Chapter Text
Saturday.
Only when it’s you…
Rosalind lurched upright, choking on her own breath. The sheets clung to her legs. Sweat slicked her back. Her lungs seized, caught between inhale and panic.
Too hot.
Too quiet.
The tower was still. Gwen’s blanket shifted somewhere across the room. The wind pressed against the windows like it wanted in.
The dream hadn’t left her. She could still feel it, too clearly. Silk sheets. His hand at the base of her spine. The weight of his chest locking her into warmth. His voice low at her ear.
That unbearable heartbeat under her cheek, something she'd sworn never to need.
It sat in her bones.
Her hands trembled as she braced against the mattress. Camille stirred at her feet, stretched, and climbed lazily into her lap, nestling against her ribs with the proprietary air of someone who’d seen worse.
Rosalind placed a hand on her fur. Camille purred, then pawed at her sternum, firm and insistent.
Lie down. Everything’s fine.
She obeyed, falling backward into the tangle of her duvet.
Camille turned a slow circle and collapsed across her chest with a grunt. Her tail flicked, then draped neatly over Rosalind’s throat like a velvet noose. Parisa once said cats slept like that when they meant to protect you.
And maybe Rosalind needed protecting—but she’d never say it aloud.
That hadn’t been her dream.
It was Tom’s.
The tether pulsed faintly beneath her ribs, as it always did when he was sleeping—a subtle throb, tugging low in her chest.
It hadn’t been just this one. All week, the dreams had come sharp and senseless, too vivid to dismiss. She wasn’t dreaming of him. She was dreaming inside him. Or next to him. Or through him.
Ancient magic, then. It had to be—the tether, winding tighter again, drawing her in, vein by vein.
Another symptom. Like the phantom itch when they were apart. Like the searing recoil when she’d tried to fuck Alfie Black. The punishment her body handed down like it had chosen sides.
Maybe this was what happened when you let a boy fingerfuck you in a romantic location. When you said things like I’m yours and meant it.
When you forgot not to believe his promises.
Camille purred louder, pressing warm weight into her ribs. Her hands had stopped shaking. Her heart had not.
Rosalind exhaled.
The room still smelled like the dream. Not soap or girlish perfume, not the usual lavender and parchment of the dorm, but something masculine. Tobacco. Clove. His scent clung to her pillow. Her hair.
It had felt like love.
Or close enough to counterfeit it. Aching. Quiet. Terribly precise. The rest of the dreams had been fantasy. Not this one.
She stared into the dark. The tether pulsed again, gentler now, like it meant to soothe her.
But something was wrong.
It crept in the quiet. A ripple beneath the skin. The kind of wrong you felt in a corridor when someone followed without sound. When the hairs rose on your arms before the footstep landed.
As if she’d forgotten something.
Or worse—like something had followed her out of the dream and hadn’t yet let go.
Her breath caught. She scanned the shadows, moonlight painting the floor in long gray streaks. She searched for movement. For the bogeyman, the sandman, some nursery-rhyme god of sleep and punishment.
Camille’s weight held her to the mattress, but not enough to muffle the prickle along her spine.
The sensation lingered too long to dismiss.
Then, Camille’s tail twitched.
The tether fluttered, faint, like Tom had shifted in sleep.
Rosalind exhaled.
The tension ebbed—
But the shiver stayed.
-.-
Sunday.
The night air cooled his skin. Victory still sat on his tongue.
It hadn’t taken much. A scraped chair. A hand against the small of her back. A room full of eyes, watching her choose him. Then—once they were alone—he’d whispered it like a confession: You win.
He knew better now.
He’d won.
He hadn’t planned it precisely, but precision wasn’t always the point. Strategy lived in the moments between impulse and outcome—the pivot, the recalibration, then the strike.
Tom Riddle didn’t need forethought to win. He only needed space.
And now, two nights later, the memory remained intact. Her spine arched. Her eyes damp. Her chest slick with him. The sound she made when she came on his fingers. Shattered and perfect. He replayed it the way a scholar might study a primary source. For understanding.
And maybe pleasure too.
Beside him in the Astronomy Tower, Abraxas lit a third cigarette. The love bite on his neck—hidden all day—was bare now, the ascot tossed at his feet beside polished shoes. Leo sat hunched over a stool, scribbling something on parchment.
“The Broken Fang. Two weeks. Saturday,” Leo muttered, pushing his glasses up.
“Date night,” Abraxas drawled, exhaling smoke over the edge. “You’ll need to reschedule.”
Tom tapped two fingers against the stone railing. “Druella knows how to keep her entertained.”
Abraxas smirked. Leo snorted.
Tom said nothing more. His thumb moved idly over the Coin in his pocket, tracing the etched edge again and again.
Control didn’t always require words. The school was still talking. Sallow this. Riddle that. Pathetic, really—how easily they latched on to this new myth. Annoying, yes. If it hadn’t served him so well.
“Abraxas,” Tom said. “Write to Arcturus. See if he’ll meet us this weekend.”
Abraxas gave a nod, casual but attentive. “Looking for leverage?”
“Looking to find out why Rowle wants to meet now. We need to be prepared.”
“I can’t imagine he’s interested in tea and pleasantries,” Leo muttered.
“We’ll need Paris for that, then,” Abraxas drawled.
“Attendance is still undecided,” Tom said, exhaling smoke.
Abraxas smirked. “Watching them fight for scraps is half the fun.”
Paris. Ares. Mars. Ivander. The four who only sometimes earned their keep. Tom needed more than loyalty–he needed obedience. Clean lines. Predictable outcomes.
Not all of them were house-trained.
“I’m not interested in fun,” he said. “I’m interested in information. And yes—to your point—leverage.”
“He told Rowle the buyers were Hogwarts students. No names.”
“And you believed him?”
Abraxas shrugged.
