Soulbound : Tom Riddle

19: The Present

Victoria stumbled as Osgar caught her. Her mind was pounding from the previous year that she had forgotten and now remembered. It was as if she'd been living a double life.

Except, she no longer recalled life from the other world. Everything she'd dreamt of was now a forgotten memory.

But that was the past and it no longer mattered, especially because she hadn't learned anything from it.

She looked up at her loyal friend with an overwhelming burn in her eyes of holding back her tears.

He did know her.

He had always known her.

She hugged him tightly, taken by surprise but wrapped his arms around her as well. She felt a certain joy, knowing that she had him in her life. But it was interrupted when she remembered the burden she had caused him.

"Osgar-"

"We must get going," he interrupted her. "We must finish what we've barely started."

She only nodded, knowing that she couldn't get another word out of him.

He escorted her back to the castle, but she forced him to stay at her pace–to remain beside her. As much as Osgar kept from her, she put herself in his boots. If he was willing to carry on his father's job and risk his life everyday... It showed how much the druids meant to him.

As they left the forest and stepped onto the school grounds, Victoria still had one question Osgar could answer.

"My mother," Victoria stopped Osgar. "What is her surname?"

Osgar smiled surely. "Why it's Pendragon, of course."

- - - ⟡ - - -

"I never told anyone about being a druid," Victoria said to Osgar quietly as they sat behind the looking glass. "They must've just suspected me."

"You're not as safe as I thought then," Osgar said quietly.

It's been a week since she'd remembered everything. And since then, she's been having the recurring dreams of her and Tom Riddle's sex. Though she didn't tell anyone, she was still paranoid that someone might find out.

It helped a little that he was still absent. Or that he's been avoiding her because he's been back for a couple of days now, but she tried to avoid him.

If anything, she found it hard to believe that she was a dragonlord, taken after her mother who had one of Merlin's skills. But she also remembered how she didn't die from looking at the Basilisk–something she told Osgar about.

"The Basilisk has a history with druids and dragons," Osgar said. "It would make sense... it's got the characteristics of a dragon, but also a snake. It's safe to say that it may have some bond to you but not safe enough to say you can control it."

"So you mean the basilisk sees me as a friend?"

"Friend until its master determines you as a foe," Osgar said sternly.

Osgar's words weren't promising, but she felt as if he'd done enough to earn her trust and reassurance, no matter now afraid she was of every corner she turned alone in the castle.

The library was becoming less helpful with every visit, but she wondered if that was because every book she wanted to find was conveniently missing or checked out. According to Madam Auclair, there was nothing wrong with that as long as the student continued to renew the book.

And that student happened to be Tom Riddle, as Victoria saw him in the library just a few minutes before curfew. She had been hoping to avoid him, but it seemed like their collision was bound to happen.