DISCLAIMER: Only the plot and OCs are mine, everything else belongs to the fabulous JKR
A/N: Really really nervous about this one shot. I've been working on this for a while, taking it (sorta) slow to do it as much justice as I can. HAVE I ACCOMPLISHED THIS? Probably not, but that's for you to decide. Warning: the writing style is quite intense and in-your-face and it is a bit of a dark!fic because, well, it'sTom Riddle. There won't be much about his plans for world domination though. As far as I'm concerned, his main goal is to be immortal at this point, not world domination. It is told in ten parts and it is not in chronological order. Remember to read, rate and review lovelies :)
19.02.15: uploaded to this website, was originally on HPFF. Rated M to be safe
28.05.15: minor edits made
I.
She was captivating, that much he knew. A work of art - curved limbs painstakingly forged in the heart of a dying star, wild curls as dark as the depths of a black-hole cascading down her back, eyes so wide and so brown and so innocent, plump lips parted, face radiant - even Michelangelo could not have dreamed of creating something as fine, as extraordinary.
Tom liked her skin best. It fascinated him. Soft, supple, smooth - exquisite. He liked to hold her wrists, the pad of his thumb gliding from left to right, left to right, left again, marvelling at the touch, and then press down against her pulse, feel the steady drumbeat that reminded them that she was still alive. They were both still alive.
They would be alive forever.
II.
Transfer students were uncommon at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, practically unheard of really, but transfer students that had been plastered all over the front cover of The Daily Prophet for the past week were even rarer. Tom, like most people, stared at the infamous girl lingering by the door behind the staff's table. He supposed that she was rather attractive, if you were foolish enough to be distracted by a pretty face. Tom was not.
"And just who is that?" murmured Nott interestedly, his tongue darting out to lick his chapped lips, a compulsive habit he had yet to get rid of. Though blindingly loyal, the Slytherin was notorious within the corridors of Hogwarts for his crude remarks and perverted pursuits. Most girls were loath to stay in the same room as him and it was amusing for the Knights to witness the rejections fired his way. He was also clearly an idiot.
"Carina Bellerose," Malfoy answered curtly, his voice raised slightly for only them to hear. "She's been staying at a Ministry safehouse for the past week, but since Hogwarts is the safest place in the country, they've sent her here. She was home educated before as their family usually moved back and forth from their Manor here to their ancestral Manor in France to visit their uncle, so she'll still be in our year. I think she's supposed to be back at the safehouse in the holidays, but I hear that Father is currently negotiating to have her live with us." He avoided their knowing looks as his cheeks flushed pink.
"Mind if I have a go before you?" Nott smirked. A sudden kick on Malfoy's part and a groan on Nott's. "I'm guessing not."
"Of course not, you bloody perver-"
Inbreds, the lot of them.
"Quiet," Tom ordered.
His wish was their command; they fell silent instantly. They would always obey him and he relished that. It was almost pitiful that it was the closest thing to love he felt, this thirst for control and dominance, to own and bend the will of other people that were so obviously not worth the hand of friendship. For what was friendship if not accepting the other person as your equal?
Satisfied, Tom looked away, back towards the girl approaching the three-legged stool.
Carina Bellerose. Almost certainly a Slytherin, according to Malfoy's tentative whisper that came a moment later, for whenever her family deigned to attend Hogwarts instead of Beauxbatons, they were always Slytherins. Cunning, sly, ambitious, resourceful and, most importantly, pureblood. They were perfect - she was perfect. After all, Malfoy would know. His family had close ties with them and the Malfoys didn't associate with just anyone.
Tom would have to welcome her to the school as Head Boy. Slip on his flawless smile, charm the socks off her, possibly sweep her off her feet if she was like any of the other girls in the school. If Malfoy's father was granted his wish, he'd have to keep up pretences for much longer.
"Ravenclaw!"
