⸻
The first time Laila saw him, she thought he looked like someone who already knew how everything would end.
Platform Nine and Three-Quarters was loud—too loud—full of rushing families, crying children, and the constant hiss of the train. Laila stood slightly apart from it all, fingers curled tightly around the handle of her trunk, her curls already escaping the ribbon she had tied them back with that morning. Everything felt too big, too fast, too unknown.
And then there was him.
He stood still in a way that didn't belong in a place like this. Brown hair neatly combed, posture straight, eyes observant and distant all at once. He wasn't looking at anything in particular—he was looking through everything. Like he was measuring it. Like he was deciding what mattered and what didn't.
Laila didn't mean to stare.
But something about him made it hard to look away.
He noticed.
Of course he did.
His gaze shifted toward her, sharp and immediate, and for a moment she felt pinned in place. There was no curiosity in his expression. No awkwardness. Just quiet awareness—and something colder beneath it.
She looked away first.
When she glanced back, he was already boarding the train.
She told herself she wouldn't think about him again.
She was wrong.
Laila Brown learned very quickly that Slytherin House was not what people whispered about in the corridors—it was worse, and also far more complicated.
It wasn't just ambition.
It was awareness.
It was the constant feeling that everyone was watching everyone else, measuring, calculating, deciding who was worth aligning with and who would be left behind. Conversations carried layers beneath them, alliances formed quietly, and even first years understood that power didn't always look loud.
Laila understood that instinctively.
Which was why, when the Sorting Hat slipped over her curls and paused—longer than it had for most—it didn't surprise her.
Oh... you'll do well, the Hat murmured. Careful mind. Quiet hunger. You don't show it, but it's there...
"I'm not—" she thought instinctively, but the Hat cut her off.
You are. You just don't like what it means.
She swallowed.
Better be... SLYTHERIN.
The table erupted—not loudly like Gryffindor, but sharply, knowingly. Applause that felt more like acknowledgment than celebration.
Laila stood, steady despite the knot forming in her chest, and walked toward her new house.
She didn't look toward the other tables.
But she felt someone looking at her.
And when she sat down, she allowed herself one glance across the hall—
Tom Riddle was already watching her.
Not with curiosity.
With recognition.
Like he had seen something in her that she hadn't yet accepted herself.
It made her look away.
⸻
