i am lord voldemort • Tom Riddle

XXX

That was months ago.

A school year ended, a summer abandoned, and a new term begun in the blink of an eye. They expression "Time flies when you're having fun" didn't apply, however, as nothing about the situation was remotely palatable. The dread of going back, something Tom never imagined he'd associate with Hogwarts, was almost too much to bear. Even with his new status as Head Boy alongside Alice Crouch, he almost chose to stay away, to keep searching Ophelia out long past summer's bittersweet sunset. Hogwarts was his home, but so was she.

So was she.

Still, she covered her tracks well, Apparating from one country to the next at random left Tom, for once, at a loss. He, who'd never even so much as left England before his first ride up to Hogwarts at eleven, didn't stand a chance at covering enough ground fast enough to catch up.

What he needed was to set a trap.

III

Ophelia never intended to speak to her mother. All she wanted was one measly look at the woman who birthed her and then vanished— was that too much to ask?— but the second she laid eyes on her mother's soft brown hair, now newly speckled with gray, her feet moved of their own accord. It was the gray that did it, she thought, as silly as it was. Widowed Mrs Ashwood, the surname taken from her dead not-quite husband, looked nothing like her daughter, or vice versa. At least, she wasn't supposed to, but age had brought them closer.

Foolish optimism was what it was. Everyone's hair loses its luster as they fight the hands of time. She related no more to her mother than she would to any other aged person on the street, and that was the truth.

It didn't matter. It just proved that if, for whatever reason, she didn't have to deal with the consequences of other people's problems, she hunted for some more of her own, like bloodhound for unnecessary drama.

"Why did you leave me to die?" Ophelia took a step out of her cover, hating herself for giving in, hating the way her voice cracked and frayed at the edges when she swore she'd feel nothing.

The woman, the one who was her mother in title alone, and in none of the ways that really counted, turned slowly, painfully so. After what felt like an eternity, she stood in side profile, staring up into the dusting of clouds above them, and said without once looking at her only daughter, "I did wonder if you'd ever come looking for me."

Was Ophelia really not even worth looking at? Was that how little she mattered? All the self-doubt she thought she'd quashed erupted with violent force in her stomach, sapping away what little fortitude she'd scrounged up over the years. Ceaseless work, gone in seconds.

God, this was a mistake.

Snow crunched noisily beneath her boots as she took a subtle step back, preparing to bolt. Faster than she ever thought possible, her mother shot forward and took hold of her arm just below the elbow joint.

"Wait!"

Ophelia did her best to shake her off, to no a avail, pulling viciously on her own arm until her mother's grip burned deep bruises into her flesh. Her other hand flew instinctively to her wand to—to what? Curse her own mother? A squib with no power besides the waning strength in her ageing muscles? She stilled her tense arm just in time, hovering over her pocket, but the move didn't go unnoticed.

Mrs. Ashwood pressed her lips together in a thin line. "You truly are the object of his moulding. My little brother. But, then again, you've always looked far more of him than of me or Laertes."

Ophelia's heart stuttered at the mention of her father. A pang of something that was neither longing, nor even love, but it certainly wasn't indifference, lanced through her chest. She didn't know the man, after all. He'd died before she'd taken her first breath. She couldn't miss someone she didn't know, could she? And yet, there was still something, a certain wonder, perhaps. She'd been dealt one rotten family member after another, maybe her real father might have been different, had he lived. Her life might have been so, very different.