Then again, Tom thought in amusement as Malfoy's jaw slackened in shock, perhaps not. Carina Bellerose wasn't perfect after all.
III.
He pressed feather-soft kisses against the nape of her neck, letting out a low chuckle at her shiver. Her neck arched as she peered down at the thick textbook in her hands, wisps of hair curling at the base of her head. He kissed them too.
"Stop, Tom," she murmured, pulling away from him. She twisted on the spot to send him a half-smile. "You're distracting me."
"It's not an interesting textbook in the first place." He shrugged, leaning against the bookcase. He sent her a smirk. "I'm far more intriguing."
"Of course," she agreed, far too easily to be serious. His eyes narrowed and she let out a playful laugh, stepping forward to lean against him. His right arm wrapped around her, firm and possessive, unyielding. Pushing herself onto her tiptoes, she added, "Positively irresistible, really."
His head turned to face her, his cool breath misting over her face. Her eyes drifted shut, causing a proud smirk to lift the corners of his mouth as he drank her in - drank in the sooty eyelashes brushing the tops of her cheeks, drank in the loose tendril of hair falling into her face, drank in the expectant lips that waited for him to lick them open and kiss her. He waited until her eyelids twitched and her eyelashes began to rise before he swooped in like a beggar at a feast.
She gasped and he felt absolutely victorious.
"I-" Nothing came out of her mouth for a long moment when he finally pulled away. "I...need to do my Transfiguration essay."
"Oh?"
"Yes." She nodded, unlatching his arm from her, one finger of his hand at a time. Smoothing down her robes, she chewed her lip, saying as an afterthought, "And figure out just how I'm going to decline Mr. Malfoy's proposal to marry Abraxas. Honestly, we haven't even graduated and he's praying that I'll be pregnant by this time next year."
He scowled. "We'll figure something out."
He'd figure something out. Damn anyone who tried to take his Carina away from him. No one could dream of touching her, of holding her and kissing her - she was his and his alone. He owned her, had owned her from the first time he threw away his refusal to swap saliva with another person (honestly he couldn't fathom how people did that willingly with such imbeciles and it never failed to disgust him) and kissed her swiftly and roughly on the lips. He would gladly punish anyone who tried to steal her away from him, leave marks and scars to remind them that no one - not one person could ever hope to lay a finger on what was rightfully his.
IV.
It was curiosity that led him to her. A small spark that became a raging fire burning him inside out until he quenched his desire. But fire worked in mysterious ways and seeking out answers only fueled it, encouraged his hunger, his desire to know more. Tom had always been curious, ever so curious. And two days after the Sorting Ceremony, Malfoy introduced her to them, a hint of pride in his voice, hand on her lower back, looking down at her with the faintest trace of warmth that a Malfoy could ever show or be capable of - and Tom found a new puzzle to solve, to break.
"Carina," Malfoy said, indicating the Knights with a sweep of his arm. "Meet Theodore Nott, Alexander Rosier, Cepheus Lestrange, Emerson Avery and of course, Tom Riddle. Tom is the Head Boy of Hogwarts and the smartest wizard in the school," he added, looking admiringly at his master.
"In the school?" she echoed curiously, looking at Tom.
Under her expectant gaze, Tom feigned a blush and looked down, the very picture of modesty. It was preposterous, ludicrous really, that he could not acknowledge his prowess, embrace that he was gifted at magic, that he was better, far better than all of the apes scurrying around his school, far better than everyone he had ever encountered. A master of the magical arts, willing to break rules and test restrictions, explore the entirety of his magic, rather than abide by silly laws and guidelines provided by fools who didn't know better, who didn't truly know what power and magic was.
"My friends..." he said slowly, choosing each word thoughtfully. His voice was a soft baritone, rich and powerful, but unassuming for the moment. "Abraxas, he exaggerates. I work hard in my subjects, that's all."
"He's being modest." Avery was quick to throw that out. "Everyone knows that Tom is the best."
