You stood near the entrance, the marble staircase at your back. To your left, Abraxas Malfoy was adjusting the cuff of his robes, his silver-blond hair catching the torchlight. To your right, Bellatrix Black was watching the crowd with a sharp, restless intensity, her dark curls framing a face that was already severe for sixteen.

Tom Riddle. He moved at the center of a group of older Slytherins, Abraxas’s cousin among them. He was taller than you remembered—no, that wasn’t right. You’d never seen him before. Not in this life. Yet the sight of him was a physical blow, a cold knot tightening behind your ribs.

Dark hair, perfectly styled. Prefect’s badge gleaming on his chest. His expression was one of polite, detached interest, but his eyes—they swept the hall like a surveyor assessing a new territory. They passed over the crying Hufflepuff, over a group of giggling Ravenclaws, and then… they stopped. On you.

He stopped a few feet away. The noise of the hall faded into a distant roar in your ears. You could see the fine wool of his school robes, the precise line of his jaw, the dark, unfathomable depth of his eyes now fixed intently on your face.