To have spent my life holding my hands in tightly hidden fists.
To try to understand what it would mean, now, to hold them open.
I have always felt ashamed at being witnessed in the act of wanting something I could not have.

So We Must Meet Apart,
Jennifer S. Cheng
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Are you burning? Are you burned? Will you burn?

Unfavorables of The Fens are lodged in carriage houses on the outskirts of town, where the roads run lengthy and gravel and the farmland expands unbroken for acres of golden crop. April showers made for knee-deep ration runs through marshes formed that never seemed to clear up before the next rainfall. Perpetually damp socks; pink linen dress hems are stained a grim celadon no matter how hard they're scrubbed. The residents are doomed from the beginning—Fenmen are as wild as the country that made them, people said. Olesya Belyaeva recognizes she had a purpose there, at one point, she knows she did.

Olesya is two months out of Koldovstoretz when she's told the House Belyaev has one foot in the grave. It's a dying art. A generation of sole daughters. Portraits of ancestors about to become nothing but a long-dead lineage.

     She remembers her victory as Pyrrhic; Olesya found a pureblooded man, a British man with a mediocre job in a soft-spined governing body, who promised their second son would bear the Belyaev name. Orville Seaver was not—is not—the man she loves, but he was the one who could promise to give her what she needed. Children. Sons.

Baby bottles glimmer in the cabinet window, muddled behind a thick layer of dust instead of the abundant cocktail glasses Olesya collected as a girl. Her tassel-adorned drop waist dresses become crocheted sweaters and long knitted cardigans that drape over her shoulders heavier than any successional burden ever could. One son, six daughters later, and only one place for her to turn; her back faces her husband, her fingers do not wrap around bottles any longer, and she sees something in her eldest girl. Something terrible.

She nearly kills her mother when she's born; the child of Heaven and Earth—Dion. To see both sides (is it a triumph? Or a veiled sacrifice?).

Dion Seaver does not belong to green as the rest of them do. She knows this the moment she sits down at that long, long table with the emerald runner that never ends. The silver stitching blinds her. It gleams through the cracks of her fingers with the first taction of it against her skin; she strokes it like it is something to be afraid of.

The boy beside her scoffs.

He has eyes like hollow caves, they bend light. The reflection of the candles cut through them and fade quickly into nothingness. It's fleeting. His green is different than theirs, too, it's tarnished—eroded copper pit up against their golden rings with big, fat jewels stuck in the heads. He speaks with his jaw stiff like it has been clenched taut for so long that it looks like he's always trying to scream silently, but his mouth refuses to open. Riddle, she thinks his name is, it means nothing to her at that moment.

Hogwarts is warm unlike The Fens, Dion learns this quickly, and everything is bathed in a sheen of flaxen light. Everything glows, she remembers Sasha whispering to her when he returned from his first year; a little taller, a little wiser—he twinkled then, too.

The gleams never stop dancing, and the glow never dims. Despite its fancy, that school never changes and neither do the people inside of it. Maybe they have a different face or a different name, but there's a hierarchy to be upheld, and, by God, will the students heave it on their trembling backs as their parents watch with careful eyes and prayers on their lips. It is a game that never ends. A game that is played by everyone, whether they bet their hand or not.

Red is good. Morally white. Safety. Bravery. Red is reckless and doesn't know how to stop talking, you could hold their tongue to a knife and it will continue to flap like a battle flag. Everything they say or do is Homeric to a fault.

Yellow is stupid. Ignore them.

Blue is the opposite. They are intelligent and witty, but make it far too known for their own good. The point of being the smartest in the room isn't to let people know you're the smartest in the room. Idiot.

Green is all of the above and none simultaneously. If their purpose requires recklessness, they will be the ones throwing jinxes in broad daylight. Incompetence pointed like a weapon for those who are neither glib nor strong. They lurk in the dungeons like shadows stretched across the walls, bending, shaping, waiting to envelop their victim and constrict until their faces go purple.

Dion's house is not what people make it out to be. Their fangs are not all laced with venom. They do not have the winning card hidden up the sleeve of their skin. But she cannot deny the air of mystery that surrounds them like a heavy cloud in the bright blue Scottish skies. The mystique comes from the way in which they speak, dress, and move—the way they exist on a different playing field from the common peer. They are fluent in an unwritten kind of poetry: the monotony of back and forth, procuring the upper hand through words alone. Their conversations are spent lamenting over shoes with shiny buckles, beach houses in Switzerland, walls filled with creepy oil paintings, and bookshelves stuffed to the brim with only the most intellectual works.

There's something so terribly picturesque about it all. A sticky, rich chocolate cake with ornate handmade designs—she has one bite and wishes to consume the entire platter. But Dion does not have the privilege to sit and eat cake that sticks to the roof of her mouth like tar.

Well, that rules it.

She's found peace in her inferiority. She is grass smirched on white cloth and that gross slop flobberworms exude for potions, the nasty necessities of life that keep the world spinning. They keep order.

