For the Greater Good || Tom Riddle ||

Chapter Thirty: The Seven Sisters

A small tuxedo-colored cat bathed in the apricot-tinged, sunlit nectar of the Saturday afternoon as it sat in the lap of a girl clothed in textured wool and a navy cardigan. The Ravenclaw common room was dewy with sunshine and fresh air and laden with quiet.

But Gwendolyn Gawmdrey's mind was somewhere else. It was present in thoughts from the night before, the periwinkle night sky dusted with stars and the hazy fumes of alcohol that wafted up from the floor underneath. Tom had stood across from her, and they were alone in the room, the beating of their hearts is the only sound. Her brain fixated on sultry alabaster skin strobed in moonlight and words that sent shivers down her spine and caused a fiery warmth to erupt on her skin.

"I'm sorry about your brother."

Gwen looked at the floor and wrung her hands together. Sharply, she said, "I'm not sure if you can even feel empathy, Tom."

"I can," Tom said with icy coolness. However, his face did not reflect the same sentiment. His features were collected, expressionless, his voice like warm velvet. "It's a tragedy for a young life to be stamped out so early."

Gwen's ocean-colored eyes softened, but her voice grew hard.

"My brother was killed by my grandfather. You killed your family, Tom. Don't try to act as though you pity me and understand."

Tom narrowed his eyes but spoke smoothly, "My father killed any chance for me to have a normal childhood when he abandoned my mother—and his desertion killed her. Don't you think that is worthy of confrontation? Revenge?"

"My mother abandoned me as well, but I didn't harbor murderous feelings toward her," Gwen bit back.

"Yes," Tom seceded, "but you had a grandmother. You had people to take care of you, that loved you. I had no one. I made me, I had to teach myself everything, navigate every lesson in life on my own. You're the product of a purposeful upbringing, while mine was chaos."

"And you continue to make excuses for yourself," Gwen rolled her eyes," don't you, Tom?"

"Some betrayals are so heinous that they deserve death? Do you not feel any desire to kill your grandfather? To hurt him? Make him hurt like he has hurt you?"

"Revenge is just the manifestation of the brutalized child that resides within. It's a confession of pain," Gwen replied evenly with a heavy voice.

Tom smirked darkly. "It is impossible to suffer without making someone pay for it; every complaint already contains revenge. I know you want to him hurt. I know you want to enact that pain."

"I don't," Gwen insisted through her clenched teeth.

"We are one in the same, you and I. We have both lost so much... Accept it, Gwendolyn. Once you do, your eyes will be opened. And you will realize that our magic is complement."

"Complement?" Gwen echoed. "How do you know that I am not actually the antithesis?"

"Even fire and ice have their harmony. Just look at the stars."

Gwen's eyes slowly floated upward, to where the ceiling would be, but was now just a starscape of inky violet sky and burning, distant lights. Somehow, Tom had managed to enchant the ceiling to be like the Great Hall, mirroring the way that it reflected the sky outside. And just when Gwen thought the moment couldn't become more bewitching, a luminous white glow expanded and twisted, and took on a slightly greenish cast, and soon the sky was moving and mystical. The ghostly glow swayed left, then right, undulating like a sheet in the wind.