HUNGER.

Chapter 18

Hannah Grey dreamed of Tom.

She'd wake, sometimes, in the night. With barely enough strength to open her eyes, finding his silhouette slumped across the end of her cot. Tried to find the strength to speak to him, or to move- to do anything at all that would show him she was awake, that she saw him. But mostly, that she forgave him. It was instinctive- not something she'd even thought about, but with every fibre of her being, she needed him to know it.

But time after time, her body failed her, dragging her back down into a sleep haunted by memories.

Nott visited often. She could hear him speak to her, from a faraway place.

He'd promise he was taking extra notes in class for her, that he wasn't going home for Christmas, asked if they could go back to the library like they used to.

She wasn't sure what Tom would say about that.

It was only when they were alone that Tom would talk, too. He read to her, mostly. Poetry.

With a distant pang of guilt, she wondered why she'd not known he liked to read. And as the words echoed around the empty wing, his voice sounded almost calm- as if they were soothing to him, too.

"In that I loved you, Love, I worshipped you,
In that I worshipped well, I sacrificed
All of most worth. I bound and burnt and slew
Old peaceful lives-"

She heard him shift, adjusting himself beside her. Carefully, so as not to jostle her resting body.

"But when I fell upon your sandalled feet,
You laughed, you loosed away my lips; you rose.
I heard the singing of your wing's retreat;
Far-flown, I watched you flush the Olympian snows, beyond my hoping.
Starkly I returned,
To stare upon the ash of all I burned."

Tom cleared his throat- as always, waiting for a response. "Merlin, you can tell a muggle wrote that," he said eventually.

It's beautiful, I've read that before, she wanted to say. Read it again.

"By a muggle soldier, I think," Tom continued. "It's called To Eros."

"Owen."

It took her by surprise. The word came painfully from her chapped lips, and for a moment, Tom seemed not to notice.

"Yes, that's the one. Wilfred Owen-" he began, before the book fell from his hands, clattering onto the floor.

They stared at each other. His eyes boring into hers- god, she'd missed those eyes. Dark, hard, such depths she'd drown in.

And then, he began to cry.

*

It was Nott that found them like that, curled against one another, starved for touch. Riddle was wrapped around her as if he didn't dare let go, even in sleep, clinging on for dear life until his knuckles whitened.

His eyes are red.

For a moment, he lingered, wanting so desperately to pull him off her, to ask her why. Why on earth she was still defending him. Why she lay there, motionless, beneath Tom that day- as if her own life wasn't worth fighting for.

Why he wasn't enough for her.

But when her eyes flickered open, regarding him with such a mixture of pity and that familiar Hannah stubbornness, he felt his stomach flip.

"Why didn't you ask for me?"

Fuck, Nott hated hearing himself say those words. The answer was obvious, really, even if he didn't want to admit it. Couldn't swallow the truth- he'd always been like that. So fucking needy.

"It's okay," Hannah mumbled, offering her free hand. Beckoning him in.

Nott took it. She felt warm, at last, her fingers entwined in his, and with as much strength as she could muster, she squeezed them. He could only stare helplessly at his own two feet, not daring to look up at her, where she cradled Tom's head against her chest almost protectively. Daring him to question it.

"It's okay," she repeated. Searing hot tears threatened his composure, and he sucked in a shaking breath, beginning to count the tiles of the linoleum beneath him.

He'd got to number thirteen before he trusted himself to speak again.

"It isn't," was all he could manage. Nott wondered if anything would ever truly be okay again. "- 'S my fault."

Slowly, she shook her head, wincing at the movement. Perhaps careful not to wake Tom from his sleep. "No. Mine."

"Never yours," Nott snapped before he could stop himself, his voice harsher than he'd intended. "He-" he jerked his head at Riddle. "He was going to kill you."

Hannah shook her head again. "He wouldn't have."

Yes, he would.

"I didn't mean to hurt you." There it was again, that plaintive tone. He wished he could choke it back down, take on some of that unfeeling nonchalance Riddle always seemed to have. Bitterness burned within him, injustice and hurt and a pain that he wasn't sure he could bear. "I'd never, Hannah, I didn't mean to, I-"

Nott broke off. Swallowed, hard.

"You won't leave him, will you?"

Another stupid fucking question he already knew the answer to. But still, some part of him hoped, vainly.

"No."

Nott was almost glad she hadn't sugarcoated it. Hadn't filled him with false promises or dreams that he'd be the one in her arms one day- he was grateful for that.

"I wish you would."

"I know."

"I'd be good to you. Kind. I'm a good person."

"I know."

Tom turned in his sleep, hands still wrapped around her.

"But he's the one you want, isn't he?"

She paused to look at Riddle, his face inches from hers. There was no mistaking the expression on her face- even Nott, denial coursing through his veins like a drug, could see it. It wasn't obsession, wasn't addiction or even an ounce of resentment- it was love.

Pure, desperate love.

And he knew he could never compete with it. It was written there, in every cell, burning behind her eyes.

He pressed a steady kiss to her fingers, still held in his.

Hannah was still watching Tom when he slipped from the room.