He spoke the truth, as reverent and biased as his words were, because Tom was the best and he would settle for nothing less. But in the face of Carina Bellerose, he forced his pale cheeks to flush and smiled a perfect smile, perfectly symmetrical with a glint of perfectly white teeth.
It was then that something flashed in her eyes, something indecipherable, an emotion that flitted across far too quickly for him to read. There was a slight hesitation and then she also smiled a perfect smile, perfectly symmetrical with a glint of perfectly white teeth.
"Pleasure to meet you, Tom," she said, extending a nimble hand for him to shake.
She was a liar, he knew that straight away. Because her perfect smile was too perfect to be genuine, to not have been practiced in front of the mirror for hours until it was as glorious as the rest of her and though he knew that pureblood females of her status were fake in every sense of the word - simpering, manipulative and deadlier than their male counterparts even on their worst days - there was something about that smile that reminded him of himself. No, there was no way in hell that she would ever be his equal, but one thing was clear in Tom's mind as he smiled his perfect smile and shook her hand and that was that she was the perfect actress, reflecting the perfect amount grief in her eyes or her face and-
She was a liar.
Just like him.
"The pleasure is all mine," he purred.
V.
He knew the story, of course. The tragedy that had befallen the Bellerose family the previous summer. If he closed his eyes, he could see the words of the numerous articles in his head, the cursive print in The Daily Prophet.
'Slaughterhouse Survivor At Seventeen'
'The Bellerose Bloodbath'
'Behind the Bellerose Bloodbath: Was It Grindelwald or Freedom Fighters?'
The halls of the Bellerose Manor in the South of France had ran with blood. Journalists had it on good word from the Aurors investigating the case that no wand had been raised, no Dark Curse had been cast. No, the mob had terrorised the occupants of the house with the use of Muggle weapons, with guns and knives and axes and their sheer body strength. The disarray and chaotic mess, the blood that splattered the walls of the house, its coppery odour and the rancid stench of decay proved that the deaths had been violent and it made the whole magical world sick to the stomach.
The French Ministry did not know what to do. All leads had ran cold. No one knew who it was because which Freedom Fighters would willingly kill Muggleborn servants and why would Grindelwald wish to destroy the heart of the Bellerose family? No witnesses were left; every pureblood, every servant, every house elf, every living soul had been decimated - every soul except one.
And that one soul was sat cross-legged in front of him, absentmindedly humming as she busied herself with the crossword at the back of The Daily Prophet.
"Tell me about it," he said suddenly. His smooth voice startled her, causing her hand to jerk across the page and thick, black ink to ruin her fun. She frowned and then peered up at him.
"Sorry?"
"Tell me about it," he repeated, meeting her eyes with his own. He leaned closer to her, filling her air with his scent, his right hand snaking round her neck to play with the hair at the nape of her neck, the other wrapping around her right wrist to press against her pulse. They were in the courtyard, alone and free to be as friendly as they wished to be. "Tell me about this summer."
Her eyes flashed. She stiffened, leaning away from him. "No."
"No?" For a second, he was speechless, astounded and who did she think she was, refusing to obey him, the insolent little-
"I don't particularly want to talk about the death of half of my family," she answered flatly, returning to the newspaper once again. "Forgive me if I don't comply with you this once."
He gritted his teeth, his hand itching for his wand. Tom was not used to insolence. Tom was accustomed to total compliance, total surrender. At Hogwarts, in the place of his birthright, people adored him, no matter how clueless they were to his true personality. They fell for his perfect looks and perfect act, praised him, respected him, worshipped him, wanted him, even feared him. Nearly everyone grovelled at his feet when he requested it. Anything he wanted, he got.
He wanted an answer. He was going to get it.
"I just want to know how you survived," he said in an innocent tone, edging closer to her again. His long fingers rose to cup her face, tilted it up to face him. "Is that so wrong?"
"I shall tell you in my own time, Tom," she said, blinking up at him. "Is that so wrong?"
