I've returned from the past

Chapter 34

A man stood staring out a window, his broad back covered in shadows and he ran a finger over the cold windowsill that had been left open since a man he'd loved had departed it. He was better than he had been but he was not who he had been. Some scars don't heal even if everything else did and so Tom Marvolo Riddle stood quietly by the window, a phantom feeling in his fingers. There was still some magic attached to the window, green and dark and it responded like traces do. It would rise like disturbed dust, settle and could be moved places.

He hadn't let anyone disturb him for two days and the sun had yet to rise on Christmas morning. The sky was cloudy and everything was settled with ice and white powder. He couldn't even see the usually pruned underneath all the snow and the fountain had completely frozen over, some of the water still in the form it had been when it was frozen.

Nagini was guarding the doorway and had been diligently checking on him but he hadn't spoken. He hadn't left and he'd had Kreacher bring him food while staring at the vial in his hands. He'd showered and improved his condition but couldn't be bothered to do much beyond that.

He closes his eyes and remembered that face that he'd been afraid wouldn't ever come back. Was it a dream? Had it just been the Potter boy afterall and he was waiting like a fool for a hope that was fleeting like the spring rains.

It had felt real and his voice had been real- Tom had forced himself to pull himself together just to be present and listen, to interact. It had been such an effort but even for a moment, everything had felt normal.

If it was a kindness on the Potter boy's behalf to transform into Hadrian's body and help Tom, maybe he should be thankful just for that as well. But the fact that that was a possibility at all left him angry and helpless. But it was difficult for the boy to also replicate Hadrian's hand writing.

Tom glances over at the note that he had been following religiously as he'd promised. Now he was waiting for a shadowy figure to return through the window. But it wasn't day yet so he supposes he should wait. The reality was there was a whole twenty four hours to get through and Hadrian could show up at any time throughout the day.

So Tom can't really expect that he'd appear through the window.

In fact, he can't really expect anything.

That even if Hadrian would keep him promise and return today, that he'd be whole. That everything would be like it used to be, that Hadrian wouldn't be affected by what had happened. And there would be questions from the others. Usually Tom would be one to get answers- but he's beyond questions now. He doesn't care.

He wants the truth and his truth was that he needed Hadrian back. He wanted to go home but that hadn't been his decision to make. Hadrian hadn't left a will and Tom shouldn't have expected to be allowed to own the property or to have even remained there. He'd been a guest in his own home really but for a while it had been his home. They'd had family and companions and they'd lived in Grimmauld Place during the summer when it was too hot in the manor or simply when they wanted to drink and game. They'd had the manor and that had been... something that when Tom was still in the orphanage, could never have dreamed of. Younger him had thought he'd be alone and he was unlike everyone else. That he would forever be seperated by society and society by him.

Until Hadrian had come along and saved him. In his own stupid way by always being smarter by always being that one damned step ahead. If Tom had kept up, if he'd taken more than one step after Hogwarts, if he'd continued to run to catch up to Hadrian, the worst fate of all wouldn't have befallen the love of his life. He still remembers Hadrian being wary in the early years of Hogwarts, skirting around him until he then fell to Tom's scheme's and began competing with him before the two of them realised neither could entirely outdo the other in every area and they allied. Alliance turned to friend ship and in the end of fith year they both realised maybe it was something more. Until it was and Tom wouldn't change it for anything.