[HP BL/Tom Riddle] You're Second-Rate, but I Love You

["And back then, I thought you would lead me through life with the same steady lightness with which you had led me in a dance at the ball."]

Years later, you would still remember that night, when the learned professor's not-so-young voice drifted slowly out, rippling across the river of time. "Students of your generation all look down on Muggles. But there's a line in one of their books: 'She was still too young to know that all the gifts bestowed by fate had already been secretly marked with a price.'"

He looked at you earnestly then, wisdom glimmering in his eyes. "I thought that you young, beautiful girls had to understand this book before you could be called grown-up."

Back then, with little experience of the world, you were intoxicated by the countless compliments from boys that came with being young and beautiful, and by the power that made other girls willing to play supporting roles. You didn't yet know how contradictory and complicated human nature could be. You didn't know how much affectation could hide in sincerity, how much baseness in nobility, or how much goodness in evil.

Years later, after recalling Dumbledore's two remarks countless times in regret, you would finally realize with heart-wrenching clarity how recklessly you had made your decision. But the young Gryffindor didn't know that when a Slytherin falls in love with you, you must never take every word he says at face value.

You hurriedly said goodbye to Dumbledore, your thoughts already on the long-awaited ball. A lovestruck girl, a handsome and charming boy who was in love with you, and the wise professor's mournful sigh behind your back, as if he were watching a lively, lovely young soul step by step toward the abyss.

* A short Tom Riddle x reader story. The main story does not have a traditional happy ending.

* Search for the same name on LOFTER to unlock a free bonus bad-ending story.

Theme: Love is patient and kind