Okay, this is a one-shot that I came up with spontaneously. I hope you enjoy it, and please review. Many thanks:)
And Harry Potter and his related trademarks and insignia...do not belong to me:(
Brief Encounters and Lasting Impressions
July sun blazed down onto the little dirt track that led to the villages of Little Hangleton and Greater Hanlgeton. Normally deserted, weeds crept over the edges of the road, and rare breezes raised clouds of dust from the middle of the track.
But today it wasn't deserted.
A young man was coming up the road from the direction of Little Hangleton, the hem of his black robes white with the dust.
He paused when he came to the place where the road forked. A rotting wooden signpost was stuck in the ground, leaning precariously to one side. Still legible in the aged wood of the sign pointing down the road the boy had come from, were the words "Little Hangleton." The sign pointing to the other fork proclaimed that it led to "Greater Hangleton."
The traveler didn't pause long, and soon proceeded down the road away from the sign, the unnamed road.
Tom Riddle didn't bother keeping an eye on his surroundings. Instead he watched the dust swirling at his feet, lost in thought. Memories of the night before kept playing over in his mind. The wretched Gaunt house, his uncle Morphin, the house on the hill where he had found Tom Riddle Sr. and his own grandparents.
A small smile twisted his mouth as he recalled their confusion, then terror, when he had interrupted what would become their last meal.
They were gone now. Dead. The man that had abandoned him, who had left him to live in a muggle orphanage his entire childhood, was no more. And there was no way that anyone would ever find out that he, Tom Riddle, had committed the murders. No one would ever know that it was he who had rid the world of his miserable, worthless relatives. He knew that the spell he had worked on Morphin Gaunt would work flawlessly, and the half-mad parseltongue would be imprisoned instead of him.
Suddenly he stopped walking. His thoughts had been interrupted by the uncomfortable sensation that someone was watching him.
Slowly he turned around, dark eyes sweeping the path and the ragged hedges on either side of it.
Nothing.
A small group of birds exploded out a a nearby bush, vanishing into the trees farther from the path. Tom approached the bush and peered into it.
I must have startled them, he thought dismissively. Besides, if someone had been there, they had gone now. No one could, or would for that matter, dare to attack him.
He put his hand compulsively into his robes to retrieve his wand, but his fingers couldn't find the thin, solid wooden stick.
He was about to spin around to see if it had fallen on the path when he felt a wandtip lightly touching the back of his neck.
He froze. A second later he heard a girl's high voice.
"Don't move, or I'll curse you into oblivion. I don't like doing it, so please, don't move for a moment."
It was the most strangely phrased order Tom had ever been given, and he remained still for a moment out of sheer surprise.
The wandtip left his skin and he had the sudden feeling that a strong breeze was blowing against him, even though the trees he could see weren't moving.
A revealing spell, he thought bitterly. It seemed as though he didn't have anything to reveal anymore. His wand was gone. He was under someone else's power.
This hit him hard. He had never been parted from his wand since he had purchased it. It was his sole protection, the one thing that put him above others, and now it was gone. He didn't feel just defenseless; he didn't feel like himself. And he had never been held against his will by someone else.
The girl's voice spoke up from behind him again.
"Thank you ever so much. You may turn around."
Tom spun around and was shocked and embarrassed by what he saw.
It was indeed a girl standing behind him, but she didn't look in any way formidable. She looked to be about his age or a year younger perhaps, slender, with uncombed brown hair that fell below her shoulders. She was almost an entire foot shorter than he was, and her light blue eyes gazed up into his dark ones with a look of innocent curiosity. She was pretty, but didn't look even mildly infatuated with him, her face only betraying a vague interest.
But what surprised him the most was that the wand she was using to threaten him with was his own.
She must have noticed that his eyes were on the wand she was twisting restlessly in her fingers, because she spoke again, saying "It's a fascinating combination, this wand. Yew and phoenix feather. Rare ingredients to be effectually mixed. Did you make it yourself?"
"No, why?" he said, taken aback.
"I just wondered because it's so very attached to you. It's almost your essence. It's curious, like a-" she paused, eying the wand for a moment before looking back at him "like a riddle. It was most unwilling to attack you." she continued unashamedly.
Tom couldn't decided whether the girl was brilliant or mad, but he was worried by her use of the word 'riddle.'
"Do you know the Riddles?" he asked, trying to sound calm.
"The Riddles?" she said, looking amused, "No, I don't know the snobby Riddles. I meant a riddle, as in a mystery, a secret, unwilling to be told."
"I know what a riddle is." he snapped.
"Good. Now, before you go asking why I'm tormenting you and when you can have your property back, I'll tell you," she said, ignoring Tom's incredulous expression, "You, as is obvious, are a wizard, and I need a wizard's help. In order to get your wand back, I need you to do something for me."
