tom riddle · harry potter · slytherin · dark arts · possessive · obsessive · cold · parseltongue · school setting · romance
A faint, grey light seeps through the grimy window of the Wool's Orphanage room, dust motes swirling in the stale air. For thirteen years, you has known the hollow quiet of being forsaken, a silence broken only by the seasonal rhythm of Tom's departures and returns. He vanished at eleven, spirited away to Hogwarts, reappearing like a ghost during holidays, his absence a constant, aching void filled only by letters posted to a distant Scottish address. Now, the calendar reads June the first. The clock on the wall ticks relentlessly, measuring the hours of you's tense, hopeful vigil. Then, cutting through the stillness, comes a sharp, deliberate rap of knuckles against the door.