Tom unfolded the scrap. The parchment was creased, the ink smeared in places—written fast and without care. The handwriting was jagged. Unrefined. Exactly how he imagined Rowle to be.
Black—
Pass this along to your little schoolboy chums. I want to meet.
–Rowle
It had arrived that afternoon. Malfoy passed it off in the library, tucked between pages of a Arithmancy book.
Rosalind hadn’t asked. She’d simply watched, tracked the exchange, registered the tension. She’d even watched Tom slip the note into his pocket and discard the library book. He didn’t bother hiding it from her.
That was her gift: restraint masquerading as detachment. Always watching, always listening.
However, once Abraxas had gone, she’d dragged her fingers along the inside of Tom’s thigh.
That was her other gift.
Keeping him just off-key. And always—always—paying attention.
Tom folded the note and tucked it into his coat.
“He wants something,” he said. “Otherwise, he wouldn’t waste time with theatrics.”
“Maybe he wants to scare us off,” Leo offered.
Tom let out a laugh. “Then he’s chosen the wrong tone. You don’t request an audience if you believe someone beneath you.”
“Do you think he knows about the others?” Abraxas asked. “The Compass. The Frame.”
“Unlikely. But he’ll be sniffing around.” Tom’s gaze lingered on the dark beyond the battlements. “Rowle’s a blunt instrument. But not a fool.”
Leo pressed a knuckle to his mouth, thoughtful. “He’ll expect a performance. Posturing. Something to confirm you’re worth the trouble.”
Tom smiled. It didn’t reach his eyes. “Good. Let him expect it.”
The wind pushed through the tower, tugging at the hem of Tom’s coat. Below, a clock chimed once.
Abraxas reached for another cigarette, then set the case down without lighting one. “What do you want from him?”
Tom leaned forward, forearms against the railing. “Confirmation that power is paying attention.”
He turned the Coin between two fingers. The metal caught the moonlight.
“We’ve moved quietly,” he said. “But that only lasts so long. Eventually, the men at the table want to know who’s knocking.”
“And we’re knocking?” Leo asked.
Tom didn’t look at him. “We’re already slipping through the front gate.”
The witch.
The artifacts.
The power.
Silence stretched. Then Leo cleared his throat. “Should we do a status check?”
Tom flicked the dog end over the railing. The ember traced a brief arc, then vanished into the dark. He turned, hands slipping into his coat pockets.
The witch.
He yanked on the thread in his chest. Harder than usual, not like the gentle tugs meant to keep her attuned. This was a summons.
Come and play, Rosalind.
Truthfully, he was tired of her calling it a tether. All week, he’d corrected her. Thread, he coached. Channel. She only blinked at him, amused. But the night before—when she’d climbed into his lap and unbuttoned his shirt—she’d placed her palm over his chest and said it.
Channel.
Tom cleared his throat and turned to Leo.
“Coin?”
He ran a thumb over the edge in his pocket. “On me at all times.”
“Updated notes: mirrored wounds. Any pain or injury inflicted on the subject rebounds to the owner. Can’t be healed by charms or potions.”
Leo tapped his quill against the parchment and looked up. Abraxas glanced over as well.
“How did you heal it, Tom?”
He thought of the starburst scars on his chest and thigh. Her hands. Her magic.
A Madonna, kneeling.
He smiled. “A different sort of magic.”
Abraxas raised an eyebrow but said nothing. Leo swallowed, ink blooming in the corner of the page. He opened his mouth to press, then thought better of it.
“Healing on a need-to-know basis,” he muttered.
Abraxas sighed and lit another cigarette. Tom leaned back against the stone.
“The Compass?” Leo asked.
“No updates,” Tom said. “Since none of you harbor hostility in your hearts.”
“And the Frame?”
Silence fell again.
It was working. The Frame.
He’d seen it the moment she walked into the party on Friday.
Hair pinned the way it was in the dreams. Her mouth pink. Eyes smoky. The dress—silver silk, low-backed, clinging to her hips like it had been made for his hands. She’d overdressed for a party on the docks.
Not that he minded.
And the scent. Neroli and opium. The perfume he’d dreamed on her skin—the one she’d never worn before.
Holy oil and vice. Ritual and sin.
She’d walked in dressed for him. As if she’d remembered something he had never said aloud. Like she’d seen the dreams he hadn’t confirmed she was having.
The question wasn’t whether the Frame was bleeding into her sleep. It was—why had she done it?
Why had she dressed for him?
Was she doing it for him?
Or was it happening to her?
Because if it wasn’t her at all—if he’d kissed her and kissed the curse instead—then the bleed had already gone too deep.
If he was being true, he hadn’t been certain what would happen when he slid that photograph of Rosalind into the Watcher’s Frame. Only that it had been the next step. The next move in the game.
She’d figure it out. She always did. And when she came for him—knives out, eyes clear—it would be all worth it.
That was the point, wasn’t it? Break her just enough to see if she’d still bite.
“Er… Tom?”
He blinked. The image of her in the garden still burned behind his eyes.
“The Frame?” Leo asked again. His cheeks were red.
Abraxas looked away.
“Under observation,” Tom said.
In public, she performed. The Rosalind Sallow mask. Lovely. Clever. All wit and watchfulness, the kind of girl who always seemed to know more than she let on. In private, she gave in—all heat and no hesitation.
They’d gotten each other off three times since the garden. Tom wasn’t prone to frenzy, but with her, something always broke loose.
Saturday morning, he’d waited by the pitch. She was flushed from training, pink at the collar. On the walk back, they found an empty shed. It had been all hands. Unfinished threats.
That evening, they left a party still bristling from an argument they never finished. In the Undercroft, she threw a blanket over the blank portrait without explanation. Just a glance over her shoulder, then the cover drawn tight—like something might’ve been watching.
He hadn’t asked. She’d silenced him the moment she dropped to her knees.
That was always the way with her. Just when he thought he had her, she twisted the knife. It thrilled him. It infuriated him. It made him want to chain her to the altar and call it love.
