Guys, PLEASE REVIEW. I really don't know whether you all appreciate this piece of work if I don't hear from you all.
On the other hand, thank you so much for all the reviews you have written - it's review reply time!
Love . Fiction . 2018 - Thanks!
nancyyrose - Everyone loves Alden (except for Kate and Tom lol); and you will see :D
Lin - Precisely. Tom Riddle has been canonically shown as exhibiting no signs of emapthy, and what he sees as love is what we would consider possession. He certainly is a jealous man who guards his toys and assets very closely, and we will see that behaviour with Kate in the future as well. And while he's a fast learner, he's still a student. Thanks for the review!
Do you guys like 500+ words of two people making out? Because this chapter is literally just that, plus some plot. Enjoy, my lovely gremlins.
This is both an opportunity and a trap.
Tom is quite aware of the pitfalls of answering her queries, and starting with his parents is certainly not the safest points in his history to start with. But starting off anywhere else will create more suspicion than alleviate it.
So he will do what he does best - present the truth in a light that benefits both parties.
"My mother was a pureblood witch - she lived in a small village close to York. Little Hangleton, actually. The circumstances she grew up in could not have been ideal in any form or shape whatsoever - my grandfather was a powerful wizard, albeit a drunkard and a man with a terrible temper, who didn't value his daughter half as much as he did his son." He decides to allay any of her rising suspicions. "That day in Hogsmeade when you found me in the alley? I had finally tracked down my grandfather, but I was too late. The old man had passed away, murdered by that son he cherished so much."
She's listening with rapt attention, eyes focused solely on his face. "I don't suppose you have any sympathy for your deceased grandfather or uncle."
He gives her a wry smile - this woman understands me well - and takes another sip of the still warm tea, continuing with his story. "None. They treated my mother like garbage. As for my father, he was no better, really." He mentally steels himself to tell the heinous lie of elevating his Muggle father to a status he could have never achieved, and plows on. "Equal in stature to my mother's family, the Riddles were a prestigious and respected lot. But their son was a flighty man. He went around with a few Muggle women, but he couldn't be his true self and continue any of those dalliances, so he cut each of them off rather quickly. And then he met my mother."
He honestly thinks Merope Gaunt was a weakling to have given up so easy on life, but there is a small, childish, resentful part of him that doesn't believe it. That part believes that Riddle Sr stole any of the strength that woman had, that that filthy Muggle robbed his mother of her magic.
"It was a whirlwind romance, and the two eloped and ran away to goodness knows where, if my uncle is to be believed. They were ecstatic upon knowing of her pregnancy, but once the glow of the honeymoon period of their relationship faded, there were fights. Many of them, and after one of them, my mother left for good. Unfortunately for her, she wasn't well versed in the ways of the Muggle world, and complications with her health led her to reach an orphanage, where she had me. My father tried tracking us down, but was told by my uncle that neither the child nor his wife had survived, but he didn't believe his lie for a second and left to look for his wife and child. He has not been heard from since."
Her small hand comes to rest upon his, and Kate wears an expression of sympathy as she moves closer to him. "If you don't wish to talk further, I will not push you." And this is the perfect time to play along.
"Except I do. You have been more than supporting of me, and I think I want you to know me." He takes her face in his hands for effect, rubbing circles on her cheek. "All of me."
"The good, bad and ugly all included, I hope."
"Especially the bad and the ugly." He captures her lips with his, lifting her up as she wraps her legs around his torso, and he carefully climbs the flight of stairs up to their bedroom before nudging the door open with his shoulder and quickly shutting it with his back.
He lets her take the lead, basking in the touch of her fingers on his bare skin. Her kiss is gentle yet insistent, her restraint making her seem more hesitant than eager. So Tom decides to kiss back more roughly, taking control, like I always do. He slowly sinks his teeth into her soft lips and is instantly rewarded with a groan, his fingers slipping under her loose jumper.
