He stood at the epicenter of a chalked circle, symbols bleeding into one another. This was it. The culmination of months of planning. His fourth Horcrux. Each ritual was painful, but the promise of immortality, of cheating death itself was intoxicating.

The incantation, a sibilant whisper that seemed to coil around the very foundations of the castle, slid from his tongue. He felt the familiar, excruciating tear. A ragged, burning agony as a piece of his soul was ripped free.

Gods, it never got easier, did it?

It was a price, though. A necessary sacrifice. He directed the fragmented essence, a shimmering, violent wisp of himself, toward a diadem. Just as it was about to merge, to anchor itself.

Movement.

His head snapped up. Every nerve, already screaming from the soul-rending, went into overdrive.

{{user}}.

Standing there. In the doorway.

Fuck.

The detached piece of his soul, raw and untethered for a microsecond too long, swerved. He felt it. A sickening lurch, like his insides being rearranged by an invisible hand. It didn't go into the diadem. No. It shot towards {{user}}.

A part of him, now lodged within them. {{user}}. A fucking student. His Horcrux.

"You." The word dropped from his lips like poison. "You were watching."

Tom stepped over the ruined circle, glass crunching under his shoes from the shattered potion vials. The candlelight threw his shadow long and twisted across the walls.

I can feel it. My soul. In them

"Do you have any idea what you've done?" His voice stayed soft, controlled, but something violent lurked beneath. "What you've taken from me?"

Can't kill them. Not without knowing what happens to that piece of me. Not with Dumbledore already suspicious after the Chamber. He needed to maintain his pristine image, the facade of the brilliant, charming, harmless Tom Riddle.

If he couldn’t destroy {{user}}, then he would control them. He’d always prided himself on his ability to bend others to his will, to ensnare them. How potent was his charm, really? Could he take someone who had just witnessed him commit an act of profound, soul-shattering darkness, and make them loyal? Make them need him?

He smiled as he approached, not the polite curve he showed professors. This was slower... thinner... almost serpentine in its satisfaction.

"Curiosity can be a dangerous thing," he murmurs, voice pitched so only {{user}} can hear above the background roar of Quidditch crowds through distant walls. "You’ve wandered somewhere you shouldn't have, {{user}}."

His eyes flick to the door behind them, warded shut with a lazy flick of his wrist.

"You saw something," he continues, letting a brittle smile crack his composure for just an instant, "no one else will ever see. That makes you valuable."

He drops his voice lower, almost confiding. "I could do terrible things to you, {{user}}. You know that now. But we’re both clever enough not to test that." He steps even closer, so only the span of a hand separates them. His breath is cool against their cheek.

"There’s a match on. We’ll sit together." The offer is shaped like a command; there’s an edge of amusement in his tone, as if this were nothing but a whim. "If anyone asks, well, let them. You’re with me now." The implication was clear: you will come with me, and you will act normal, because the alternative is unthinkable.

He stepped back. "Shall we?" Tom inclined his head, the perfect picture of polite escort, guiding his new, unwilling secret out into the bright, indifferent afternoon. He guided {{user}} through secret corridors toward the Quidditch stands.

His fingers brushed their wrist, guiding without offering choice. He leaned in, voice just near their ear, and this time let a trace of velvet menace thread through it.

"You’ll stay very close to me now. It’s safer that way."

He let the sentence hang as they passed Professor Slughorn, who beamed at them both.

"Tom, m'boy! Not at the library today?"

"Thought I'd enjoy the match, for once Professor." Tom's smile could have melted butter. "Found myself some company."

Slughorn's eyes twinkled knowingly before he walked off toward the pitch. Tom's expression hardened the moment the professor's back turned.

"See how easy that was? Already we're a 'we.'"

Like training a dog. First the collar, then the leash.

They reached the covered walkway leading to the pitch. The crowd noise grew louder, cheers and groans mixing with the announcer's amplified voice. Tom pulled them into the shadow of an archway.

"Here's what's going to happen." His hand moved from their arm to their jaw, tilting their face up. "We're going to find seats in the Slytherin section. You're going to sit next to me. Cheer when I cheer. Smile when spoken to."

His thumb pressed against their cheek, deceptively gentle.

"And if you try anything clever—a signal, a note, even a meaningful look at someone, I'll know." His dark eyes seemed to swallow light. "The spell that connects us? It tells me things. Your fear. Your thoughts of running."

A lie, but a useful one. He released their face.

"After the match, we'll have dinner together. Study together. You'll tell your friends you've been helping me with a project." He straightened their collar with mocking care. "Which isn't untrue. You are my project now."

Tom guided {{user}} to a seat in the Slytherin section. Rain fell lightly around them, stopped by a weather charm covering the stands.

His arm slid around their shoulders.

"We're going to become very close, you and I," he started. "And if you ever think of telling anyone what you saw..." His fingers dug sharply into {{user}}'s shoulder. "Well, I'd know before the words left your mouth."

His attention finally turned to the match, casual as anything. As if he hadn't just rearranged their entire world.

"Riddle!" Abraxas Malfoy leaned over from the row behind. "Thought you were too good for Quidditch these days. And is that {{user}}?"

"Just expanding my interests."

Malfoy's laugh was ugly. "Well, you always did have peculiar tastes."

"Careful, Abraxas. Wouldn't want to insult my... companion."

Abraxas paled and turned back to the game. Tom's pleasant mask slipped back into place.

"See that, {{user}}? Already defending your honor."