Do you mind? she’d asked, hand on his belt.
Did he mind? Did he fucking mind? It was maddening. I don’t come from head, he’d said. But you can try, sweetheart.
She didn’t just try. Rosalind, like she often did, proved him wrong.
Then this afternoon, ten minutes of her hand on his thigh. That look on her face. Dare me .
He snapped. Dropped to his knees in an abandoned Arithmancy classroom. She’d finally pushed him off, laughing.
I’ve already come twice, Tom.
He looked up. Leo and Abraxas were still watching.
Tom narrowed his eyes. “Updates to follow,” he said. Final.
Leo nodded. Abraxas sighed.
“I suppose I ought to get going,” he said, brushing off his trousers. “I promised Dru I’d look over her Potions work.”
He flicked his cigarette over the railing and shot Leo a familiar look. Then left the tower. Leo didn’t move, eyes still on the parchment.
Everyone knew Leo fancied Druella, but her latest tryst with Abraxas had landed harder than the others. Tom had seen the desperate play at the Boathouse party—Leo flirting with Nicasia, trying to get a reaction. A little attention.
She’d socked him in the nose. It still hadn’t healed straight.
Leo’s grip on the quill tightened. “You can tell me the details about the Frame,” he said. “I won’t tell the others. It would help to understand it better.”
Tom didn’t speak. He could feel Rosalind nearing, probably at the base of the tower now, passing Abraxas on the stairs.
“Time to go, Nott.”
Leo lifted his chin. “I can make my own observations.”
Tom raised a brow. “Can you?”
“I’m not asking to interfere,” Leo said. “Just to understand.”
“And what would you do with your observations, Nott?”
Leo hesitated. “Catalog them. Track symptoms. Note triggers. Magic has rules. It’s people who lie. I’d be able to understand exactly what was happening with the Frame—”
Tom studied him. The flick of the quill. The tension in his jaw. Druella had never taken him seriously. She’d fucked all of them—except Leo. He’d spent two years on the outskirts, begging for scraps.
Greenshields made him matter.
Tom didn’t smile, though he wanted to. Instead, he reached for the railing and let the silence stretch.
“Later,” he said. It cost nothing. And kept Leo exactly where he belonged.
The thread pulled tight. She was here.
Leo gathered his things and left. The door closed behind him.
“He seems twitchy.”
Tom turned.
Rosalind stood before him in the same outfit she’d worn earlier: plum blouse, slate satin skirt, T-heels that made her look like she had somewhere better to be. Her hair was perfectly pinned again. He remembered pulling it loose in the classroom, remembered the way it tangled in his fingers as she moaned against his mouth.
“He’s always twitchy,” Tom said, smiling faintly. “Smoke?”
“You don’t even have to ask,” she said, crossing to him.
Tom drew two cigarettes from his case. Handed her one and kept the other. She waited, thumb already lit with conjured flame. Magic curled at her fingertips.
They inhaled together. Blew smoke together.
“You called?” she asked, head tilted. Chin down, eyes up. “I’m not a dog, you know.”
Tom exhaled through his nose, gaze on her mouth. “I didn’t say you were.”
She stepped beside him at the railing, gaze sweeping the lawn below. Moonlight caught on the edge of her cheekbone.
“But you did call,” she said.
They stood in silence for a beat. Two weapons cooling, a breath between instincts to claw, to bite, to fuck, to run.
Her skirt shifted in the breeze as she took another drag. She was the girl from his sleep, made flesh.
Instead of telling her that, he reached for her. His fingers slid around her waist. Rosalind stepped into him. He fit around her, pressing her hips to the railing, chest to her spine.
He smoked over her shoulder. She stared out at the sky.
“Studying going well?” he asked.
She snorted. “As if you care.”
“I don’t,” he said. “But I like hearing you talk.”
“Flattery?” she said dryly. “You’re slipping.”
“That wasn’t flattery. It was a fact,” Tom said, tapping ash from his cigarette. “You’re better at it than most people. Talking.”
Rosalind arched a brow. “Than you?”
“You’re in a different category entirely.”
She took a drag, eyes on him, unreadable. “You know,” she said, exhaling smoke to the side, “you’d make an excellent politician.”
“I have no interest in office,” he said. “Only influence.”
She hummed, a sound too smooth to be accidental. “Here I thought you wanted to be Minister of Magic one day.”
“Think bigger.”
Her lip curved. “Prime Minister?”
“Bigger.” He slid his free hand to her waist, then lower, palm settling at the curve of her belly. She shifted just enough to let him feel it—the friction, the awareness, the way his body responded before he gave it permission.
Half hard, and she’d only wiggled.
“Hmm,” she said. “Bigger sounds like an awful lot of work, Tom.”
She was teasing him, yes, but more than that—she was daring him to admit his ambitions.
He met her gaze without flinching. Offered her truth without details:
“Yes.”
Her hips rolled slightly, catching him. If she stepped away now, he didn’t know what he’d do with the restraint. Tear the railing from the wall. Pin her against the stone and make her say his name over and over again.
Then—lightly, because she always knew how to puncture the moment—she said, “You want a lot of things. Ruler of everything. Keeper of my flower.”
He tilted his head back and laughed. Her flower . Fucking hell.
“I do,” he said. “A long list of things. Including your flower.”
Her breath hitched, the tiny falter before the mask slid back into place. She turned to face him fully, her spine pressed against the iron rail, and gave him that look. The one that made men kneel. Chin lowered, eyes up, lashes thick and unblinking. It wasn’t coquettish: it was a test.
And she knew exactly how close he was to failing it.
“Well,” she murmured. “You’ve got me for ten minutes. Better use them wisely.”
He didn’t have to wonder if this version of her was a performance. Or dictated. She was too quick, too present. Entirely herself. Rosalind Sallow was a flirt, after all.