Annoyance flickered inside of him, but he squashed it down. "I confess I am merely... curious."
A smile graced her mouth, a perfect smile, perfectly symmetrical, with a glint of perfectly white teeth. A moment before she met his lips, she whispered, "Too curious for your own good."
He did not know why he let her evade the subject so easily. Perhaps because mock examinations were coming up and he needed to revise (magic was easily controlled by him but he had to ensure that there was no room for any mistakes) or perhaps because his Knights had gotten careless from the lack of attention he bestowed upon them - Malfoy especially since it was Tom's hand that spread warmth through Carina's side and his mouth that claimed hers, not the blonde's - and he knew he needed to reign them back in. Or perhaps it was because he was an eighteen year old boy that happened to find Carina Bellerose's kisses rather addictive. Perhaps it was that.
VI.
As time went on and Tom kept his arm wrapped around the waist of the last Bellerose in Europe, he slowly allowed his true self to peek through. It was too late for her to escape him because he would never let her go, but he was tiring of pretences and smiling the same perfect smile, perfectly symmetrical with a glint of perfectly white teeth.
Besides, she was smart enough to realise what was really going on. She'd known that he was a liar from the first day that they met and yet she had fallen for his trap all the same. She saw the way that his so-called 'friends' orbited him like he was the centre of their universe, saw the way that they hung off his every word, feared his scornful words and lapped up his compliments, as rare as they were. She saw how each and every one of them treated her with the utmost respect yet maintained their careful distance with her, all of them except Malfoy who spoke to her with an air of familiarity and warmth that Tom openly detested.
She knew that Tom was like a bad apple: at first delicious, alluring, tantalising and then rotten at the core. He was full of a bleak darkness that would never leave, only spread like cancer. He knew he was a drug to her, an addicting rush of something disastrous, something more. Euphoric. He was euphoric. There was a reason why he had no physical fault and it was because his very nature was the worst flaw of all. If Lucifer had been the brightest star in the sky, Tom Marvolo Riddle was an explosive supernova, hellbent on destruction.
"Even a first year could fight a boggart," he said derisively, flicking through his textbook. "Why they decided that we would have to fight one for our NEWT mock, I honestly don't know. How incompetent do they think we are?"
"In the darkest of times, boggarts can be quite hard to vanquish," she replied in a murmur. "Don't underestimate everything, Tom."
His upper lip curled, but he chose not to comment. Instead, casting a sideways glance at the girl beside him, he asked, "Why? What's your boggart?"
She stared down at the desk for a long moment. Finally: "Death, I think." She did not ask him what his was, Tom did not fear anything.
But death... Death was a new one. To die was weak and Tom was not weak. Tom did not like the unknown, he abhorred it, and what happened after death was the biggest mystery of all. He refused to end up as dust and bones and have his flesh eaten away six feet under the ground and soon forgotten. No, he would not die. Not ever.
And neither would she, he decided. He'd promise her immortality too, introduce the idea of horcruxes slowly. Losing her would never be an option.
VII.
One thing that he admired about her was her strength. Oh, she was weak in many ways - like many girls their age, her heart melted at photos of abandoned Kneazles and at another distraught, heartbroken female's plight and she was slightly intimidated by Malfoy Senior (an irrational fear, in Tom's highly regarded opinion) - but she was still strong, almost invincible. It had taken her months to crack her resolve to keep quiet about the Bellerose Bloodbath and not once had her excellent acting skills faltered since that day. And as much as it had aggravated him at the time that she'd disobeyed him, continued to skirt his probing and inquisitive looks, it had been strangely reassuring to know that she wasn't simply another pathetic witch throwing herself at him.
Besides, he had reminded himself whenever she'd angered him, she would break under pressure soon enough. After all, she had surrendered herself to him, hadn't she? As independent as she convinced herself to be, she was still his. His property, his possession. His obsession.
