Since Nikita's found out Tom's secret, the world isn't the same anymore.

No, it isn't more colourful, now that Tom's blood-stained tones have found their way into Nikita's ears, carassing and stroking and scratching his soul until it bleeds in passion and appreciation, just like Tom's seems to do - but the oh so golden boy's soul isn't bleeding because of something so beautiful and pure as music but because of the most hideous, impure action one can perform: splitting the own soul, cutting it in thin slices with a knife out of vicious green light, waiting for the streaming blood to change its colour, being surprised when it doesn't turn into ichor but black liquid because Tom's a monster no god, at least not yet and maybe never.

After all, he's everything but pure and kind and don't have gods to be the good ones? Those who're kissing tear-stained cheeks with their rose-tinted lips when you've prayed enough with trembling lips and watering eyes? Those who're guarding you while travelling, ancient eyes following all of your steps, every breath a warm flurry in your back?

Well... in fact, they're not. To say it mildly: Gods are assholes, menacing and manipulative ones at that. Remember Hera, goddess of the fucking family, who's thrown her newborn son off Olympus because he hasn't looked like a supermodel or something - well, he's been really ugly to say it straightforwardly but still. Or what is with Poseidon, who's raped Demeter in the form of a stallion after she's turned herself into a horse to camouflage and get away from her stalker? Has her mourning for her daughter Persephone, who's been with Hades, the only reliable god how it seems, been so sexy or what?

Gods aren't always kind and good and Tom never is, so maybe the murkiness of his blood is just an intermediate stage, the cocoon of his metamorphosis.

So no, Nikita's world hasn't become more colourful, even though its hues have indeed changed. But nothing is suddenly showing more vivid colours, lively and full of joy, not at all. In fact, Nikita's world has grown darker, as if Tom's blood would have stained his vision, showing him hues of dark red and black and green he hasn't ever seen before, shades he's had to hear before he's been able to comprehend them.

But now Nikita isn't able to ignore them anymore.

Have you known that the night sky is darker than Tom Riddle's voice? It's so murky as if every wannabe god had bleeded onto it, Hercules' blood vicious with the Nemean lion's and Dionysus' as violett and red as the vine he's the god of, creating galaxies, colourful and dark and probably deadly.

Have you ever noticed that the Gryffindore emblem isn't exactly equalling rubies? Nikita hasn't until he's found out about Tom's secret (oh, he thinks, he's so clever now, Nikita, dear, if you'd know all secrets of the prince of snakes your knees'd tremble not your heart, trust me - or are you born without natural fear, just like you're born without a natural smile?). Now he can't but see the vibrant red as the colour of blood, resembling all crimson Gryffindore's sword has ever drawn, tinted in pain and death.

Have you already looked at the Black Lake this year? It has the colour of onyx, of dead eyes watching the in ash covered sky after the war's taken another life, of the deepest abysses of the hellish human soul. Nikita isn't sure if he should bathe in this lake ever again, staining himself with pure sin.

Is loving a god a sin?

Because if it is, Nikita'll be able to bathe in the lake as much as he desires, because loving back might then also count and shouldn't two sinners have their sacrilegious fun together? No matter who of the two'll be the immortal one, there'll always be sin between them, sin and maybe virtue, Apollo crying and Dionysus licking his purple lips, dark of vine and madness.

But it isn't only the world, which is showing more colours now, Nikita's also noticing typical signs of a string player on Tom. How hasn't he understood it before? It's so obvious, now that Nikita knows.

The few times he's seen Tom touching his right underarm, practicing the fingering of a hard passage, he's never thought of a violinist - he's always thought his fellow Slytherin's bored out of his mind, creating weird but wonderful ornaments on his arm. Or the hickeys which are sometimes visible on his neck when Tom's not exactly paying attention to his movements.

The hickeys have always bugged Nikita. Like really hard. (How should he've known that they aren't exactly hickeys but the marks of a violin? Kisses of an instrument and not a human being?)

They've made it perfectly clear that there's a secret to discover, a secret about the perfect Slytherin prince nobody knows. He's always searched for Tom Riddle's lover but no girl nor boy seems to be a good choice for somebody so sophisticated like Tom Marvolo Riddle.

But who would've thought that there's no lover buried in Tom's cellar but an instrument? No cold body but warm wood? Delicate strings? A passion?

A passion Nikita's now also feeling, a passion he hasn't known before this. It's soaring, burning in his chest, his heart's aflame, beating rapidly, spreading his with strange excitment bubbling blood, boiling of  his new-found passion he hasn't been able to direct at anything yet.

Oh, what kind of fire demon has set his mind and body aflame as if Helios'd have given him an encouraging hug?

This can't be only Tom's impact - Tom, who's all cold and slippery, an ice statue in his unfazed perfection, eyes like slate which has been freshly wetted with freezing winter rain, skin like snow and hair in the new colour of the Black Lake.

What a heavenly picture Tom would cast in winter, with snowflakes in his thick lashes, his cheeks tinted in rosy hues, his limps trembling, coloured in the gentle tones of the sea because his blood is cooling down, limbs getting stiff, turning blue, then black, as black as his silky hair-

--Sometimes Nikita's scared of his own thoughts, no matter how aestethic they might be. They've always been there, no matter how old he's been and he can understand Vasily, his fucked up expression and stern voice when demanding from his son to practice after Nikita's said something like look, otets, this tree would look absolutely lovely if it was ablaze, don't you think?

Go practice, Nikita.

Think about your piano, not... that.

Your piano, Nikita, your piano.

Nikita's never felt this passion for his piano, which is flooding his body now; playing has never come naturally to him. Maybe he should have started to draw, there are enough strange images in his head, slumbering behind the black and white bars of scores which are still imprinted in his mind, an ever-lasting tattoo of his childhood. Yes, perhaps he should have drawn, he really should have, there's always been inspiration and maybe there'd have been passion too.

However, now there's passion and it's hotter than the sun on any summer day, hotter than all bygone summers together. This is the passion his father's always missed, this is the kind of passion which leads to wars and new-found continents, this is the kind of passion Nikita's only heard in Vasily's and Tom's playing before and nowhere else.

His passion is hot and Tom is the embodyment of coldness, so can really he be the cause of this burning desire? Or has Apollo blessed him? Gently pressing his sun-coloured lips onto Nikita's icy ones in the attempt of letting them melt into a smile as warm as his own but merely leaving golden, glittery dust on them? Has Apollo, clad in nothing but rays of sunlight, stolen Nikita's first kiss like he's done it with Tom? Nikita and Tom out of all others, these two frory boys with their cold touches and icy glares and snowy skin?

Why have you chosen them, Apollo, leaving your golden marks on their silver bodies like the most precious jewellery? Why've you kissed their foreheads, crowning them with your warmth and virtuousness, sending heat through their bodies in the desperate attempt of warming them because you can't imagine a life in coldness - but you're a god, Apollo, and you know no measurement, remember Icarus, who you've killed with your love, don't you see that it's maybe been too much, that their frozen hearts are melting and there are droplets of sweat on their temples because of the all too hot passion, you've implanted? That the blood their souls are bleeding might vaporize? The fever-bright sparkles of their eyes?

Why have you chosen two lost boys to reign with your golden aura behind them, what is with those, who're searching your godly presence? Why not them?

Is it because these two snakes remind you of your son Asclepius, the healer who's been able to turn himself into a snake, who's brought the dead back into life? Is it because you search compensation? Have you chosen them because your snake loving son has left too many in life and now you need two snake loving boys to lead too many into death?

Because if you've thought like this,

 you've thought perfectly right, 

masses will die for the two

 - 

or because of them?