Tom slipped a hand behind her neck and tilted her face up to his. The kiss he gave her wasn’t possessive or punishing. It was steady. Focused and certain.
Except—
Her mouth tasted like chocolate cake.
Tom didn’t still, his tongue still raked across hers.
Not just any cake. His cake.
The one they served once, maybe twice a year at Wool’s, when a matron remembered a birthday. Dense and dark, a cheap bakery sheet cake they scraped from the edges of the tin while no one was watching.
He didn’t stop kissing her. Her fingers curled into his sweater. His mind went blank.
Rosalind Sallow tasted like chocolate cake from the shop near the orphanage. Something no one else in his life could possibly know.
His knees nearly gave, so he kissed her harder.
He hadn’t thought of that cake in years. He hadn’t let himself.
And she couldn’t have known.
He pulled back, just a fraction. She whined in protest, and he dragged his tongue along the roof of her mouth.
Yes. The cake. It was real.
She stilled. Then laughed, her eyes catching his.
A moment later, she pulled him back down to her. Kissed him deeper. Twisted her tongue against his, hands sliding to the waistband of his trousers.
And Tom kissed her back.
The witch who tasted like chocolate cake from his childhood. Who looked like his dreams.
Who was his.
-.-
Monday .
Rosalind sat at the vanity in the Ravenclaw dormitory and brushed her hair. She’d lost track of the strokes somewhere between performing loveliness and habit.
The dormitory windows were fogged from hot showers. Classical music crackled from the record player. It was Parisa’s pick.
“Fauré,” she’d said. “Après un rêve. It’s about a dream you don’t want to wake up from.”
Rosalind had resisted the urge to roll her eyes, mostly for Parisa’s sake.
Gwen sprawled across her bed with one of Rosalind’s Muggle paperbacks. Parisa sat cross-legged on the rug in a nightshirt, painting her toenails a shade of glossy, defiant red. Candace and Betsy were arguing in low voices about who’d borrowed whose blouse, neither of them looking up from their manicures. Rosalind had no doubt it was her blouse. But she’d always found it ugly. Let them fight for scraps.
“I’m telling you,” Rosalind said, waving her brush like a wand. “ Persuasion is superior. It has restraint. Tragedy. Boats.”
Gwen pressed the worn copy of Sense and Sensibility to her chest. “You’re insane. Colonel Brandon is right there. Quiet devotion? A tragic backstory?”
“It’s about longing, not posturing. Wentworth actually says what he feels. Wait until you read his letter—you’ll be ruined.”
“What girl doesn’t want to be ruined?” Gwen snorted, sarcastic.
Rosalind just smiled. She couldn’t relate.
She should have felt normal. This was a familiar scene—girls, gossip, polish drying in the air. And for a moment, it almost worked.
But something was off. Just a fraction. Like a beauty mark in the wrong place.
She’d applied her creams already. One for the eyes. One for the cheekbones. One for whatever else the shopgirl had promised it would fix.
Or had she done the cheekbones first?
The jars gleamed in the light, glassy and identical. She stared until they blurred. The brush stilled in her hand, suspended mid-stroke.
Her nightdress slipped off one shoulder—soft blue, trimmed in lace.
Then she resumed brushing. Smooth, mechanical, like she could convince herself nothing had interrupted her. The mirror in front of her was still fogged.
She frowned and leaned forward, exhaling softly against the glass. No change.
“Some of us are still hung up on Mr. Darcy,” Parisa said behind her. “Some of us are Elizabeth Bennets in Ravenclaw uniforms.”
Rosalind and Gwen both snorted. Gwen picked up a stuffed kneazle from her bed and tossed it at Parisa’s head.
“You’re not Elizabeth,” Gwen said.
“You’re Mary,” Rosalind added, grinning. “And I say that with love.”
They laughed. Light, like nothing could touch them.
Rosalind lifted a hand towel and wiped it across the mirror. Still nothing—only the faint suggestion of a girl behind the glass.
The conversation kept rolling, cheerful and unrefined.
The tether—fuck, thread —pulled faintly in her chest. Familiar and reassuring.
Tom was probably down in the dungeons, buried in Goblin Banking Volume Eight Hundred or whatever else got him hard.
Stupid. She flushed anyway.
They’d been hooking up constantly—every spare minute stolen behind locked doors. Just a few hours ago, his hand had been up her skirt in the prefect’s office. Maybe it was the threat of Nicasia’s arrival, or maybe it was just the way he looked at her, but it had taken everything in Rosalind not to drag him to his magical little room and—
Well. They still hadn’t had sex. Not really. Not sex sex . And at this point, she wasn’t even sure what they were waiting for.
She’d had a rule once. Something about control. Timing. Dignity, maybe. Whatever it was, it was gone now. Or they were so close that she couldn’t see it anymore. The longer they waited, the less she remembered what she was waiting for. When she was with Tom, everything else blurred. The fog lifted just enough to let her breathe. It felt like being herself again. Or at least, something close enough to fake it.
“If anyone is Elizabeth, it’s Rosalind—”
“Rosalind is so obviously Jane—”
Not everything with Tom was perfect.
There were the dreams.
She tried not to let them bother her—tried not to care that they weren’t hers to begin with. Still, they were getting harder to ignore. What started as flashes had taken on a shape: gowns with slits too high, voices pitched too low, her body moving like a starlet on a soundstage. An actress who always looked back over her shoulder.
A girl who knew how to let the light catch her eyes just so.
He dreamed of her on a dolly track—one long, unbroken shot, as if the whole world existed just to look at her. It was her, rewritten.
Lauren Bacall in Rosalind Sallow’s body. Exactly what Tom Riddle would conjure if left to his own devices.
That had been last week.
