Stolen Time A Tom Marvolo Riddle Fanfiction completed

Chapter Twenty-four

Cassiopeia closed the curtains of her bedroom and went to the bathroom to get ready for the night. While she was changing, her thoughts kept whirling inside her mind. Only two days had passed since this afternoon that had turned her life upside down but somehow these two days felt like a lifetime.

When she returned to her bedroom, she involuntarily remembered the many nights Tom had come sneaking into her room. His intentions had rarely been pure and noble but the powerful aura of his magic had always made up for his lack of emotion and she had never had any regrets. She had always sensed that they belonged together, their magics matching up in a way that was unique.

Ever since she had closed this door between them, her world had crumbled to pieces. Yet she had not even been able to cry. She only felt empty. Empty and sad.

She was about to go to bed when there was a knock on the front door. A frown crossed Cassiopeia's face. It was already after eleven o'clock and hardly the time for uninvited visitors. She grabbed her dressing gown and her wand and went downstairs, throwing on the dressing gown as she went.

The house elf was hovering in the hall. "Does miss want Dissy to open the door? Dissy was not sure."

"It's ok, Dissy. I'll check who it is."

The house elf nodded and disapparated with a loud crack.

There was another knock on the door. Cassiopeia raised her wand and carefully opened the door. A look of surprise crossed her face when she saw Tom standing in front of the door.

She let her wand sink to her side. He was about the last person she had been expecting.

He hadn't used the front door in years, to start with. Actually, she couldn't even remember when he had last waited for someone to open the door. Ever since he had been able to apparate through the protective wards of the manor, he had done it, never wasting much thought or time, always going straight where he wanted.

Besides, quite obviously, their last interaction had not ended very well.

She had known that Tom would be beyond furious once he realized she had been leading a secret double life for almost a year. She had feared that he wouldn't be able to control his rage, and yet, she had harboured the foolish hope that he would somehow restrain himself and refrain from hurting her. After all, he had even risked his own bloody existence to safe her from getting hit by his rebounding Killing Curse at the end of his duel with Dumbledore.

That day there had to have been something inside of him, something that was still human, something that had been able to care.
Ever since that day she had kept hoping that, perhaps, this something might grow stronger, that it might be able to displace the complete emotional void inside of Tom.

Yet his reaction at the Ministry had mercilessly shattered this illusion, making it obvious that she had been stupid to believe anything could ever change who Tom was at the core.

Clearly, it hadn't given him a hard time at all to throw all those curses at her.
Clearly, if he even cared at all, he definitely didn't care enough.

And then it had finally clicked.

There had never been any grey with Tom, and there would never be, there was only black or white. He could cope with people who obeyed him and he hurt people who didn't. He didn't make any exceptions.

She had known that if she didn't bail out now she would never get away from him, he would hurt her again and again until he would destroy her eventually. If she let him get away with this now, he would never stop.

It had hurt, telling him to not return. It had hurt because she had known how much she would miss him, and because she had been painfully aware that he would certainly be neither willing nor capable to stop trying to oppress and control her.
And yet she had known that she had no choice if she wanted to save herself.