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

Chapter 05-15

(A/N: aww yeah, here we flippin' go bois and guuurls!)

Somehow, silence could be so loud.

Louder than explosions, and curses, and the shrieks of a thousand ghouls.

Maybe it was because you knew what to do in those situations. Knew what to expect. In duelling, for example, there were only two outcomes: winning or losing. Maybe some pain.

Standing in front of the Great Hall's door that led directly to one of the crossroads to your future, your career, was one of the less pleasant things you could have been doing.

Ideally, you'd be in the Requirement room practicing with your wand, trying endlessly to perfect your attacks. The Come and Go room was where you spent the majority of what little time you had to spare. That room was your sanctuary, a place where the silence and lack of people made it feel like home.

Freshly awoken students were filing through into the Great Hall. You were one of them, and it was that time of the year-the dreaded time to take your Ordinary Wizarding Levels.

The entrance to the exam hall was a grand affair, with towering arches adorned with symbols of wisdom and magic. The room stretched out before you, bathed in a glow, the light falling inside through the windows like a chess board, slowly growing brighter and brighter with the sun's slow climb.

Rows and rows of wooden desks, neatly aligned and draped in white tablecloths, awaited you. Each desk came with an elegant, quill-strewn inkwell and a stack of fresh parchment, ready to capture the thoughts and knowledge and panic of the students. The room seemed to hum with collective anticipation and, Merlin, stress.

You were stressing as you observed your fellow classmates, some deep in whispered conversations, others wearing masks of utter fear, and a few with their eyes on the ceiling, silently muttering last-minute prayers to whatever higher power they believed in. Will threw you a silent thumbs up, and you reciprocated the motion,both silently praying for survival.

The proctors, stern figures in flowing robes, stood at strategic positions throughout the hall to make sure that there was only fair play. Their eyes seemed sharp enough to cut through dragonhide. Your assigned seat sat nestled between two towering bookshelves that lined the back of the hall. You gazed around the many familiar faces as everyone sat down, you doing the same shortly after.

Backs of greens, yellows, reds and blues all sat in seperate rows, and with the final call to prepare, silence descended on the room. You closed your eyes, trying to find your zen, and then reopened them...

*~*~*

To stare at the 'OUTSTANDING' result in front of you.

You had worried to no end that your anxiety, negative emotions and all the distractions would make you bound to get the lowest grading possible, so much so that you had to wait outside Horace's classroom for five minutes to push down the many nerves skyrocketing, along with a plethora of other things you'd been too out of it to name.

Your worries seemed justifiable, but looking at your success laying in front of you now, you found it almost crazy that you had fretted so much.

You aced it!

"I am so very, very proud of you! I knew a hard working student and excellent planner like yourself wouldn't fail me! Ha-ha!" Professor Slughorn went on with his praising, like he hadn't just flipped your entire world upside down a few minutes before that, "but forgive my curiosity for asking-you haven't responded to the letter? Is contact with your parents not something you expressed longing for in the past?"