Disclaimer: Fanfiction...I don't own Tom Riddle, though I wish it were different...; )

To everyone who has taken the time to write me a review and say they liked it, much love and thanks to you, and those who have read and not reviewed, thank you all the same for giving me a chance!

This is not really the last part, although it is the last part of the story told through Tom's eyes. You might recall that the prologue was written differently, and so, too, are the two epilogues I have which make up the real end.

I'll stop waffling now. Without further ado...Part Twenty...enjoy, and mind that M-rating on your way...

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Part Twenty

'If I Should Fall From Grace'

-

-

Quietly, I moved around the column so that I could see without being seen. Only, I didn't like what I saw at all.

William Tisker had Laura pinned up against the column, clearly in the process of what he imagined to be a seduction. He was trying to kiss her, one blond, hairy arm pushing around her waist as he tried to grope with the other. Anger rose, bitter inside my throat. I leant over, trying to see her face. She wore a pained expression halfway between a wince and a cringe, and she appeared to be trying to actually fight him off.

"Come on…"I heard Tisker saying. "Don't be coy. If you didn't like me, then why would you dance with me, why would you spend so much time with me?"

"I….like…..Quidditch, Will." Laura said, in a strangled voice. " And you're the Captain, so of course I would spend time with…." Her words were abruptly cut off as he descended upon her, trying again to capture her in an embrace. I drew my wand, silently aiming a curse at Tisker, and vowing he would be sorry for ever having touched her, her, and my child inside her. But before I'd had time to decide which curse to use on him, Laura had brought up her leg and pushed Tisker away.

I heard him yell, and hoped that she had hit him where it hurt. He staggered for a moment, and then made off up the stairs, swearing and cursing loudly.

Laura didn't turn around. She ran towards the front steps and disappeared out of the heavy oak doors as I watched. Burning with rage at what I had seen, I waited a few seconds to give Tisker a start, and followed him silently up the stairs.

I caught up with him as he thudded up the steps to the seventh floor corridor. I waited quietly, for him to pass by the portrait that I knew lay opposite the secret room.

I drew my wand and took aim.

-

"Immobilus!"

My voice resonated around the walls of the corridor. I was not worried about being heard. I could still hear the band playing faintly in the distance, and knew that everyone else, even the teachers, would still be at the ball some six floors below us.

Tisker fell, crashing to the floor, his wrist at a strange angle where he'd tried to withdraw his own wand, and been too slow.

He lay on the cold stone, not moving, with only the shallow rise and fall of his chest to suggest that I had not killed him.

Slowly, I approached his prone form. I walked around, into his line of vision, my boots echoing in the terrible quiet of the corridor. The faint music played on.

"Riddle," croaked Tisker, in a surprised and strangled voice.

I looked at his broad, thuggish face. There was a smear of blood across his temple.

"Riddle," he rasped again," What the hell are you doing, following me around….?"

He was cut off rapidly, crying out in pain as I drove my boot, hard, into his stomach, with hard- learned Muggle brutality.

"Tisker," I said, pleasantly. " If it's all the same, and I think it will be, I'd rather not hear you speak."

I performed the usual ritual in front of the space on the wall, walk three times in front and concentrate………

The door appeared as I knew it would. I used my wand to get Tisker inside, followed him into the place we had come to know as the Room Of Requirement.

Only it was different, this time. There were no iron chairs, no bookcases, just a huge open space, and around that space, piled high, were mountains and mountains of…junk. Books to birdcages, old bones, broken wands and feathered hats, boxes overflowing with God knows what. To my left, there was a tall, walnut cupboard with no key in the rusty lock, and to my right, a rough path had been made in the piles of rubbish and forgotten artefacts, winding all the way back as far as the eye could see. Tall windows stretched the length of the room at the back, and behind them, the sky was black, the glass spattered with spots of rain, although I knew that, in reality, the May sunshine would soon be setting, across the grounds of the school.

"What is this place?" croaked Tisker, suddenly, reminding me that he was there.

"That's not your concern, Tisker, now, is it?" I asked him, not really caring whether or not he answered me.

"Why are you doing this?" he rasped, a tiny trickle of blood visible at the corner of his mouth.

"Well, that's an interesting question, William." I said, pleasantly. "And certainly an interesting tale, not that I will be telling it to you, of course. Suffice to say, it wasn't very sensible of you to put your hands on what is mine."

