Kolybel'naya

Chapter 22: A Conversation in the Dark

When Tom opened his eyes, he was in the hospital wing, although he knew that was not the real hospital wing. It was too bright, too quiet, too warm, the bed was too comfortable...

"I told you not to go to Hogsmead." Had Tom been feeling a bit better, he would have rolled his eyes, but he was too tired and that simple movement seemed to be too much for him. For the same reason, he didn't turn his head to look at who was talking to him. "But you wouldn't listen…"

"Can't my head come up with a better dream?" whispered Riddle, taking a deep breath. "I don't want to dream about you again. I don't want to see you again, for God's sake."

"I'm sorry." The voice echoed lower now, right before he felt a warm hand touching his forehead, brushing his hair back. "I'm not something from your head."

"I'm dreaming about you, therefore you're something from my own head… You - the real you - are dead."

"You're dreaming about me, yes, and I'm dead, but I'm not a creation of your mind."

Tom finally turned his head, although his body seemed not to want to do it, and found himself staring at his father. His father, that should be dead but that was there, watching him and looking incredibly tired. The boy tried to remember if the man looked like that when he was alive, if he had those heavy eyes with dark bags under them, but all he could remember was the sight of the Muggle crying and pleading for him to spare his life.

"Who are you?" the wizard asked, furrowing his brows.

"I'm your father."

"What are you?"

The Muggle stared at his for a moment, before sighing and shaking his head.

"I don't know." Tom wondered if his father's voice ever left that miserable tone. "Helena says I'm hanging between life and death, something like a ghost, although I'm not completely like them…"

"Helena?" Riddle furrowed his brows. "The Grey Lady?"

"Yes."

"How…? Oh God." The boy moaned, feeling his head aching. He closed his eyes, feeling the pounding in his head increase a bit, along with a dull ache on his face, right under his cheekbones,

When he opened his eyes again, he was still in the hospital wing, but the place was darker and colder and there was the noise of people talking somewhere near him. His father was nowhere to be seen.

"Tom!"

Riddle turned his head to see Abraxas Malfoy approach the bed where he was lying down. The Slytherin looked scared and his widened eyes watched Tom with apprehension. Tom tried to open his mouth in order to ask what the hell was going on, only to find out he couldn't do so. His jaw didn't move, although he could feel the muscles around it clenching. It was as if it had been glued in place and that was a horrible thing to feel. His hands quickly found his face, his fingers grasping at his own chin and feeling a thin, elevated line on the skin there.

"Hey, calm down!" Malfoy's hands grasped his, pulling them away from his face. "Tom! Calm down! You're in Hogwarts, you're safe!"

"Wha' 'appened!?" he managed to speak, although his voice came out muffled as he couldn't open his mouth.

"Grindelwald's followers attacked you and Miss Elston in Hogsmead. She's all right. You came out of it more injured than her," explained Abraxas, his fingers still firm around Tom's hands. "A cut in your chin, an injured arm and a broken jaw. But Healer Octavian is taking care of it all… Your chin is pretty good already. You were bleeding like mad and now there's just a little scar on it. Wait, I'll call Healer Octavian…"

Tom kept watching as the other Slytherin walked away before touching his chin once again. The thin line on it wasn't too big, but, as he touched the skin there, the boy noticed the feeling of the touch was odd. It was as if his skin kept tingling at his touch, almost as if he was not touching his own skin.

"Mr. Riddle," someone called and Tom knew it was the school's healer. Octavian was rather young and was a good healer, although not the most paternal one. "It's good to see you're awake. You've been asleep for a few hours now. I preferred to leave you asleep while I healed you. Oh, you can't open your mouth for a while. Until tomorrow, most likely. I put a locking spell on it so you won't open it while the bone is healing."

"Wha' 'appened?"

"You broke your jaw. Here, here." The wizard touched the boy's head right in front of his ears. "And here." Octavian's fingers touched under the right side of his jaw, running them from Tom's chin to the angle of his jaw. "I managed to reduce the fracture on the jaw's body but the other two… It's better for them to real by themselves, not being pushed by magic. I already fed you Skelegro, but it'll take a few hours for the fractures to heal with it. And you can't move it while they heal.

"Your chin was easier, but it'll leave a scar. The wound was a bit infected and it took some time for me to get to it. I also used the wound's opening as a… Door for the spell I used to put the bone in its place," he explained, touching the Slytherin's chin before looking around and whisper: "Your arm is healing, but it'll, too, scar. The blade the Valkyrie used was cursed." The man cleaned his throat. "As for your teeth, we managed to get most of the fragments back and, as soon as you are completely healed, we can mend them back."

