Vera had hidden many secrets. She had hidden all the soft spots inside herself, killed them off with negative thoughts and bitterness at the world she was dealt. But she had kept memories of all these things, almost unwillingly, as if begging for someone to read her soul.

When she was just a small child, she had hidden her brother. No one had ever found that secret, found the small pair of baby blue boy's shoes she rolled up and stuffed under her mattress.

When she was just a foolish teenager, she had hidden the fact that she had fallen for a boy. A boy her parents approved of, a boy with all the right breeding and charm, a boy who she could be madly passionate about. Though people guessed, no one had ever found their old letters folded into secret pockets in her vast closet after they had been sent across the seas with such secrecy that they might as well have arrived in bottles.

But she had gotten bored of that boy and she'd hidden that also. A friend was always a friend, but a lover could only be sweet and new for so long. Complacency had set in, so she found a new secret, a new passion with a boy who she seemed to have nothing in common with. A boy who made her mad with both hatred and desire. A boy who actually almost seemed to understand her. But she knew her place and she knew his, so she spelled the journal which held her confessions shut and tucked it away at the bottom of her old school trunk.

Later on, when things were all different, when she was a powerful and faithful wife and he a strong and vengeful leader, she found herself in heated debate with the one teacher she had never charmed. She spelled their letters into a book which looked innocent sitting on the desk beside the window in the only place entirely her own.

But when she sat and waited for him, trying to convince Dante to go home and put the children to bed in place of the nanny they had sent, she knew there was only one secret she would care about if it was discovered. That one was not so easy to hide. It was a small glass ball with swirling mist sitting on a very high shelf in a spelled cabinet in the living room of the same seaside flat which she had acquired for herself at only 16 years old and to which no one else had the key.

Vera was a seer, but she saw only in her dreams. She had always seen terrible things. A large snake eating people, bridges falling down, tents burning. It had kept her from sleeping so many nights that she had to keep a very careful eye on her consumption of those little gold potions. Until she'd taken divination, she'd thought they were simply nightmares. When she realized they were visions, she tried to block them out. Her mother had always called divination the dirtiest magic – the province of muggleborns who had been driven mad by the magic they should not have had and halfbloods who had no other power. It would be a shame for the entire family if anyone knew such an eclectic "gift" had appeared in their bloodline.

She had been successful at ignoring them for nearly a decade before she had the first one she couldn't go back to sleep after. It was the night before her wedding, and she was alone in her silver nightgown in her study in the Italian villa Dante had bought them. She had come into the room hoping that reading would relax her enough to sleep, but it was doing nothing to help. She stood and looked out onto the sea, realizing that the feeling of dread within her was as black as the night sky. She didn't want to marry him. She had tried to convince herself for so long that it was the right thing to do, that it would help her settle into a life that she at least did not hate. But who wanted a life they simply did not hate?

Vera saw her own reflection and felt herself laden with desire and desperation. She knew Dante could not fulfill her. At the core of it, he was happy, and she was not. She needed someone just as contemplative, just as weary, just as hungry to find the answer to this emptiness, as she was. She had only ever met one such person, and she realized he was the only one that could quell the feelings that were keeping her awake. She grabbed her robe from her chair and her wand from the desk and took the Floo Network back to a place she thought she would never see again – The Leaky Cauldron.

Once she had stepped out of the fireplace, she turned to ask the old woman standing at the bar what room he was in, but found that she didn't need to. Tom Riddle was sitting right in front of her, a butterbeer and a book in his hands. The moment was so familiar that they could have been in the old pub in Hogsmeade again. He had looked up at the sound and now caught her eyes, his stormy blue ones gazing with confusion and wantonness. She opened her mouth to speak, but she didn't need to. He grabbed her hand and whisked her away, up the stairs, leaving his possessions behind. As soon as the door of his room closes behind them, she finds herself pushed against it, his eager lips still on hers again.

"Why have you come?" he whispers as he realizes what is happening and pulls away, his mouth slipping back into a hard line.

