HUNGER.

Chapter 20

There was a heavy, static silence.

For a moment, Tom wondered if he'd heard him correctly.

"You...what?"

Nott laughed again- a dry sound, empty of humour. "You aren't the only Slytherin in the school- I found it in third year. Wasn't that difficult, but I couldn't open it, obviously. Didn't even know if I wanted to open it, I just wanted to see if I could, you know? I don't know what I thought would happen."

He clapped his hands together, suddenly. "But then you came along, all dark and twisted and an ego the size of a damned hippogriff- it had to be you. And I was right, wasn't I? You had that thing open at last."

Tom didn't know what to say. A cold anger had spread through him, a ghost of what he'd once felt in every waking moment, when it had consumed him. "Well, congratulations," he said slowly, "how astute of you. Do you know what I could've done? What I did? I could've murdered every fucking student in this school- hell, I was going to-"

Nott flinched, shrinking back into the armchair.

"You'd have only found it anyway," he began to protest, cradling the bottle of daisyroot to his chest like a newborn infant.

"Maybe so, but this-" Tom jabbed an aggressive finger at the last remaining scrap of Myrtle Warren's obituary, on top of the stack. "Her? That's on you, too."

Nott shrugged. "People can't change what they are, Tom. You don't get a fairytale ending, not after the things you've done. I didn't make that snake kill Warren. I was the one that stopped you killing Hannah- do you really think she'd forgive you for that?"

The words hurt. But somewhere, wrenching deep inside him, Riddle knew there was some truth in them. There wouldn't be a grand redemption for him- he'd never spend his days in a thatched cottage with Grey, picking wildflowers for the windowsill.

Could it hurt just to hope?

Probably.

"I wouldn't have hurt her," he found himself saying, a desperate tone of defensiveness in his voice. But Nott clenched his jaw, satisfied, knowing he'd hit his mark. "If you could aim a stupefy, she wouldn't have been hurt at all."

"Regardless, you can't just skip over to the good guys and hope for the best. You're too far gone-"

Please don't say that.

"It can be undone," Tom muttered, through gritted teeth. "Good or bad- nothing is permanent."

"Except death, mate. That's kind of the point."

"The chamber. I can close it again- Salazar Slytherin did, didn't he?"

Nott wrung his hands out in front of him, an uneasy look on his face that implied it wouldn't be quite that straightforward. "Read those."

At last, he dropped his gaze to the torn papers, seemingly ripped straight from various books, the edges ragged.

The scribbles across them seemed to jump out at him- 'how to kill a basilisk,' and finally, 'magical bindings and how to break them."

"See," Nott continued in a steady voice. "You can't just close it. Old Slytherin could, because it fulfilled the task he'd created it for in the first place- he knew it would be reopened, he knew the basilisk would carry on killing. You need to feed it those intentions, the ones you opened it with, otherwise it'll just-"

He did a crude imitation of a swinging door.

"- stay there, until it gets what it wants. Or in this case, what you want. Wanted," he hastily corrected himself, fiddling with a loose thread on his robes.

And there it is- my undoing.

"I wanted horcruxes," Tom said softly, "somewhere to create them. I woke the snake to kill anyone that tried to stop me."

Nott gave a low whistle, leaning forwards.

"Well, obviously, that isn't great," he muttered, "but how many did you want? You've got one already- that could be enough."

He dropped his head into his hands, pressing them hard against his temples. Stars burst behind his eyelids, like tiny fireworks. Staring into the face of his own downfall, he thought he'd be braver, perhaps even defiant. But all he could feel was heavy, sickening defeat. Guilt. A fierce longing to take Grey and run.

"As many as I could handle."

Nott groaned.

"Why did you do it?" Tom forced his voice to steady. "You knew I'd use the chamber."

A peculiar expression pulled at the younger boy's face- remorse, and shame. "I thought she'd hate you for it."

And go running into your arms?

He thought of Hannah, still curled up in the hospital wing, oblivious. Ignorance could be bliss, sometimes, he supposed. If he could close the chamber, even if it killed him, she'd be safe. Maybe one day she'd be picking flowers, the grief of losing him long forgotten. The thought sent a wave of nausea through him, but Tom stifled it, gripping the arm of the chair until it subsided.

"You're going to help me."

"I really don't think that's a good idea-"

"You'll help, or you'll be the second horcrux."

Tom was tired. So fucking tired. She'll forgive me one day, for all of it. Fitting, really- his sanity, his life, for hers. For the school he'd once despised. But that was how they'd always been- Tom Riddle wondered if either of them could truly live whilst the other still took breath. But he knew, then, that she'd changed him. Always under my skin. He knew he'd give every last ounce of life in his body, for just one more second of hers.

"Why have you been reading up on closing it, then?" Tom managed, suddenly desperate for a distraction. He needed to get back to her. Needed to drink up the time they had left- a countdown had started, and each strike cut like a knife.

Nott paused, fixing his gaze stubbornly on his shoes, until Tom aimed a stiff kick at them, almost knocking him from his seat.

"Because she chose you. And I don't give a pixie's ass about you, but Hannah does. I thought if I could close the chamber, maybe you two would have a chance. She'd be safer, happier, even. That's all I wanted."

The younger Slytherin offered him the bottle of daisyroot, shaking it until he took it. "Looks like all three of us will be disappointed, in the end."