Author's note: Hello everybody, Here is a new chapter! Thank you for reading and following/adding this story to your favourites make me sooo happy, I can't express how thankful I am. I wish you a great weekend!

- Enjoy -

Trigger warning: There will be violence against animals in this chapter and the next. I apologise for it, truly it was unpleasant to write.

May 1942: Fluffy

Professor Wingly had welcomed her in her office with a grave look on her face, some time after breakfast. Her mother had contacted the school: her grandfather had passed away. The funeral was expected to take place in a few days and the girl was exempted to attend classes. Her father would pick her up later at night, in the Headmaster's office. It was a Thursday. The girl had simply nodded, and headed directly to her bedroom. She could have had thrown herself on her bed and cried but instead, she had rummaged in the drawer of her bedside table, reaching for a quill and stationery. She had scribbled the following words in haste:

"I won't make it on Sunday so let's meet this afternoon. Find an excuse. I'll pretend I'm unwell"

She had neatly folded the paper as thin as the many folds allowed. She knew she would run into him, in the narrow staircase that led to the Astronomy tower. At 10:32 precisely, behind the many other Fourth Years, on the congested steps, she spotted his very dark hair poking out of the crowd of students walking down the stairs. Without looking at him, she extended her hand and nimbly placed the folded parchment in his palm, with an ease that betrayed the habit.

Annabel was now sitting on the bench, under the flowering apple tree. She ignored whether the boy would come, but she waited for him nonetheless, at their usual meeting spot. She felt strangely edgy despite the weather, clement of a Scottish spring. She closed her eyes and raised her head, and she tried to savour the sun that warmed her cheeks and the breeze that caressed her hair. Months had passed since their training lessons started and she recalled how the boy had been extra fussy at first, challenging her about the content of her teaching, which had upset her. Yet, he had become much milder and enthusiastic past the first time, after she had casted a powerful illusion on the boy, partly to punish him for being so arrogant, partly because she had been thrilled to show him she was better than he thought. It had been an over-reaction. If her grandfather had been there, he would have surely scolded her for not keeping her emotions in check… She interrupted that thought. She did not want to think of her grandfather.

After a while, she heard some footsteps squashing the grass and she turned around, leaning on one arm, the limestone from the bench cold under her hand.

"So, what was your excuse?" she asked, squinting, for she was suddenly blinded by the sun. He was towering over her but she could barely see his face against the light so she placed one hand above her forehead, like a sailor looking in the distance.

"I did not need one. Mrs Buckthorn is sick so my Herbology class is cancelled"

"Lucky you" she smiled.

She stood up and dusted her pleated skirt before she headed towards the dense green colonnade of the Forbidden Forest. She was walking fast, with a certain urgency.

Soon enough, they were standing near the clearing in the forest, where they used to train. Tom told her he had found a new spell, and she watched him wave his wand in a swift movement, slitting the trunk of the trees before him. He said it could serve various purposes, cut grass, stems or ropes. Annabel thought, it could be used to slit throats. Suddenly, she felt nauseous, looking at the deep cut in the bark, each side puffed up like the swollen cuts of human flesh. The memory of the decomposing bodies in the mass grave under her grandfather's house came to her mind, and she felt herself on the brink of vomiting.

She sat down, her hands gripping at the log on which she was sitting. Tom turned around and looked at her, suddenly aware of her discomfort.

"Are you all right?"

"I just need one minute" she whispered, trying to keep her stomach's content where it belonged. The boy frowned, and took out a metal flask from inside his bag which he handed her. She thanked him, and the cool liquid that slid down her throat relieved her sickness.

"Should we call it a day?" he asked, his brows furrowed as if he was concerned about the girl's well-being. Her cheeks were pale and a thin layer of sweat was covering her forehead, but she wiped the perspiration with the back of her hand and shook her head.

"I'm all right"

Yet, she remained seated on the dead wooden tree, her breathing laboured and her eyes shut. She heard him sitting next to her and she took another sip of water. He was quiet, but she felt how he was growing impatient.

After a while he asked, his voice soft.

"Does this have anything to do with you grandfather's death? It was in the Daily Prophet this morning" he added after she shot him a suspicious glance.

She knew people were interested in her family, they always were. She could have enjoyed such popularity, but fame never came without a cost. For every step she took, someone had preceded her, and if her path remained clear from any hindrances, she often felt shackled by the supposed greatness of her lineage. Sometimes, she thought she was nothing but a concept, an idea she was meant to fulfil. To her parents, she will be a way to consolidate their empire. To her grandfather, she had been a weapon. To the boy sitting next to her, she was the mean to unreachable knowledge.

Annabel's eyes grazed the boy's face, which barely concealed his curiosity.

"People say he was a very powerful wizard"

"Very powerful, and praised by many" she agreed, but her tone was cold and sharp.

"He was the one who taught you all of this, wasn't he?"

She was very still until she nodded ever so slightly. She had promised never to reveal where she owned her skills from, but now that he was dead, how did it matter?

"I wish I could have met him"

She had a brief ironic laugh.

"Trust me, you don't" she stated and she averted the questioning glance he shot her.

"Aren't you sad he passed away?" he asked, his voice barely concealing his surprise and Annabel averted his gaze. She closed the lid of the flask he had previously handed her and absentmindedly traced the contour of the lid with one finger.

For years, she had fantasised that day, that she assumed would be filled with mirth and cheer. She had dreamt of her reclaimed freedom that she imagined vast and breathtaking, like the tide of the ocean that would wash all over her. But, trauma had that peculiar thing about it, it was bitter, and unforgiving, for people left but memories remained and just like that, her grandfather had forever condemned her.

