Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or its characters, they solely belong to J K Rowling. I make no money or fame from this.
Warnings: Mentions of painful situations and harsh treatment, a bit of blood on our hero -nothing gruesome or devastating detailed.
Pairings: Fluffy TR/HP
Usually I do rated M stuff, but it's Valentine's dammit and I should at least do something for a larger crowd of people. So, this is something I put together last night and finished this morning. Originally it's a stand alone, but I feel I could easily turn this into a prelude if the readers like it enough. Do you like it? Anyways enjoy.
~*Maze*~
A young man sits on a windowsill in the far corner of the library, reading what appears to be an advanced Potions book, yet resting just out of sight is a smaller book titled Magical Murder Mysteries. His steal orbs cut sharp lines across the page, devouring words and enjoying a quiet hour alone.
Voices trickling through the halls gain his attention, and Tom raises his eyes to watch the librarian slip out the room for a bite to eat. For a moment he contemplates sneaking into the Restricted Section for the duration of lunch, but remembers that he has a responsibility to make an appearance. Especially today when Professor Dumbledore will be searching for him in the swarm of pinks and reds.
He allows his lips to peel up over his teeth in a silent snarl of disgust as he quickly packs his books, leaving the library just as the last few students bound toward the Great Hall. And what a chaotic mess this is... thinks the male as he steps into the room, glaring at the decorations.
Pink and white streamers hang from the ceiling as glimmering confetti spirals downward, but never litter the boys and girls that blush and gush over a mediocre holiday: Valentine's Day. Letters are exploding with song or horrible love poems, and packaged candies are being either taken or presented.
A girl, just some random girl with dull hair and beady eyes approaches him. Tom wants to let out a suffering groan or maybe start screaming to see if she'll just run away out of fear, but he remains poised as she pours out her feelings to him. Accepting her gift graciously, he catches the sparkling eyes of Professor Dumbledore and almost shoves the box down her throat just in spite of the old man...
With a hissing breath, assaulted by the overly sweet scent of perfume and cologne, Tom glides to a seat at the Slytherin table. Having to stop several more times before sinking down onto the bench, he also glared heatedly at a miniature cupid considering in pointing one of those blasted arrows at him. The charmed entity had flapped wildly away. Now his back tenses and mouth thins into a hard line as he eyes the table of puff pastries, puddings, and pies with an abundance of irritation. Did he mention that he despises sweet things?
Torture. Pure and simple. Every year, Tom suffers through torture on this one day out of the year. He usually spends half of it hiding and the other half plotting the demise of everyone who spouts sickening emotions at him.
A few associates of his arrive to crowd around their gifts and treats. Avery and Lestrange being the closest, try to make conversation in which he keeps clipped and precise responses.
"So, I hear our Head of House is putting together a Valentine's soiree this evening."
Tom steeples his hands over the single mug of coffee with narrowed eyes. "He would..."
Avery's face swings to Tom, taking his comment as an acceptance to speak to him directly. "You know Professor Slughorn will be expecting you there."
He closes his eyes and feels the waves of anger boil through him. Of course Avery has to state the obvious. I do not even have the energy to have this conversation. "And I shall be there." Regretfully if I might add.
"Who are you taking with you?" Lestrange leans over a disaster zone of pancakes staked, cut, and stabbed like tiny bodies skewered with toothpicks.
"I have not decided." He sips the hot black coffee, enjoying in the bitterness burning across his tongue and stoking the flames of hatred inside. "Who is Prewett going with?"
"Hm?" Avery turns to glance at the Gryffindor table with his eyebrows deepening in confusion. There doesn't seem to be the male they're speaking of there... suddenly Avery whips around to look down their own table. Sure enough, there sits the sandy-ginger head of hair of Ignatius Prewett with the female Blacks, his red and golden robes standing out from the Slytherin's green and silver. Ignatius is whispering in Lucretia Black's ear, her hands placed in his with a dignified blush dusting high cheeks. On the girl's other side, Walburga Black lets out long groans of annoyance while stabbing her plate. "Looks like Lucretia Black."
"Then I will be going with Black."