"We can talk later," she replies, pulling her robe off and slipping out of her shoes. He realizes she has managed to pull all the buttons off of his shirt already. She pulls him back with her toward the bed, attempting to undo his belt and slacks as she does so.

Instead, he stops her, standing in front of her half-dressed and with a look on his face that could strike more fear into someone's heart than any spell. "Why are you here Vera?"

"We can talk later," she mutters again, hands still lingering on his chest.

He chuckles as if she is joking as he pulls her hands off of him, "I know you. You are going to leave later. Is this all you came for?"

"You are ruining the mood Tom," she chides playfully while taking a seat on the bed behind her.

"No, your engagement ring is ruining the mood," he responds spitefully.

"Is it really?" Vera looks at it for a second before sliding it off and tossing it on the floor nonchalantly. "Is that better?"

"I already said goodbye. I can't let you leave me again."

She looks up, serious for the first time in the whole conversation, "And what if I don't want to leave?"

"Your wedding is…"

She cuts him off fervently, "I don't want to marry him. I don't love him."

"That's never made a difference to you before."

Vera stands again, looking at him seriously. She is so close to him he can feel her breath on his chest as she stares up at him. Her voice comes out in a whisper so small that for a second he thinks he imagined it, "I love you. I want you desperately. I want to spend my entire life fighting with you and making up."

She's struck by shock as she realizes she actually means it. She actually loves him. She never thought she was capable of that, much less with a boy she had both so little and so much in common.

Tom's breath hitches in his throat. He doesn't need to say it back. They've both known he loves her for a long time, even if he's never vocalized it to her as such. He lifts her up and kisses her, pulling her back on the bed now, rushing to feel every part of her.

"Are you sure?" he whispers, lips barely separating from hers.

"Absolutely," she says, smirking at him.

"You know…"

She cuts him off before he can struggle for the words to explain how much her life will change. Know what? That she will be disowned? That no one will worship her anymore, once her last name is tarnished and there are rumors that she is going around with a nobody shopkeeper without any influence or money? He holds his breath as she starts speaking, sure she will not make this choice. He's not sure he would, if their positions were switched.

"I know. Can't we talk about the details later? What does it really matter when we know we want to be together?"

They finish and she falls asleep tangled in his arms for the first time in what feels like too long and he's actually smiling. He's thinking about the future. He knows that no matter what she had said, it did matter. He knows the war he had planned will put her in danger he cannot bear, even if she is the best first commander he can imagine. He knows the life he had thought about with her had not been one of battles and death. It had been almost oddly normal. She had nearly married one future minister of magic. Surely she would not mind actually marrying another. He had been offered enough offices to know he could rise to power in that way instead, and he had thought of it enough to know she would be happier and safer in such conditions.

They could have children. Children who would have two parents who may be a little unstable, but loved them and each other anyway. He could come home to her playing with them and they could have dinner together. For the first time in his life, he could have a family. Wasn't that worth a little compromise? He could still have power, even if it was not as grand as he had imagined. He could see them, starting a life together in that flat of hers.

Tom got dressed as quietly as he could and crept out, grabbing the bag of coins he had saved and finding his way down to the door of the jewelry pawner staying a floor below. He knocked impatiently before the old woman came to the door.

"I'm sorry to bother you so late, but I need an engagement ring," Tom says timidly. "Something small."

The woman fumbles for a minute before bringing out a small leather portfolio. She opens it to reveal a few rows of modest gold and silver rings. He picks one with a few emeralds set next to obsidian on a silver band.

"How much is it?" Tom asks, drawing out his coin-purse.

The woman smiles at him, "You can have it for free. It's clear that your love deserves it."

"Thank you," he says before hurrying back and tucking the ring under his pillow.

Vera wakes with a start. She had had another vision, the worst of all. She looks over at Tom, still sleeping next to her, his hand overlapping hers in the middle of the bed.

She had seen a man, wearing a mask that obscured everything but his eyes. He was standing at the front of a great army, and in the background was Hogwarts, ruined, a pile of rubbles and stone. He was speaking of vengeance and rightful places, of great wizards who had fought bravely and fools who had betrayed the cause. He turned and proclaimed England as his own, and all her past visions came flooding back in an array of death and cruelty so great that they almost drove her to scream in her sleep.

