*skips into the room*
*throws chapter onto the table*
*runs out*
Thank you everyone! You guys make my world go round, I hope you enjoy:)
Chapter 40
"But you can't make people listen. They have to come round in their own time, wondering what happened and why the world blew up around them. It can't last."
― Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451
Tom paces before the entrance to the second floor girls lavatory much in the same manner that he had paced at the end of Florence's bed the first night he had truly taken her – quick steps, silent footfalls, and a slight pounding in his brain that he could not define.
He thinks about that night often, with every waking breath it seems. The way her body had curved into his touch, her hair fanned across the bed, her warmth had pulled him in until he forgot where her body ended and his began. Clifford Allman had threatened to take her away from him, and Florence had instead offered herself body and soul as a gift at Tom's alter. It had been magic elemental and arcane and it had turned him into an insatiable monster subject only to desires stronger than anything before. He wanted her with every beat, when he woke – hard and panting, Florence's name on his lips – and when he went to sleep, at lunch when he longed to push her against the wall in a broom cupboard, and in Ancient Runes when the tossing of her hair across her shoulder would sent a whiff of coffee his way that drove him nearly to madness. She laughed when he pulled her from the library into disused classrooms, his fingers and tongue rediscovering every line of her body, and she burned like an ember when he threw her onto his bed, peeling layers of clothes from her body like a priest at an offering. There would never be enough of her to fill the hole within him, but he would try to fill it nonetheless.
Tom glances at his watch again, attempting to redirect his thoughts once more from their usual wicked musings. She's late he notes, but Florence was not known for her promptness, and it was the middle of the night. The chance that she had been waylaid by Peeves or a professor prowling the halls was high.
It is a risk, he knows, to show Florence. But in two days they will be leaving Hogwarts and he will never again have the opportunity – at least not until he had taken control of the wizarding world – to stand before his birthright and claim it, to show Florence what and who he truly is: a sorcerer more worthy than any within Hogwarts' halls. She must be acclimated he thinks, rehearsing again the story he has formulated to tell Florence. Enough of the truth that any research on her part will only serve to reinforce his tale, enough lies to keep her from running away in terror. Damn Florence's misguided love of muggles – her foolish bid to prove that magic was magic, regardless of who carried it. He would prove to her she was wrong, he wouldchange her mind, but it would be slow, and it will begin here with declaring his significance.
As he waits, Tom considers too Clifford Allman's warnings and threats. He'd been incensed in the moment, but Florence had grounded him as she always did – with her words, with dancing, with the warmth between her legs. He'd left her bed that night and realized that Clifford Allman had played all of his cards and left Tom to maneuver around them. Kind people think that all humans play by the same rules, but I am not human, and there are no systems which guide me Tom knew. He was reframing the world itself, and Clifford thought to hold him by outdated policies of the past, the menial argument of right and wrong.
True, he'd slowed Tom's plans perhaps. He would be forced to wait to make another Horcrux until after he and Florence were married, but once his ring was upon her finger, Tom could not be dissuaded nor stopped. And at that point, Clifford would be unable to take his daughter back. Tom's grin was savage.
A shuffling sound at the end of the hall alerts Tom that Florence has arrived. His face spreads into a smirk when he sees that she is carrying her shoes in her hand, her bare feet moving across the stones without a sound in an untraditional, yet no less successful, method of sound suppression. Tom takes her hand and pulls her into the lavatory, glancing around for a moment for Myrtle, before turning and pressing Florence against the stall closest to them. His lips find her neck, warm and beating with the pulse his entire life has matched its rhythm too, unable to resist even for a moment.
"Tom," she says, and he feels himself smile against her when his name comes out as more of a moan than any recognizable word in one of the seven languages Florence speaks. "If you wanted to take me in every bathroom in the castle, you didn't have to wake me up in the middle of the night to finish the list."
"I have other things planned for you this evening," Tom says, pulling his lips away from her skin, leaving his hips pressing against hers so that she can feel every line of his body, the hardness there. "But do not make offers you do not intend to keep," he hisses as an afterthought, giving in to himself once more as he takes her lips this time, his fingers carding through her hair. For a moment he considers having her here – against the putrid green wall of the girls lavatory – giving in to the monster roaring in his chest to claim what is rightfully his, and Florence ishis, but he resists. It would not do well to be distracted from the true mission of this night, and there were plenty of hours to follow…
"I have something to show you," Tom says, at last locating the power within himself to sever the magic of touching her. He straightens his robes while Florence slides on her shoes.