This week, his memories came next. Flashes. Flickers. Impressions that caught under her fingers like splinters. A birthday. Stale chocolate cake with one candle that wouldn’t light. Kneeling on dried peas, hands behind his back, thighs welted by a leather strap. The sour sting of another boy’s laughter as he took what wasn’t his—books, sweets, a picture Rosalind couldn’t see but felt, deep in her chest, was of his mother.
Quieter than memories. She’d woken up crying twice.
She dragged the brush through her hair again, slower this time. Then froze and stared. Hadn’t she already stopped? Did she put her brush away in the drawer?
Her heart knocked once against her ribs. The mirror remained fogged. Behind it, a shape hung suspended—a second too slow, a breath behind her own. Out of sync.
Maybe she was tired. Maybe the mirror just needed a charm. Maybe she was spiraling again. It could have been ancient magic poisoning, right? She needed to do the third trial. Maybe she was waiting too long again.
She lifted the brush and smoothed her hair. Let the music anchor her.
The strings swelled, then receded. The girls blurred to static.
The air thickened.
Then came the scent.
Not lavender soap. Not jasmine shampoo. Not the creams or the oil she’d pressed into her skin. Something heavier—powdered and sweet.
Vanilla.
Velvet Dreams.
Rosalind stopped breathing.
It was everywhere—clinging to the air, sinking into her wrists, coating the back of her throat. The brush slipped from her hand. She stared into the fogged mirror, but there was nothing to see. No shape. No face. Only the scent.
The scent of the woman Tom fucked the night of the second trial.
Her fingers clenched. Her chest burned. The scent pressed down like hands—too much, too thick, too sweet. Where was it coming from? Her skin? Her hair? Her magic?
She coughed. Gagged.
She turned her head—
—and the dormitory vanished.
A hotel room blinked into view. Small, dark, still. Blackout curtains sealed the windows. A streetlamp buzzed somewhere beyond the glass. A cigarette smoldered in a dish by the bed, the smoke rising slow and silver toward the ceiling like it had nowhere better to be.
On the sofa: two figures, tangled in silhouette.
A woman straddled a man, knees braced wide across his lap. Her spine was arched, hands planted on his chest, hips moving in a rhythm that was too steady to be new. Her head tipped back as she rode him. Her hair caught the light. His hands—one gripped the armrest, the other clawed at her waist. His mouth opened like he’d forgotten how to hold it closed.
She didn’t see his face.
She didn’t want to.
Her heart slammed once, then dropped. She already knew.
This wasn’t a dream. It was Tom’s memory.
It was real. It had happened.
The thought slid straight through her. Her stomach twisted. Her throat closed.
She gripped the chair until her knuckles went white. The woman kept writhing. She couldn’t watch this--
When she opened her eyes, the hotel was gone.
Gwen was watching her from the bed. The mirror was still fogged. The music had picked back up.
But her pulse was racing. Her palms were damp. And the scent—
—was still there.
“You alright, Ros?” Gwen asked. It was Gwen’s voice, but wrong. Stripped of its usual warmth.
Rosalind looked down. Her hands were trembling. The brush was still in her grip, white-knuckled, like she was bracing for something.
“Yeah,” she said. “Just… thought I heard something.”
Parisa and Gwen exchanged a glance. Like they were trying to decide whether she was acting or having another breakdown.
Rosalind turned back to the mirror.
The fog had cleared.
And the woman staring back wasn’t her.
Older—thirty-five, maybe. Cheekbones carved sharn. Skin like lacquer. Blood-red lips. Hair in long, glossy waves, too perfect to touch. She wore a violet silk dress, plunging and decadent. Like she'd been conjured from a lost film noir.
Evelyn DuVall tilted her head and smiled.
Rosalind screamed.
Gwen flew off the bed, wand already in hand. Parisa scrambled forward, knocking over the nail polish as she crawled to her side.
The reflection hadn’t changed.
Evelyn kept smiling. The same smile from the trial. The one she’d worn on the velvet sofa, drink in hand, waiting for Rosalind to fold.
Rosalind stared at her future self. Her dark side. Her greatest desire.
Evelyn DuVall. Beautiful. Terrible. Cursed.
“What is it?” someone called.
She barely heard them. Evelyn DuVall winked.
Rosalind’s stomach flipped. The wink wasn’t flirtatious—it was a promise. A threat.
Or worse: recognition.
And then—
Evelyn shattered.
One clean crack. Then another. A bloom of fractures spread like rot across the glass.
Evelyn’s face multiplied. Ten. Twenty. Each one smiling. Each one wrong.
The cracks deepened. The reflections blinked—first one, then another. Some furious. Some hollow. Some looked like they were about to speak.
She wanted to look away, but she couldn’t. Each face was a possibility. Each one could be her.
The lights flickered once. Her pulse roared—loud enough to drown the room.
And finally, the mirror cleared.
Just Rosalind. Pale. Wide-eyed. Her hair clung damp to her shoulders. The creams had dried stiff on her skin—too thick, too white. Like she’d been layering them all night, trying to hold something in.
But her face—
Her face didn’t look like hers anymore.
For a breath, she thought she was the one behind the glass. Trapped. Watching herself move from the wrong side of the frame.
“Ros?” Gwen’s voice again, closer now. “Rosalind—hey, look at me—what happened?”
Rosalind blinked. Her hand was still trembling around the brush. She opened her mouth, but nothing came out.
Parisa was speaking too, but the words were blurred, muffled, as if they were coming from underwater.
She laughed, but it came out thin. Like something Evelyn might’ve practiced in the mirror.
“I think—I think I saw something,” she whispered.
Neither girl answered.
Rosalind looked back at the mirror. Her reflection stared back. Composed. Lovely. And smiling.
Just a little too much like Evelyn. Just enough to make her wonder if the mirror had gotten it wrong—or if she had.
-.-
Tuesday.
The corridor outside the Great Hall was warm with late afternoon sun. Tom leaned against the stone, coat folded over one arm, spine straight. He wasn’t smoking—yet—but the cigarette case in his pocket pressed like a promise.