There came a time when he came to realise that her walls were not up twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. No, because when she moved in with him after graduation - at his insistence, of course, he would never part with her, not even after Hogwarts - and she first succumbed to the lure of sleep in their shared bed, her mask finally slipped off and he saw what was underneath.
Vulnerability. Terror. A living nightmare.
In the dead of the night, she opened her mouth and she screamed. She writhed, tossed, turned, kicked, jerked - restless, ever so restless - and tears poured down her face, escaping the tightly shut eyelids, a blood-curdling shriek clawed its way out of her throat, tearing out of her lungs and filling the darkness of their room with the memory of death. She was so weak. She was so strong.
He was captivated as he held her, rocked her back and forth, allowed her tears to dampen his bare shoulder. It grew tiring, yes, and he searched relentlessly for the best Dreamless Sleeping Draughts on the market, but nothing helped. Nothing except the sound of his hushed voice in the dead of the night and the arms that wrapped tightly around her, protecting what was his. And in some ways, he liked that. He liked being the only one who could drag her away from her demons. He liked being the one she depended on so heavily. He liked being her dark, twisted saviour.
But when the course of their relationship wasn't fitting his standards or running as smoothly as he desired it to be, he furiously hissed at her, reprimanding and goading, belittling her for her hours of weakness. And one time, she replied with an anger just as dark, spitting fire from her mouth, shoving him - yes, shoving him - against the wall, her claws digging into his chest.
"Oh, yes, of course!" she spat angrily. "I'm weak for actually feeling human emotions. I am weak for having the worst night of my life haunt my dreams. I'm weak for remembering it all and not moving on. I'm weak, aren't I, Tom? And you- you despise weakness, despise me at the heart of it all, don't you? Relationship? This isn't a goddamn relationship, Tom. Not if you can't stomach the fact that I'm - I'm scarred by the memory of my parents' brutal deaths." Her dark eyes flashed with apoplectic rage. "I don't know why I thought you would understand or, God forbid, care. So tell me, Tom! Go on! Have you ever seen your father die in front of your own eyes?"
He had actually. He'd been the one to kill him.
VIII.
Her name was Corrine, Corrine Blondeu, and she was perfect. Beautifully constructed- long blonde hair tied in a braided bun, sharp blue cat eyes, creamy skin, nimble fingers, slender body, rosebud lips, a small spatter of freckles that dusted her cheeks. She was a waif of a girl. She had so much potential and then she died. Or rather took a bullet to her heart. A bullet that was meant for her best friend, Carina Bellerose - a best friend she was never supposed to have.
For when her heart fluttered in her chest, Corrine was what Belleroses called mudblood. She was beneath them, she was nothing - but she was everything to the one Bellerose that didn't see the world as black and white as her family did, the one Bellerose that did not view the world as purebloods versus mudbloods. So when Corrine was five and unluckily commited her first magical act in the presence of a man who knew more than her startled parents did, she was whisked away to Bellerose Manor where it was rumoured that mudbloods were forced to work alongside house elves (and of course the French Ministry, known for being one of the most corrupted ministries in the magical world, did not have the time to look into such rumours, what with the lack of evidence and such frivolities).
Enter Carina Bellerose. At six years old she was rather lonely since her only cousin, a sulky nine and a half year old boy, didn't have the patience for her and all of the help feared her wrath. At six years old she was also rather persistent and would not leave Corrine alone until she admitted that they were friends - Corrine desperately tried to remember the warnings of the other staff to stay away, but she was lonely and confused and so so upset and Carina seemed to like her unlike her other masters and that awful, mean boy who insulted her all of the time. They liked to walk around the manor, the older girl pretending to oversee the others duties.
As the years grew on, their friendship flourished behind secret whispers and sneaky visits in the dead of the night. They longed for Carina's visits to the manor because as often as they were, the weeks in between them were far too long to handle. She taught the younger girl everything she wanted to know, brought along rolls of parchment for clumsily penned words to fill, carried books for Carina to read out loud as Corrine swept the floor and occasionally shove under her nose, testing the way the words hesitantly fell off the younger girl's tongue.
