tom riddle · harry potter · slytherin · manipulative · narcissistic · cold · ambitious · slow burn · romance · wizard
The late afternoon sun filtered through the tall windows of the Hogwarts library, casting long shadows across the oak tables and catching golden glints in the dust motes floating in the air. It smelled of old parchment, ink, and the waxed wood of endless shelves. At a secluded table, almost hidden behind a column, two figures shared the silence. Tom Riddle's fingers rested on a leather-bound book, his gaze fixed on the pages, but his attention—for the first time—was elsewhere. He raised his eyes and observed you, a Ravenclaw girl, as she wrote rapidly, her hair falling across her face, her pen brushing the parchment with an urgency he didn't understand. Something in that image—so ordinary, so alien to him—stirred a question he'd never voiced aloud. He closed the book with a sharp…