"Walburga?" Lestrange questions, a bit miffed as if he is going to ask that particular witch himself. Everyone knows that Walburga Black has a massive crush on Tom Riddle though, and the lanky Lestrange already has to tolerate that.
Tom smirks at the offended male. "Not at all. Later I will ask Lucretia, of course." His orbs blaze with a sinister heat tilting his head downward as if to share a particularly funny joke with them. "The outcome will be her leaving Prewett and accompanying me tonight."
Startled looks pass between the two other boys. It was known that Prewett had angered Riddle in some fashion last Samhain, but when the Slytherin never exacted his vengeance -many had thought he cooled off since then. The truth seems to be that Riddle was waiting for when Prewett's defences are down and an opportunity presents itself. The two males lower their gazes and end the conversation so to not invite bad karma on themselves. Did they ever cross Riddle at some point? Was the infamous schoolboy thinking of making examples of them? Or are their heads being messed with? It isn't good to pry such things into the light.
Tom revels in his new found silence and sips the rest of his coffee in delight.
The night approached fast, with the party passing his standards as tolerable.
Lucretia had gone with him to the miniature ball, as he had predicted. Professor Dumbledore made an appearance and eyed him disappointingly with the girl whom hung on his arm and which he ignored the whole evening. Professor Slughorn had him meet all sorts of notarized witches and wizards that flaunted and swooned under the young genius' attentions. Even Headmaster Dippet attended, stroking that long beard, happy and oblivious to whispers behind his back of senility.
The event had been above his expectations during the highlights. Dare he say it was exceedingly spectacular at certain points?
Lestrange was slapped soundly by a melodramatic Walburga. Longbottom tumbled over a food cart showing off her plaid knickers. Young Abbot drank a love potion that ended with him trying to smother guest Charles Potter in kisses that had the Auror's hissing wife, Dorea nee Black, swatting her purse with a frenzy. And finally Ignatius was caught sneaking in.
That last event centred around Tom himself, when Ignatius Prewett confronted him. The devastated boy was made into a fool as his ex-girlfriend Lucretia told him off. Tom had been most amused. Even more so when he decided to end the night by dumping the very witch who left the place with tears streaming down her face and cousin Walburga laughing after her. It was said she ran down the same path Prewett took, probably hoping to make amends.
Overall, it had been the best Valentine's so far to date.
Finally, He makes it back to his bedchamber before anyone else and sits at the desk looking out into the shifting vegetation of the Great Lake. The domed room trickles with greens and blues from the water's light. Strange noises echo from the creatures thriving outside the window.
For a moment he lets his guard down and releases a sigh, fingers undoing the tie at his neck.
Bored with just gazing into a scene he knows well, his hand slips into the school bag resting beside his chair and withdraws the many small presents from within. Several he discards, candies and notes mostly. What he does keep is a chain attached to a pouch acting as a wallet and a hat embedded with jewels. Staring at them, he decides that he doesn't like either gift. Before throwing them away though, he breaks off the wallet from the chain and the largest ruby from the hat. Tinkering with the two pieces he holds up the newly crafted object and nods to himself before placing it back on the table.
Still, the strange melancholy remains and causes him to shift uncomfortably.
Slowly, his steely orbs fall onto the neat organized desk and the polished surface. He may not own much, but he keeps all his things in the best condition that he can. That included even the few quills he keeps locked away from anyone else who might need to borrow one on short notice. Tom pulls them out now. One by one... a peacock quill he stole from a Malfoy that graduated in his first year, a plumb quill thick and wispy ends as a gift from Walburga, and a jet black quill he purchased himself last year. Running his fingers over the dark one he moves mechanically to pull a piece of rolled parchment towards him. An ink is selected from the newest gifts he received from Yule and he dunks the end of the quill into it, before letting it hover.
Like this he sits for a solid minute, trying to search for something inside of himself. Then, with a tilt to his head, he begins to scrawl across the parchment... a little smile tugs at the side of his lips.
To whomever finds this,
You may not know me, for by the time you obtain this letter I will be far above your station and don a name that is fitting to my perfection.
First off let me applaud you, for I cannot have made receiving the envelope easy at all. That should pacify any suffering you went through. Second, the reason you went through each painful task was of course only to gain my notice. Not physically no, but spiritually... in a way.
