❝ her gaze was like the darkest night, and when he looked into it, he saw the path to his own destruction. but he couldn't look away. for in those veins of darkness, he found something he couldn't deny-something that called to him with a voice as ol...
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september 5th, 1943
It had been a long, exhausting week for Vicroria. The days seemed to stretch on forever, each one dragging her deeper into the tension that surrounded her like a thick fog. Her classes were as dull as usual, filled with whispers from peers, the constant hum of her housemates' gossip, and the ever-present glances from Tom Riddle. Despite fleeting moments in the Great Hall or occasional exchanges in class, they hadn't spoken directly since their last confrontation. And, for that, Victoria felt grateful.
The encounters, though few, were enough to keep her on edge. She could feel his twisted gaze follow her through the room, his eyes always sharp, always calculating. His silence was almost worse than his words, the weight of it settling on her like an oppressive cloud. But Victoria had learned to ignore him over the years, or at least, she tried. Her attention stayed fixed on her studies, her books, and anything that could distract her from the past and the ghost of Tom riddle that seemed to haunt her memories.
By Friday, she was beyond excited for the weekend. The week had worn her out to shreds, her thoughts were scattered, and even the quiet moments she'd spent engulfed with her books began feeling like a failed attempt to escape the reality. Hogwarts was always the same, everyone else moved forward, but Victoria seem to be stuck on the ghosts of her past.
The skies outside the castles were overcast and dark, the soft pattern of rain tapping against the windows echoed through the halls. The scent of wet stone and damp earth seeped in with the breeze as students gathered in the Great Hall for breakfast, their footsteps muffled by the gusts of wind and the september rain engulfing the skies. It was the kind of morning that invited everyone to linger over their meals, lost in their thoughts, hoping the weekend would bring some respite from the exhausting first week.
As she sat down at her reserved spot on the corner of the Slytherin table, munching down on her freshly baked bread, she briefly caught the eye of Ethan Sallow. The Gryffindor was seated across the room with a group of his housemates. He smiled in her direction, a small, almost apologetic gesture that made her feel, for a short-lived moment, a little less alone. She gave him a fleeting tight smile back. There was no hidden intention behind his eyes, his smile only revealed kindness, something she hadn't gotten a lot of recently. It was a strange comfort, though one she didn't allow herself to dwell on.
The moment hadn't gone unnoticed by Tom. His eyes narrowed as he watched Victoria smile at the Gryffindor. There was no jealousy, only a cold calculating thought. She hadn't realised it, but she was still apart of him. Of his game. He would make sure of it. The sight of her interacting with someone else, someone who might think they had a claim on her, stirred something dark within Tom. She'd been in his control, she had never left it. She was a chess piece, his chess piece, and no one else would ruin that. Not now, not ever.
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The dimly lit dungeons were alive with students scrambling to settle into their classes and hurrying to the next one. Victoria shuffled into the Potions classroom and settled into her seat. She opened her textbook, but her mind was still wandering, still haunted by the ghost of her past. She knew he was watching, his poisonous gaze never letting het too far out of sight, she did her best to ignore the feeling. Her attention snapped back to Professor Slughorn as he called out the partners for todays project.
