Author's Note: So I only had the first three "paragraphs" here at the beginning as the first section, and I didn't like it so I tried to expand it. Then I ended up with an entire new scene and a half—and a rather long additional scene, at that—which made this chapter so long I had to split it into two. Because the next part was originally intended to be part of this, I'm updating this early so that I can add that next part on Friday evening/Saturday morning.

Madame and Monsieur Soleil took their time in sending the letter that Charlotte and Tom were waiting for. Each day at breakfast, Charlotte would anxiously scan the arriving owls for hers; she anticipated a howler in response to them finding out she had received detention for sneaking out with Tom. Tom was simply restless to know how great of amends he would have to make in order to convince her parents to let him visit.

The letter didn't arrive until just before their O.W.L. examinations were beginning. Charlotte joined Tom where he was sitting at breakfast to tell him about it. It wasn't a howler, and the letter at first began by encouraging Charlotte in her O.W.L.s, then expressing concern about the continuing attacks at the school—her mother was sure to mention she felt such a thing never would have happened at Beauxbatons—and then she at last addressed the rule-breaking.

"Well, she doesn't say anything about uninviting you this summer," Charlotte said, looking across the table at Tom. He gave a small, distracted, smile. She'd gone on for so long telling him about the rest of the letter, he'd almost completely stopped paying attention. He had to remind himself that listening was how one learnt of potentially valuable information, and one never knew when some small fact might prove useful.

"You ought to be on your best behavior when you're there though, or else they might use the opportunity to talk you out of dating me."

"I don't think they could do that," Tom said. He meant it, not because he loved her so much that he wouldn't be able to be without her,—although more than likely that was how she would take it—but because he would never let another person dictate the actions he took; in fact, getting Charlotte to go against her parents' wishes would only make her love more rewarding to him.

She was staring at him now—he had definitely been right about her interpretation—and it was making him uncomfortable. In the past he had seen adoration on her face and it had pleased him, told him how well he had made her his. But in this moment, that was not so. Her eyes on him felt like a physical force, crushing him; he began to feel afraid, although he couldn't say why. He couldn't match her loving gaze, and he couldn't kiss her instead. Finally he found a solution, and, looking down as if he were embarrassed, said, "Don't look at me like that here, Charlotte."

He glanced back at her. She did seem to be attempting to restrain the effusive loving expression, but was not succeeding. "I can't help it," she said.

"Then I'll have to leave." He stood up from the bench as he spoke.

"Wait," she said with a laugh, not expecting him to actually go.

"I'll see you later." He turned away and left the Great Hall without looking back at her once. He wandered the corridors until it had been sufficiently long enough since he saw anyone else, then he leaned back against the wall, tilting his head upwards to stare at nothing in particular on the ceiling. He just wanted to know why that look on Charlotte's face made him feel this way, and then he could deal with it.

He thought it might be because he couldn't look at her that way in return. He didn't want to, not if it was genuine, but it was unavoidable if he was to play the part of Charlotte's perfect and loving boyfriend. But he couldn't, and he wasn't entirely sure why that was either. He'd tried; he'd practiced,—as ridiculous as it was, yes, he'd practiced—pictured Charlotte and then tried to configure his features into some semblance of adoration. He hadn't even come close.

He could easily put on a face that showed he wanted to kiss her, to touch her, for their bodies to touch all over, to be alone with her where they could let those things happen. It must have been because there was some truth to that feeling. But not in the other. He supposed he was relieved at that. He didn't think he would like the sight of a look like that on his face anyway. He would just have to keep Charlotte bound to him without tender, loving expressions.

Still, that didn't answer precisely why her showing how much she loved him made him feel afraid. Was he that worried she would find out his true feelings (or lack thereof)? It had been about six months, and she hadn't caught on yet… He felt like that wasn't the reason. A nagging thought in the back of his mind said it was that love still frightened him. He hadn't succeeded in conquering that fear. He'd recognized it before, but had made no plan to end it, and that had been his mistake.

To fear his own emotions—that meant he didn't have control over them. But what could he do? It was all very frustrating. He'd made something of a mess of his life since letting Charlotte into it.

"There you are." And here she was again, as if to prove that point. He wasn't surprised she had decided to look for him, although that didn't stop him feeling annoyed by it.

He had slid down the wall while thinking and was almost sitting on the floor now; Charlotte came and sat on the ground beside him. "What's wrong?"