"In the restroom?"
"Obviously," he sneers, but it does not smother the spike in his heartbeat. In only a moment she will know who he is – who he descends from – and Florence will have to make a choice to accept or deny it. To accept or deny him. Of course, there isn't reallya choice. He won't truly let her walk away, but somewhere inside of him, the childish part of his brain that had longed for a family he'd never had, to be accepted with open arms into the wizarding world, hopes that Florence Allman who'd treated him like everyone else from the start will simply accept this too. The thought seems too good to be true.
"Another secret of the castle?" She asks.
"Intuitive."
"What is it this time? A secret bathhouse behind the mirror – or a perhaps an old potions store room with all sorts of illicit concoctions?"
"You aren't as funny as you believe yourself to be, Florence," Tom quips, but he cannot fight the smile that spreads across his face in response to the one that is mirrored upon Florence's. Like so much that involves her, it is a gut reaction, intuition of the most base authority.
"I like it when you smile," Florence adds abruptly, her fingers ghosting over his lips like they are ancient pieces of parchment that might crumble at the slightest touch. It is the type of honest, genuine kindness that confounds Tom the most because he does not understand the motive for sharing something like that. Only that it seems to make her happy, being honest with him, and he cannot fathom why. At once the smile falls from his face, and laughter bubbles from Florence – a music Tom is convinced he was designed to consume.
"Who am I tonight?" He demands, annoyed by her ability to unbalance him with a simple comment.
"Sneaking about the castle in the middle of the night? Showing me a mysterious secret? You have to be Odysseus, but of course that could change depending upon what you show me," Florence muses, and again that stupid smile of his spreads across his face because fuck he loves that he has something so asinine to share with another, with her, a code that only they can understand.
"Come," he orders, offering Florence his hand, unable to stall any longer. Her palm is warm in his own, and he pulls her to stand before the sink tap in the center of the room. Tom's eyes find at once the small snake carved into the faucet, too caught up in the moment to notice Florence's arms wrap around his stomach, her face pressed against his chest.
"Open," he hisses, and Florence's arms tighten around his waist because she has never heard him speak parseltongue before. He wonders if she knows what it is, if the language bears the same taboo in America. Tom tries to ignore the way his pulse is running away from his control, the beating of his heart within his ribs most likely loud and panicked to Florence's ear against his sternum.
The opening reveals itself after a moment, a cavernous mouth waiting to take them in, inviting them inside her depths. Tom steps to the edge, pulling Florence with him so that the wash of musty, decaying air brushes over them.
"What is this," Florence whispers, and her voice has a strange ring that was not there before. Tom's hand digs into her side.
"I will explain when we get there, to say it now would not do it justice."
"We're going in there?" She deadpans.
"Of course, don't you trust me?"
"I'm beginning to question now whether I should," Florence laughs weakly – a sound that does nothing to cover up the shaking in her body. "But I am assuming this is important since you've woken me up in the middle of the night?"
Tom kisses her as an answer. Kisses her because he can and he wants to and surely he does not need any more reason than that.
"Trust me," he whispers against her lips, and when she murmurs okay Tom pulls her against him and steps into the darkness, letting the tunnel consume them both.
Florence screams the entire way down, her face pressed against his chest as if she would like nothing more than to cease to exist. The wind burns his eyes, her hair stinging his skin, and yet Tom knows every curve of this channel like he had carved them himself. Maybe he had, some part of his soul that was Slytherin's itself remembering the magic that was kept here.
Tom casts a wandless levitation charm as they fire from the end of the tunnel, a moment of weightlessness before their feet settle upon the ground. In his grasp Florence is gasping for breath, her body shaking like a leaf in the wind. It is a fear that he relished instilling in his followers the first time he sent them down into the Chamber, but feeling the typically outspoken Florence quailing in his arms, Tom's brain feels oddly subdued.
"I have you, it's okay, Florence," he whispers into her hair, one hand cupping the back of her head. Finally beneath the castle, the excitement, the thrill he associates with this place has risen within him. Impatient to show her more, Tom tugs on Florence's hair so that her face is revealed to him, pressing his lips to hers again – harder than before, insistent as his tongue slides into her mouth. At once she responds, and Tom must contain the singing in his ego as he thinks that only his person could calm her in such a way.