But when her eyes scan the Great Hall, her chest cannot help but swell green with envy at the sight of the end of that long, long table; six heads duck together in a circle, mouths flapping monotonously into dead air. If Dion did not know them, she thinks she might have guessed they were discussing something very important. Business finances, maybe, or the newest Quidditch prospects for betting purposes.

In the center sits the scoffing Riddle boy—a young man, now—whose green gave the impression of summat off-putting and tarnished. His clothes are a bulwark, shielding the world from his true hue. Dion's teeth grit, she clutches her fork and knife a little tighter, and she wonders what makes him so different from her. She is intelligent. She is kind. She is pretty with her hair up. She bests him in dueling and alchemy and her favorite books are more arduous than his. Yet, where he finds acceptance, stares are given to her as if she is leaving a stain where she stands.

Dion supposes that is what smirched grass and flobberworm mucus is. The filth they build bridges over so they do not ruin their suede leather loafers. They turn a blind eye so they can focus on the view. But that lets the mucus fester; it becomes something anew under the passage. Icky and green, it comes to life and it learns from them. Tom learns to walk like them and talk like them, masters the ability to bear his teeth like them. It's kill or be killed, after all. Dion learns that she is beneath them.

That is their difference; that is their acceptance.

Dion Seaver knows all blood spilled red and viscous; ugly. Tom Riddle disagrees.

as described,
Dion Seaver

Yves Olade, Belovéd

Seaver ✶ Excluded from the Sacred Twenty-Eight

as described,
Tom Riddle

Sierra DeMulder, Mrs. Dahmer

Gaunt ✶ Number ten of the Sacred Twenty-Eight

Additional Cast
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Sanyu Ngondi, lovie simone
Beckham Maharaj, viveik kalra
Alphard Black, mark edelstein
Antonin Dolohov, jack o'connell
Evelyn Avery, agathe bonitzer
Dorian Rosier, as described
Thaddeus Nott, deaken bluman
Romulus Mulciber,  as described
Kostya, as described
Sasha Seaver, as described
Abraxas Malfoy, as described

Disclaimer
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──── first and foremost fuck jkr ! unfortunately the hp universe belongs to her (and she did a terrible job fleshing it out), but this fic is canon divergent from the original tmr lore so if you notice something that doesn't quite line up with the timeline just shut your eyes. however, if there's anything that creates a huge plot hole in the marauders/golden trio era please point it out that would literally be so embarrassing for me. tom, alphard, and antonin are the only "canon" (as much canon as we were given) characters, but with them, and the rest of the core six of the knights of walpurgis have been taken into my interpretation.

i cannot stress how canon divergent/up to my interpretation this is. i have taken it upon myself to tweak not only the timeline, but a few canon details that are extremely offensive and i do not want to perpetuate. mainly the entirety of the gringotts lore, which is built on every anti-semitic trope you could ever think of. it was an extremely easy fix (minus anything that happened in the video game. never played it. never going to play it. it was released over 15 years after the last book came out. so i'm not including it in the lore.) i honestly do not care what anyone has to say about this point if you disagree.

second, this isn't meant to be a romance people should seek out, nor is it the glorification/romanticization of eugenicists even though it might appear that way at times due to the point of view being written. i highly doubt i need to give a dissertation on this, but... putting it out there. i strongly suggest anyone who is under the age of 18 and attracted to the types of characters being portrayed to maybe take a step back because you don't need these types of relationships (romantic or platonic) entering your brainwaves as something to admire. i've seen an influx of worryingly young people being attracted to it, so if you do fit that criteria and decide to continue, please read critically my god. but also not really my responsibility etc etc.

third, because i know everyone reads things differently, dion's name is pronounced die-on.

──── warning, contains: violence, gore, mental/emotional abuse, manipulation, death, child death, period-typical homophobia, racism, and ableism, mentions of suicide, idealizations of suicide, spiritual themes, war (WWII), mentions of sex, sexual themes, and self harm, anything extreme will be tagged at the beginning of the chapter

──── now just me talking! so, hi. this fic has been in the drafts for a very long time, but i am deeply in love with the plot and want to release it out into the world. dion and sanyu mean the entire world to me. the rest... im clutching my purse around but i have put a ton of time in fleshing out each and every character that i've made. which means i would REALLY appreciate votes, comments, or any kind of feedback (even private messages if you're shy!!) even if you think it's stupid or not worth commenting, i will enjoy it. like, genuinely ANY comments make me very happy. shaking like an excited dog even.

someone pointed it out and i did this completely by accident but the summary is inspired by "for the love that used to be here" by fatesundress on tumblr!!!! please check them out, they're so so talented

but most importantly, enjoy!!!!

Dedications
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i would especially like to dedicate this to the hawkins hub discord for basically putting me on a baby leash and helping me with whatever i need in regards to this fic. whether it's just me ranting or genuine questions for how i should pace things—they were constantly there to help!!!!! LOVE YOU ALL austrxlians seasmokes vecnas void-daniella elfaouly wickedhour + everyone else who didn't ask to be tagged

more dts <333 I LOVE MY MUTUALS RAHHH
crierayla libraing -slytherinsinner

without further ado......... ;)

Year of Damnation
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2023  /  girlpools