I truly have no such thing as an appetite, but seeing Harper quite well and hungry after everything that happened in the forest is good enough anyway. Without her, I wouldn't be here.

Without her, I would've gone on with killing, right here, in my father's home. I would have assumed he was nothing but an ignorant muggle who never cared about the things he couldn't understand for his life – and yet now I saw them, his letters. His attempts to find me, his willingness to believe in magic …

Perhaps the coin we flipped should have landed differently. Maybe we should have come here first, who knows – perhaps I wouldn't have stained my hands with Morfin's oh-so-pure blood.

There was blood everywhere …

I killed him, and there is no coming back from that, neither from my thoughts.

"He won't come back to life like that either!"

I stare up at Ophelia, she's sitting opposite of me at the huge dining table, and only now realise that I have not at all been listening.

"Well, your fish!" she giggles. "You're just pushing it back and forth with your fork – do you want it to come back to life?"

I stare at her for a moment, then I just shake my head. "It could never swim again anyway, could it …"

"Girls, what does that remind you of?" Riddle asks hellishly chirpy, as though he knew exactly which thoughts are flashing through my absent mind.

"What is it supposed to remind us of?" Florence asks.

"Of flowers that wither when cut?"

"No, Ophelia, surely not – it's not always about flowers," Florence claims right away.

"Maybe Nessie?" Gwen asks. "Because she can swim, after all?"

"No, no, completely wrong track, think of art," Riddle says, looking at Harper. "Missy?"

"Art … Oh well, Schubert's Trout perhaps? Is that what you're getting at?"

He begins to grin. "Excellent, yes!"

"The author of the poem Schubert so guilelessly set to music," I bleakly hear myself say, putting down my cutlery for good, "could not have foreseen that his words, written in prison, would one day make history. Depending on the interpretation, it symbolises the trout deprived of all freedom by the arbitrariness of the powerful." I look at Harper first, then around the room. "One stanza, however, was not taken up by Schubert. The last one, to be exact."

Even Riddle seems as though he was hearing that for the very first time.

"And how does that one go?" Ophelia eagerly asks.

And I tell her.

"You, at the fountain golden, of youth, so free from doubt,
be to the trout beholden; At danger's sign, clear out.
'Tis oft for want of reason, That maids will shun the straight.
Beware the anglers' treason, Else you may bleed too late."

Harper's gaze is searching for something on my face in vain – I know it. But she doesn't find the remorse she wishes to see.
There is none.
Only cold rage, the same old one that has always stuck with me.

Cecilia also clears her throat quite nervously. "The other verses are much more cheerful, aren't they?"

"What do you expect?" Riddle's mother grumbles. "He's a Gaunt, of course he doesn't recite anything cheerful …"

"Oh, shut up, Mary," her husband growls, ever so relaxed though. "What can he do about it if the last verse ends in blood?"

"What ends in blood is never the last verse," his son says and then he nods at me. "Tom, do you smoke?"

I shake my head.

"Then it's about time, as a doctor I assure you – it calms the nerves."

"As a doctor you should be aware of the various findings on the resulting health damage –"

"As a doctor, I know that our bodies are mortal anyway. But the soul, Tom, that takes its toll, too. I know many a soldier who voluntarily damages their lungs just to calm the head for a moment."

"I don't need to calm myself nor my soul nor my head," I acidly retort. "And that's just it."

"Come on," he says, nevertheless, already standing up himself, all while displaying that cryptic smile on his face. "Up, up, a bit of fresh air with …" He winks. "A tad of smoke …"

I'm on the verge of telling him to go to hell in front of his family.
However, that doesn't seem quite right due to the girls …
So, with clearly suppressed displeasure, I finally follow him through the kitchen to the courtyard and swallow my anger for now.

As the gravel crunches under our feet, we hear the same sound, only more frantic, from the other side of the courtyard. Hurried footsteps approach us until a young man with a slider cap and a toolbox on his hand looks to us and waves.

"Good evening, Frank," my father calls out to him. "You're not supposed to be working this late!"

"That's all right, sir," he claims, "I'll be done in a minute …"

"Thank you, Frank." My father turns around to me and winks once we're alone again. "Frank Bryce – young, but the most reliable caretaker we've ever had."

"How incredibly marvelous for you."

Riddle all but nods, then I can see a silver case flash in his hand, much like the one Edwin carried around at all times as well. Opened, he holds it out to me.

"This day was not as easy for you as you claim," he affirms. "Take a cigarette – at least try it."

"Try it …" I repeat with a head shake and stare into the night. "I didn't exactly grow up in Kensington High Street, rather in Soho, if you know what that means. Hence there's absolutely no need for a maudlin father-son moment in which you explain reliable survival methods for a deep drag."

"Soho?" He tries his best not to look worried, but he is. "The epicenter of brothels, gambling and addiction – why did you go there –"

"After school it was much better to linger in Old Compton Street than in –"

I pause.
My subconscious is catching up …

"Than in the orphanage …" I finish my sentence and yet I'm already all up in my head.