For a brief moment, very brief, he wondered what would happen if he told her. He didn't know what else to say; she wouldn't believe him if he denied there was a problem.

"I know it's something; otherwise you wouldn't be sitting here looking like you're about to cry." He turned towards her sharply, looking shocked with an undertone of anger.

"I was not about to cry."

Charlotte smiled. "It's fine if you were. But I only said that's what it looked like."

"I wasn't," he repeated gruffly.

"So what were you thinking about that was upsetting you? Not to the point of tears, of course."

He stared ahead in silence, avoiding her question for as long as he could. An emotional heart to heart was not something he was used to having to fabricate. He opted for some form of truth, but he would make Charlotte swear not to mention it to anyone else.

"The summer," he answered, sinking the rest of the way to the ground and turning towards her. She started to look sad and he realized she thought he meant the time he would spend with her family. He coldly let her believe it for a moment. He looked away again. "Going back to— Well, leaving Hogwarts."

"Oh…" That seemed to be all she was going to say, and Tom was about to dismiss the topic, when she asked, "Why are you still there?" Her face, inquisitive and gentle, didn't change when he scowled at the question. He exhaled and relaxed his expression; she really did expect him to answer… Relationships meant shared secrets. Right.

"Do you think I'd want to be adopted by Muggles?" he replied testily.

"No. But didn't anyone ever want to adopt you? I'll be very surprised if you say no."

"I didn't make myself very likeable. Even with Mrs. Cole trying to get rid of me, only a few couples ever got into proceedings to try to take me, but I scared them away in the end." Charlotte was looking at him very sadly. "I didn't want to live with Muggles anyway, like I just said." He wanted to dispel her pity as quickly as possible.

"You were already living with Muggles. Parents, maybe a brother or sister even, would have been nicer, I think."

"But when I leave the orphanage, I never have to go back. A family would want me to come home for Christmas every year, keep in touch… I'd never be rid of them." Until they died—he left that addition unspoken.

Finally he'd satisfied her curiosity—or so he thought. She then commented, "You didn't know about magic and "Muggles" until you were eleven. What was your reason when you were younger?" Her pity had only grown deeper, now that she was trying to decipher his childhood, seeing him as a tragic little boy. He didn't answer. What was he supposed to say? Family meant love and love meant sacrifice; he wanted nothing to do with it. He couldn't tell her the truth even if he wanted to.

She changed her question. "What if there had been a wizarding family? You'd have gone with them, wouldn't you?"

"A wizarding family trying to adopt a supposedly Muggle child? I don't see that happening."

"I know it isn't realistic; I'm speaking hypothetically. Would you have wanted to be part of their family?"

"I never thought about it, since it wasn't a possibility." He stalled for time to decide on an answer. He wished he could simply say no, but Charlotte would question why. "I guess, yes, a family who could teach me about magic would have been acceptable." Looking at Charlotte, he realized with a sinking feeling that he had been too detached and not convinced her. He waited tensely for her to say something, but she didn't. To his surprise, the look of overflowing love returned; he could see it out of the corner of his eye. He was averse to seeing any more of it than that, but if he was going to put an end to his fear… He slowly turned his face towards her, and realized that, since they were alone, he could kiss her; that made things easier at least.

It was a different sort of kiss. Slow, calm—honestly a bit boring; it didn't make him want to push her over and get her undressed as quickly as possible—but it seemed to mean something to Charlotte. When she brought her lips away from his and looked at him, she had the same expression, accompanied now by a greater smile. It was like he was hearing her say "I love you" over and over again without her breathing a word. He stared back at her, managing a smile in spite of the discomfort he was feeling at her loving gaze.

Then a distant voice crept into his mind. "She doesn't matter to me." Parseltongue. His memory reminding him of— No, that wasn't in his mind; it wasn't his voice. It was coming from the wall, and that meant the Basilisk was somewhere along the pipes on the other side, mocking him. He stood up quickly and Charlotte rose with him because she still had her arms around him. "We should go," he said, leading her away down the hall.

"What has she got to cry about, honestly? If anyone should be crying, it's us fifth years. O.W.L.s—tomorrow! Can you believe it?"

"Oh I believe it. I've felt as though we were about to take the exams tomorrow every day for the last month," Charlotte replied to Valeria as they sat themselves down for lunch.