She is surprised she has not woken Tom, but she does not need him to open his eyes to know that they are the same ones which had haunted her. The vision has shocked her so, though everything in it seems obvious to her upon reflection. She knows what Tom's beliefs were. She knows what he is hoping to become. She knows what he has done in the past. But she has never believed he would be able to do all of this in the future.

She knows that the timing of this all-encompassing vision cannot not be a coincidence. The future is always sparked by a choice made in the present. It seems as if her mind is telling her that this decision, the decision to upset the natural order of her life and be with Tom, will lead to a future wizarding world she cannot fathom allowing to exist.

Vera reaches out to touch his face one last time before standing. She pulls on her nightgown and summons her ring to her. It had been foolish to come. She knew it was when she left. She hadn't thought about everything – about her parents, about her fortune, about her future. She had been so afraid of being married that she had run away from it, but she'd found herself in the arms of someone else who would doom her to the same fate. It didn't make a difference. She could imagine a happy life with Tom all she wanted, but she knew it would always be the same – she would get bored, she would get resentful, she would be trapped and alone and unable to do anything she wanted. At least Dante was always her friend. When their passion had faded they had settled into something comfortable. When her passion for Tom faded, she could not imagine anything else happening but an explosion. What they felt for each other was simply too strong to be maintained. And that would likely be what led to her vision, what pushed him across the line dividing ambition and all out madness.

So, in an effort to reverse the past, Vera Sinclair apparates back to her old life and resumes where she had left off as if nothing had ever happened. And that particular secret of hers is never discovered. For even when Tom stumbles into the flat and finds the professor's letters, he does not stop to examine the ornament in the shelf above them. Perhaps if he had he would have gotten the real answer to the question he had carried inside himself for so many years, the question he still asked himself everyday when he turned the stone and she did not appear.

Voldemort finds the letters between Vera and Dumbledore stuffed into books. The letters where Dumbledore swears that Tom will come alone and Tom will forgive and Tom will choose having her over having his war. She wants this to be over. She wants to stop feeling responsible for all of the deaths she reads about in the headlines of the Daily Prophet. A lifetime of hiding with him is better than a lifetime of guilt.

Dumbledore promises she will be safe with the British aurors outside guarding her. Only the British hear the commotion and know they can't take so many Death Eaters, and they leave because how important can this random mission they were told so little about be? Only Dumbledore's intelligence is wrong and it isn't just Voldemort that has attempted to breach the ministry that night, and what good are defenses meant only to slow one man in stopping an army of them? He reads and rereads and then he burns them, too enraged by Dumbledore's lies to allow them to continue sitting in that dusty tiny flat.

As he watches the flames, he decides to seek revenge on Dumbledore and everyone who ever falls under his protection. Dumbledore had sacrificed the only person Tom had ever cared about in an attempt to end this war, used her as if she was some pawn in a game rather than a person with a past and a future. For a while, he had actually been successful. He had been questioning everything he had done. But at that very moment Lord Voldemort vowed to redouble his efforts – to destroy every single institution Dumbledore ever created and every person he ever cared about. The good wizard should see what it is like to sacrifice one of his own.

Voldemort is dead and the little witches and wizards of Hogwarts are celebrating, while the few still loyal to the cause gather in the hallow in the woods where they thought Harry Potter had died. Samson leans against a tree in the corner, surveying them, the battered remnants of an army that had once been so great. He lifts his wand and touches it to the mark on his arm. Heads gradually turn to him as they feel it move. He shouldn't be able to do that. Only their leader had been able to do that.

Samson stands silent and angry on the stump of a tree near the front of the clearing, watching as tens, then hundreds, of Death Eaters straggle in, confused that their mark is active once again. He feels too old for this somehow, but he cannot forgive the wizard who took away his mother, nor the prodigy who killed his father. They will not expect it, and that fact actually makes him smile. They will be mourning their dead and relishing their victory, not knowing that the strength of an army never lies in one man alone.