Tisker tried to move again, and failed, I still held my wand on him, my grip steady, I was calm. So calm, despite the fury bubbling in my veins that he dared to touch her.

"What are you talking about, Riddle?" he said at last.

I walked around his collapsed body and came to a halt right in front of his face. His hands had flopped uselessly onto the stone floor. Slowly, purposefully, I raised my boot and crushed his fingers underneath my foot. I had always wanted to laugh in Tisker's face. I did so now as I felt his bones snap one by one. To some, it would be a dreadful sound, but to me, it was like music from the heavens. So was Tisker's shriek of pain, a primeval howl that echoed and reverberated around the stone walls of the Room.

"There, now," I smiled at him. "You'll not be doing that again, will you?"

The Quidditch Captain wheezed, a slow, rattling breath.

"Laura." he said. " Her. It's because of her, all this?"

"And what would make you think that, Tisker?" I asked him, hearing my voice as if it was disembodied from myself, low, dangerous. I didn't know what I might be capable of , here and now. Tisker, for his part, didn't manage an answer straight away.He just groaned, tried to roll over and found he could not.

Tisker turned wild eyes to meet mine, as if he'd suddenly realised something.

"It was you……..wasn't it? It's you…..why she's always ill now, missing Quidditch…running to the bathroom after meals.You….you got her in trouble. You, of all people! I always thought you were poor scum, no matter how much the Professors thought of you, but I never thought even your sort would stoop so low as to………wait until I tell Professor Dippet what you've….ahhhhhh!"

Tisker gasped and choked as I drove my boot into his stomach again.

"You won't be telling anyone, Tisker." I informed him, withdrawing my wand and pointing it directly towards his heart. I braced myself to cast the curse, knowing the effect it would have and feeing the vague thrill of excitement and lust.

"Going to kill me, now, Riddle?" Tisker wheezed, blood soaking through his white shirt where my kick had broken the skin.

I regarded him coldly. I had absolutely no feelings apart from anger and hate for the boy before me. I couldn't let him leave, that would be the end of everything. And so I made my choice.

"The idea has more merit than I gave you credit for, Tisker," I said, quietly. " Thank you for suggesting it."

"You're mad." Tisker said, then shook his head. " No….you're not mad…you're a psychopath. You belong in the asylum. You're criminally insane…..you don't deserve ever to have come here………"

I didn't want to expend the energy to kick him again. Instead I raised my wand high, saying the incantation over and over in my head, a malevolent rehearsal of death.

And then, I heard the footfalls, running feet, thudding hard up the corridor…coming closer and closer.

I whirled around as the door to the room crashed open. There, framed in the doorway, pale as ever, white blond hair dishevelled with the run, silver eyes wide, stood Abraxas Malfoy.

-

His eyes swept the room taking in the scene. Tisker, on the floor, blood seeping slowly from his mouth and head, and me. Me, standing with my wand out pointing straight at my victim, the killing curse ready on my lips…… my eyes surely as alive as they had ever been…. with revenge and great gulps of the drug brutality.

"Riddle," said Abraxas, quietly. "Riddle, what in hell are you doing?"

-

"I saw." Abraxas was saying, still panting from the exertion. "I saw, Riddle. She's your girlfriend, isn't she? It was her….her, all the time."

So Malfoy knew. I was shocked, but I rallied quickly. I had to. I thought fast and as a flash of pure inspiration, it came to me. Abraxas and I had studied the Dark Arts together, at his suggestion. Now was the time to find out just how corrupt he could be. Besides, Abraxas was a fool... and fools were easily manipulated.

"Why, Abraxas…" I said softly, breaking my silence and moving close to him. "I hoped that you would follow me here."

"What?" Abraxas said surprised. He clearly had not been expecting welcome.

"We have been waiting, have we not, for a chance for proper practice of our craft." I said, in an urgent, insinuating whisper. "Here it is. Our chance, Abraxas. Our opportunity. Just you and me. Nobody to tell."

Abraxas flinched, looking over at Tisker who was clinging to consciousness, but only barely. Malfoy looked doubtful.

"He'll tell, Riddle. Of course he'll tell. You must be mad to think other-"

I moved quickly, interrupting his flow, to stand before him. Slowly, I ran a cold hand down the side of his white cheek, slow…… almost seductive. He shivered involuntarily and drew in breath, closing his eyes for second and moving into my touch. I could read Abraxas so well.

"Then we shall make sure he will never be able to …..tell.." I whispered. "Take out your wand, Abraxas."