"I can't feel my chin properly," said Tom when the healer finally stopped talking. Healer Octavian seemed almost excited with the fact he had a lot of work to do with his wounds. Riddle couldn't blame him… It must have been exciting to get something like that after getting so many nervous students and children that injured themselves during classes.

"It may be because of the fracture. Or my spell, I can't say for sure. The nerve that runs through it must have been injured… It's common to happen in Muggle hospitals and with Muggle dentists. The feeling in it will go back to normal soon."

Tom took a deep breath. All of this simply because he had the stupid idea of following a dead man. He looked down at his forearm, seeing it covered with bandages and feeling his stomach clench as he remembered the Valkyrie doing her artwork on it.

"Wha' abou' 'ermione?"

"Miss Elston is all right. She had a few cuts that are now healing, but she was pretty distressed, so I decided to keep her in here for a while."

Walburga Black visited him and it was the most terrible thing Tom could have expected to live inside that Infirmary. All he wanted was to stay quiet in his bed, asleep. Instead, he got a Walburga that wouldn't stop talking and kept running her hand through his hair and petting him on the shoulder as a worried mother. Malfoy was there too, but the other boy was silent and kept himself a few feet away, as if he didn't want to annoy Tom.

Hermione woke up soon after him. She was tired and her body hurt, but she was still in a better condition than him. He would have to keep his mouth shut until the next day, until the Skelegro's effect did its job. Healer Octavian offered him the choice between eating soup or feeding on nutritive potions until he managed to eat properly. Riddle chose the last option; it made him feel less sick and didn't remind him so much of the orphanage.

When Walburga finally left, it was because she had to take the train back to London in order to spend the holidays with her family. She left after kissing Tom's face several times and promising she would send him a Christmas gift. All he wanted was for her to be gone.

Abraxas Malfoy would never admit it, but he was genuinely worried. He was supposed to visit his aunt in Norway, but he was now sitting down next to Tom's bed at the infirmary, trying to concentrate on his book and failing miserably. The whole atmosphere of the place put him off his reading, especially when he tried to pay attention at the book and in Riddle at the same time.

"Shouldn't you be in your manor?" a weak voice called from behind Abraxas and the boy turned around in his chair to see Hermione watching him. She was a wreck with her hair all messed up, her pale face and the dark bags under her eyes.

"I should be seeing dragons in Norway," he said, a small grin appearing on his face. "But I decided to allow my parents to have their third honeymoon."

"Third?" The girl laughed softly and the sound came out of her mouth as if it was difficult for her to speak. "How considerate of you."

"I'm a good son."

"To my surprise," said Hermione, motioning her head towards Riddle. "You're a good friend."

"Oh?"

"I bet the dragons would have been more interesting."

"I can go there next year." Malfoy shrugged, closing his book and placing it in his lap. "My aunt said one of the dragons her friends look after laid eggs. Next year they'll have baby dragons."

"Please, don't try to domesticate a baby dragon." The witch chuckled before looking at the book. "The Brothers Karamazov?"

"Yes." Abraxas grinned, holding the book up for her to see. "Have you ever read it?"

"No, but my father did. He really liked it. It's the second Muggle book I see you reading…"

"Well, Miss Elston," Malfoy said in a sing-song voice, leaning towards her bed. "Let it be a secret between us: Muggles are way better than us when it comes to books. Wizards have tons of books, our library is a proof of that, but we don't have stuff like this." He tapped the book's cover. "Our books are about theories and magic and creatures and history. We don't have fiction. We don't have poetry. We don't have beautiful things like that."

Hermione stared at him for a while. She looked too tired in order to show more emotions on her face, but the gleam on her eyes made it look like she was surprised.

"How did you start? Reading these books, I mean."

"How do you think?" He pointed at the sleeping Tom Riddle behind him. "Third or fourth year. I shared a seat with him in the train and he was reading a poetry book. I asked him to read it for me and he did, with that I-hate-you-more-than-than-anything voice of his. I fell in love."

"With Riddle?" asked Hermione, arching an eyebrow.

"With the book." He laughed.

"Oh." She sighed. "So you're staying here during the holidays?"

"Yes. And Eileen… And a few other kids from Ravenclaw. And the teachers, of course," said Abraxas. "I heard Slughorn always throws a party at the end of the year and that the Christmas feast is really good."

"You've never spent the holidays here?"

"No." Hermione turned her head a bit more, stretching her neck in order to be able to look at Riddle.

"Is he all right?"

Malfoy turned around. Tom was as much of a wreck as Hermione, but the fact his face was still swollen and that there was a huge, purplish bruise extending from his jaw to the base of his neck made him look worse than her.

"I think he is. Healer Octavian is good, he'll make Tom come out of it really quickly."