They trod a dangerously thin line, steadily passing through the realm of tentative friendship to sisterhood. It was magnificent. Though both were from opposite ends of the spectrum, should never have even glanced each others way - well, they were one and the same, so much so that Carina refused to go to Hogwarts or Beauxbatons when the time came. She demanded to stay at home, learn magic from her mother and then secretly pass it on, handing over her wand temporarily, helping Corrine perfect her movements, giving her a taste of power.
One and the same. Carina and Corrine.
They grew up beautiful. Corrine with hair as soft as silk, as golden as the sun, a face as beautiful as a Veela's. Carina with dark tangled curls, big brown eyes and an aura of confidence that seeped from her bones. Beauty was a second skin on them, a blessing and a curse. Because while Carina's mother delighted in the thought of finally marrying into the Malfoys, the predatory eyes of her cousin stuck to Corrine, grew dark and malevolent with lust and he ached to rip the dirty grey tunic off her body. He desired her, claimed her in his bed, the steely confines of his body trapping her, a hand clamped on her mouth to muffle her desperate screams. She cried to Carina later, begged for some form of mercy, of escape and Carina granted it to her. Within the same week, she was her personal handmaiden, required to stay with her at every hour of the day, every minute of the hour. She was safe.
On the night of the Bellerose Bloodbath, it was Corrine that desperately woke her up, fear in her voice, body trembling, tears in her blue cat eyes. There were people forcing their way into the house, the shouts of a mob ravenous for blood, thirsting for it. Carina tore her way down the stairs to her parents' bedroom, not taking heed of the warning cry behind her, not caring if someone was hidden in the shadows, waiting for her. She needed to get to her parents - her mother and her father had been horrible people, but they were still her parents and still loved her more than anything else in the world - and she did not know what was happening, why there were hysterical shrieks all over the house, why fear and rage and something darker, much darker stifled her, hung poignantly in the air as she stumbled into her parents' bedroom-
She screamed. It was the most foolish thing to do at that moment, the most stupid thing she could've ever done, but she could not help it - not when a masked man had driven a sword into her father's heart and not when blood spluttered out of his mouth, dark and deep red, not when the man threw his head back and advanced upon her threateningly, a sadistic grin crinkling the corners of his eyes.
She stumbled back into the hallway, heart hammering in her chest - she was going to die, she was going to die like her mother and father had, blood leaking from a damn wound in her chest - and suddenly someone grabbed her hand, yanked her forward with a cry of her name and she ran up the stairs, the man hot on her heels, beckoning her in a rough voice, gleeful and terrifying.
The door to her bedroom slammed shut and locked. Corrine grabbed Carina's wand from the table by her bed and dragged her to the window, forcing it open. They were going to have to climb onto the roof, try to get to the nearest trees and run for their goddamn lives until they were out of the anti-Apparition boundaries. There were no Floo grates on hand. It was their only choice.
Someone hammered on the bedroom door, the frames groaned under the pressure. There was a startled shriek, the sound of the window sliding open, the rustle of their nightgowns as they crawled onto the windowsill outside, hearts hammering in their chests, balancing precariously on a thin ledge. Corrine swung her legs up onto the roof, reached down and helped her friend up. They ran.
The person who killed Corrine was not the man who had killed Carina's parents. It was a woman in male clothes, her raised hood failing to hide the brilliant red hair that spilled from her scalp, the dark cloth covering her mouth failing to hide her grin as she pointed a gun straight at Carina. She was chasing them into the forest, her long legs eating up the distance between them. She had the advantage of shoes, did not feel pain shudder through her with every step she took and it was working well for her. But they were still ahead, could still reach the boundary in time and apparate if they just pushed that little harder. The woman was down to her final bullet, she would not waste it unless she was sure she wouldn't miss. They skidded behind a tree, took each others hands and Carina closed her eyes, visualised somewhere far from here - they began to spin, their bodies screaming in protest as the air rushed in to suffocate them-
A gunshot. A hand that tore out of hers, a body that threw herself in front of her as a bullet sped towards her chest. The last thing Carina saw before she was whisked away was the fallen body of her sister.
