GAMES OF FATES (H.P/T.M.R)

Mon Âme, And The Book She Couldn't Read

Cassiopeia's eyes clung to the ancient script sprawled across the brittle pages, her pupils tracking the elegant yet maddeningly obscure words of Krishna like a woman determined to make sense of an unfamiliar dance. She'd been at it for nearly an hour. Possibly two. Time had lost meaning sometime between the first inexplicable metaphor and the sixth existential riddle. Her fingers, which had once lovingly turned pages, were now clammy—trembling just slightly, betraying the mounting storm inside her.

The book reeked of ancient divinity and a kind of patience she sorely lacked.

With a loud thwack, she snapped it shut.

The sound echoed around the quiet chamber like a gunshot in a temple.

She let out a breath—sharp and shallow—then sat there, perfectly still, lips pressed together in a thin line that could’ve sliced stone. Something was wrong. Not wrong like “oh no, I spilled tea on my robes” wrong, but cosmically, cosmically off. Something had been tugging at the back of her skull all morning, persistent and pestering, like a toddler with sticky fingers or a memory that refused to be forgotten.

Horcrux.

The word didn’t just ring. It roared. Loud and accusing.

And suddenly, it all made sense—or rather, it stopped not making sense.

“That’s why,” she whispered to no one in particular. “That’s why he changed.”

The dots connected themselves with frightening clarity: the abrupt shift in tone, the concern dressed up as command, the desperate, maddening pursuit that had started feeling... less like a hunt, and more like protection. Or possessiveness. Or whatever it was the Dark Lord called it when he wasn't actively trying to murder someone.

Two days ago, Ashwatthama had calmly informed her that she was—well, how did he put it? Oh, right—harboring a fragment of the most abominable soul to ever crawl out of wizarding history inside her bloody forehead.

A Horcrux. Neat, tidy, and casually dropped into conversation like one would mention bad weather or a missed train.

And now here she was, with three days left until the immortal man decided it was time to whisk her off on yet another cryptic journey, and her mind was doing somersaults over Marvolo “Mon Âme” Riddle and his ridiculous ability to haunt every waking thought even when he was nowhere near her.

Especially when he was nowhere near her.

“Mon Âme,” she muttered with a scoff, the phrase bitter on her tongue. “He could call me his soul all he wanted, but he couldn’t bother telling me that a piece of his soul was literally living rent-free in my skull.”

Romantic.

She had tried astral projection, of course. Multiple times. What had once been effortless, automatic, had become like reaching for a closed door on the other side of the world. Marvolo was unreachable. Inaccessible. It was as though something had sealed him off—something far darker than distance. Something like fear. Or pain. Or fate.

And the worst part?

She missed him.

She missed the man who had once terrorized Britain and probably still fantasized about world domination over breakfast. She missed his maddening riddles, the dry curl of his lip when she got something wrong (according to him), the way he always looked like he was five seconds away from either kissing her or hexing someone into oblivion. She missed the connection, the pull, the familiarity.

She missed the damn bastard.

“Bloody hell,” she muttered, and with all the ceremony of a queen declaring war, she hurled the precious, probably-one-of-a-kind manuscript across the room. It hit the far wall with a satisfying thunk, knocking over a candle in the process.