Being in charge of deciding wether somebody has to die or not is intoxicating, you drown in the feeling of power and it's even more intense when your victim doesn't know that you decide on the following course of their life because even though it has its attractions when your victim knees in front of you, covered in sweat and tears streaming down their cheeks, pleading for their life like they should as they finally recognize you as the god you are, it actually feels godlier to decide about live and death in silence because God doesn't just appear to give you a chance - either he gives it to you or not, you can't question his decision because there is nothing to question - either you're dead or alive and you don't even comprehend that God has interfered in your fate.

It feels like playing god when musing about the victim's life in their presence and when they sleep in their small, warm bed while World War II is raging outside and you're lying beneath your blanket straight like a soldier to prevent you from closing your eyes while your mind starts frazzling and think if they're worthy to continue living...

This is what being a god means, isn't it?

Tom is still young and cunning, planning and achieving in the dark like Death's shadow, he isn't so pale yet that he reflects in the dephts of night, being urged to reveal his ugly, snake-like face to the world in daylight. (Why didn't he stay pretty and witty but aged, letting the poison of time infect his brain so much that he didn't think of throwing his baby arch enemy out of the window, I beg you.)

But it's murky now and nobody gleams in the absence of light, not even Nikita whom's hair is coloured like the fullmoon when it's the brightest.

Tom strokes an inky streak of hair out of his face with the same ease with which he could end Nikita's life - he decides that he won't play Atropos now, the scissors don't feel right in his fingers tonight, he rather takes Lachesis' part when it comes to Nikita, deciding how long his thread of life will be.

Nikita won't die tonight, Tom decides before finally curling up, allowing Morpheus to enter his mind, decorating it with skeletons and demons and power.

But Tom isn't holding true power in his weak fingers, true power is far to mighty to be handled by a mere mortal who thinks he could become a god.

Oh Tom, Lachesis murmures softly, how pretentious you've become, thinking you could possess the same power like me. She measures the obsidian coloured thread, marking it with a frory white.

I'm looking forward to cutting it. Atropos smiles gently and her scissors snap like a barking dog, gigantic in her petite hand. Not everybody has to die, she whispers as if she'd be passing sweet nothings to a forbidden lover's ear.

The three sisters smile at the thread in their middle like crocodiles smile at babies and Clotho strokes it, the thread she's so carefully spinned, picking the darkness between the stars and the silence after death for it - for a unique life.

Not everybody has to die, Atropos repeats and her cheeks turn an enamouring, powdery pink.

Clotho's eyes hold a kind of sad gleam - this should be the thread she's spent so much time on? What a huge disappointment. Not everybody has to die. She shakes her head. But you, Tom Marvolo Riddle, certainly have to.

The teachers are the first to notice that Nikita's acting differently, that something important has changed.

Nikita's never been a student to often raise his hand or participate in any other ways excessively but he's always hung on every of the teachers' words, nearly drowning them in attention - why shouldn't he, when they tell him about magic, the art he loves the most?

However, his favourites have changed and while magic is still fascinating and enthralling, he has no deadline for it - unlike the one he has for music because if he wants to celebrate a successful comeback he has to be good.

No, not good.

Perfect.

He'll have to play like a god, not because nobody would come to is first concert otherwise - they would probably come in masses, glistening gems and fine fabrics and smiling, smiling masks, he's been vanished after all, they think he's dead, they've had big plans for him (Nikita Pavlov is certainly going to play here on day. Nikita Pavlov will surely perform with this orchestra in the future. Nikita Pavlov is a name to be remembered, he isn't just a child prodigy!) - but because the critics will tear him apart like ferocious dogs otherwise, their eyes gleaming red with satisfaction because Look! Nikita Pavlov has been in holidays for four years, obviously not touching a single key in this time, thinking he could come back just like this, merely because he's had success when he's been younger! and he wouldn't be very happy about this review.

Don't even speak of Vasili.

I have told you to practice, Nikita! Practice, practice, PRACTICE!

Sometimes you're such a dumb boy, thinking this would be enough - you would be enough. Oh, Nikita.

Apparently, I've wasted my time on you, how fortunate that I don't have another child, seems like you've at least made me a bit more intelligent in that point.

(Am I a waste of time? - No, dear, and now go practice.)

While Nikita hasn't ever been very invested in showing his attention in class clearly, he's stopped being attentitive these days, his eyes aren't drawn to the teachers anymore as if he'd e able to suck their knowledge out of their heads by staring intensely enough but his gazes are directed at his inside, reading scores nobody else can see, his irides veiled with black and white, unseeing to the outside and the confused and worried faces of the adults.

Three of them have already spoken to Nikita and it's been as if he'd have snapped out of another world to briefly raise the corners of his mouth in the weak attempt of a smile, shaking his head. No, no, everything is fine, I'm sorry for worrying you.

Then, slowly, his classmates have noticed. Maybe because he's been drumming on the dark wood of the tables - oh, you fools, nobody drums like Nikita does, with fingertips and both hands and huge jumps on the cool, smooth surface - this isn't drumming, this is playing the piano without having a keyboard to touch, drumming, I beg you - when he's always been sitting still like a statue otherwise or because Nikita hasn't even bothered to verbally decline their requests, just half-heartedly performing a declining gesture, leaving them with no alcohol but the firewhiskey they've already had, thirsting for the liquid amber he's hiding.

However, one person still has no clue even though he's the most important facto in Nikita's plan: his father.

Nikita plans to write him on their shared birthday, hoping that Vasili will be satisfied with his son's decision. He'll ask him to contact everybody who'll be needed to create the surprising comeback he wishes for - and to do the same for this enthralling violonist whom's playing just doesn't seem to leave his thoughts.

However, the point is that Nikita hasn't told him about this yet, hell, the Riddle boy doesn't even know that Nikita knows about his secret nor that the blond is a musician himself - or so Nikita thinks at least.

He doesn't know that he's nearly got himself killed with Tone Fiddle, that his own secret isn't one anymore either (oh Nikita, do you really think that Tom has only buried a violin in his cellar?) and that it's been unnecessary to make the Potions assignment alone because Tom's already done it while Nikita's drooled on the parchment, driving Tom crazy.

But he knows that such talent like he's found it in his fellow Slytherin isn't something you encounter everyday and that it certainly belongs on stage, preferably on his because he would like to hear more of Tom's playing and he'd love to watch his development from a gifted amateur to a celebrated professional.

Let's hope that Tom has nothing better to do and won't change his mind, rising his wand against Nikita in the end. (We know, he won't.)

How fortunate,
that the goddesses of fate
are fond of Nikita
and not of Tom.