Malfoy hesitated, looking up at me as if to gauge whether or not I was serious. Tisker groaned faintly. I imagined that by now he was beginning to bleed to death internally, but there was still time for sport, if we made haste.

"It's easy, Abraxas. Just follow……" I murmured, in his ear.

A wave of a wand and it's all over…..fall into nothing and float away. Terrifyingly, wonderfully easy.

I spoke the words of the Cruciatus curse, and Tisker screamed writhing and thrashed with energy I would never understand, given the state he was in already. It was fascinating…to observe the human body's reaction to such intense pain and suffering, the reserves we had, if only we knew it, under pressure.

Tisker screamed again, louder, he evidently entertained hopes of being heard and perhaps, rescued. I drew back my wand to cast the silencing spell upon him, but before I could, someone else spoke the incantation.

-

Abraxas stood, with his wand raised, and a strange glint in his pale eyes that I had never seen before. A twisted smirk was etched onto his face.

"My turn." he said. "First, though, Riddle, heal him."

"What do you mean?" I snapped.

Abraxas smiled the same twisted smile. "Heal his wounds,"

"Why?"

"He'll last longer."

We both laughed then, and the noise echoed around the huge cathedral-like place we were standing in, maniacal and obscene over Tisker's pain.

I had never really laughed with Abraxas, not really, but at that moment, we truly bonded. Master and Apprentice. Brothers…..though not equals, despite what he may have imagined. Brothers, but in murder. So steeped in blood now, there was no return.

We took turns as we tortured the broken Ravenclaw Quidditch Captain until he was nothing but a shell, half crazed with agony and blood loss. A true bonding session.

Poor Tisker. He was once so good looking, so handsome, so talented. When Abraxas and I had finished with him, he really wasn't much to look at. All he could do was croak:

"Stop it...please……please…..stop…."

And then at last, I did stop, looking again into Abraxas' eyes. He met my gaze with a look of feral triumph, a twisted sneer of hate. But I knew that he had one more task to perform, one more purpose to serve.

"Kill him," I whispered.

"Kill him?" Abraxas breathed, eyes saucer like, and mouth open in shock.

"You do it," he said.

"No, Abraxas, you must do it," I said, urgently. " Until tonight, I thought you were merely a weakling, hiding behind me solely for protection, that you knew I was more powerful than you could ever be But tonight, I see now, that I have misjudged you. We are a team. We can do this….together. We are powerful, Abraxas." I lied smoothly.

"I can't," Abraxas whispered, his voice suddenly hoarse, surreal in this cathedral of echoes.

"Yes, Abraxas. Yes. You can do it." I urged.

"I can't……I can't" He rubbed a pale hand across his robe, dispersed the sweat from his palms whereas mine were cool and dry.

"Do you want to be weak, all of your life, Abraxas?" I demanded.

"Of course not……no…..I…I'm not weak."

"Do it, then! Now!" I commanded.

"I……."

Slowly, hesitantly, Abraxas raised his wand high over his head, resolute at last.

"Yes!" I hissed, pushing him, urging him on, so close to tasting triumph. "Avada Kedavra…..Abraxas……..you know the words…just say them…….mean them…..say those two little words…….."

I looked into Abraxas' face and saw all his muscles were tense, his back taut and his wand raised up, ready to strike. And as I looked closely, then I saw it, a single tear, trickling down his cheek.

Tisker had finally fallen silent, and I when turned my attention on to him, as he lay on the cold concrete floor, crimson fluid pooling by his head, I saw that his face too, was stained with tears.

Malfoy's incantation was a rasping whisper that hung obscenely in the stale air, the green light glancing across the windows and for a moment, I was blind.

William Tisker flailed once, then lay still. His death was not instantaneous as I had thought. Perhaps it was a matter of experience, but in the split second after I regained my sight, I found his eyes looking straight into mine, seconds before their flat, blue light gave out.

"Do right by her, Riddle," he said, faintly, but horribly audible. " I know what you've done."

-

Abraxas stared.

"What did he mean by that?" he whispered, after a long silence.

"How should I know?" I snapped, swinging my cloak. I pulled the dark swathes of fabric around me like a costume, a protection. "He was barking by the time we'd finished."

Abraxas blanched, as if the gravity of the situation had only just dawned upon him.

"He's really dead, isn't he. I killed him. I killed him,"

He began to shake hysterically, repeating his sentence over and over. I drew my hand back and slapped him, hard, across the face.

