Strange chapter, I know, but I've been wanting to write something like this for a while now. It was a bit of a relief to write, too, since the previous chapters have all been quite long and detailed. I had to get into a different sort of headspace to write this (if that makes sense), which was a nice change.

Perhaps it was all Danielle's fault that she had gotten herself into the situations she did. Perhaps she had nobody but herself to blame. Maybe Fate was an illusion, and the only person who controlled her destiny was herself.

But perhaps it was impossible to put the entire burden on one person. There were many events that had been outside her control, events that could only be chalked up to Fate or some higher power meddling in her affairs. She had been through too many perilous situations for it to count as mere coincidence anymore.

And perhaps it was a mixture of both. Fate threw obstacles at her, but it was her choice how to deal with them.

"Good evening. I don't believe I have seen you before."

"Tom, this is Miss Clara Ashford. She's Hogwarts' newest student."

"Welcome to Hogwarts, Miss Ashford. I hope that you will enjoy it here."

But she had, most certainly, not chosen to fall in love with Tom Riddle. That part was inarguable. What she had chosen, however, was her course of action afterwards. She could have bottled up her feelings and sealed them tightly away, never giving him a second glance and going back to her own time with nothing but a smile and maybe a twinge of regret that she had never taken the other path.

"Tom Riddle is the most big-headed, conceited, egotistical, twisted, sick person I have ever met. What's not to hate about him?"

She had seen him at his worst, when he was coughing up blood and deathly pale. She had loved him when she had known he would never feel the same way about her. She had loved him when he didn't even seem human.

But he was.

No matter how much he tried to hide it, no matter how many barriers he put up between himself and the world, Tom Riddle was human.

Maybe she was the only one who had ever cared enough to look beneath the surface.

"Don't do this to me, Tom. Either stay or leave. Just don't keep me wondering if I'll ever see you again."

At first, it had seemed like a hopeless case. Falling in love with the future Voldemort? It was easy to argue that she deserved what was coming to her if she had willingly chosen to stay by his side.

But Tom was human. Voldemort wasn't.

And that made all the difference.

"I care about you more than I can ever remember caring about anyone. But that is all I can say, Clara. If you want a long, drawn-out passionate declaration of undying love you are not going to get it from me."

"I know. I've never really been the type to want Prince Charming, anyway."

He had told her he could never love her. Maybe that had been his way of offering her an escape route, displaying as much thoughtfulness as it was possible for him to have.

But then…

"Clara, I understand what you meant. What you said to me last year. About love."

"You're in love with me?"

"What does it look like, you ridiculous girl?"

Tom had been wrong. He had fallen in love with her. Despite his best efforts, he had been no more master of his fate than Danielle had.

"The one thing I will not do to become Voldemort is let go of you. The one thing I will not do for you is destroy the Horcrux."

But a happy ending with Tom Riddle wasn't possible. She would grow old and die someday, while he would remain immortal and unchanging. What would he do once she was gone? There was no chance that he would destroy the Horcrux now of his own accord and die with her.

Tom certainly wasn't capable of making such a selfless decision.

Danielle wasn't even sure she was either.

"You can't even say that—"

"—That I am in love with you. And I am in love with you. Is that all you want, Clara? Do words really mean more to you than everything I have done?"

It was unlikely that she would actually live to grow old, with the direction her life was taking. She kept making mistake after mistake, getting herself into idiotic situation after idiotic situation…her luck surely wouldn't last forever. She would have to pay the price one of these days.

In one of her nightmares, Voldemort had told her that she was always destined to die at Tom's hands. Staring up at his malicious red eyes now, Danielle knew he had been right. What a cruel irony it was, to be killed by the person she had tried most desperately to save.

Perhaps she shouldn't give up so easily. If there was one thing Clara Ashford would not do, it was to quietly sit back and let death come for her. She wasn't going to go down without a fight. Not now, not after she had spent so much time trying to save Tom. Her death would make him revert back to his old self, or something very close to it.

Now she had the element of surprise. Voldemort wasn't expecting to see her, and her Tom was still around somewhere. Surely Schefflur and Slytherin wouldn't stand a chance against the near-immortal, most powerful Dark wizard to have ever existed. So Danielle tightened her grip on her wand, steeled herself, and prepared to fight.

Hope was not lost.

Not yet.

"You believe that you are the only one who has given up everything. But yet you, Clara, have not seemed to grasp the fact that I have also given myself to you."

But even if she were to die for good here, at the hands of the very person she had fallen in love with, no matter how warped and twisted he was in this timeline, she wouldn't change any of her decisions. She would have relived every single moment over again if she had to—even the pain, the fear, and the agony. In the end, it had been worth it.

Was it?