You see, I am not an emotional person. One whom freely flaunts adoration or yearning for others, I cannot even love another properly. Some may joke and say I do not have a heart, I would tell them that would defy the basic functions in which I need to live. Others would retort that I do not know what love is, of course I know because it is the easiest method to bend people to my will. Knowing these two things, I have also learned that loving someone, sharing and caring, is nothing but a weakness of the human nature. I wish to strip myself of this. Completely.
So I saw it fit to meditate on a method in piling all my weaknesses in such a subject together, and then rid myself of them, as well as finding the one individual who may share in what I have cast aside. On theories hinting towards the use of ones will I summoned as much 'compassion' and 'good feelings' to sit down and write this...
Certainly you are aren't muggle, for none should ever reach this folded parchment without facing the many dangers to put those unworthy in mortal peril. Only those magical can succeed such a feat. Yet, I do not care if you are black or white, male or female. All that matters is that you are powerful enough to single-handily take down all the extensive traps I have laid. In a way you are my sole Champion. A never-to-be-met companion who is deserving in sharing my weakest emotions.
Know that for this day, you are my Valentine. To be considered for such a position and to share in as much fondness and respect I can muster for another breathing individual, I believe it is a bountiful and rewarding treasure indeed.
Sincerely Your Valentine,
Tom M. Riddle
Harry lowers the old fading page to gaze out across the rolling hillocks of Yorkshire with a dazed expression on his dirt and blood streaked face.
The Department of Magical Law Enforcement had caught wind that a strange pulsating light came from a grassy mound North of Withertons. That little pagan village could only digress its folklore stories, that for fifty years on this exact day -a door would appear and pulsate with sickly yellow light and only allow one person to enter inside. In the beginning, many had ventured in to never return. The country dwellers added it to their gossip's to scare children and inspire tourists. Yet, as each year passes it was logged that the aura around the site is becoming more and more loathsome as if some entity felt aggressive enough to actually drive away wild coyotes and spoil cattle milk who toiled too closely.
Just last year, a small team consisting of two Aurors and one Unspeakable arrived to take samples of the odd occurrence and returned in a deep fright. It had been confirmed a week later, after the door disappeared, that the magical signature protecting what lay inside is the residue from none other than the last known Dark Lord, Voldemort. The papers went mad with frenzy, stating all sorts of nonsense and Aurors had to go into overtime for the full year to keep curious teenagers, wrathful veterans, and aspiring dark mages from finding a way to break into the hillside.
The public was in an outrage until Minister Shacklebolt took the podium at the New Year festival at the new construction site off Diagon Alley, which would soon be known as Snaggle Lane. The dark skinned man announced that their most celebrated Auror (Harry Potter) has stepped up to help the Wizarding World once more in dealing with the horror that is You-Know-Who and wipe out the last traces of his existence. It seemed all right to the masses; let them believe there hadn't been some heated words between the Golden Trio, Wizengamot, and Law Enforcement. In the end, when Harry thought it over carefully, he didn't want anyone else to face what dangers could have been left behind, so he calmed his friends and agreed.
February fourteenth arrived, and Harry, having camped out with a small crew that included his friends, gave each of them a hug and listened to their last words of advice, before ducking into the door that appeared...
There had been traps, oh yes. Blades that came out of the walls to slice diagonally across his chest, poisonous gasses that filled cramped rooms, spikes that shot up from the pressurized floor, and slabs of rock that crushed together at a seconds notice. Those were the easiest of some of the more disastrous events that happened in the span of seven hours it took him to complete the massive puzzle. Harry might not have been prepared properly if not for his gruelling training as an Auror and studying lately to join a private club that promotes stubbornness, overzealous, and adventurous souls for risky adrenaline filled fun; in which Hermione fervently preaches that he already has heaps and bounds of already.
Besides the more textbook traps, he also had to use what little wit he owns to travel the monolith maze throughout each attack that got harder with each advancement. It was like facing the Triwizard Tournament with every event smashed together and a splash of some sort of concoction that only crazed Dark Lords could bottle to double effectiveness. In the beginning, it had been a bit enjoyable to test himself, but when a large flower sprang from the ground and blossomed into razor sharp teeth that snapped at his face... things got serious.
