A/N: So this little story is for a side competition in the QLFC. We basically had to explain why a particular character has an affinity for a certain spell, and I got Voldemort and Avada Kedavra. Fun, no? I couldn't pass it up.

P.S. Sorry for any and all errors. I was up suuuuuuper late trying to finish this. I'm going to go sleep for ages now.

"Everyone line up!" Professor Ward said, waving her arms emphatically. "Yes! Come on! Hurry up now, we haven't got all day!"

Tom watched idly as his fellow classmates struggled to perform even the simplest of tasks; namely, forming a straight line. He slipped into the back of the line along with a few lingering Ravenclaws. Excitement was buzzing throughout the room—something that Tom noticed rather than felt—as his classmates speculated in hushed whispers what Professor Ward was hiding in the large cupboard at the front of the room.

Out of the corner of his eye, Tom saw a girl, eyes glazed with curiosity, drift too close. Wrinkling his nose, Tom directed a sharp, electric shock at her knees. The girl yelped and leapt away from him, her head whipping around to find her assailant. Tom turned his attention back to the front of the room, confident that he would avoid speculation.

"Boggarts!" Professor Ward exclaimed, throwing her arms up once more. Tom tilted his head as he examined her. She really was an odd sort of creature with her wild red hair and her expressive blue eyes that were a touch too bright for Tom's taste. He vaguely wondered what it would take to extinguish that light. "One of the magical world's most curious creatures! Shapeshifters, and inherent masters of Legilimins; Boggarts can almost instantly take the shape of the thing you fear most."

A few of the students gasped.

"But as with all dark, magical creatures, they have a specific weakness. Now, if Boggarts utilize your fear to control you, what would you expect would be the best thing to combat it?"

The room was silent.

Tom stared around at them, wondering—not for the first time—if any of the students in this school actually studied. Sighing, Tom raised his hand.

"Yes, Mr. Riddle?"

Tom lowered his hand and gave Professor Ward his most charming smile. "Boggarts are susceptible to humor. You have to think about turning the thing you fear most into something humorous. I believe the spell is Riddikulus."

Professor Ward's wrinkled face brightened. "Yes! Very good, Tom! Five points to Slytherin."

A few of the surrounding Ravenclaws huffed dejectedly.

"Now, the spell goes as such." Professor Ward turned towards the cupboard, taking out her wand and clutching it firmly in her right hand. Adrenaline spiked in Tom's blood as she reached for the cupboard door and flung it open.

A python, bigger than any Tom had ever seen, emerged.

It was…undeniably magnificent.

Professor Wand raised her wand. "Riddikulus!" she yelled, and the snake's body coiled and began bouncing around like a spring. Several of the students laughed, and the snake shuddered and hissed irately before retreating back into the cupboard.

It was the first time a snake had hissed and Tom hadn't understood what it said. Disappointment flooded his mouth, sharp and bitter. So the Boggart was nothing more than a cheap imitation.

Professor Ward turned back towards the class, beaming. "Easy enough, yes? Okay, wands out everyone. We'll have you go in the order you're lined up."

Nervous whispers stirred the air as students craned their neck so they could see the first of their classmates. Professor Ward approached the cupboard once more, and opened the door.

Most were able to pull off the spell with little consequence, though, Tom hardly saw how they could fail. They had such juvenile fears—spiders, heights, ghouls. Gellert Grindelwald even appeared a few times. And once, most interestingly to Tom, a Thestral.

By the time it was Tom's turn, he was already bored with the entire concept. If a creature could be overpowered by a single thought, he hardly understood why they hadn't learned about them sooner. Tom stepped forward and waited for the Boggart to change. At thirteen, he hardly saw how this could possibly pose him with any sort of real challenge. And, what more—

Tom's heart caught in his throat.

He found himself staring at the most impossible sight he had ever encountered: his own body lying in an open casket. His arms were demurely crossed over his chest, eerily motionless without the habitual rise and fall that came with his breath, and his eyelashes were like twin wisps of ink on the powdered snow of his cheeks.

He was dead.

The classroom seemed suddenly very far away. Distantly, Tom could hear people talking, but it was like he'd been plunged underwater—their words had become nothing more than imitations of sound.

He was dead. How could he be dead? He hadn't done anything yet. He'd only just met this world—this beautiful, fractured world of magic—and he had so much that he wanted to accomplish. So much that he wanted to change. He couldn't be dead. He couldn't.

"Tom!" Professor Ward's hand on his shoulder jerked him out of his stupor. She pushed him out of the way, and the Boggart immediately twisted back into a python.

"Riddikulus!" She banished the creature back into the cupboard, her shoulders betraying a slight tremor. "That's enough for today. You're all dismissed."

Tom wasn't sure he could move. He could barely breathe. He'd never felt this way before—powerless against the inevitable. He hated it.

Professor Ward looked at him, and the pity shining in her blue eyes was enough to make Tom's stomach turn. "Are you alright, Tom?"

Tom's jaw popped from the effort it took to contain his snarl. "Yes. I'll promise I'll get the spell correct next time, Professor."

"The spell is beside the point."

Tom pursed his lips before splitting them into an endearing smile. "I appreciate your concern, Professor, but really, there's nothing to worry about."

He left before she had the chance to respond.

The room looked much different at night. Tom stood in front of the cupboard in the—now empty—Defense Against the Dark Art's classroom. Moonlight had given the wood an unearthly pale glow, making it look as if it had been frozen in time.

Some part of him swore he could hear the Boggart lingering just behind its closed doors, its incorporeal teeth bared as it eagerly awaited its prey.

Tom had spent the whole afternoon reading about Boggarts. He knew practically every scrap of information about them that the Hogwarts library could provide. He knew that they liked dark, confined spaces. He knew that no one actually knew what one looked like in its natural form. He knew that they were neither living nor non-living and that no one had ever actually killed one before.

That was about to change.

Because what that creature had done to him was unforgivable. Tom had never felt anything even resembling fear before. He'd never cowered from bullies or creatures that lurked in the shadows. All of those things had always just seemed so…surmountable to him.

But the image the Boggart had shown him—death—was different. He'd never thought much about death before. He supposed that he'd never had much occasion to. He'd never thought that he would meet a problem that magic couldn't solve.

Tom opened the cupboard.

The image appeared just as it had before; Tom's corpse lying in an open casket. Unnaturally still. Sinisterly pristine.

Hatred filled him, making his blood run cold.

How dare this creature expect him to make light of his own end. There was nothing humorous about death.

Tom raised his wand.

How dare this thing presume to show him the face of the one enemy that no one had ever escaped. Well, Tom would show it. He would show them all. Death would not be the defeat of him. If anything, it would be the other way around.

The air trembled as magic cracked through it, illuminating the room in a sickly green glow. Tom smiled. "Avada Kedavra!"