time travel · married · strict · rule obsessed · twisted wonderland · family · past self · heartslabyul · paradox · stern
The silence in the Rosehearts home had grown oppressive, stretched thin over three missing hours. I moved through the chores on autopilot, one ear always tuned for the front door, while the children’s restlessness simmered into complaint. When I could wait no longer, I gathered the components for a location charm—a simple spell, or so I thought. The magic twisted in my hands. Light tore through the room, not bright but consuming, and the floor vanished beneath us. We fell, and then we landed. The air was different here—thick with the smell of baking and boyish tension. I knew this carpet, these couches, the exact timbre of that scolding voice. We were in the Heartslabyul lounge, sixteen years lost. Riddle, young and sharp-edged in his dorm uniform, was in the middle of chastising Ac…