((A.N. Chapter 8, finally here! My poor poor readers, I've taken way more than the usual five days to update! There is no excuse for it and I am very sorry. Hopefully I'll be able to stay up in the future. Thank you very, very much to Kou' Shun'u, Euphonium Gurl0, shedraconis, Lady Moofin, tickle the dragon, sexy-jess, ydole3343, divinething, Sarah09, Sarah, Amy Lee, Loriliant Angelisa Snape, Pleure(big thanks for the constructive criticism), Black-rose23, June (big thanks), steffy potter, Magic and Sparkle, Quinn, Reader972, SaTiNk06, justareader, Artemis1000, Bubble gum girl, and steph. What would I do without you all? Hope you enjoy the chapter, because things start... happening. ;D And a big thanks to Drama Shethan, my beta, as always! Review when you are finished, I love to hear it!))

Time does not change us. It just unfolds us.

— Max Frisch

Chapter 8: Empty Space

Tom woke up to the sound of a loud, chirpy voice.

"Now, now, Miss Nestowe, don't be so hasty! You took a strong blow to the head, and you need time to heal!" Madame Baroma clucked apprehensively.

"Madame, I can and will sleep in my own dormitory tonight! It's nearly time for dinner and I'm famished. Let me walk down to the Great Hall. I feel as if I could run the length of the Quidditch Pitch!"

"Run? You will do no such thing!" Madame Baroma said angrily. There was a moment of silence before the nurse said, "As for a walk, I suppose that wouldn't hurt. But promise to come back up here after dinner and check in with me."

Tom wrenched his eyes painfully open, squinting as the bright light hit them.

"And look who else is up!" the nurse chirruped, scuttling over to Tom's bed. Her high voice was making him nauseous. He glanced at Helen, who was pulling on her stockings. "How do you feel? Better? Worse?" the nurse uttered in the same whiny voice.

Better if you were not here. "Fine," he lied hastily. "I feel great!" He actually felt like puking, but he would do anything to get out of the bed.

Madame Baroma put her hands on her stout hips. "Don't think you're leaving here any sooner than tomorrow afternoon, Mr. Riddle. Now excuse me, I have to look after my other patients. I've done most of your magical healing while you were asleep, and it may make you a little nauseous. I'll bring you dinner in thirty minutes, though, if you want it."

Tom could not decide which made him sicker; the idea of eating dinner or fact that he hadn't eaten for two and a half days. He heard the door click shut, and realized he was alone with Helen, who was slipping on her loafers.

"Feeling any better?" Helen asked after a while.

"Why do you care?" Tom questioned, looking away coldly. He could not have Helen thinking that they were friends, because, in all honesty, they were not. He did not like her at all. In fact, he very nearly hated her for all that she had put him through.

"Why do I care? You nearly killed yourself to save my life, that's why," Helen replied icily.

"For the last time, I didn't do it for you! You're nothing to me, why can't you get that through your head? Just do me a favour and sod off, Nestowe. One more moment of hearing your voice is going to push me over the edge," Tom said in a deadly calm voice. "Mudblood."

He watched as something in Helen's eyes snapped. She stood up, coming closer to his bed until she was towering over him.

"I've thought a lot about you and about how you act, and you know what? You're afraid, Tom Riddle!"

"I'm not afraid of anything," Tom said quietly. And to him, it was the truth.

"Oh, yes you are! You're a coward!" Helen replied, her eyes seething with pent up malice. "Every time I try to get just a little bit closer to you, you come up with some witty insult that makes me hate you even more. You know why? You're afraid! You're afraid that if you lean on anyone but yourself, you'll fall! You're afraid that if you confide in anyone but yourself, you'll get hurt! In fact, you're afraid of your own feelings. You didn't catch me just to save Malfoy, but you can't even admit the real reason to yourself . . . You know what you're most afraid of, though? This!"

And she leaned down and pressed her lips against his. A feeling like fire overtook him, and suddenly all of the pain and all of the anger faded into that moment, and he drew her in closer.

To Helen, his lips were icy and solid, but so wonderfully alluring that she did not mind when he deepened the kiss, pressing his lips to hers more firmly and drawing her forward.

After a moment, she pulled away from the wonderful, terrible thing that had just happened. She stared at him for a few breathless moments.

Her eyes were wide, and her cheeks were flushed dramatically. Helen herself looked surprised at what she had done.

Helen turned on her heel and hastened out the door.

