"I am sorry for your loss, Aurelie. He spoke of you often during our time at school. He loved you very much."

"Thank you. You certainly are young to be teaching then. Although no younger than you look, I suppose."

He smiled softly leaning against the wrought iron railing, "I'm flattered."

"People were glad of your replacement. Professor Gybert was..."