Tom strolled pleasantly into the Great Hall. He nodded in the general direction of the teachers table – Slughorn brightened up at the sight of his favourite pupil, Tom noticed and resisted an urge to sneer, and headmaster Dippet acknowledge him with a small nod of his own. Many students waved cheerfully, as he passed their Houses' respective tables and one of the Gryffindor prefects, oh that was priceless, scrambled to personally congratulate him.
It was the beginning of his seventh year in Hogwarts and everything was going according to plan.
His fellow Slytherins greeted him with the choir of excited admiration. Tom smiled benevolently at his house-mated and took his seat at the table. He'd been made a Head Boy and that in itself was quite gratifying. Yet, looking at the Slytherins' students – their faces so respectful and adoring – he couldn't help but feel particularly smug; whether for his new position being properly recognised, or because no-one dared so much as to notice that his Head Boy badge was pinned proudly to a robe obviously bought second-hand.
Good. Their lesson was learned and revised, then.
"So Riddle, we've been thinking," Rosier leaned in from across the table and started in conspiratorially lowered voice. 'We' leaned in as well. The thought their solemn faces and allusions to the Dark Arts thrown carelessly in the Great Hall bustling with innocent laughter and silly chatter might seem suspicious, especially in the light of – well...clearly hadn't crossed their minds.
And Rosier. He, who had once sneaked into his father's study, in the dead of the night, and read the editor's note to his parents' copy of Magick Moste Evile – and thought himself Dark Wizard.
Pathetic, the whole lot of them.
"Are you certain here and now is the best time to discuss it?" he inquired absent mindedly, straightening his tie, acutely aware of Dumbledore's narrowed eye look send his way. "Later," he said firmly and turned his attention to the line of new students marching in to be sorted.
Tom had no way of knowing that, of course, but fifty three years, nine months, one day and few hours into the future from that moment, a troubled young man would be pouring memories of the late Hogwarts' headmaster into Pensieve. Then, taking a deep breath, he would plunge into shimmering silvery substance, to learn – for better or worse – about Lord Voldemort's last Horcrux.
Harry sat behind the headmaster's desk and hid his face in his palms.
Logically, he knew what he should feel right now. Helplessness, definitely. Bitterness, probably. Maybe just a tiny bit of betrayal that only at the very end did he get to learn the truth. The whole of it.
He emitted a hollow laughter. How skilfully did they craft this moment, Snape and Dumbledore. Masterfully done, Harry gave them that. To allow him to find out about the last Horcrux – the necessity of his own demise, when everything was already said and done. Stroke of genius, that's what it was. Because even if Voldemort would have allowed him to flee – which he most certainly would not have – Harry simply could not escape. It would render the deaths of good wizards and witches, and his mother's sacrifice meaningless.
Dumbledore knew that and so did Snape.
So yes. Helplessness and bitterness, and eventually, once the grandfather clock's hand would mark an hour passed – resignation.
That was what he should feel. Harry knew that, logically.
Only that it wasn't what he was feeling at the moment at all.
He couldn't pinpoint why exactly, but for some reason he had never felt nearly as hopeless as he logically knew he should have felt. Even though the circumstance indicated otherwise – like, when he was a kid, laying in his cupboard wide awake in the dead of the night, dreading nightmares of mirthless laughter and green light. Or in his second year, when he was thought to be the Slytherin's heir, or later, in fourth, when everyone turned their backs on him because of the Tournament fiasco.
- Never once did he feel alone. That, in turn, made him love life just a tiny bit more – made him cling to it that tiny bit more. So naturally, being told to lie it down invoked many feelings in Harry, but none of them was hopelessness or resignation.
Truth to be told, Harry had never felt so frustrated before.
Oh, he knew what he had to do. Dumbledore ensured that once the time would come, he'd have the words of duty craved behind his eyelids. And maybe it was a good thing he did, Harry thought, because he actually had half a mind to high-tail to South America, get a citizenship of some nice country, hire an attorney and sue one 'Voldemort, Lord' for repeated assassination attempts, stalking and mental abuse.
Harry would have snort at the thought, had his throat not been clenched so painfully.
Instead, he rubbed his throbbing temples. Inwardly he was shaking in suppressed fury at not just a tiny bit of betrayal and -
He reached the point of no return, but Merlin, he really didn't want for it be the end just yet.
His breath hitched, maybe because air was so thick with magic that night, even more so that ever; it buzzed
- with potential, a promise of endless possibilities -
He wanted to save everyone, he truly did. He was prophesied to destroy Voldemort, for crying out loud, but...he didn't want to die.
He really didn't want to die.
He wanted out of here.
. . .
No spell had been said. There was no fancy ritual and not a single rune had been drawn. None of that was needed. Before Latin incantations, elaborate ceremonies and the simplest of runes, at the very begging of magic, there was only a wish – one powerful enough to warp the fabric of universe.
The clock stuck an hour, but in the headmaster's office there was no-one to hear it.