Fic: Leaving Flowers on Graves

[phantomtomato]

Rating: General Audiences
Fandom: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Relationship: Tom Riddle & Tom Riddle Sr.
Words: 284

Summary

Tom Riddle knows regret.

I don’t know what you liked, he said.

It’s my fault—I know that, he said. He shifted the paper-wrapped bundle in his hands, tangling his little finger in the twine until the tip turned purple and started to tingle. Pain, grounding, had always been easier to handle than words.

The roses were white, because he was mostly sure white roses weren’t romantic in nature, and they’d been the most expensive bouquet at the florist. There might have been meaning to the others, if he’d worked up the courage to ask for regret, and sorrow, and guilt. He hadn’t, though, so he’d sprung for the gesture that he understood: cost. Two dozen white roses, grown and not conjured, were a lot when one worked on commission.

So, I’m sorry if they’re wrong, he said, placing them down. It was easier to kneel than to stand, facing the headstone which bore his own name but the wrong dates. It took his eyes away from the neat grave-plots stretching back towards the hedgerow, centuries of a family he’d thrown away with one spell.

They shouldn’t allow boys to make decisions at sixteen, he said.

The wind ruffled his hair. He imagined a hand in its place.

But he didn’t know what else to say, because he’d never got the chance to know what his father might like to hear, and so he stood again. He touched his hand to his mouth, to the headstone, and back to his mouth; he tapped his heels on the dirt, then thought better of it, given where he was.

Sorry, he said. I can’t seem to stop myself from disappointing you.

He said, I wish I hadn’t, and he left.