Before Hogwarts, only there I ever felt like I fit in somewhere, for the very first time.
In Old Compton Street.

This strangely palpable sense of belonging, exactly the one I intuitively associate with the fairytale symbol – for whatever reason – is closely linked to Jim's supposed pub, and to Vivian, and to Gini …
What is my subconsciousness trying to bring to the surface?

"Tom?" Riddle looks downright concerned. "You're out of it …"

"Yeah – happens now and then," I admit, waving it off impatiently as I push my running thoughts aside. "Anyway, you don't have to explain the world to me …"

"The orphanage," he then hesitantly begins this conversation. "Which one was it?"

"Wool's."

He lets out a harsh breath and seems downright overwhelmed.

"Tom, I swear to you, that's where I –"

"I know," I assure him. "Cecilia showed me some of the letters." I shrug and eye him. "It's irony of fate, isn't it? This place drove me mad because I couldn't leave, and for you it was no different because you couldn't get in."

All serious, he asks, "Was it because of magic?"

I let him wait for a couple of heartbeats until I nod. "What Cecilia was only too happy to dismiss as your vivid imagination was quite probably an impeccable protection spell."

"Because of Marvolo, perhaps?"

"Morfin could barely see straight, so I guess because of Marvolo. In any case, Mr Riddle, it was … not your fault."

"You're still addressing me formally again though," he sighs while lighting a cigarette for himself. He's about to put the case away, but now I actually do take one and let him light it for me, too.

I'll give him that, a little relaxation can hardly do more harm … I inhale and hope for the poison to work on my tired nerves.

Riddle watches me quite contentedly considering this, but that's downright ridiculous.

"What?" I frown.

"Nothing at all," he chuckles to himself. "You just seem a lot more relaxed already after my … medical advice. The end justifies the means, right?"

"Right, or maybe," I begin like a heretic, "the apple just doesn't fall far from the tree? After all, you strike me as very relaxed, almost remarkably balanced, given the fact that you're standing here smoking with the result of your own assault."

He freezes, just very briefly, then he slowly shakes his head and looks down at the gravel as I take another drag of my cigarette.

"Should I have phrased that more politely?" I ask. "Fear of a name increases fear of the thing itself, don't you think?"

"Sure, but no – this is …" He likely tries to find the right words and blows smoke away from himself, harried, until finally he glances directly at me again. "I've never thought about you like that. And I'm … sorry if you feel that way about yourself. It wasn't ever your fault."

"It still is what it is," I say. "And I am what I am. Son of a witch, the last living Heir of Slytherin, obviously highly gifted, but emotionally underdeveloped – and not to mention simply incapable of any sentience because I'm nothing more than the result of shameless abuse and forced obsession. Because Merope was insane and you were stupid. And here we are – you, sir, standing beside your prodigal son, me, on the other hand, with the ultimate realisation that murder is possible without any remorse."

"You're not a murderer, Tom," my father claims, just as Harper would now. "It was an accident."

"How often do I have to repeat myself?" I ask, already impatiently stubbing out my cigarette in the ashtray on the window sill behind us. I look back directly at Riddle and shake my head, almost in amusement. "The only accident was that he died too soon thanks to my own carelessness. Had it not been for that nail, I would have let him bleed to death, slowly, by invisible stitches. However now that I think of it … No, he wouldn't have deserved that … The warmth that supposedly spreads through the body until you see the light and fall asleep for eternity would've been too good for him. I'd have gutted him with rage, I'd have -"

"Why so emotional?" Riddle asks, smugly raising an eyebrow. "I thought you considered yourself incapable of feeling emotions because of the … special nature of your conception?"

"Apparently just classically good feelings are excluded," I snap.

"But where do all the bad ones come from?" he asks. "Why such hatred for your crazy uncle?" He bitterly sighs. "He touched your girl, didn't he?"

"No," I reply. "But he was about to, at the first chance he got at that."

"I already told you," Riddle says, staring out into the night again. "If it'd been for one of my daughters, I'd have killed him, too. Without mercy, without remorse. In a barbaric way because when we think we're right, we can all be very cruel –"

"Obviously," I cut him off. "The world bears witness to it every moment of every day."

"Exactly!" he says, as if to help me to a realisation. "Distressed, few things help us past the most primal of traits, Tom. Morfin's psyche was not intact, his decisions were shaped by madness. And your mother – with a life like that, how could she have known right from wrong? Cain slew his brother Abel – and yet you think it's only your nature to be bad because of the circumstances of your birth? At the end of the day, it's in the nature of all of us to self-righteously protect what we find worth protecting. Or would you have hurt your uncle if he had simply been a pitiful shadow who never did anyone harm?"

I actually think about it for a moment, and more to myself than to him I finally say, "Maybe in the past …"

Concerned, he eyes me. "In the past?"

"If you don't feel alive," I absently explain, "you like to chase after everything that might change that."

