𝘋𝘈𝘕𝘊𝘐𝘕𝘎 𝘞𝘐𝘛𝘏 𝘖𝘜𝘙 𝘏𝘈𝘕𝘋𝘚 𝘛𝘐𝘌𝘋/𝘵𝘰𝘮 𝘳𝘪𝘥𝘥𝘭𝘦 (English version)

Chapter 85

Starting over was anything but simple, and Sarah knew it well.

After her final year at Hogwarts, she was fully aware that soon she would have to face reality outside the castle walls.
And yet, when the school reopened its doors, everything had a different taste: not only because the building had been restored so quickly, but because this time they had returned to finish what they had never truly experienced, as "normal" students.

It was... peculiar.

Sarah couldn't hide her joy when she learned that Professor McGonagall had become headmistress.
Her happiness doubled the moment she received the prefect badge: a small token, but one that made her heart shine. She wasn't the only one chosen: Neville for Gryffindor, Tom and Pansy for Slytherin. And Sarah would have never imagined how precious those evenings spent with the three of them would turn out to be.
Especially with him, the one she now called, without hesitation and in front of everyone, my boyfriend.

For no one was it truly a surprise.
After all, everyone knew that Sarah Black and Tom Riddle were made for each other: she, bright, open, ready to face the world; he, cold and impenetrable in the eyes of most.
But when they were alone, the mask Tom had worn so carefully for years would fall, and in its place was just a boy who longed to be loved, and to return that love with the same intensity.
Sarah had bewitched him without spells, and he would never stop letting himself be enchanted.

It was exciting, for all of them, to walk the corridors without that constant weight in their stomachs, without the looming shadow of fear or anxiety.
The strangest part was realizing that this was the normality they should have always had. Only now did they understand that the life they had known until the previous year was not what any seventeen-year-old was supposed to endure.

Parties, laughter, even detentions... everything finally felt the way it was always meant to be.

The past was not forgotten.
On the contrary, it still knocked from time to time at the doors of their hearts. But it did so gently, as if to remind them never to turn their backs on it completely. It lingered not to wound, but to give awareness: those young people had walked through hell and, despite the scars, had managed to survive.

Battered, yes.
But alive.

When, at the end of the year, Sarah had to close the Hogwarts chapter, she cried.
It wasn't a light weeping: it was a tangled knot of emotions rising to her throat, impossible to contain.
Perhaps she cried out of fear. Fear of not being ready for real life, of not knowing which path to take, of not being able to handle those new anxieties that belonged to the adult world.
Within those walls, she had found herself, and the thought of leaving it all behind felt like betraying a part of her own identity.

For a short time, she moved into Grimmauld Place with Tom.
She had become the official heir of both the house and Kreacher, who welcomed the presence of another Black with a devotion that was almost moving.
The house was far from serene: its walls still carried the scent of mold, dust, and the past, but Sarah felt it could offer her a temporary shelter. They both needed time, work, stability. Only then would they face the question of living together for real.
Even though, deep down, it had already begun.

Cohabitation had never been planned. It had simply happened.
Like many things between the two of them.

One evening, Tom had stayed over.
Then it became two.
Then one of the old drawers was occupied by neatly folded shirts, a mug appeared in the kitchen, a mug Sarah never dared to use, and finally came the point where absences made more noise than presences.
And so, without even noticing it, they had found themselves sharing that war-scarred house: a home that still smelled of sage, dust, and ghosts.