I've returned from the past

Chapter 30

Orion leant against Riddle's bedframe, staring at the ring in his hand and had been doing so for nigh on an hour.

"What did you see?" Riddle asked.

"Didn't you look?" Orion muttered.

"I don't have a pensieve. I know you have one, somewhere. You've been looking through memories, I can feel it." He stares at the floor, his eyes red and his hands still trembled slightly.

"No. I can't give you the memories while your in that condition."

"I can still look at memories Black."

"It'll break you."

Riddle didn't reply.

"So you knew the memories were in the ring?"

"Like I can feel your pensieve, I could feel those memories. One of it's functions seems to be remembering the death of it's wearer. There's older signatures besides Hadrian." Riddle was quiet for a long while and Orion couldn't muster up enough of a voice or a concentration to figure out one question to ask Riddle. "Did he suffer?" Orions magic stirred like leaves on the wind before settling and he bites his lip to keep from crying again. His chest heaved in an effort to control it before looking at the doorway-

"He was awake for everything that happened to him." Riddle's magic flinched and then whipped around in madness before sinking. Orion dropped his hands into his lap. "It was worse though. Mancer waited for Hadrian to heal some of his injuries before doing it again and Hadrian fought him without a heart."

"But the heart is a core source of ones magic."

"Yeah, I think that's why he lost. But he won, kind of."

He says nothing, spinning the ring in hand and staring at it. He remembers prying it off one of the discarded fingers.

Fleamont had also gone through this. They'd lost two people in this fashion and it made Orion sick to his very core. The thought that that could be him- could have been him if not for his brother-

"I don't know what to do."

Riddle's breathing had lapsed as the man focused and Orion knew he couldn't hear for now. He rubs his eyes and stands, glancing at his incapacitated leader before leaving and walking towards the dining hall- where he sees his worried father pacing. Everyone else is seated- and turns their heads to look at him.

He must look dreadful- and he's sure he does-

"Orion," Arcturus said suddenly, glancing at him and Orion stared at his father, wishing for a moment- that he was saying Hadrian and that he'd look over his shoulder and Hadrian would be there, walking out of the hallway looking happy, amused and perhaps a little bit relieved.

He glances over his shoulder just in case but the hallway was empty- and he gripped the ring strongly.

"You've been gone for three days," Thaddeus says quietly.

Orions brow furrowed, his tongue swollen and he was thirsty from all of the crying- Salazar had recoiled when Orion began screaming what had happened- when he exploded a few boxes- when he almost smashed the pensieve-

But it was all he had of his brother so he couldn't do it.

He'd had every urge to shred through the map and the information- to just destroy something-

So he'd decided to just go somewhere. He doesn't even remember where he went- just that time had passed and he'd come back.

He vaguely remembers black obsidian before passing out so he must have cried himself asleep on Hadrian's grave. Someone had woken him up, likely a stranger but he doesn't remember-