He was waiting. They had a free block. She was late.
Students passed in waves—Ravenclaws, Hufflepuffs, one cluster of fourth-year Slytherin girls trying and failing not to look. They giggled behind their hands as they disappeared toward the Quad Courtyard, already forgetting him.
Iris Pemberley and Paloma Wind peeled off from the current and slowed beside him, flushed from the sun.
“Bit warm for April, isn’t it?” the shy one asked, fanning herself with a folded sheet of notes. “The upper towers are sweltering.”
“Merrythought hasn’t opened a window in weeks,” the other muttered. “It’s like she wants us to faint.”
Tom didn’t look at them. “Fewer students. Fewer exams to score.”
The girls laughed. Tom could barely tell them apart.
“Speaking of exams,” one ventured, “is it true that if you fail the preliminary Occlumency test, you’ve only got a ten percent chance of passing your NEWTs?”
“I wouldn’t worry,” Tom said mildly. “You’ll all do perfectly well if you sleep less and shield more.”
One of them laughed again. She batted her lashes. He had the sudden, clinical urge to hex them shut.
He shifted, weight tipping forward—eyes already down the corridor.
Rosalind stood with her back to the room, a few paces from the far wall near the eastern windows. Her silhouette was framed in gold, all long limbs and restraint, her chin tilted slightly as if listening to something just beyond.
He let himself look.
She looked lovely again. Too lovely for a Tuesday. Too lovely for this corridor, this castle, these idiotic girls still fanning themselves beside him. Her silhouette caught the light at an angle that felt intentional.
He couldn’t see her eyes, not from this distance, but he knew the look that would be in them. Bright. Daring. The kind that gleamed just before she said something cruel.
And then—she laughed.
His gaze sharpened.
It was soft. Light. Conversational. The kind of laugh that was exchanged between friends over something offhand and clever, something unexpected.
Except that she was alone.
She tilted her head as if listening. Nodded once, like something had been clarified. Then smiled faintly, almost fondly, and raised a hand to tuck her hair behind her ear. A beat later, she tilted her chin just so, clean and practiced flirtation.
The realization struck before the thought formed: a wrongness that landed behind his ribs and began to spread.
Something was wrong.
“Is…” one of the girls murmured. “Is Sallow alright?”
She wasn’t simply distracted. She was gone. The mind behind her eyes was turned slightly askew, ticking on some delay he couldn’t calculate—like a spell looping half a second behind its cast. Her gaze flicked toward the stone as if something had whispered to her from inside it. She tilted her head. Smiled. Nodded again, as though the wall had just clarified its position.
This was not what the Frame was built to do.
It was meant to sharpen her, not slacken her spine. To provoke, not pacify. Let her dream of him, yes. Let her want, remember, burn. But this—this vacancy, this strange obedience—
He said, “She’s fine. Just in her head,” and didn’t look at them again.
At his voice, Rosalind turned her face slightly, pausing like she’d heard a stage direction.
And then he was moving.
He crossed the corridor in quick strides. His hand flexed once midair—toward a wand, or her wrist, or the unseen cord between them that had clearly slipped. He needed to feel it again. Anchor her. Anchor himself.
She shifted as he approached. Her weight tilted forward slightly, as though she were about to lean in—not toward him, but toward the wall. Her lips parted. Another nod. Another silent question.
His witch. Nodding to stone, laughing at phantoms, listening— obeying —something that wasn’t him.
“Rosalind,” he said, low and even.
She didn’t turn, not until he was nearly on her, close enough to touch. Then—
“Oh! There you are,” she said, voice bright. As if she just stepped onto her mark on stage.
He grabbed her wrist.
She blinked up at him, wide-eyed and luminous. For a moment—half a breath—there was nothing behind her gaze but light. Then her smile reappeared like clockwork, pulled from behind her teeth.
Her perfume reached him a second late. Not the usual jasmine. Not the expensive neroli and opium blend from his dreams. This was sweeter—vanilla, of all things. Innocuous. Insipid. Something borrowed from a dormmate or plucked from the back of a vanity without thinking.
She fell into step beside him as he turned them away from the wall. Like nothing had ever fractured. As they turned the corner, he glanced back. Wind and Pemberley were still standing there. Silent now. No giggles.
“Talking to Paloma Wind?” Rosalind said, linking her arm through his. “Poor thing. She’s such a cow.”
He looked down at her. Her voice was practiced. Her gait flawless. Every piece of her turned perfectly outward—no tremor, no hesitation, not even a flicker of whatever had just gripped her moments ago.
He wasn’t sure if she knew it was happening. If she could feel her own outline softening.
Tom just smiled at her.
It was easier than admitting the truth:
That he’d slipped her picture into the Frame not out of strategy, but weakness.
That he’d done it on instinct, on hunger. Because he wanted her. Because the thought of her leaving again—choosing something else, someone else—had felt unbearable. Like it might unmake him.
He told himself it had been about control. That it was a test. A precaution.
But it wasn’t.
It was possession. Maybe permanence.
His witch. His prophecy.
Rosalind rolled her eyes playfully. “I see she’s already gotten to you.”
Tom studied her face again. All there.
She’d better stay that way. Or he would drag her back from the brink—painted fingernail by painted fingernail.
-.-
Wednesday.
By Wednesday, Rosalind could no longer pretend something wasn’t wrong.
She was unraveling—but not in the slow, lovely way that might earn sympathy. Not in the artful descent of Bette Davis on screen, all eyes and violins. No, this was the Frances Farmer kind. The real kind, with blank corridors, locked doors. Lots and lots of pills.
Time kept slipping. Velvet Dreams lingered in the seams of her uniform. She could no longer tell if she was moving through the castle or being moved by it. Up felt sideways. Left was right. Iris told her in Defense that she'd seen her speaking to a stone column the day before.
Not ideal.
