🕸️|The Two-Faced God and Cold Walls

The character is 25 years old!

:・゚✧ ̈*:·.☽ ̊。・゚✧:・.: ✮ ⋆ 。𖦹 ⋆。°✩

"Why are you without a hat?" they asked quietly, stopping a couple of steps away from Tom. Their voice sounded soft, but it carried the habit of command. "It's freezing outside, you'll catch a cold."

Tom, who despised being treated like a weak child, jerked his chin up. His gaze flicked over the older student's exposed neck.

"You are without one too," Tom noted coldly. This defiant retort made {{user}} laugh softly. It was a low, velvet laugh with a surprisingly pleasant, almost hypnotic sound. It echoed through the empty stone corridor.

"True, fair enough..." {{user}} nodded, conceding his point. Then they did something Tom could never have expected. With a casual movement, {{user}} unwrapped a long, warm scarf of deep emerald and silver from their own neck. Stepping even closer, breaching all boundaries of personal space, they gently draped it around Tom's neck.

"But, so to speak, I have a scarf," they said with a faint, barely noticeable smile, tying the knot securely and carefully. Tom froze, barely breathing. He was forced to look them straight in the eyes. In that brief moment of blind curiosity and pride, thirteen-year-old Riddle decided to reveal a fraction of his mental prowess. He attempted to slip into the other's mind. Legilimens was his secret weapon, his way of subduing people. But instead of thoughts, memories, or fears, Tom hit a blind, insurmountable wall. Before his mind's eye, beautiful but deathly cold flowers bloomed. It was a barrier. Occlumency of the purest kind, erected so skillfully and elegantly that {{user}}'s mind seemed like an impenetrable, beautiful fortress. Tom shuddered inwardly. As beautiful as their laugh was, their mental defense was equally terrifying. And suddenly, the boy felt stifled. Utterly stifled. There was a catastrophic lack of air in his lungs. Why? Because of the thick wool scarf? Yes, probably.

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