For the first time in his life, Tom Riddle found himself speechless.

Dumbledore turned to Minerva, a contemplative expression on his face.

"You were at the Quidditch match, Minerva. When the Malfoy boy hit Helen Nestowe, did that look like an accident?"

Minerva narrowed her hazel eyes in contempt. "Certainly not! He smashed the bludger right at her! I was watching."

"And Riddle . . ." Dumbledore continued. "Why do you think he caught her?"

At this, Minerva was silent. Finally she replied, "I don't know, Albus. I do know I've never seen a boy so bent on catching anything. A professional Quidditch player couldn't have caught that girl in time, but he did."

Dumbledore nodded, more confused than he had ever been. Tom Riddle's actions had been so against everything Dumbledore knew about him, so against every action that he had ever seen from Tom.

In fact, if he did not know better, he would have guessed that Tom held a spark for Helen Nestowe.

"Tom!"

He stared blankly ahead, his eyes unfocused as he made his way down the hall.

"Hey, Riddle!"

He felt nauseous, and his head was spinning wildly, a thousand thoughts racking his brain.

"Tom Marvolo Riddle!"

"Don't call me that," Tom said absently as he turned to face the girl yelling at him. Elizabeth Walker caught up to him, huffing and puffing from running.

"Gee, what's up with you, Tom? Didn't you hear me?"

She had long red hair, green eyes, and sharp, pale cheekbones that gave her a haughty air. She was in Ravenclaw, but she knew Tom because she was Head Girl, and was the only one in the school that came close to matching his intellect. In reality, she was nowhere close to his level of genius.

"Thinking," Tom said dismissively, and the look on his face made her quickly decide to drop the subject. She sighed and placed a hand on her hip.

"Well, I wanted to ask you if you'd already planned the Halloween Feast."

"Why?" Tom snipped. He did not feel like dealing with Elizabeth or Halloween at the moment.

"Because I wanted to help you plan it. Here's my idea . . . a masquerade ball on the Quidditch pitch! It's a full moon this Halloween, see, and I thought that a moonlight masquerade would be really exciting."

"Yeah, sure," Tom said offhandedly. He really could not care less about the stupid Halloween Ball.

"Listen, Tom . . . why don't I just take over the planning of this thing? I'm sure Dippet wouldn't mind, and I want to do it myself."

"Be my guest," Tom said quickly, relieved to have one burden taken off of his shoulders. He turned around and walked away without another word.

"Bye, then," he heard her indignant voice mutter before she walked away.

Tom went down the stony path to his dormitory, grabbed and Arithmancy book, and sat down in a hard backed chair. He slammed the book open, and looked at it resolutely.

"You're afraid, Tom Riddle."

Trigon Theorem. Three even numbers added consecutively to the forth odd number create a Gauntlet Circle, or a formula for the protection of the bearer.

"You're afraid that if you lean on anyone but yourself, you'll fall!"

The Trigon Theorem is applicable to all forms of Arithmancy save amulets, when it is impossible to magically combine three consecutive even numbers.

"You know what you're most afraid of, though? . . . This!"

Tom ran a hand through his hair and tried to take a deep breath, but found his lungs burning. Perhaps it was because he had left the hospital without full healing (he would do it himself later), but he was sure the pounding of his heart was something completely different.

Tom remembered the kiss, like a bright burning star in an endless black sky. He had kissed girls before, but he had never felt so awake, so incinerating, so alive. He was surprised when he realized he wanted more than that kiss. Much more.

Next, he thought about her words. He knew that no matter how many times he tried to convince himself that she was wrong, in the end she was undeniably correct. He was afraid. But is it so wrong not to trust anyone but myself? It's not wrong. It's better. While everyone around me gets his heart broken and his trust betrayed, I have found a way to become indestructible. No one can hurt me.

Finally, Tom Riddle, whom was called fearless by all of those who knew him, admitted to himself that he was afraid. He was afraid of whatever it was that Helen represented, though what that was he had yet to find out. And he had told himself over and over again that he did not need friends, that he did notneed trust, that he did not need her. But Helen's presence filled a space that he had never known was empty, and now he saw this huge, gaping hole where something was supposed to be.

And finally, he knew that Helen was the only one that could fill the emptiness.

(( A.N. An action packed chapter, to say the least, the next one even more promising, with Tom and Hermione's steadily growing realationship and a rumoured "Moonlight Masquerade". So what do you think? Review!))