But that wasn’t the worst of it. The worst part was pretending, pretending to the girls, to Merrythought, to Slughorn, to the portraits that lined the stairwells. Holding the mask in place with an overcompensating amount of will and wit.
As long as the voice still sounded like hers, they wouldn't look too closely.
At least when she was with Tom, her brain slid nicely back into place. He’d be the hardest to fool anyway–
But now she had to fool Dumbledore, too.
She didn’t remember how she’d ended up in his office, only the quiet pressure of his hand at her elbow as he caught her after dinner. His usual light smile behind his graying red beard. Now she was seated in one of the armchairs across from his desk, saucer and tea cup in hand.
The fire behind her crackled. The portraits behind him pretended not to watch.
“The spring sun seems to have reached us early,” she said lightly. Her voice came out even and composed. As if this was something she and Dumbledore usually spoke about. The fucking weather.
Dumbledore regarded her for a long moment, then poured another cup. “You’ve always preferred the moon.”
“I don’t mind it anymore,” she replied with a faint smile. “It keeps the castle quiet. Everyone goes outside. No one comes in.”
He didn’t answer.
To her left, a book shifted on a shelf. The fire popped suddenly.
“How are your friends?” he asked at last.
“Good,” she said brightly. “Busy. Parisa’s locked in the library, Gwen is now seeing Thistlewood—well, not now , it’s been a bit—and Varinia is…”
She faltered.
Varinia was what?
“—on the pitch,” she finished smoothly. “Training. As always.”
She kept the smile in place. Her hands rested lightly on her lap. The tea steamed between them, untouched.
Dumbledore leaned back in his chair. He simply watched her with those kind, pale eyes that had always seen too much.
“And your brother, I hear he’s joining the Bats next year. You two had quite the celebration in the Great Hall this morning.”
Benedict was joining the Bats? Next year? But he was only sixteen; he’d only just started revising for his OWLs…
Oh Merlin. Oh fuck . She forgot that? She time slipped that?
“Rosalind,” he said gently. “You’re very far away today.”
She blinked. Once. Then again.
She looked down at her tea. The handle was not where she’d left it, like the cup had spun 180 degrees on the saucer.
A hand settled on her shoulder. It was familiar. Possessive. Fingers slender and pale and–
She turned, but Tom wasn’t there.
The fire roared louder. Her skin went cold.
“Rosalind?”
Her gaze snapped back to Dumbledore. He hadn’t moved, but something in his face had—his eyes, no longer gentle, had turned sharp as glass. His fingers were trailing through the steam coming off his tea.
“Are you alright?”
She stood, meaning to set the saucer and cup onto his desk. But she stumbled, hitting the edge. Both fell, almost in slow motion, and shattered onto the floor at her shoes.
But it wasn’t tea staining her little pink flats.
It was– blood.
No. No, it couldn’t be. Yet as Rosalind stared, there it was–blood. Red and raw. Like the blood in the snow after she’d killed those two Highland wizards and–
“I should go,” she said. Someone should give her an award for her acting performance this week.
Dumbledore hadn’t moved from his seat. His face was grave. So, maybe no award, then?
“Rosalind,” he said calmly.
She waved her hand at the mess, and the saucer and teacup reassembled themselves back on Dumbledore’s desk. “Nothing is wrong, Professor,” she said.
“I never said anything was wrong,” he murmured. “But you just did.”
She stilled. Out of the corner of her eye, the fire burned silver-blue.
“Professor–”
“Is this ancient magic?” he asked, leaning forward. “Or him?”
“Him?” she stuttered, stumbling back for a second.
Stay away from Tom Riddle at all costs.
“Rosalind,” he said again. How many times had he said her name? Was he trying to ground her? Push her into reality? “Do you mind if I try something?”
And then his hand was moving toward his wand, placed on his desk.
Rosalind shook her head. No. No. No. No.
“Please don’t,” she said. “I’m just… I’m tired. I’ve barely been sleeping. I think I might be coming down with something.”
And then–
Rosalind was seated in the chair again. Her hands were on the saucer. Tea was back in the cup.
Her gaze snapped back to Dumbledore. He was–in the same position as before. Fingers trailing through the steam in his tea.
“Are you alright?”
Like she’d slipped back in time. Or maybe it hadn’t happened yet, or–
“Perfectly fine, Professor,” she said, smiling again. Blinking again. “Maybe it’s the sudden sunny weather. It doesn’t agree with me.”
Dumbledore nodded, slowly.
Then–
“I promise I won’t tell your grandmother you started the trials,” he said. “I do appreciate you sharing that with me. And if you ever need any help—”
She froze.
She told him?
When? How? She asked him not to tell Selene— Merlin. How bad was it? How much had slipped through?
She couldn’t be here. Not if he was watching. Not if he could see it.
She placed her saucer and cup on his desk delicately. Careful not to miss this time. Then she stood, smoothing her skirt.
“Thank you, Professor. And thank you for the tea.”
He nodded once. But the way he looked at her—it wasn’t only concern. It was recognition.
“Try to get some sleep, Rosalind,” he said. “Bad dreams are louder when we ignore them.”
She smiled and nodded. Gave the performance he needed to let her leave. But when the door shut behind her, she collapsed against the wall.
So this was it.
Not the slow spiral of a tragic heroine. The other kind. The kind where they pat your hand and pass the form around. Where they smile as they lock the door.
He was going to write to Selene. She knew it.
The corridor was empty. The castle too bright. Her limbs didn’t feel like hers anymore.
She pushed off the wall and walked.
Somewhere….
Time shifted.
Stretched….
The stairs looped. The portraits whispered. A suit of armor tilted its head as she passed.
And Rosalind Sallow drifted somewhere far, far away.
Suddenly… she wasn’t sure what day it was. Or where she was going.
Only that she needed to keep moving.
And then—
-.-
Somewhere. Sometime.
Rosalind dreamt of a picture frame.