"What?" Tom said, sure that nothing good was going to come of this. He had the feeling, from the girl's polite tone, that she was holding something else over him, otherwise she would not treat him, her prisoner, so lightly. What if she knew about the murders he had committed the night before? If only he could simply physically overpower her, and take back his wand...
"No need for that, I said I'll give it back as soon as you help me."
Tom looked at her, shock and anger clouding his face.
"There's no need to look like that either. Wouldn't you help a lady in distress even if she weren't threatening you?" she said serenely.
"Not really." he said through clenched teeth.
She looked amused, which was infuriating, "That's why I'm holding you hostage. It's really your fault, and not mine, for not being a proper gentleman. So, you're coming with me, if you want your wand back, which you do, because you need it. This way, and keep close please."
And without so much as a backward glance, she walked off the road, between the bushes and into the trees.
Tom considered not following her, and just going on his way, but to his regret, he knew that she was right. He needed his wand, and would follow her as long as she had it.
It didn't take him long to catch up with her. She had taken a faint path through the woods, that he would not have noticed if she hadn't been there.
She was walking slowly, as though she had been waiting for him, for as soon as he caught up with her, she began walking more quickly.
"I was wondering, what is your name, traveler?" she said causally, looking over her shoulder at him.
"Tom Riddle." he said without thinking. She looked at him again, pausing for a moment before continuing to thread her way between the trees.
"I thought so. I suppose the son at the big house is your father?"
"Yes." Tom said, surprised again by her knowledge of him.
"You look just like him, which I have to say is a complement to you, because even though Mr. Riddle is a bloody snob, he is rashly good-looking. And you're not that much of a snob either, so you've got the best of both worlds, don't you?" she said conversationally, as though she discussed the attributes of his appearance every day.
Tom didn't answer, but she seemed satisfied with his silence. A moment later however, he asked "And your name is?"
She didn't stop walking, but her back stiffened, and Tom was pleased that he had found some way to make her uncomfortable.
"None of your concern. If you feel compelled to call me something, make something up."
Tom was annoyed that she was refusing him information, but he couldn't think of any reply..
"You're a Hogwarts student aren't you?" she said, changing the subject deftly as she skirted around a fallen tree.
"Aren't you?" he asked curiously.
"No. No, they didn't want me and I didn't want them. They don't use magic the way I do." she said absently.
She'd stopped in a thickly wooded spot, where the path had all but vanished.
"Tom Riddle, I'm afraid we've reached the end of the path. In a few minutes, you will be performing the task I've set you. If you succeed, you'll have your wand and be gone. If you fail, well, I've always found that the imagination can conjure much more horrific punishments then I can describe, so I'll leave you to imagine what I'll do to you, with the strict confidence of knowing that I will do it without hesitation.
"Now, you are about to step into the place I have hidden, and therefore, you must, unfortunately, become a secretkeeper for the moment being. Here, then."
She raised his wand and began tracing letters in midair, which slowly became words, to say:
You are about to enter the Chamber in the Woods, guarded and hidden by me.
She waited as Tom's eyes traveled over the words, then waved his wand again, and in one sweeping motion, the words vanished.
"I really do hate you keeping my secrets, but that's how it has to be. Come on."
It was only as she said this that Tom realized that something had materialized in front of him.
Only a few yards away, where a moment ago had been thick brambles, a clearing had formed, and on the far side of it stood a cottage.
As he approached it, he thought it was actually more of a hut than a cottage.
A simple structure, it consisted of four stone walls, that he assumed had once been part of another building, as they were all in a state of decay, and a roof that looked like old tree branches strapped together in bundles and thrown across boards to provide shelter.
"Like it?" the girl said, and Tom realized that she had been watching his inspection of her dwelling with a nervous expression, as though hoping he would approve.
"It suits you." he said before he could stop himself.
The girl looked at him for a moment, then burst out laughing, throwing her head back in mirth. The sound made his skin prickle. It was light and musical, and entirely unearthly.
"You know, I think that you've summed it up perfectly. I could never think how to describe it, but you've gone and done it." she said, still smiling, as she led the way to the hut.
She opened a rough wooden door, that looked much more recent than the rest of the house, making Tom think that she had probably made it herself, and gestured for him to follow her inside.
It was lighter than he's expected inside, the sun pouring in through the many gaps in the roof, illuminating the sparse furniture, which consisted of a splintery, three-legged table, and two wooden blocks that he assumed passed for chairs. It was only one room, and looking around, he saw that she had also constructed a bed of sorts, a wide board across two more low wood blocks, with a knobbly blanket thrown over it.