"Shut up. We have to get rid of it." I gestured to the lifeless body of Tisker lying a few feet away. Abraxas made another strange, strangled noise, long red finger marks beginning to blossom across his pale cheek.

"How the hell are we going to do that? Gods, we'll be caught. We'll die in Azkaban. We'll be…"

"Nothing is going to happen to us, Abraxas, as long as you do exactly as I say." I told him. "Now, keep quiet. Mobilicorpus!"

We levitated Tisker's prone body in front of us as we negotiated the stacks of rubbish and forbidden items.

Eventually we found what appeared to be a deep pit covered over with a rusty grate. I blasted the grate off with my wand, and Tisker's body fell down it with a dull, hollow thud.With another incantation, I sealed the dilapidated cover back on.

I could taste the blood on my own lips, bitten through with nerves. We stepped back out together, into the seventh floor corridor. Downstairs, floors below….. the faint music could still be heard.

And I couldn't help smiling.

-

Abraxas lay on his bed shaking, drawing the covers over himself. When I looked down, I noticed that there was a smear of blood on the back of my right hand.

I went into the bathroom and wiped it off, changed my robes and combed back my hair. Abraxas whimpered, and pulled the coverlet over his blond head. I paid him no attention. He could stay here and make his own excuses.

I had someone I wanted to see. Needed.

-

I found her looking out towards the lake.

She still had the white dress on , but I noticed there was now a tear in it, and the hem was stained and spattered with mud. She'd been running.

She stood, staring out over the water as the sun set. I watched her for a while, then made my way across the grass towards her.

I saw her touch her hair, where I knew she had the Ravenclaw comb, and she turned around in time to see me approach.

Her expression turned into one of angry confusion and she whipped out her wand.

"I'll hex you if you come any closer." she spat.

"Laura…please…" I said, softly.

"Go away." she said, shrilly. "You've ruined everything for me as it is. There's nothing left for you to destroy, Riddle. So just go away."

"It doesn't have to be-" I began, but she cut me off.

"Yes, Tom, it does." Suddenly, and without warning, she began to cry. I walked quickly towards her, and she lowered her wand, letting me put my arms around her and sobbing into the sleeve of my robes.

"You do look beautiful," I told her, quietly," Ever since…ever since you came here, you were always beautiful."

"I'm not beautiful, Tom. Strictly average, remember…." She turned and looked sadly into my eyes.

"And I wasn't worth that much to you in the end, was I? I can't trust you. And you lied to me. You're a thief and a liar. And," she laughed briefly, sardonically.

"You ruined me too, didn't you? I was stupid enough to think you cared about me, even though I wasn't brilliant or beautiful. I thought you knew what it was like to be ignored. To be forgotten about. To not matter. I thought you gave a damn. Even knew how it felt to be alone. But the only person you care about is yourself."

"That's not true," I hissed, grasping her tighter, but she pulled away from me, and walked off, ahead of me. I caught her up, grabbing at her arm and pulling her round to face me.

"Stop it!" she said furiously, pulling her arm away, but I held on until we were almost scuffling like we had that night in the bathroom. I let go.

"I do care, I promise. Think of the future, think of our child, Slytherin and Ravenclaw. It's destiny, Laura. Like I told you before, that day….." I stopped, remembering suddenly what day it had been.

She looked at me as if I was mad, saying something so insanely impossible.

By that time, perhaps, I was.

"This is my life, Tom," she whispered "and I 'm not giving it up for your sick ideas of greatness, putting such a burden on another human being just for the sake of your ideas on bloody power and who can be the best,"

"But I love you."

"Love? Me? Don't lie, Tom. I admit it, you are probably the most talented wizard this school has ever seen. You are clever, handsome…and powerful…oh yes, but you have absolutely no feelings. And a child needs love, Tom. Love more than power, and expectations of a father bent on gratifying only himself. Love, rather than you and your damned agenda, whatever it is. I don't want to know."

"Did you love me? " I demanded suddenly, seized with the idea that maybe, just maybe , I could convince her to convince herself.

She looked at me narrowly, sizing up what I wanted from her, and she paused, just a second too long. Long enough, at least, for me to move that one step closer and hold her again. To my surprise, though, she yielded easily to this, and she didn't pull away when I bent and kissed her mouth for the first time in what seemed like forever. I didn't know quite how it happened myself, but before I could think, we were both locked together, kissing feverishly, the way you might if you knew it would be the last time you ever would. I could taste the tears on her face, but I didn't stop. I didn't care. Not by then.

