Summary: There was only one person who Tom had trusted to tell the truth of his year long ordeal.

Here's an ficlet that I have worked on and would like to share.

Tw, for referenced rape, because that's what it was.

"The Gaunt tramp took me in. Deceived me into thinking she was carrying my child. The lengths people would go to get money."

That was the story that Tom had told his parents. Had told his friends when asking him about what had happened those months ago. If he had told them that there was something in that drink she gave him. Something that made him euphoric and intensely in love with someone he'd never be with, they'd send him to the nearest sanitarium.

They wouldn't understand the lapse in judgement he had when Merope Gaunt had asked to him if she could get him something to drink. He didn't have to be in love with her to be that naïve to think she was anything different than those two hooligans that shared to her blood. Now, he knew better.

"Tom?"

The sound of Cecelia's voice had broken him out of his train of thought. Sitting up straight in his chair and looking up as the door opened. Seeing the woman that the harpy's enchantment had torn him from.

Those beautiful green eyes of hers staring at him with concern and bewilderment.

Cecelia.

"Cecelia!"

There was no holding back when he rushed to embrace her. How he never held her in an entire year. Oh, Cecelia. Thoughtful and sweet Cecelia. How she held his heart in an way the the tramp never could.

"Tom," she breathed, as they separated. "I just heard hours ago. They said that you were taken in. Tom, it was something else, wasn't it."

An ball had lodged in his throat at the question when he had gazed at her. Either this would be the conversation in which she'd deem him insane and suggest that he go to a sanitarium or it would strengthened what they had.

He had hoped for the latter but feared that it would be the former.

"Cecelia, trust me that I'm not insane," he pleaded as he helped her sit down in the settee next to him.

"Of course, Tom," she asserted, as if he was preposterous to think such an thing.

Tom inhales deeply before exhaling. "It was an hot day," he began. "I had just gone my round of horseback riding."

Tom watches her expression as he tells her the truth. How everything seemed like an haze. How his emotions for someone who'd never actually held his heart were intensified. How the effects of thar potion dwindled down until he woke up one morning, only to see with horror, a naked Merope under the covers with him.

At the end of it, Cecelia's green eyes glistened as she covered her mouth in horror. "Oh, Tom, I…I don't know what to say," she rasps.

He swallows and hangs his head in resignation. "I know how you must feel…how insane I must sound."

At this, Cecelia enfolds him into her arms. Pressing his head to her chest close enough to wear he could hear the pounding of her heart. "Don't think for an minute that you come across as insane. You deserve so much better, Tom. I'll be here for you, no matter what."

If Tom Riddle had felt that he was drowning at sea, it was Cecelia Bradshaw that had pulled him out.