Tom was already seated nearby, Numerology and Grammatica suspended in front of him to read as he ate. He stood up somewhat abruptly. Charlotte turned towards him in her seat, "Where are you off to?" He had left early during breakfast as well. He needed to eat.

"Library. We haven't got time left to waste, as you point out," he said, glancing at Valeria.

Valeria made an exasperated face. "If you're still running around doing last minute studying, how are the rest of us to feel about our preparation?" Charlotte knew that he would continue to read and study even if the professors told him he was completely ready for the O.W.L.s—and they had more or less done this—but she still found Valeria's reaction amusing. Tom laughed too.

"Well maybe we can join, after we're done eating?" Charlotte said, glancing between the other two.

"I'll be studying Arithmancy," said Tom, holding up his book. "But you're welcome to come sit nearby and do your own studying." Charlotte smiled and gave him a nod, and then he turned to leave.

Tom struggled to keep a steady, calm pace as he headed down the first-floor corridor towards the girls' lavatory that held the entrance to the Chamber and, at this moment, an obnoxious, Ravenclaw third-year by the name of Myrtle Warren. It was easy enough to deduce that was who Valeria had spoken about; she had gotten in Tom's way several times before when he had wanted to visit the Chamber. The Basilisk couldn't understand why he didn't just let it kill her, since they knew she was a Mudblood anyway. Tom, however, liked planning his attacks; he liked devising scenarios to lure his victims out, crafting stories for why they were there—like he had done with Perdita Pepper and Cyrus Quinn. It was like a game.

So at any other point, setting the Basilisk on Myrtle Warren would have been too spontaneous, lacking design. But he was desperate enough to succeed in at least one murder that he would do it now. There was some comfort in that he couldn't think of a better time to severely trouble the other students than the day before O.W.L.s began, and N.E.W.T.s for the seventh years. He greatly relished the thought of all those frightened, flustered students, who might very well see noticeable harm done to their exam scores—because of him.

...

Classes carried on, dinnertime arrived, and still no one had found the body. Tom was becoming impatient. Surely the Basilisk had killed this time; he hadn't hung around to check, but he'd heard her open the bathroom stall door, tell him to go away as he had already been leaving, and then there had been a sound he was quite certain had been her falling to the floor. Unless the Basilisk, for whatever spiteful reason it might have, had intentionally disobeyed him. Although, he wasn't sure it was even capable of that.

Midway through their meal, Professor Dippet rose from the faculty table and made his way towards the Slytherins, specifically, towards Tom. He stood to speak with the Headmaster.

"Riddle—Tom," said the Headmaster, "I know you begin your O.W.L. exams tomorrow, but might you be available later this evening, say, seven thirty? There is something I need to speak with you about."

"Yes, sir. Of course," Tom answered. Dippet nodded and turned away. "What—" he started to ask what the meeting was about.

"The password," said Professor Dippet, facing him again. "Demiguise." He spoke softly so no one else would hear; it came out a rasp. Before Tom could try again to ask him what he actually wanted to know, he had distractedly headed over to the Ravenclaw table, a worried look on his face. Tom watched him converse with a young girl at that table, who then left the Great Hall.

Professor Dippet had become even frailer and feebler since the attacks had started and, as Tom had no intention of stopping any time soon, was likely to weaken further. The only regret he felt about this was the prospect of losing a Headmaster who thought well of him—especially given he was almost certainly to be replaced by Professor Dumbledore, who did not think well of him.

However, while it wasn't Tom's wish to cease his Heir of Slytherin attacks, this request to meet with Professor Dippet made him slightly nervous. What if he suspected something? Probably, much more likely, it was about the letter Tom had sent to him, asking for permission to stay at Hogwarts over the summer, but… he couldn't be sure until the meeting took place. As the hours remaining dragged on, his eager thoughts to hear news of the dead girl in the first floor lavatory were replaced by dread at possibly being found out as the attacker. Getting expelled. Being forced to leave Hogwarts… In that moment, he couldn't imagine anything worse. Not even death.

Author's Note: I feel like the ending of the first part (Tom hears the Basilisk, leaves with Charlotte) is a little abrupt and not a great stopping point, but I wanted to save Tom's thoughts about it until later...

Demiguise is the password I chose because that's my favorite magical creature from the Fantastic Beasts movie, haha.

As always, I'm completely open to hearing any thoughts you have about this chapter or what you've read so far~