"Tell me you love me," I demanded, breathlessly, in between kisses.

"I can't" she whispered.

"Lie to me then. You never said it, Laura,. Nobody ever said that to me. I want to hear you say it."

"You give so much away sometimes, Tom-"

"Say it!"

"I'll only say it because I want to. Not because you tell me to...I won't do it just because you say-"

She leant over and began to kiss me again, only softer and more deliberate this time. At first I stood still, wanting her to acquiesce to my command, and I didn't respond, but I found I wasn't able to do this for long. I pushed her gently against the trunk of the tree we were standing under as she kissed first my cheeks, then my mouth.

" I love you." she whispered into my ear.

"Say it again."

"I love you...I love you, Tom Riddle. I love you... and I hate you. I hate you for making me love you and I hate you for what you did. Are you happy now?"

" I might never be happy again." I said, darkly. "If you do what you said you were going to. If you ever leave me.You never know what I might do, if you did that..."

"Tom...I can't...how can you want this?" she said, despairingly.

"Isn't a child just one more way to make yourself immortal for anyone?" I asked her, softly.

She looked at me and just shook her head in disbelief.

"No, Tom. It isn't. Or if that's a reason, then it's the wrong one."

"Look," she said eventually, taking both my hands in hers.

"I loved you like nothing in this world, Tom. And then you did...what you did. And I can't be with you. And I can't have a baby. I can't even look after myself….look at me." She gestured miserably at the torn dress.

" You can, " I argued, " We could be together, I could find a job easily..."

"You aren't even legally of age."

"That has ever mattered to me?"

No, but it would matter to the Ministry. What are you going to do, sign up for the Muggle's army?" She gave a snort of derision.

She might as well have slapped my face with those words.

"If you do not want us to be together…' I said angrily '..would you rather your easy little way out, Laura?"

"Easy?" she shrieked, rounding on me. "You think this has been easy, Tom? Damn you to hell if you think any of this has been easy!"

Slipping out of my grasp too fast for me to prevent it, she turned on her heel and began to run, across the grass and back up to the castle, and for once in my life I did nothing.

I just stood there and watched her go, watched her until she was a tiny speck in the distance, and then, she turned a corner and disappeared from view.

I sat down on the grass siding that ran around the edge of the water, and watched the ripples break along the muddy banks of the lake.

It was a long time before I dragged my heavy legs back up to the castle, my heart full of anger and the dread of something I couldn't control, the unfamiliar suffocation of defeat. The early summer sun had long since faded and the long grey fingers of eventide had infused the grounds with a flat, irrepressibly damp, empty cold. I never even thought about Tisker and Abraxas. Somehow, they had ceased to exist for me, and there was nothing but me and her...me and her.

The Ball was over.

-

In the morning, the whole school was alive and buzzing with the hum of gossip and scandal.

The Ravenclaw Quidditch Captain and the Beauxbatons girl had run away together, maybe she was having his baby? I sat down to breakfast but found that I could not eat a bite. Eventually, Professsor Dippet got up and addressed the room at large.

"We have two students missing," he said, gravely, as he twisted the ends of his long grey beard around his fingers.

"Both from Ravenclaw house. William Tisker, who you will know as Quidditch Captain for Ravenclaw, and Laura Ames, who joined us in November. It is believed that they left the Ball last night together, and as such, it is assumed they left the school together also.

There was a murmur around the room, and I felt sure Dumbledore was watching me,but when I looked up, he was watching Dippet, who was speaking again.

"If anyone has any information on their wherabouts," he intoned "or possible reasons for their disappearance, I expect you to report to your Heads of House immediately after breakfast."

Abraxas, who was staring fixedly at his green glass goblet, jumped as it smashed in front of him.

I shot him a warning look, and he mumbled 'sorry' before taking out his wand to mutter 'Reparo', but my mind was still turning over and over.

I knew, of course, that Tisker was definitely not with Laura, as even now, his body was probably beginning to decompose down at the bottom of the hole, wherever that led. But let him rot for all I cared. The school was better off without the Mudblood Wonder Boy.

As far as it concerned me, in any case he got what he deserved for daring to touch her. He was as good as dead the minute I saw him put his hands on her.

But where was she?

I knew she would never have gone home, not while she was carrying my child, as according to her father , the spawn of the Mudblood filth that had taken his daughter's perfect pureblood virginity. I was right, of course.