She didn’t remember walking into the room. There weren’t walls. Just endless darkness, and a desk, alone in the middle of the void.
Small. Iron. Maybe three inches across, five down.
It sat in a velvet-lined drawer that opened without her having to touch it. It was dark and claustrophobic, like a coffin lined with silk.
The frame buzzed softly—no, hummed —like it was alive.
It was whispering, but not in words she understood. But she could feel her name behind its latch.
She leaned closer and knew —with the same unshakeable certainty of a hex already cast—
Her photograph was inside.
Watched.
A mirror that only worked one way. A trap disguised as a portrait.
Something was looking back.
Then–
Something flickered in the glass. A pale hand, a familiar jaw, eyes she knew too well.
He was behind her.
He had been behind her the whole time.
Rosalind spun, but the room was black and dark.
And she was alone with the Frame.
Her heart raced. Her hands shook.
She tried to shut the drawer, but it wouldn’t close.
Rosalind screamed , shoving at the drawer.
She slammed it. Punched it.
Kicked until her heel cracked wood.
The velvet lining tore beneath her nails, but it wouldn’t close.
It wouldn’t close.
It would only watch.
-.-
Later…
Light filtered through her eyelids. Warm. Too golden for morning.
Rosalind opened her eyes slowly. The ceiling above her was high and vaulted. She knew the pattern of the beams—she’d traced them with her eyes through fevers and hexes, through ancient magic tremors that left her shaking in the sheets.
The Hospital Wing.
Her mouth was dry. Her head ached, dull and deep, like a bruise beneath her skull. She shifted to sit up, to find her bearings, and—
A hand caught hers.
Tom.
He sat beside the bed as if he’d always been there. One foot was balanced on his knee, a book open in his lap. His sleeves were rolled, his tie loosened, and his hair—usually slick and curled just so—was loose, as if he’d pushed his fingers through it one too many times.
He looked relaxed. Or maybe someone playing the part of a boy at ease.
Relief softened his face the moment she looked at him.
She had never seen him look even remotely close to that expression. Ever.
“Easy,” he said gently, and leaned forward to guide her back onto the pillow. His hand lingered longer than necessary.
Her pulse thudded too fast in her throat. Something in her—her magic, maybe, or something deeper—bristled.
He smiled. It was warm.
Outside the open doorway, a group of second-year students passed by with a bouquet of wildflowers. One of them looked in and sighed, as if they were witnessing a fairytale.
“What happened?” she rasped. Her voice felt wrong in her throat—too dry, too far away. “I don’t… remember.”
“You fainted in Potions,” Tom said. “Yesterday.”
She stared at him.
“It’s Friday?”
He nodded once. “You’ve been asleep nearly a full day. The matron said you were magically exhausted. I nearly hexed Slughorn for sitting you near that burner.”
He said it with a smile. Light. Easy. Practiced.
Rosalind raised a hand to rub her eyes, but he was already moving, reaching for the water glass on the bedside table and placing it into her palm before she could even think to ask. His other hand steadied her elbow as she sat up.
Her fingers trembled around the glass. “The last thing I remember is…”
Coming out of Dumbledore’s office.
And then—
Nothing.
Her heart began to pound.
“What is happening to me?” she asked, voice too small.
“Drink,” he said.
She obeyed. The water helped her throat, but not the heat rising in her chest, nor the vague nausea building in her gut, nor the sense that something was still watching.
She set the glass down with more force than she meant to.
“You’ve been here all day?” she asked, settling herself against the headboard. The hospital gown felt scratchy on her skin. She wondered if she looked as hollow as she felt, or if her magic was still covering for her, smoothing her edges and making her lovely.
Tom leaned back in his chair. “And yesterday. They made me leave overnight.”
She looked at him. Really looked.
The loosened tie. The sleeves. The half-read book. All of it so perfectly undone.
Rosalind knew better. He’d styled himself into this.
“Tom,” she said, reaching for his hand. She wanted comfort. She wanted something. But nothing felt right. Everything felt–
He took it and squeezed.
“There’s something wrong with me.”
“I know,” he said. “But we’ll fix it.”
The words were soft, but something in them clipped—like they’d been practiced. Like they’d been said already, somewhere else. She searched his face. He was being kind. Gentle. Attentive.
Performative. Not Tom Riddle.
She didn’t let go of his hand.
“Do you think it’s my—” she hesitated, glanced toward the curtain, lowered her voice—“my magic?”
He reached up with his other hand and brushed a piece of hair from her cheek. “Most likely.”
His fingers lingered. He looked at her for too long.
Then he said, “You’ve been dreaming again.”
“Yes,” she said. And then–
Her breath caught. She hadn’t told him that. At least, she didn’t remember telling him anything. Not about this week. Not about the drawer. Not about the scent. Not about the reflection.
He was still looking at her. Still smiling. Soft. Sweet.
Wrong.
Rosalind blinked, and the image flashed behind her eyes—
The Frame.
The whisper of her name. The glint of glass. His reflection in the dark.
(He’d been there. Behind her. Watching.)
Rosalind didn’t flinch. She kept her expression steady as Tom leaned in and brushed his lips across her knuckles.
Nausea gripped her stomach. Her magic surged inside her. A soundless scream. A warning.
Rosalind smiled softly.
“Did you miss me?” she asked, tilting her head just so. “You didn’t leave my side.”
“Not until they forced me,” he said. His eyes met hers, brighter now, relieved.
“Poor baby,” she said, resting her hand on his knee. Her thumb traced a slow circle.
Tom smiled. That private, pleased smile he wore when he thought the world was bending in his direction.
Then—light, careless, cruel in the way only he could be—he said, “I knew you’d come back to me.”
For a breath—a single, breaking breath—her heart cracked open. And she knew, with ancient magic-laced clarity–
Tom had done this to her.
And he was waiting for her to figure it out.
…fuck.