The day that Carina Bellerose told Tom of that dreaded night, she allowed her facade to crumble for one single minute as he processed it all, unusually thrown. He had never - he had never imagined that there was so much to the story. There was no way that she could be lying, no doubt in his mind when he looked at her big brown eyes - no longer innocent, not at all - that she was telling him the truth for once and she was not feeding him a well-crafted lie. His mind fought against itself, trying to hate her, despise her, reveal her for what she truly was - but he could not bring himself to do it, could not bring himself to cast her away and scorn her for her betrayal.
Carina Bellerose was a liar. She was not a pureblood at all. She was a blood traitor.
IX.
Tom was a master of manipulation. His smooth, rich voice was pleasant, friendly, persuasive, his words carefully chosen to convince the other person that he was right - of course, he was right, he was Tom Marvolo Riddle - and that there was nothing wrong with his ideas, his hopes, his dreams. They were logical, perfectly reasonable. He could turn best friends against each other, convince you to drive a knife through your own heart, could build you up and then tear you down. Tom knew what power was - true power - and he wielded it expertly.
Carina Bellerose did not seem to understand that. She listened to his words, nodded along thoughtfully, but doubt pooled in her dark eyes and she opened her mouth to refute his words. He was quickly losing his patience.
"What is so great about life that you want to live forever?" she asked, arching one dark eyebrow expectantly.
He did not know. All he knew was that to die was to be weak. To be vanquished by old age was laughable, to be destroyed by your enemy was shameful and that dying at the hands of an unknown force just because the world was like that was wrong. He was more than a Muggle and now he was more than a wizard, more than human.
"You," he answered with a perfect smile, perfectly symmetrical with a glint of perfectly white teeth. "You are what is great about life."
Something flashed across her face, something indecipherable, something too quickly for him to be able to discern. He watched her allow her doubt to etch itself on her face, noted how she bit her lip anxiously.
"But...I don't know, Tom... It sounds risky."
"It's perfectly safe," he promised, his hands wrapping around both of her wrists and pressing against her pulse. Each thud reminded him of a clock ticking away the seconds of her dwindling life, a life that would never stop if she would just listen. His dark eyes flashed and he forced hurt to flood into his voice. "Do you not love me?"
"You know that I love you," she snaps, narrowing her eyes at him. "You're all that I have left."
He kissed her then, soft and slow. Because she loved him and love was nothing more than total surrender to someone else, nothing more than making yourself vulnerable and weak, nothing more than giving yourself up totally. She loved him, she would do anything for him because he owned her. He would own her forever.
"So do you agree to do it?" he asked greedily.
She frowned. "I have to think about it, Tom. Splitting your soul and murdering someone isn't to be taken lightly. If I'm honest, I don't know how you did it."
"It was for the best," he said, rubbing her smooth arms, marvelling at the supple skin. "I think of it as putting someone out of their misery. The man I killed...he was old and he wanted to die. It was not like I murdered an innocent." The lie fell easily off his tongue.
She sighed, burying her head into his chest. When she spoke, he felt the vibrations through his chest, passing through the beating, blackened heart in the centre of it. "I don't know...I'll think about it."
He pressed a kiss to the top of her head. He knew that she would say yes.
X.
Tom,
This is a hard letter to write. I have written this many times, fretting over whether I've worded this correctly or not, whether I'm too blunt at times or too gentle. In the end I've decided to try one last time and what I write is what you will read. So here it is...
