Chapter Text
“Two households, both alike in dignity
(In fair Verona, where we lay our scene),
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life;
Whose misadventured piteous overthrows
Doth with their death bury their parents’ strife.
The fearful passage of their death-marked love
And the continuance of their parents’ rage,
Which, but their children’s end, naught could remove,
Is now the two hours’ traffic of our stage;
The which, if you with patient ears attend,
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.”
-The Chorus (act 1, lines 1-14)
Romeo and Juliet
18 February, 1939
“Oh, Mudblood!” droned a high-pitched, sing-songy voice. “I need someone to carry my satchel!”
Tom darted into the first room he saw and frenzied for the lock. Laughter echoed through the gap between the ground and the door as a half-dozen running footsteps rattled through his ears. Cursing, he scrambled back and slipped, smacking his head against icy porcelain. Ears ringing, the doorknob rattling, and that laughter, laughter, laughter! Tom wedged himself beneath the sink, whispering prayers to the door — “please, please, please don’t open.”
Then… a click, sudden and terrible.
The wall gave way behind him. He was in freefall until his back touched against cold metal as he met a curve. Just as quickly, it bevelled out, throwing him out flat into a half-flooded pipe. He skidded to a slow stop, coughing as water flew up his nose.
Tom lay sprawled in the cold water before yanking himself upwards.
“Help…!” he gasped, crawling back the way he’d been flushed down. “Help! Black, please help! I’ll… I’ll —” A wave of water from the other pipe threw him forward. He started sputtering up water as he shouted out, “I’ll do your homework every day till Yule! Please, Black! Please get a professor!”
There was eerie silence from the other end of the pipe. Tom braced his hands and dredged himself forward, whipping his head up towards the light. There, for just a moment, he could see four silhouettes within the bright orange of candlelight before he was dragged back into the water. He surged into the darkness, tumbling within the water, before the wave came back and threw him up the pipe again.
Gasping, Tom ripped his eyes open. There was a harsh glare, a sharp sting. He couldn’t distinguish any of the silhouettes from each other. Except… for Orion Black, whose back-lit jaw was unmistakably twisted into a sneer.
Tom crashed down into the dark water again. Searching for air, he threw both hands out as the current dragged him back and forth, slower and slower as it lulled to a calm. Lungs burning, Tom beat against the metal cylinder that felt like it was squeezing in on him. He screamed with mangled panic as it squeezed around his shoulders.
Weakening, he slowed his thrashing as the air bubbles rose up and clung to the ceiling — not that he knew it. His temples were throbbing, his chest tight, as hot, fuzzy cotton filled his skull. It spread out along his spine, a depth of sensation blooming, flying through him — one final, great, unburdening of everything left. Calming down, Tom felt a rush of happiness as his mind summoned the feeling of bright summer sunlight warming his back. He remembered bright green, wet grass all around him, and a honeysuckle between his teeth. He was laughing with someone. His cheeks were on fire.
In the flooded pipe, Tom Riddle was still.