Presenting my Hades & The Goddess Collection for the Diagon Alley II BattleShips event!
Please note: I have altered canon birthdates to fit the pairing together for this collection. I am writing Minerva and Tom with the following birthdates:
Minerva: 4th October, 1935 (Canon)
Tom: 31st December, 1932 (Altered from 1926)
Also, the chapters will go backwards in time, so please make sure you check the dates provided before you read on into the chapter :)
First prompt used: Anniversary
Word Count: 502
Chapter One
Decades of Regrets
December 21st, 1998
She stands at a silent church altar, the tears spilling softly down her face.
It's all over now. She's thankful, of course. He caused more pain and devastation in his wake than any dark witch or wizard before him, and he had to be stopped. He had killed so many people; people she knew, people she loved, people who had a hold on her heart. The darkness hadn't just crept into him; it had permeated him with an onslaught of irresistible needles, and sunk a malevolent venom deep within his heart.
Today would be their anniversary. Minerva had willed herself to forget the dates and memories that she had shared with the boy who transitioned into Voldemort, but they were so ingrained within her psyche, not even the strongest memory charm would be able to shift them. It had been a hard decision, but since he was now dead and gone, Minerva had decided that it would be appropriate to mourn the man that she had once loved.
So here she stood, at the quiet church in the south of England where they had chosen to marry. It had been a secret service; not even the people close to them had been able to know about it. As Minerva looked up at the small church, taking in its run-down appearance, shabby brickwork and crumbling statues, she allowed the tears to continue to splash onto her robes.
She could hardly believe that on this day, forty-six years ago, she had decided to marry that man who would become the most deadly wizard on the entire planet. Forty-six years ago, she had given her heart to the man who could crush it as easily as he could squash a grape. Forty-six years ago, she had been in love. Young, childish, carefree love—but it was love all the same.
How naive she had been, to think that she could change such a man.
Minerva felt her wrinkled, aged hands clench into fists as images of the pale, charming, dark-haired youth that she had met so many decades ago flooded back into her mind. Even though she knew first hand what he had turned into, she still couldn't believe that he had done it. She had given him everything she was, and he still absconded her for darkness.
Today would be their forty-sixth anniversary, if they were still married. Today would be the day that they would share fond memories together; have dinner with their children, if Tom had been a normal man, and they had been an ordinary couple.
Today they would be talking happily about their long life together, and continuing to grow old.
But none of that was ever going to happen to Minerva. Her fate had been sealed in stone from the moment that she had handed her soul in it's entirety to Tom Riddle. They may have lived together for an extremely short duration of time, but in the end they would die alone.