The girl waved him over to the table, and then went to rummage around behind the bed.
Tom sat down on one of the blocks shoved up to the table, and looked down at the table's scared surface. There were drawings here and there, like runes, that seemed to have been gouged into the wood wherever the girl pleased.
He looked up, and it was then that he saw the book.
It was lying in a hole in the opposite wall, where a stone had been removed. Standing, he glanced back at the girl, who was still bent double behind the bed, then walked around the table to look at the book.
It was an old volume, with a leather cover that was a mossy green colour, as though it had mildewed, and the cover's silver title was fading, but Tom could just make out the words Magical Concealment of all Kinds, from the Sword to the Soul.
Concealment of the soul? Tom quietly lifted the book and let it fall open. It opened to a page less than halfway through the book, at a chapter. But it was not the words on the page that fascinated him; it was the papers folded there, inside the book, but clearly not a part of it.
The girl was still occupied, so Tom carefully picked up one of the papers. Turning it over, he saw that it was a letter, addressed to a Samantha Gredic, from a Sabine Gredic.
"I don't recall asking you to paw through my possessions."
Tom almost dropped the book. The girl was standing beside him, looking stern.
"You didn't. I was just-"
"Curious? Haven't you ever heard what happened to the cat?"
"I've heard that cats have nine lives." he replied, as the girl took the book from him, and snapped it shut, with an amount of force he would not have used with an item so delicate.
"You're spending yours pretty quickly." she snapped. She pushed the book back into the hole in the wall, and turned to face him.
He looked back at her steadily, questions starting to get the better of him, the foremost one being what she was hiding in the book.
"Are you Samantha?" he asked.
The girl's expression softened, until it was almost sad.
"No," she said quietly, "I'm not."
"Then you must be Sabine." he said.
She didn't answer, only stared stonily back at him, her eyes flicking back to the book once before returning to his.
"Who is Samantha?" he didn't know why he was asking, but he couldn't resist.
"She isn't anyone anymore. She was my sister."
"Why isn't she now?"
The girl looked away then, raising her head to look up at the patches of sky above the roof, as though
they could give her courage.
"She's dead. My father killed her."
Tom didn't say anything for a moment. The only thing he could think was that this girl's sister had been murdered by her father, and he had murdered his own father just a day ago.
"I'm sorry."
"He was when we finished with him." she said bitterly. She looked back at Tom, her face smooth and unemotional again, "But never mind, you're not to care. You're here to do a favour for me, remember?"
"Who were 'we'?" he said, not letting her keep the subject changed.
She shook her head, then glanced at him almost pityingly.
"Myself and my mother. Now, will you do it or not?"
"Yes. What do you want me to do?" he said, wondering at her sudden change of mood. But he kept in mind what she had said. He didn't want to forget the questions plaguing him.
"Ah, now you are eager. Well, I'll not keep you waiting. So then, without farther ado, here is your task."
Tom sat down again and waited while the girl talked, outlining her strange plan.
"Though I bear your wand for now, you are a wizard, and I am not, therefore by wizard law, I may not bear a wand. So, here is what you must do: since I have no wand but yours, and you desire yours, you must construct one that I may use."
She said it plainly, like it was a simple request, like asking him to bring her a rock from the ground. But Tom could only stare at her. She wanted him to make a wand? He couldn't possibly do so, wandlore was a closely guarded secret, one that he was not privy to.
"I don't know if I can. I don't know how wands are made." he said unhappily.
She smiled "But your task is not so grievous as you think. You need not make a magic wand, only one that can funnel magic."
This did not seem like a smaller task to Tom. She wasn't making sense.
"If you are so talented, as you have demonstrated, why can't you make such a thing as you have described, yourself?"
"Wands are made by wizards." she said simply.
"If you're not a wizard, what are you?" he said sharply.
"An outcast of magic." she answered just as quickly. She was infuriating, Tom thought angrily. But he kept this to himself.
"Well, will you try?" she said calmly.
"Try. I'll try." he said quietly.
"Excellent." she said, her voice betraying her happiness. Tom was surprised by how desperate she had sounded for his attempt at making what she had described as just a stick.
She stood up and walked back around the bed, and returned with a ragged board, that looked like she had ripped it out of a tree somehow. She laid it on the table, then walked to the other side of the room and dragged a stone out of the wall, revealing yet another hidden cubby. She took out a crystal bottle and returned the block, then came back to the table, holding the vial.
She slapped it resolutely on the table in front of Tom, then looked up at him, expectantly.
"What is it?" he asked, looking from the bottle to the girl, whose blue eyes were watching him imploringly.
"The core for my wand. It's a unicorn hair." she added in answer to his questioning glance.
"Where did you get it?" Tom said.