"Abraxas?" The boy looked back at the witch. "What is the Ministry doing about all of this?"

Malfoy stared at her for a long moment. He had no idea of how much Elston knew about how the Ministry of Magic actually worked, especially during wartimes. She seemed to be the kind of Gryffindor who would be appalled to see the truth about the institution. Most of the Gryffindors were like that when they entered the Ministry, but after a few years, they ended up the same way as the others. The most difficult ones to make understand the politics of the Ministry were the Hufflepuffs, according to his father.

"They're covering it up," he said, sighing. "They don't want people to panic. People at Hogwarts know what happened, of course, but they'll try to make it look smaller than it really was. Remember the former Head Girl? It was the same thing with her family."

"Why am I not surprised?"

"Because you're an intelligent girl, Miss Elston." Abraxas smiled, before sighing. "Can you just imagine Tom's horrible mood once he wakes up?"

"Oh Merlin," Hermione moaned, covering her face with her forearm. "I don't even want to think about it…"

But Malfoy was not thinking about what she was saying anymore. As she raised her arm, it was possible to see the skin of the inner part of her forearm. He frowned a bit as he saw the small, whitened scars there, managing to read the word they formed. The boy cleaned his throat before looking back at Tom, asking himself if he knew about Hermione's blood status. If he was honest to himself, Abraxas knew she was not a pure-blood, although he considered her to be a half-blood. Regardless of what he used to think about Elston or of what he would be thinking of her from now on, he was glad Walburga Black didn't manage to see that scar while she was in the infirmary.

When Tom woke up, it was dark already. Hermione was asleep on the bed next to him and he couldn't hear any noise that indicated that Octavian was anywhere near. The boy took a deep breath, touching his own jaw, feeling the skin there tingling with the touch. Sighing, he closed his eyes. At least his head had stopped aching, although the memory of his last dream was still on the back of his mind. He was tired of it, of that stupid dream.

Riddle opened his eyes and almost jumped from his bed, startled, when he saw the pearly-white figure of a ghost floating by the end of his bed: the Grey Lady.

"I'm glad to see you're not too bad," she whispered, giving a quick look towards Hermione.

Tom wanted to question her about his dreams, but he was afraid to sound stupid. She was the daughter of Rowena Ravenclaw, she wouldn't want to hear someone talking about their silly dreams, but…

"It's not a dream, right?" he asked, his voice coming out muffled as he couldn't open his mouth.

"He is," said the ghost, staring at him once again. "But he isn't at the same time. He's not only a dream."

Riddle closed his fingers on the sheets until his knuckles turned white.

"For how long?"

"Since the beginning of the school year. He's worried about you, Mr. Riddle."

"Worried about me?" The boy let a low laugh escape through his teeth. "He had seventeen years to be worried about me and what did he do? He ignored my existence." He looked up to the Grey Lady, taking a deep breath as he saw the restrained look on her face.

"You should stop being so stubborn-"

"You can't say anything about my stubbornness, Helena," he said, stressing her name. "You would not be here if you were not stubborn."

Tom saw her hands closing into fists and her eyes gleaming, before she floated towards him, leaning her face closer to his.

"Don't you dare to talk about me, Tom Riddle."

"I don't understand you, Helena. You steal from your own mother and run away from Hogwarts, hoping to be a great, well-known witch," he muttered, hoping she would be able to hear him. "And yet, in death, you waste your time with a Muggle? By the way, how the hell is he here anyway? Muggles don't have ghosts."

"You don't know me, Mr. Riddle, and you surely don't know the reasons I have for various decisions I make." She practically spit the words on his face and Tom had to restrain himself from leaning back into the bed. "You've talked to me a few times, you've read my story in books, but you hardly know me."

"Aren't you from an age when Muggles burned witches on the stake? Shouldn't you know what they are like? What they are capable of?" The ghost furrowed her brows and clenched her jaw. "You still didn't answer me: if he's not a dream, how is he here? He's dead."

"I'm sorry, Mr. Riddle," Helena whispered, looking over to Hermione once again. "You should research it yourself for I have to waste my time with a Muggle right now."

"What? Helena," Riddle called as he watched the ghost turning her back to him and floating away. "Helena!"

"Riddle, shut up." A low groan came from Elston's bed and all Tom could do was to stare at where the Grey Lady had disappeared.

A/N: I'm not happy having to stand being with mouth locked shut for 28 days after breaking my jaw, I have to make characters go through it too, because why the hell not, right? Tommy was still lucky he just had to stay like that for one or two days. By the way, after you get used to it, it's not that difficult to speak without opening your mouth.

I really like this chapter. The story is finally reaching the point I wanted to write :))

I hope you guys liked it. As always, reviews are always welcome.