Darkness and Devotion - A Tom Riddle Story

The Brother

It had been weeks since Evelyn had last seen Tom. Weeks. Weeks without a glimpse of his curled hair, his smooth skin, his dark eyes. Weeks without any answer despite the fact that her mind was begging for one.

He confused her. Tom was powerful—she could sense it—and yet he pretended he was just another student. He pretended like there wasn't darkness lingering beneath his veins when Evelyn knew that wasn't the case. He was incredibly powerful, brewing a strong potion within one night and healing her broken rib with just an utterance. And sometimes... sometimes she swore that she could feel his presence in her soul, like a part of him was in there with her, feeling her mind out as if it were his own.

But that was crazy. That was impossible. 

Something about Tom must have been messing with her mind. Perhaps it was his good looks. He was very handsome, easily the most handsome boy she had ever seen. And despite the fear that other Hogwarts students clearly held towards him—whispering constantly about the son of the Dark Lord—they also whispered about how his good looks were even finer than his father's, finer than Cedric Diggory, finer than Gilderoy Lockhart. As soon as he graduated, he could be voted Most Handsome Man in the Wizarding World, an award that really only Lockhart had won in recent years. Tom's looks called to her. She was mesmerized by his charming smile, his deep dimple, his sharp jawline, his strong cheekbones, his enchanting eyes...

No, she told herself. Evelyn had no intention of letting a boy invade her every thought. She couldn't afford that. People didn't remain close to Evelyn; they never wanted to. Now, she was so used to being alone, she didn't want it any other way. She had always been alone, never knowing a family or a friend. Never knowing what it felt like to have someone in the world who actually loved her, who wanted her to be there, who smiled when they saw her face. She had no one. Why would she change that? Why would she just give herself another person who could leave? 

And yet despite her reservations—despite her promise to herself that she wouldn't think about a boy who barely thought about her, not when he could hurt her just like everyone else had—Evelyn couldn't stop her mind from constantly going to Tom. His face, his chocolate brown hair, his impeccable attire, his smooth voice, his cold hands on her...

At night, she thought about him. She dreamed of his eyes, of his touch, of his voice calling her his Little Dove. In the morning, she tried to wash away the visions to no avail. 

Evelyn found her eyes searching for him everywhere, for a glimpse of him in each room she entered. But he wasn't there. Not at meals, not in the common room, not even in the hallways late at night where she first met him by the library. It was as if he disappeared completely.

That couldn't be right. Could she have imagined him? Could her mind have conjured up the image of his cool hands on her waist? 

Could he—just like so many of the others in her life—have left her? Gone like her mother and her father, leaving her to a sentence of loneliness and isolation with two people who loathed her at her core simply for existing when her father did not.

Forget Tom Riddle, she told herself. But that was impossible when she still kept the note he gave her those weeks ago with the potion he brewed, every word from it faded except for two:

Little Dove.

.                          .                            .

The cold winds of fall descended on Hogwarts and yet Tom was still gone. By now, his absence was disappointing but expected. Evelyn convinced herself that she made him up, delirious from the pain. How could someone so handsome, so charming, so cold, so dark exist? No, she made him up, a vision of a man after she had finally turned crazy from her lack of a father figure. She no longer missed him. She no longer searched for him in every room.