"I can see we are all quite surprised," Samson says with a smirk. "Don't worry, you will be rewarded in time for your return. But, first, I believe an explanation is owed, one that some of the oldest and most fateful servants here may have guessed at some time ago. Lestrange, I am sure your father told you of his school days. Avery, Rosier, Mulciber, Nott, you all will remember that time and my mother directly. And you will remember that she and our dearly departed leader were quite something. Well, they were also quite something behind closed doors as well. Tom Riddle – Lord Voldemort – was my real father."

Whispering spreads throughout the crowd. Everyone is looking at him with half awe, half fear, and quite a bit of disbelief. He shushes them with a wave of his wand and a short silencing charm.

"Before any of you accuse me of lying, ask yourselves why else he would have given me the power to summon you. Ask yourselves why he would have taken in a weak 18-year-old boy and turned him into this. Truthfully, he never would have wanted this, not after he lost Vera to our war too. But then again, he never would have wanted to die. Those little brats down there believe they are safe. They believe they have defeated their enemy and we have fled before them, and now they can continue being mudbloods and blood-traitors all they wish. But they are wrong, aren't they? I think we should go impress that fact upon them. They killed my father. They killed your leader. Don't you think it's time we kill a few more of theirs, perhaps starting with the one with that scar on his forehead? A million galleons to the person who does it, and I'll throw in another million for the rest of the trio. Not to mention the rewards we all shall have when the wizarding world is finally firmly in our grasp."

He steps off the stump and starts to walk toward the castle once more. As he goes, the lingering forest creatures, the trolls, the centaurs join the horde. Perhaps he does not look as scary as his father did in those final moments, but he feels more deadly. He knows they are not really loyal to him, not yet at least – that they came out of desperation and the knowledge that their fate would be the same no matter if they died at the castle or in a cell – but he is just starting.

The first thing he does when the castle is in sight is instruct his horde to surround it once more, send them creeping through the forests and crawling along the valleys until they have formed a wall as large as they can around the place. Everyone is inside already, the defenses are gone. They had been so naive to assume that the fight would end that easily. Samson sends a Dark Mark into the sky, drawing the perplexed do-gooders outside and into the line of fire. They are not prepared. Half of them do not have their wands. He kills a few himself before retreating to his father's position on the cliff and pulling off his mask. He uses the same spell his father did to make his announcement.

"When one Dark Lord falls, another shall rise. Harry Potter, this is not your fault. You are a boy, and you did not choose to enter this war. But the man you swore to so bravely, the man whose white beard you all bowed in front of, was not the good wizard he seemed, and men have been punished for smaller things than following the wrong master. You will die now. It is the only thing left. My father killed yours, but you are not worthy of facing my wand. So you will die an unremarkable death, a death that hundreds of your peers shall share this day, and this war will be ours. For those of you who wish to lay down your wands and join the right side there may be some forgiveness. For those of you foolish enough to continue the fight, there will only be pain. This war that has lasted three decades will end tonight."

The battle rages throughout the night, but it is his policy not to allow any of the opposition to live. There will be no more resistance. Perhaps he is not as great of a wizard as his father was, but he is just as cruel. In the morning, he steps over the dozens of bodies to the place where his Death Eaters have gathered and he burns the tome of Dumbledore himself. Vera's prophecy had come true, but it had not been Tom Riddle standing at the helm of the crowd that finally destroyed Hogwarts.

A/N: It is a good feeling to finally mark this story as complete :) I hope the ultimate ending was at least a bit of a surprise to people.

I have another few Tom Riddle/OC stories I have been drafting with various plots. If you would like to know in case I do publish any of those in the future, please subscribe to my author alerts. I feel like this site is not as popular as some of the others these days, so I will probably move to using another site for my future writing, but I will at least put a few chapters up here if I do to let any readers who are still interested in my work know.

If you have been reading, I cannot express how happy I would be if you would just comment with any of your thoughts or whether you liked the ending/did not. It always feels so amazing to know I am not just shouting my work in to the void, and honestly is the single biggest thing that motivates me to keep writing anything at all.