"That," Florence pants when they pull away. "Was terrible."
"The first time is always unsettling, but it is only the unknown."
"You're mad," she says, but there is a hint of a smile upon her features that he can see in the wandlight, and Tom knows she is calming.
"This way," he encourages, taking her hand and pulling her after him through the cavern.
It is dark in the cave, but like the tunnel, Tom knows this too like the back of his hand, like the back of Florence'shand. They walk in silence, and he can feel her eyes upon him every few steps. Questioning, amazed, terrified. Again he wishes he could peel back the layers of her mind, discover what thoughts were dancing across her brain. Has she begun to suspect? Does she remember that conversation with Slughorn so long ago? Tom had ordered his followers to never mention the Chamber, even in private. It would not do well for Florence to hear of what had happened beyond what he could control, but there was no controlling everyone in the castle. At least not yet…
Finally, after what feels like nearly half an hour's worth of walking the round, snake infested door comes into sight. Florence's hand twitches in his, but she does not pull away to his relief. Another challenge dealt with, and onto the last. His excitement had reached a paramount level, and now he does not linger, using the only other language native to him to demand the door to open. There is a creaking of hinges long ago rusted, and then the Chamber is bared to him, lit in eerie green light that reminds him of the Slytherin common room, his prestige revealed at last.
"What is this?" Florence asks as Tom tugs her forward, and he can hear it now, the coldness in her voice that makes him see red for the briefest of moments. Her gaze is fixed upon the carved effigy of his forefather at the end of the hall, brow drawn, mouth slightly ajar. Is it madness to think that she looks beautiful, even now when she is questioning him? They move slowly down the stairs, and Tom again wraps his arm around Florence so that she will not be able to tear herself away.
"This, Florence, is the Chamber of Secrets."
The words are like honey upon his tongue, sweeter still because she is here and witness to the sheer magnificence, the wonder of his heritage. She is as stiff as granite beneath his touch, and now he does not need to see into her mind to know that she is remembering at last the words of their daft potions professor.
"Slughorn said you caught the perpetrator – the person who had opened the Chamber." Florence's voice is too still, too subdued for his liking.
"I did," he agrees.
"I think," she said quietly, and he does not like the way she is now, indifferent to his presence, to the magic of this place. "I would like to know more of that story."
She is not accusing him, not yet, but he can see the calculations behind her eyes, rethinking their every interaction – his hatred of muggles, his supposed award, his ability to open this room, Tom's undeniable presence at the top of the Slytherin hierarchy. He smiles at the face of Salazar Slytherin, moss ridden and grotesque, because this is what he has planned for, and beautiful, remarkable Florence Allman who'd promised to follow him to the ends of the Earth was going to fall into his trap. The thought makes him giddy, far giddier than the childish thought of ruining her he'd considered long ago. He wanted to ensnare her, to lead her so far into the maze that was his empire that she could never find her way out again.
"Since I arrived at Hogwarts," Tom begins, the words like polished silver from his tongue. "I have always felt the pull to this place, much in the same way that the magics around you call to your spirit, the Chamber called to me."
"Did you know what it was?" Florence asks, and still she will not look at him. He wants to grab her face and return her gaze to him. He wants to fuck her into the floor.
"Not in the beginning," he admits. "It was like an itch I could not scratch, and many of Hogwarts' secret passages became known to me as I attempted to discover what was calling to my person."
"How did you discover it then?"
"Through my family." Tom's chest constricts for the briefest moment, and then he forces himself to continue. "My middle name – Marvolo – it was my grandfather's. His daughter, Merope Gaunt was my mother, and through her I am the last living descendant of Salazar Slytherin. With this understanding, I was better able to follow the trail, and around my second year, I discovered this place – the halls of my forefathers."
Tom fights to keep his voice in line, to stop the flame of pride that threatens to burst from his lungs, because he knows that her belief in him is contingent upon what comes next. Teetering on the edge of a precipice, he continues.
"In my fifth year, students began to be attacked, each bearing the marks of a magical creature." He is thankful that Florence detests Magical Creatures – she will not fact check this detail to discover what kinds of marks, even though he knows that she will look up his family genealogy. She is obsessed with her own family, it is not hard to assume that she will make his a concern of hers as well. "People were terrified, muggle-borns were being carted off to the Hospital Wing at an alarming rate, and rumors of the Chamber of Secrets began to pop up because there were no other explanations."