She bit her lower lip, unsure about how she could phrase it.

"Not really, no… He did terrible things to a lot of people" she simply said for a lack of better words.

"Did he do terrible things to you too?"

She hadn't expected Tom to ask her such a private question and she found herself mute, searching for her words, realising she had none, that nothing could truly convey how she felt. Hesitantly, she glanced at him and held his gaze. She believed she found warmth in his eyes, and this warmth enveloped her.

She extended her hand and slid her fingers under his palm, which was soft and big and she thought it was oddly intimate to feel him like that. She closed her eyes, focusing on the barrier inside her, the one that held everything, that concealed it all. She pictured it like a dam, and her memories were the river. She let them run and accumulate, down the hill of her conscience. Soon enough the wall gave in. She felt herself gripping at the boy's hand tighter when the smell of mould overtook her.

—

She was thrown back to her seven years old self, in the cold and damp earth cellar of her grandparents' house. She remembered vividly the knobbly fingers of her grandfather as he had seized the bunny by its ears. "Do it" he issued forcefully, shaking the poor thing that squeaked plaintively. Annabel whined and begged but the longer she did, the more upset he became and he shook the creature so hard that the girl threw herself at the old wizard's feet, her face covered in tears.

"Please" she wailed. "Not Fluffy"

He pushed her away sturdily and the girl fell on her back. The creature was now struggling in atrocious squawks as the man kept shaking it before it finally fell to the ground in a lousy thud. The girl crawled to one corner, behind a chair where she was rocking herself back and forth restlessly.

"You killed it, you killed it" she forced between two hiccups, terrified, but the man was walking towards her already, tall and menacing. He grabbed the girl by the wrist and dragged her feeble body back to the centre of the room.

"It's still alive" he croaked. "Now you kill it. You wouldn't want to make it suffer any longer would you? Look at that poor thing, it's struggling to breathe. Perhaps its lung got punctured by a broken rib when it fell down"

The girl's eyes widened in horror at the laboured breath of the rabbit. The man reached for his wand and shoved it in the girl's hand but she threw it away on the earthy ground.

"Say it. Say the words Annabel" he commanded but she was wailing so hard that she could barely breathe. In a loud thump, the man slapped her across the face and Annabel felt Tom's tighten his grip on her hand when her lip popped open and a gush of blood tainted her chin.

"Come on baby girl, make your grand-daddy proud" coaxed the man in a change of tone, his voice suddenly honeyed. Annabel's lips quivered, sniffing the snot that was pocking out of her nose as she inhaled loudly. After a while, she finally gripped the wand, for she knew Fluffy was in pain, and at this point, there was no other way to end its agony.

A green light came out of the wand when she pronounced the death sentence, and suddenly, all went black.

—

Her breath was hectic, as if she had run a hundred miles. She wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand, but was surprised to find her skin dry. She hadn't cried. Perhaps her heart had turned into a stone.

"He was a monster" she stated, her voice strangely high-pitched. "He used to buy me bunnies that he asked me to kill every time I got attached to them" she added and her voice broke. Tom wrapped his arm around her shoulders and brought her close. He held her tight, and she rested her head within the crook of his neck, smelling him for the first time, a mixture of wooden notes and bergamot.

At dusk, she timidly pulled away, saying they should get going. He offered her his jacket, for she was trembling, from the cold or exhaustion, and she accepted. At the edge of the forest, he finally spoke again, his voice not louder than a murmur.

"How did you know I could see what you see?"

He had asked without the usual intonation a question requires, rather an hypothesis that awaited confirmation.

"I'm a legilimotus" she whispered.

"From the latin word legere - to read - and motus - to move. To read what moves people" she added, but his lack of reaction confirmed what she thought, that he already knew the etymology of such term.

"How did you train it?"

"I didn't. I was born this way. It's a condition that is passed on, from generations to generations. Men can read minds, women can read emotions. This is how I knew you were a legilimens"

He nodded, his eyes fixing the castle that appeared in the distance. The temperature was lower, but his jacket was warm and she felt strangely peaceful. Before the heavy door that led to the Entrance Hall, he stopped, and shot her a glance she could not decipher.

"Since when do you know?" he asked and she smiled.

"Do you recall the day we played a game of Black Widow at Alastair's place in London? That day, I knew"

"How?"

"You won, but I should have. I was much better than you"

He laughed and she smiled. He had never chastised her for her audacity, probably because he was terribly impudent himself. It was something she appreciated about him, that she did not need to play the part of the meek and humble little girl, because if there was one thing she had discovered while training with Tom Riddle during the past few months, was that he had little patience for false modesty.

When they finally pushed the heavy wooden door, Annabel realised they were still holding hands. She stepped aside and handed him back his jacket, suddenly aware of the presence of the many students around them as they made their way to the Great Hall.

"Why bunnies though?" she heard him say, but her eyes was already wandering to the Ravenclaws' hands that waved at her from the blue and silver table. She shot the boy a small apologetic smile and jogged to her friends who made room to accommodate her on the bench, and she felt lively, and strong and steady, and when she joined the conversation about the next Quidditch game, she could not help but glance at the boy across the room, only to notice he was watching her too, and she said, loud and clear in her head, even though she did not know what for: thank you.

And as she turned, to look at her friend Elena, she did not see the smile that showed on his lips, nor the words he mouthed.

"No, thank you"