𝖶𝗁𝖾𝗇 𝖦𝗋𝖾𝖾𝗇 𝖬𝖾𝗍 𝖱𝖾𝖽 | Tom Marvolo Gaunt

39| The Prophecy

"Tom Marvolo Gaunt!" One of the portraits shouted while Aziyraphaile was already sleeping and Marvolo was walking around the manor.

"Don't shout, you're going to wake him up!" He whispered and shouted at her, but she only glared in response "Marvolo... did I just see correctly what was on that boy's neck." Another older portrait asked, all the portraits were awake wondering the same thing.

"Yes." He said hesitantly, "You do realize what that necklace is capable of correct," the older man asked, "you must love him to give him that necklace-" "I can't feel love." Marvolo quickly said while his cheeks were a very deep red.

"Says who?" Another portrait asked, "Why are you ganging up on me?" He said and crossed his arms, "Don't change the subject." The man said again. "I don't get to feel love alright, it's impossible for me to feel it because of my mother's reckless actions, I don't feel love because I was conceived under a love potion!" He raised his voice at them but they didn't flinch.

"You feel something deeper than just liking that boy, we all know it and deep down so do you, you just don't want to admit it." He heard his great-grandmother's portrait say, "Love makes a person weak and I can't have any weakness not with being who I am." He said firmly, not wanting to continue the conversation.

"If it's truly weakness then go up those stairs right now and take the necklace off of the Lestrange heir's neck." She said again, making him look at her with anger and frustration, "He. Needs. It." He said slowly.

"If you didn't love him that necklace would not be on his neck... and neither will that ring on your finger." On instinct Marvolo's hand went to touch the ring Aziyraphaile had gotten him, he refused to take it off and so did he.

"That's different-" "How so," his grandmother cut him off again. He ran a frustrated hand through his hair and began to tug it, it was a habit of his that he hadn't done since he was twelve.

"Because the damn necklace would save his life one day and the fucking ring will tell me if he's hurt!" He shouted and slammed his fist against a wall, he then immediately retracted his hand and gripped it in his other not out of pain but out of fear that he may have broken his ring.

To his relief the ring was perfectly fine and not broken, "you love him." She said again breaking the silence, "I can't." He said shaking his head, "Why not?"

He could feel a tear rolling down his face and was annoyed at how easily it came down he just wanted to hold Aziyraphaile and let him wipe away the tears that he caused to the surface.

"Because me loving him... would get him killed." He choked out and harshly wiped the tear away, "I don't want to love him, I can't because if I do and people find out that he was my weakness.. everyone will be after him, my enemies will not hesitate to kill and torture him." He said before his grandmother could say anything.

He looked up at her and the other portraits to see them all staring at him silently, "if I admit that I love him... he will be in danger." He said quietly.

"He was in danger from the moment he was born," he heard Salazar Slytherin say in parseltongue.

He only spoke to Salazar three times his whole life and this was the fourth he never said anything but, now, Marvolo was confused, "the moment he was born?" He asked in parseltongue knowing Salazar would only speak if the other person did the same.

Salazar looked at him with his eyebrows knitted together and his eyes slightly squinted, "you don't know?" He said mildly surprised, "know what?" Marvolo walked over to his portrait with his head beating rapidly for his liking.

Salazar looked at his descendants who looked down at his gaze, "The boy has a prophecy..." Marvolo's eyes widened and looked at his ancestors who stared back at him with... pity.