I was watching from the upstairs window when Aster Ames arrived in his carriage and was greeted soberly by Professor Dippet, who took him at once into his office, all apologies.

By nightfall, word had gone round that Laura Ames had not run away home, and, although the pair were presumed to be together, all Tiskers clothes and possessions were still in their places, untouched, in his sixth year dormitory, whereas all Laura's had been taken, from her clothes, book and potions kit, to her precious Nimbus 250.

It was a mystery, said Professor Dippet sadly, at supper. A mystery and a tragedy. He might have been right on one count, at least.

-

Professor Flitwick instructed all of Ravenclaw house to remain in the Great Hall for a meeting after the meal.

I watched as the Slytherins trooped back down to the dungeons, most fairly nonchalant; it did not affect them personally, and anyway, it would ensure success in the next Quidditch match, if two of the opposition's players had gone……

I did not follow them. I waited until they had moved out of sight, and then, silently, I sipped away, heading for Ravenclaw Tower.

-

The portrait guarding Ravenclaw was of a tall, dark haired woman, sitting side-saddle on the back of a handsome grey horse. Behind her, the sea lapped in a cloudy cove and somehow, I felt sure I had seen that cove before, when the sun was shining on it. Now, it just looked forbidding.

"No Slytherins," she said, imperiously, when she caught sight of me.

"Let me in," I said, through gritted teeth.

"No Slytherins allowed," The woman repeated, sharply.

I took out my wand.

" I have to get in there. Now, or I'll burn you off the wall!"

The tall woman merely laughed softly, and gave a faint smile.

" You're looking for Rebecca's girl. She's not here."

"Rebecca?"

"Rebecca ……yes……(she closed her eyes briefly)... I see it now."

" Let me in. I have to see if she left anything, a clue, anything." I demanded, horribly conscious of how precious my minutes were.

"And why would you need that, young Slytherin?" the woman asked with a knowing look in her clear grey eyes.

I hesitated. The woman continued her unblinking gaze, waiting for my answer.

" Because I.." I began, then stopped short, choking on the words I had been about to say.

I had suddenly caught sight of a flash of silver in the dark hair in the woman that was speaking to me from within that flat painted canvas, lifeless, yet living. A silver spark in the dark nighttime satin of her hair. Like Laura's. And the woman noticed and reached up and withdrew the comb from her shining tresses.

"You recognize this." She said. It was not a question.

"I did love her. I did." I said, my whisper barely audible, even to myself.

The portrait of Rowena Ravenclaw merely smiled as it swung forwards to let me inside.

-

My first attempt to climb the stairs was blocked by an enchantment, presumably to prevent the Ravenclaw boys from gaining entry after hours. I bruised my leg painfully, but managed to successfully disable the spell on my second attempt.

I ran up the stairs two at a time until I saw a sign marked 'Fifth Years' I tried the door.

The room was empty and devoid of any signs of life, its occupants all no doubt still sitting in the Great Hall. Except one, of course.

The drapes had not been drawn across the long windows, and I could see out across the back of the castle, pale blue sky streaked with the brilliant red of rising dusk, and beyond it, only black.

I glanced around, reading the names on the end of the beds…Elodie Prince…Vera Danson……Joan Brown…..Gracie Riverdene…….and at the very end,scribbled on blue card in her own distinctive script, Laura Ames.

Everything had been taken. I pulled open drawers and cupboards, feeling around with my fingers desperately into every corner in the hope that there would be something..to tell me anything at all. I crawled under the bed and searched there, she had pulled out her trunk and taken that too-there were scratch marks on the linoleum. I dragged the blankets off her bed, tore the pillow from its case and found nothing at all. Nothing left.

I looked at the bed and all around the room just wondering what it would be like, what was it like to be her, to be in her skin? I put the pillow to my face, inhaled, and it was there still, the faint scent of Laura and her lilies of the valley.

But she'd gone.

-

Helplessness and hopelessness are more dangerous than fear or hate or anger.

They eat you up inside. They destroy you, from within, tear you apart with holes you cannot see, until it is too late. They make you weak. They leave you open.

Like love.

One word, so pathetic.

So important.

Night had fallen now, a rising curtain reaching out and covering the last shreds of the day. I had left her dormitory unseen, hid out in the grounds, by the old beech tree, where I'd held her that time, after the match…. all those months ago. Laid down and watched the sky turn black

I did not know that tears could sting, until tonight. But I will learn from it.

William Tisker died last night. So did Tom Riddle.

Epilogues