"And you had nothing to do with these attacks?" It is a characteristically brash question, and Tom is distracted momentarily by the turn of her head to his, her umber eyes harder than Clifford Allman's have ever been, tearing him apart piece by piece to search for lies. Tom must suppress his rage, reign in the magic that threatens to explode from within him at her insinuation – not because she is wrong, but because he wants to claim his actions, he wants to reveal himself to her, but he cannot. Not yet.
"No, I did not. I alone knew that whatever creature was attacking students could notbe from the Chamber, because I alone knew where it was located. I spent much of my time in here studying, escaping from some of the harsher realities of life in Slytherin, and I have never seen another person in here. That is, until tonight with you."
"I don't understand," Florence grounds out, and she turns once more to face the stone carving of Slytherin himself. Tom notices, however, that her cheeks have colored slightly – that she is touched by the thought that she is the only person he has brought to this place. It is a lie of course, but Tom feels a rush of satisfaction nonetheless that his gesture could mean so much to her.
"I could not step forward and explain that it was not Slytherin's monster, because to reveal myself as Slytherin's heir while false rumors of Slytherin's beast being unleashed would place the blame upon me. I set out to discover the beast myself, determined to cleanse the name and honor of my legacy, and at last discovered during Prefect rounds that the ridiculous half-oaf Hagrid had been raising an Acromantula in the castle – a giant spider that he could not keep contained, and which at times was running rampant through the corridors."
"But why would Hagrid attack muggle-borns? He seems nice enough," Florence asks. Tom lets out an imperceptible sigh, studying the stiff lines of her back which refuse to ease.
"Because he is a half-giant, Florence," Tom murmured, at last giving in to the urge to touch her, his hand cupping her cheek to pull her gaze back to his. "Because he wanted to establish someone lower on the social hierarchy than himself."
Silence falls between them as she digests his words, and now Tom knows it is up to Florence to believe him, his part being played. It had been unfortunate that she'd met the half-breed giant a few days before, but Tom could only hope that Florence had not noticed that he was a bumbling fool, incapable of planning mass attacks on students. But then again Tom thinks, fighting the smirk that tugs at his lips it is my word against his, and she loves me. Time seems to stretch on as Florence searches his face, picking apart his story in her mind, weighing whether to trust poor, orphan Tom Riddle whom she loved, who only wished to protected what little family legacy he possessed, or the campus groundsmen who she'd met only once. In the end the decision is easy – Tom had intended it to be, to weaponize her feelings for him against her, because he knew Florence and he knew she would want to believe him.
"That's terrible," Florence mutters at last.
And then he sees it, the acceptance, the nearly imperceptible loosening in her gaze as his words sink in, as his tale becomes a part of her living reality. She believes me. Florence looked down upon Britain for many things – because she was American, because it was the home of magic she struggled to master, because they ridiculed her for speaking her mind with such ease. Of course she would latch onto any lie that confirmed the magical caste system she so detested, of course she would choose to believe that Tom was innocent. Because she – Florence Allman, the ultimate consumer – wanted to, and what she wanted she got. Tom nods at her.
"Yes. It is terrible," he agrees, his thumb running across her cheek. "But he was expelled, his wand was snapped, and the name of Salazar Slytherin was once more returned to its rightful place of honor."
"Do people know you are his heir?" She asks, leaning against his side in what he considers a subconscious form of submission.
"I have been careful with whom I entrust the truth," Tom admits. "It is a delicate fact, and one that I do not want to cause me any future troubles despite the wonder that it is, the meaning it holds to me."
"That's dreadfully sad," Florence says after a moment, her arms finding their usual hold around him. "To attack others because of the misery of your own station, your own upbringing in life. Jealousy to the point of madness."
Tom does not trust himself to speak, certain that any half misstep could turn the tides against him. It is a sign of Florence's own affluence that she cannot understand the cloying fear of poverty, the sickening nausea the Cruciartus curse leaves throughout your system. Tom had been subject to it over and over again from his fellow snakes until he had at last discovered the chamber. Now he was the one who watched with pleasure as they writhed on the ground, now he was the one in possession of a powerful enchantress more rich and affluent than any of the sacred twenty-eight.