If you have any intellect, I know that you know what this is. You have realised that I'm not breathing, I'm not sleeping, I'm not playing dead - I am dead. It is an irrefutable fact. I am dead and this is a note to explain why. I must ask you to not show the Healers from St. Mungo's this, to keep this letter hidden or burn it until only the memory of ashes and my words are imprinted in your mind. No one can see this.
I am dead, quite simply, because of you. Because as much as I love you, Tom, you are tainted. I might not know much about them, but I am smart enough to know that horcruxes are Dark. Your soul makes you who you are and splitting it is not a good thing even if it brings the promise of immortality. I was never going to agree with you - surely you know that? Surely you didn't think that I would willingly murder someone? Not after what happened to me? Not after the massacre of my family and of Corrine? I am not capable of murder, even if you did suggest a person already on the brink of death, already willing to die. I know that you did not do the same. As much as I love you, Tom, I know you well enough to realise that you did not "put someone out of their misery" and did nothing wrong. Whoever you killed deserved it - in your eyes.
Unfortunately, you have a twisted view on life. You want to rule the world, you hate anything to do with Muggles because of your past yet you pretend that you don't wish to snap their necks. Before you will rule the world, you will destroy it. I know you have had a horrible childhood, lived at an orphanage where you were abused and outcast, ridiculed even, and you were abandoned. It has shaped you into the person you are today and you are not a good person.
Forgive me for the lack of modesty, but I like to think that I am - or was - your redeeming factor. I know that your love for me is not the same as my love for you, that you see me as your possession, yours to touch and love and kiss. I see it in the way that you despise my conversations with Abraxas and the way that you lock your arms around me as if you will never let go. But at least you love me in your own way.
Life is not completely black or white, it is millions of shades of grey and you are the embodiment of that. Though I think I know you more than most, I still cannot even begin to understand you. I do not blame you completely for all of your actions, as stupid as the moral side of me knows this to be because they were your actions alone. However, not all of your actions were horrible. Some of them were admirable. Like how you held me every night when the memory of Corrine's blood on my face hit me, when the recollection of that God awful sword filled my mind, when my demons haunted me.
Tom, I kill myself because I know that you will never let me go otherwise. As long as I am breathing, I shall be yours whether I am willing to be or not. And I have no wish to live forever. There is nothing too great about life to make me want to. I know that I am a coward, not sticking around to stop you from whatever madness you plan to do, but I cannot. I have experienced too much loss in my life and I can't lose you to your own darkness. I am sorry.
With love,
Carina Bellerose
Tom stared at the parchment in his hand. Some of the ink had ran from tears that fell from her face, but the writing was still legible. It was crumpled from where he had scrunched it up, thrown it across the room and summoned it back to him to read again.
No. No. It could not be true. It could not be true that she would dare to leave him, dare to end her own life just to escape him. She was supposed to say yes! She loved him, she had surrendered herself to him. She was his. She could not leave him, she didn't have the right. No, she had no right, not when he had plans for them to live forever, with him as the ruler of the world and her by his side. And if he planned to destroy the world first, so be it. She loved him, she would've accustomed to it and come around. Because she loved him.
Had. She had loved him. She was no longer here to love him, not really. Her soul had passed still intact while his was ripped apart as he pulled her into his lap, not caring when the antique bottle in her limp hand rolled away and onto the floor, smashing into pieces.
He brushed her wild curls out of her radiant face, looked down at the work of art that not even Michelangelo could've dreamed of creating, one that could've convinced him that God existed if he could have ever accepted that a more divine being controlled him. Her dark eyes were closed, no longer innocent, thick sooty lashes brushed against the smooth surface of her cheek. She was something extraordinary, a nymph out of a forgotten tale, beautiful and perfect with the most exquisite skin.
He pressed his lips against hers, hard, quick. His black, rotten heart shattered into pieces. Eyes sliding shut, he circled her left wrist with his right hand, his thumb gliding from left to right, left to right, left again, blindly seeking for a drumbeat that wasn't there. She was not alive.
She was alive no longer.