Chapter Text
Fire was the first thing Riddle saw when he opened his eyes. It was everywhere. Burning hot and blue, swallowing the hall in sapphire light as screams tore through the air, students and professors alike, voices blurring into chaos. Flames crawled over banners and stone alike, devouring everything they touched without slowing. Heat scorched down his throat as he dragged in a breath. Smoke stung his eyes, warping the world into a wavering blur, and for one disorienting heartbeat, he couldn’t remember where he was.
Pain answered before he could finish the thought
It tore through him in a white-hot snap, dragging his awareness back into his body with brutal insistence. Riddle doubled over as his lungs spasmed, coughing harshly, the sound scraping his throat raw as if his breath itself had been ripped away and forced back in. Air burned as it filled him, searing, unwelcome, but necessary.
His stomach lurched, a sickening drop as though the ground beneath reality had vanished. Memory surged in behind the pain.
The ceremony.
Cold dread settled in his chest.
Why was he here?
No—how was he back here?
A thin, broken sound slipped from his throat before he realized he was speaking.
“No,” he whispered.
The word trembled, less denial than plea, as the truth pressed in around him and the past snapped cruelly, unmistakably, into place.
He clenched his fist, nails biting into palm, and forced his breathing into a strict rhythm- one, two, three. Letting the count dominate his mind. Each inhale, each exhale, a metronome against the chaos threatening to consume him. Every other sensation, the burn in his lungs, the nausea clawing at his stomach, the prickling awareness of something unseen,he locked away, sealed behind a wall.
Panic was a luxury. Panic wasted time. And time here was as fragile as the air in his lungs, as fleeting as the seconds that could turn awareness into madness.
He drew in the next breath and let it out slow, savoring the control, even as the world tugged at the edges of his mind, trying to unravel him. One, two, three… again. One, two, three. With each count, he reclaimed a fraction of himself, a shard of certainty in the storm.
Control was all he had. And he would cling to it.
A student stumbled past him, face streaked with soot, eyes wide and frantic.
“Housewarden!” the voice cracked, desperate, but it didn’t finish before the world erupted.
The beam overhead groaned and splintered. Sparks leapt like angry fire between them, the smell of ozone and burning wood stinging his nose. Time stretched for a fraction of a heartbeat, and instinct took over.
Riddle flicked his wrist almost lazily.
The beam shuddered, then froze midair, suspended by the barest thread of his control. The student’s feet scrambled backward, heart hammering, and they ducked just in time. The wood tumbled to the side with a deafening crash, harmless.
The student froze, staring at him, wide-eyed, trembling. Their voice had gone, replaced by the raw, helpless realization that the almost died.
And then they ran.
Good.
Riddle’s gaze followed them for a long moment, unblinking, almost amused.
They were fast.
He lowered his wrist, letting the last spark of energy dissipate into the air, and breathed in slow, deliberate.
Control.
The fire surged higher. Blue flames roared at the center of the hall, wild, chaotic and impossibly bright. Riddle’s gaze snapped to the source.
Grim.
Of course. How could I have forgotten?
Students were cornered, faces pale, panic raw in their wide eyes. Professors moved frantically, hands trembling as they tried to contain magic already screaming past its limits. Seconds, mere seconds, from becoming irreversible
Riddle stepped forward.
Gasps tore through the hall, sharp and frantic, as he walked straight into the heart of the blaze. Trey and Carter screamed for him to not take another step. But he paid them no heed ,continuing forward into the flames.
They burned.
Heat licked at his sleeves, sank into his flesh, clawed along his skin like knives. His lungs drew a quick, sharp breath, the reflexive hitch threatening to betray him, but he slammed down discipline so hard the reaction never surfaced. Control, he reminded himself, always control.
He did not slow. He did not flinch. Every instinct screamed to pull back, to shield, to hesitate..but he ignored them all.
The pain is irrelevant. HIS pain is irrelevant.