Tom never showed up to the funeral. He couldn’t. He couldn’t bear to see the lifeless body of the one person he’d ever allowed himself to care about. He had failed her, and in doing so, he had lost everything.

He never returned to Hogwarts. Instead, he vanished into the darkness, a broken soul, carrying the weight of the one person he could never save.

Harry, too, was left to carry the burden. The promise he had made to protect Ivy had been shattered by his own hand. And though he tried to live with the guilt, the emptiness remained.

The war was over. But for Ivy, it had been too late.

And for Tom, the cost of his heart was a lifetime of regret.

**𝐈 𝐡𝐨𝐩𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐠𝐮𝐲𝐬 𝐞𝐧𝐣𝐨𝐲𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐟𝐚𝐧𝐟𝐢𝐜, 𝐈'𝐦 𝐬𝐨𝐫𝐫𝐲 𝐢𝐭'𝐬 𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐫𝐭!𝐀𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐈 𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐝 𝐢𝐭 𝐨𝐧 𝐚 𝐬𝐚𝐝 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞. 𝐓𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐤 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠**