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

Chapter 6-04

(A/N: HAPPY NEW YEAARSSS!!)

For years, you had prepared yourself for this moment.

But they weren't here.

It was still early noon, so while it was raining outside, there was enough light that you could see a few meters ahead without Lumos. You were grateful for the shelter, slumping off your sopping shoulder bag and coat, but you seemed to stiffen no matter what.

They weren't here.

The disappointing look in your eyes seemed to worsen with every step further inside. The room at the right side of the base of the stairs was identifiably a study, in which the dust particles that fluttered among the rays of sunlight, made you cough into your sleeve.

Something in the back caught your eye, something covered in a white sheet. When you whipped off the sheet another layer of dust kicked up.

"A mirror?" You crouched down, wiping a hand across the glass. "A broken mirror."

They must have been gone from here for a long time.

Fuck.

You should have been able to tell from outside already. The house's skeleton had once been a happy blue, but the wearing had stripped the paint from the wood, leaving the beams to splinter in on themselves.

You didn't know why, but if you had time left, maybe you could set about cleaning the mirror, wiping and blowing away the dust until you could see what it looked like with the idea of potentially using it as a mirror in your room. When you felt the aches and pains in your legs as you grew, you couldn't deny how much harder life got. A new mirror for your new height, new uniforms, new everything.

More important matters to deal with first.

You searched everywhere, then searched everywhere again, both upstairs and downstairs, high and low, looking in vain for the two missing people in your life.

Something black and hollow stretched inside of you from the revelation that no one was around. For so long, you had gone over any possible first-time interactions with your mum and dad. Imagining it to be emotional, and maybe a little awkward, but thinking that once past that stage, you'd get all of the love you missed out on for sixteen years.

You had the urge to squeeze your eyes shut. To create a different reality in your head where it did happen— a man and woman surprising you out of nowhere and hugging you, kissing you all over.

Except that wasn't going to happen, you had to make yourself realize. You were so lost in trying to acknowledge what you were feeling that you didn't hear the half-willow, half-broken front door open. Didn't hear a thing until you did.

For one stupid moment, you thought it could have been your dad.

Out of it came Dumbledore, looking all around himself. The lobby of the home was like all other things, dusty. Only the windows at the base of the staircase provided light, but it was enough. "Sometimes places hold memories even when the people who made them aren't here."

Compassion moved through him, and, somehow, that made it feels worse. Like Dumbledore was aware you were already grieving. "Try to see the bright side—they left something behind for you to find. Didn't you have a taste for exploration?"

Easier said than done when the disappointment in your chest had already turned into a steady ache, tingling up and down your arms. It made you want to run and destroy the hope that sucked you in.

Instead, you paced, your feet scuffing against the boards. "They left me behind. You're not gonna tell me what was written in that letter..., are you, professor?"