"Where do you think? From a unicorn." she said, smiling at him, and shaking her head.
"What, from a real unicorn?" he said, stunned.
"Yes. And before you wonder how I got it, I asked." and she broke out into a wicked smile, "Now do it, if you think you can." she said.
Tom looked down at the two ingredients before him, with no idea what to do with them.
"I, whatever your name is, I don't know how. I'm sorry. I don't even know how to start."
Undaunted, she said, "Maybe this will help." standing, she went and retrieved the book on concealment that she had taken from him earlier. For a moment, he thought she was going to hand it to him, but instead she set it in front of herself, and began leafing through it.
A few moments later, she said "See, since it doesn't really need to be magical, you only need to conceal said magical item," she lifted up the jar with the unicorn hairs, "in this wood. Here are some possible spells." she finished, shoving the book across the table towards him, her finger pointing at a paragraph halfway down the page.
"The spells are all here," he said after a moment, "Why don't you do it yourself?"
"I told you," she said irritably, "I don't perform spells. I do magic. Now concentrate."
Tom looked over the spells again. They were strange, nothing he had ever heard of. He didn't even recognize any Latin roots to belay meaning. Scanning the page more closely, he noticed a handwritten note at the bottom of the page:
For concealment of soul within an item, see Transformation of Essence.
Tom was fascinated, and looked up at the spell. Silently he mouthed the words to himself, and felt a creeping sensation crawl over his back.
"Something wrong?" she asked suddenly, making Tom jump.
"Nothing. Here, I think I can use this one." he said smoothly.
"Then here." she said, and handed him his wand.
It worked. Tom had to attempt it twice, but the second time, his wand emitted a blue glow, and with a loud thumping sound, the sliver of wood and string of hair lying beside each other bonded, leaving a slightly glowing stick.
"May I?" she said quietly, her blue eyes on the wand.
"I think so." Tom cautiously picked up the stick. It was warm, but it didn't burn him. He silently handed it over to the girl, who took it with an expression no less than reverence. Then she raised it and pointed it across the room at her bed. The crumpled blanket snapped straight when she flicked the wand.
"I can keep my wand now?" Tom asked, even though he knew her answer already.
"Yes. Yes, you can." she said absently, her mind on the make-shift wand in her hand.
Tom stood up and slowly walked up behind her, one last question on his tongue. Before he could speak, she said "Thank you. I am indebted to you. You may keep your wand, and you are free to go, as soon as," she spun around, pointing her wand his forehead.
Tom saw a golden light form at the end of her wand, then his sight blacked for a moment. It came back a moment later, accompanied by an unpleasant dizziness.
"What did you do?" he asked, shaking his head.
"I took back my secrets. Now once you leave, you can't come back unless I let you back in." she said promptly.
"Oh. Alright. Listen, before I leave, I wanted to know, why did you want a wand, if you can already do magic?"
She cocked, her head, looking at him as though deciding how much to tell him.
"Wands always make magic stronger, whether or not you need it to actually perform magic. I need a source of extremely strong magic. You're going to ask why," she added, before patiently continuing, "And I'll tell you. I need it to destroy an essence my father left behind. My mother wanted me to."
"Can I help?" Tom said, surprising himself with the sudden question.
"No. You need to go. Not that I wouldn't mind having you, but I assume that here is not where you intend to spend the rest of your young life. And this is much too near the scene of your crime." she added, smiling mischievously.
Tom opened his mouth to defend himself, but he couldn't think of anything, with her there, smiling benignly at him.
They stood for a moment, speckled in sunlight filtering through the roof, without saying anything. Finally Tom spoke "I guess I'll leave then. You're sure you're, you're, alright?" he had no idea why he was asking, why he was wondering what was going to happen to this strange girl, who he had met by a bizarre chance, who had held him hostage, forced him to perform a spell he'd never heard of. But still, she seemed so vulnerable to be speaking of such a violent intention.
She looked surprised, for the first time, as she answered "Yes, I'll be alright."
Tom walked slowly to the door, then turned around, "Goodbye then. And thank you, I don't know for what, but thank you. Sabine."
She smiled again then, but in a new way, genuinely happy for the first time, not gleeful, but truly happy.
"You're welcome, Tom. And never forget, a little riddle's always a good thing."
A week later, he still kept remembering the girl at odd moments. He remembered the spell to conceal the soul, the way she'd looked when she'd spoken of removing her father's last essence.
It was the same years later. Riddle never forgot her, but never again saw her in his life.
Okay, maybe I'll make a redo of it some time when Riddle is more, well, Riddle-ish, but I just couldn't bring myself to do something so violent right at first. Hope you all enjoyed, and it didn't read like a totally random babble on magic:-) Thanks lots.