"Will you tell me more about your ancestors? I'd like to know more," she asks, and Tom feels himself break out into a smile. Taking her hand, he pulls her down the walkway towards the statue of Slytherin, his words echoing upon the stone ceiling as he reveals to her his majesty, how worthy he will be to one day stand before the Wizarding World as its ruler. Worthiness had been in his blood since before he was born, even before pathetic Merope Gaunt had decided to spread her legs and rape a filthy muggle. He was Slytherin's legacy. Florence stares at him with wonder as he speaks, and by the time they reach the pool at the end, they have both stopped talking, their lips intent upon other things.
Tom never once regrets omitting part of the truth as he winds himself around Florence's figure, lips pressed against hers in a dance they have come to master. He would tell her someday, and when he did he was sure Florence would praise him for it. The attacks, Myrtle Warren's death – they had all be inconsequential to the focus of his story: that he was important, that his legacy was as strong as any of the purebloods who'd wanted to ridicule him, overriding the years of misery in an orphanage that had never understood him.
.
.
.
Sometimes when Tom watches Florence, he wonders if he would be like her had he been raised under the same circumstances. Their ride upon the Hogwarts Express is defined by one exclamation after the next, joyful musings of a girl who is unaccustomed to such plebian methods of travel like trains or various forms of public transit. Tom cannot share her amazement – he is leaving behind him the closest thing to a home he has ever known, his emotion at the separation from Hogwarts what he assumes Florence must feel when she leaves her family estate – although when it comes to feelings, Tom is never sure.
Yet Tom thinks that even had he been raised in the bosom of pureblooded riches, he would never be as swept away in the moment by moment levels of pleasure or pain the way Florence is. He is too focused on the future, too calculating to ride the undulating emotions that seem to fluctuate within Florence. Only an hour ago she'd sobbed while holding Radella, wishing her a heartfelt goodbye despite the fact that Radella would be visiting the Allman estate in a few months, and now she was curled into his side, teasing Leonidas and Pyrrhus as if her own personal sun shone above her. Tom had remained silent for most of the ride, content to mull over his final few days at Hogwarts, considering his imminent plans which would begin after Florence left for America.
"Now that you're a working farm-hand, Allman," Pyrrhus says, crossing one leg over the other with his typical athletic confidence. "Should I be worried about you showing up to my wedding covered in mud?"
"I'd imagine Lizzie has plans to have her army of house elves scrub every inch of my skin before I'm within a hundred yards of the ceremony space," Florence drawls, and Tom smirks because he notices that her gaze is fixed on the countryside rushing past them, as riveted by the rolling hills as she is by magic. He'll never understand her obsession with Herbology, with plants in general, which to Tom is an extremely limited style of magic, but he finds it endearing on some small level that she is so open with her incredulity.
"And you're staying for the engagement party?" He asks.
"Yes, I've already had Tom's dancing shoes sent to the smith's to be polished. He's probably regretting dating me since I'll force him to go," she replies, turning from the window to face him, her smile gentle and easy and meant only for him despite the crowd. Dating. They'd never discussed that word, but he'd not begrudged the use of it because it was just another sign of his ownership, even if it meant that she owned some part of him in return. He'd lost count of the number of threads that tied them together. He wanted a thousand more.
"Florence is under the impression that I am her date instead of the other way around."
"Well, I'm the one in the wedding," she counters.
"Only because I turned Pyrrhus' offer down."
Tom had been asked – of course he had – but he didn't need to stand beside the pureblooded prince at the alter to prove his worth to the rest of society. It was better to be in the shadows, to let his mystery move around him, to be a handsome face with indistiquishable qualities and magical abilities that would strike fear into anyone thinking to challenge him. Agreeing to be in a wedding put him front and center, open to judgement. Tom would never make himself that available to attck. It would be beneficial, however, to have Florence standing before the assembly, radiant and beautiful, to be desired by every man there only to find Tom upon the dance floor, adoration showing in her eyes. They would wonder what she saw in him, they would want to discover for themselves, and she would be the honey that led him into his snare.
"I must say, Allman, that I'm a bit offended that Lizzie has been invited to your estate again this summer while Leo and I's invitations seem to have gone missing," Pyrrhus chimes, the conversation turning away from his upcoming nuptials.