"Why before and not now? Because of Harper?"

I shrug. He's probably right, but why on earth would I confirm that to him …

"You know, I wasn't always as balanced as I'm now either," he says soon. "Before I met your mother, I thought I owned the world." He sighs. "I'm sure it sounds foolish, but … she really clipped my wings. I never thought that one day … something like that … could happen to me. And afterwards … I was so angry. I was cold, cynical and impatient."

"That's the description I got of you in the Bed & Breakfast, yes," I interject matter-of-factly.

"You know what?" He winks. "When the staff brought your things in, they told me old Bess had just said the same about you."

"Mhm, look at us," I'm tired to even reply. "A miracle, we're related."

He grins. "They also said you were Mr Sullivan, by the way. Is that true? Are you –"

"No, and thank God," I talk over him again. "For a moment there, I actually thought it was a brilliant idea –"

"Oh, you should marry her when you're a little older!"

"And how awful would her life be?"

"Oh, Tom –"

"Save your breath."

He's finally at his wit's end, but no – again he begins to philosophise. "People form their opinions about you once and from then on, you're always what they think you to be. No matter what you do, it's almost impossible to be seen otherwise. Just take Bess … But it's even worse when we think we know ourselves. When our self-image is terribly distorted –"

"My self-image is more than realistic," I groan, gradually losing my patience.

"No," he argues, "I simply don't believe that. How could that be true if you try to put Harper's happiness above your own? That's selfless, Tom. Crazy because she obviously wants you in her life, but selfless all the same."

"Today she nearly choked to death because of me," I grimly correct him, "due to countless snakebites, just because I wanted answers about my roots."

"That's terrible, yes," he admits, "but she's alive. And she doesn't blame you. You, however, are fooling yourself. You're convinced you're cursed, though it's so paradoxical given the fact that you clearly love her –"

"You weren't listening, Mr Riddle."

"Neither were you – stop being so formal with me!"

"Sir, you misjudge," I ignore his objection, "the power of the magic that made me be. It's quite simply impossible for me to love. The spell of your burden ended with your escape from London. My destiny, on the other hand, is eternal. Won't you understand that?"

"Perhaps theory, however, doesn't know practice," he retorts. "Perhaps the theory that supposedly dictates your destiny does, in practice, underestimate the power of love."

"What is love?" I ask, mad for good. "And how would someone like me ever know? Save your idealistic worldview for your daughters!"

"But Harper is proof that I'm right!"

"I should've never brought her here –"

"Tom, no, I can see …" He hesitates, yet he goes on, "I know you're angry. And hence you're jumping to conclusions about all of this too quickly. Give yourself time to process what you realised today, and what happened. I know this from the soldiers I treated. Their bodies were long healed by the time the traumas of war gnawed at their minds again, and as long as you suppress what you feel –"

"I'm not suppressing anything!" I all but shout. "That's what seems so wrong! The only form of remorse I feel is that of self-knowledge. I now know who and what I am – and what I can never be. That's the only thing that will bring consequences."

"And what would those be?"

"We're done smoking our therapy cigarette," I growl. "There's nothing else to say."

"You're my son, Tom, I –"

"Just stop it!" I interrupt him. "I was conceived in your delirium, that's it. We are strangers and always will be. Let's just get this charade over with in front of your family in the most discussion-avoiding way possible and for heaven's sake spare me your sentiments. That ship sailed at least a decade ago, as sad as you claim to think it is. You lack nothing here – I'll leave as I came and everything will stay as it is."

I've been pushing nice people away for as long as I can remember. Probably simply because my life so far has taught me that I should never trust luring peace.

And so I just leave him behind in the yard in my old patterns, about to implode.

How am I supposed to make Harper understand that I need to get out of here when everyone is being so terribly kind to me? How could she ever understand that I crave darkness and cold because it's the only thing I know?
And how could I ever justify to myself that I'd prefer her to be in my darkness and cold, too, even though it would be such obvious misery for her?

Riddle tiredly follows me into the living room, where we both force smiles as though everything was fine, but my head is buzzing – as I'm sure is his.

"My grandchildren say you play the piano." Riddle's mother, of all people, eyes me tensely – she was my last anchor. "Can you play Tchaikovsky?"

Even the last one who understood that I meant trouble, wants to give up her hostility due to skills demonstrated on a grand piano …

"Tchaikovsky," I repeat, nodding wearily. "Was that your idea, Gwen?"

She grins. "He was a Russian …"

"Yeah, if course," I sigh, "zabavnyy …"

"You remembered the word for 'funny'!" she rejoices. "Grandma, see? He'll surely play the June Barcarolle for you!"

"Everyone to the piano, then!" Cecilia claps her hands.

"Do you want me to turn the music sheets for you again?" Gwen asks, beaming and suddenly standing next to me.

"Sure, do," I moan, then she pulls me along to the piano.

Maybe I truly just need a distraction to run away from my thoughts and abysses.

But it won't work like that much longer.