For the Greater Good || Tom Riddle ||

Chapter Thirty-Two: Trouble by Design

The duels between the Knights were not bad as Gwen expected. In fact, it wouldn't even be far-fetched to say that Tom's followers actually bordered on threatening. Gwen's lessons in martial magic had paid off; she had shaped ruthless, strategic fighters out of mewling, pathetic brats. Part of her wondered if she would regret it, but she couldn't deny that she felt a tiny sliver of pride in the fact that she had created something out of nothing.

She watched them trickle out of the Room of Requirement as she stood next to Tom, who wore an impassive expression, but the slight thumping of his fingertips against his palm gave it away—he was pleased. They were alone now. Gwen' eyes hovered over his hand, to his pinky finger, where the large, black signet ring sat and the Resurrection Stone gleamed.

He remained clueless to her sleeping spell, totally blind to her deception, the memory simply didn't exist, and for that, Gwen was grateful. She had feared Tom's wrath if he found out she had stolen his ring, and she feared even more him finding out about the Deathly Hollows.

Seeing her deceased loved ones, neither ghost nor human, had set her mind in stone. Grindelwald could never get his hands on the Hollows.

So, she had returned the ring to its rightful owner and whispered the words that allowed for Tom to awaken. He shifted slightly and Gwen held her breath, but he didn't break his slumber. She had crawled back into bed with him, shivering slightly as her air-kissed skin met his warm, sleepy body.

He awoke the way a flower unfurls its petals, slowly, and then all at once, and Tom Riddle found himself staring into glacier eyes, blue like the sky right before the sun disappears—dark rich indigo, with specks of wild colors here and there. He had been surprised as first, unused to sleeping beside another person, but as he stared, he gazed at her with the most curious wonderment and Gwen wondered if he had ever looked at another person that way before—as if he was truly seeing them and appreciating their existence.

Looking into her eyes, framed by a waterfall of unruly, loose golden curls, Tom could hear the waves falling against the shore, see the foam flying into the air, and he thought of the towering dark cliffs of the seaside from his childhood.

He used to think blue eyes were unnerving, ice cold, that they knew no warmth and never shared love—like Mrs. Cole's, like Dumbledore's. That's what he used to believe. But now that he had been exposed to her oceanic irises, staring at him with warmth, care, love—now he knew. He knew that the hottest fires always burned blue. It took all he had not to seize her then and swallow her whole, he desired her so.

And presently, they stood side by side, two powerful children that had been wronged time and time again but had emerged victorious. Their magic floated and danced around them in a symbiotic flow, a collegial dance, as the Room of Requirement shifted around them and shaped into the same room from the night before now that they were alone.

The plum curtains and lemongrass-scented candles cast the woman next to him in a heavenly light. Her flaxen tendrils of twisting hair practically glowed like the sun, not capturing the light, but defying it, reflecting it, so that the sheen bounced off and created imprints of a golden halo around her pleasant face.

Her blue eyes stared at him coolly, with the soft embers of lust that he knew shined in his own gaze, and he briefly questioned how they had gotten to this place, the Room of Requirement, together, training his followers so that they could be successful in the future. It was something he had never thought could happen, had never planned for, but didn't regret in the slightest.

It only added to the thrill of the idea of seeking power. Now, he had someone to share and revel in it with. They could take what was rightfully theirs, and he even thought that eventually, he could convince her to join him in immortality. She was logical, intelligent—she would see that it was sensible if they wanted to spend their lives together.