"I'm sure you will be busy working at the ministry," Tom murmurs coolly before either Leonidas or Florence can respond. His hand twitches around Florence's shoulder. He does not want his followers upon Florence's estate – he wants it to be a place entirely for he and her, separate from the British hierarchy he was moving to dominate, a refuge that they shared. Burke and Greengrass, although adjacent to his Knights, were not formal members. He could not as of now control their comings and goings, but he did not like the idea of Florence's world opening to others. He wanted to be the sole planet within her orbit.
"Of course," Pyrrhus hastily amends, his head twitching downward in only the slightest hint at a bow, a motion Florence would miss but which was abundantly clear to himself and Lestrange.
"Well, if you do find time, my door is always open," Florence adds without missing a beat, always kind, always generous without reason. Tom loathes that it is not for his sake, and without thinking, he pinches her jaw between his fingers and moves her lips to his before she can make any further offers. Across from them, Lestrange and Avery tactfully look away.
.
.
.
Tom's apartment is very Victorian – expensive wallpapers, dark cabinetry, and thick drapes. He has not laid eyes upon it having had Lestrange's family go to the trouble of purchasing it on his behalf, signing over the deed to him without question just as they had the necklace he'd given to Florence, but he finds it pleasantly quiet with a small personal library off of the master suite already filled to the brim with books he cannot wait to get his hands on.
"It's very masculine, isn't it," Florence chimes, turning upon the marble floor in the foyer, her chestnut eyes tracing the crown molding along the ceiling. Tom watches her, admiring the figure she cuts in a simple white traveling dress, caramel curls glistening in the lamplight. It's an affecting image, one that he knows with absolutely certainty he would like to come back to every day.
"You sound surprised," he muses, tapping both of their trunks and returning them to their normal size before vanishing them to his rooms where their clothes will hang themselves. He does not know if Florence plans on spending every night here, but there is no other option.
"Not surprised, just observing."
"I can see you redecorating in your mind already," Tom accuses, but he feels himself break into that ridiculous smile that only appears when she is close. He doesn't care if she redecorates, he has no intention of living in this flat except for those times when she is here visiting. Let her mark the space as her own he thinks, soon enough they will share everything, even a name. What a shame that it was a muggle name, but even that would be changing with time, he need only remain patient.
Tom follows her as she moves through the rooms of his apartment, a few steps behind so that he can watch the way her face lights up at every new trinket or painting. She points to various pieces, exclaiming over their beauty or taste, at other times highlighting the perfect place for a potted plant or a photograph.
"I have photos of us from my debut. I'll have some framed for you," she says, her hands clasped behind her back as she rounds the sofa in one of the parlors. Tom smirks, her nonchalant attitude unable to hide the truth that she wants every person who passes through his door to know he is hers.
Finally they reach the main sitting room, a magnificent black marble fireplace like an open maw waiting to be lit. Above the cavern is a portrait of a bald, pinched looking man with black eyes and a pointed beard. Tom knows who it is without having to read the plaque, and he comes to a halt in surprise. Lestrange must be rewarded for his loyalty Tom considers, a smirk spreading across his face. He wonders who Leonidas extorted to get his hands upon one of the few portraits of Salazar Slytherin that remained.
"Well," Florence says as she stops before the fireplace. "You certainly didn't get your looks from him, for which I am quite thankful."
Slytherin frowns at her as Tom laughs, moving to stand behind her so that he can set his hands upon her waist.
"It is rather rude of you to insult my ancestor, Florence," he growls into her ear, and he can feel the heat that radiates off her, the ripple in his magic as hers becomes frantic with arousal. He will never get tired of the physical control he can exert over her, so different from everyone else, so much more fulfilling because it is giving willingly. Tom's lips find her shoulder.
"Show me the master suite?" She whispers, but they never make it, instead falling to the floor in a flurry of limbs and clothes, christening the apartment as theirs, as something they will build together. She laughs, high and clear when he pins her to the carpet, and there is a swelling in his throat that he cannot dispel because he feels in this moment that everything is attainable – his dreams, unlimited power, Florence.
The first block within my empire. The beginning of infinity.
So Tom is a sneaky little liar. I'm sure Florence won't be upset if she ever finds out... Also, we're done with Hogwarts - I can't believe we've made it this far!
I wonder if this reveal will surprise you, or if some of you have seen it coming! Your comments have been fascinating and so so appreciated, and I hope that if anything this was at least interesting to read:) Thank you as always for your incredible support, dear readers. Please stay safe wherever you are!