Kate's hands move from his neck to his torso, slowly but deftly undoing the buttons of his shirt, and in his pursuit to reach the bed, he stumbles onto it on his back. There is a brief break, and he looks up at her, removing a hand from her waist to hold her face, running his fingers across her cheek. To him, this is a pointless gesture of affection, but she responds by kissing him even more fiercely, and he flips them over.
She drags him up into a sitting position, her hands poised on the lapels of his shirt. "Is this okay?" she looks at him, voice slightly breathy. They're illuminated only by the faint moonlight that has made its way through the clouds, and to Tom, she's never looked more inviting, and he answers her question by easing off his shirt, casting his vest off in one smooth motion, his upper body now bare.
He pulls her into his lap, a hand undoing her hair as he places kisses on her exposed shoulder. "Is this okay?" He asks a moment later, trailing his lips along her ear.
"Yes, please," comes the near-instantaneous reply. They back into the wall, her body pressed up against the headboard of the bed. He sucks on the soft skin of her neck, eliciting a a loud gasp from Kate. "Don't stop," she commands him as her nails dig between his shoulder blades and her legs wrap around his waist again, and I have no intention of stopping right now.
He grips her waist tighter, moving his lips from the side of her neck to the base of her throat. "Oh god please don't stop," she inhales sharply again, neck angling up to give more access. A shiver of pleasure runs down his spine as she slowly drags her nails across the expanse of his bare back, and he continues to suck the delicate skin along her throat, leaving blooming flowers of a bruise in the wake of each spot.
"Do you want to take this further?" He looks up into her flushed face. She stares at him for a while, and he doesn't need Legilimency to read the reluctance on her face. And unlike with other people, he isn't about to coerce and cajole and take what he wants - if he wants to employ her skills and keep her services for a long time, that won't fly.
She only makes it more clear by whispering "no", so Tom kisses her forehead first, proceeding to gently kiss her lips as he holds her face in his hands. "All right, then - what else do you want to know about me?"
"How was your time at the orphanage?"
He tells her about the kids at the orphanage, those annoying little wretches who made his every day miserable. He tells her about the cave - not with complete accuracy - and about the slow but sure discovery of his powers.
"Well, they sort of had it coming, didn't they? It is only natural for a child to take their bully's prized belongings in retaliation. You did return them, didn't you?" She speaks into his hair, fingers tracing circles on his back.
"Those articles did find their way back to their owners, yes."
"But did you return them?" He can hear the questioning edge in her voice and smiles in spite of himself - this woman and her relentless, driven attitude.
But she doesn't need to know who made him do it. "Mmhmm - I was the one who returned it to them." His voice reverberates through her shoulder, thinking of what next he might have to spin next in order to keep the "misunderstood child" image consistent in her head.
"Tell me about that time you set your chair on fire."
It's an amusing memory, and it makes him smile again. "The chair was rickety and made horrid creaky noises whenever it was moved, and one day the sound drove me mad, and I just wished the blasted thing would go up in flames. And it did. I screeched and jumped off the offending object thinking I had accidentally lit myself on fire too, until the flames just sort of subsided on their own."
She slides off his lap and lies down, looking out into the faintly lit sky, and Tom can hear the tell tale rumble of an approaching thunderstorm. He follows suit, lying down beside her, and she turns to face him, giving him a small kiss on his jaw, a content smile on her face. The smile of someone falling in love.
In that one fleeting moment, he feels a jolt of something terrifying and scary, a warm, strange feeling growing in his chest as she turns back to look at the sky, watching the rain fall. It is close to what he sees on her face - not in magnitude, but in nature, and he completely quashes it by the time she falls asleep.
What I'm feeling is affection, the analytical part of his brain relays. Affection for an asset, a valuable tool.
What he's feeling is a weakness.
Author's Note: Tom will never allow any form of affection to manifest in himself, not even for a moment. And love? Not during his lifetime.
Read and review, everyone! Reviews keep me going :D