It had been close calls several times. The provisions he entered with dwindled before the halfway marker, which must have been when a shamble-man (made of rotting corpses from long dead adventurers) dropped down on him from above and proceeded to tear long rivets into his back. Needless to say, he barely escaped and had to leave behind the bag with what water and medical aid was left in it.
At some point he had to decide what to use magic on and what to push himself to physically accomplish. Going back hadn't been an option for him, he downright refused. So he had faced the challenges that kept growing in number and ferocity. Hexes and chained-spells, exploded and sought his death at every turn. Even trickier were the attacks that seemed to house several parts, like when he burnt away a wall of stinging scorpions that melted into a strip of mimicked molten lava. Or the area where he solved the bronze swords that created an intricate puzzle which in turn dispersed only to materialize into an armoured golem...
There were touch-and-go moments where fierce determination not to die and his ridiculously extensive magical core battered down swarms of locusts, thawed a massive ice berg, rode a giant ant through it's nest, formed rocks to dive under an acid waterfall, and dangled over a cavern that dropped so far down that spells wouldn't reach the bottom.
When he came upon the end of the hellish thrice-damned maze... there stood a stone podium. The far wall proceeded to yawn open to the afternoon sun that streamed in highlighting an envelope lying patiently for him to take.
Wand at the ready, he stumbles in, burnt boots layered with fluids slipping on the smooth floor. In little more than tattered pants held together by the plaited tail of a bicorn he stood servaying the room distrustfully with manic eyes. Scanning the small alcove for any hidden traps left that might sadistically attack when his guard is down, he remains still. Dried blood, burnt flesh, and dirt is streaked down his trembling torso. A piece of his lost shirt with a part of a creature's shell is wrapped tightly around a broken forearm acting as a turniquotte. He had to reset his bone, the torn flesh covered and stitched with his own hair. Another bit of his shirt is keeping the smallest right finger from detaching completely from the knuckle. It had almost came all the way off from a trap that he had been trying to undo safely. He was scathed most diffidently, but he came out alive.
With trepidation, Harry snatched the prize waiting on the podium and ran straight out into the world with a giddy hoot that may or may not be the beginnings of his own madness. Chest sucking in loads of clean air, he let out a victorious roar and flopped onto the luscious grass. Without pause he ripped into the envelope to read into the possible reasons why the Dark Lord had created that death trap...
Now... as his glazed orbs watch the sun track along the purple horizon, he watches wispy clouds change overhead lost in the shocking realizations. He barely acknowledges Ron and Hermione racing over being followed minutely by the band of medical and enforcement personnel.
"Harry! Harry!" Ron's hands are the first to clamp onto his shoulders and shake him wildly. "What in Merlin happened to you? You look as if you went into a dragon pit!"
"He looks worse than that! Oh no! He's injured terribly! Mediwitch!"
From a detached place in his mind, Harry watches on as several people swarm. They proceed to ask him questions about whether the threat has been dealt with. He can't find it in himself to utter a single word. Lord Voldemort made a impossible puzzle to hide his own heart and leaving behind a bloody love letter...
Just now, a thunderous sound rips through the air.
It sends the group into a panic as they stumble back as one.
The ground begins to shift and the hillock starts to collapse in on itself. Billows of black smoke puff up from cracks ripping open. Horrible screams from a hundred different things inside rise up from below their feet. Then finally, only silence remains as all that's left is an uneven plain of rubble-rock and upturned soil.
Onlookers standby looking on in wondrous fear.
"Voldemort..." Harry's voice breaks the blanket of thickness in the air. Throat raw and tone emotionless.
Hermione snaps out of it first to turn to him, eyes wet and blinking from the smoke. Coughing on his other side, Ron turns to his friend as well. "W-what about him?"
But Harry says nothing more and grips the parchment tighter in his hold. There's a tinkling noise and something thumps to the ground. He bends over mechanically to pick up a silver chain. No magic attacks him, not even a thrum of residue. Just a simple necklace with a sliver of a note attached, scrawled:
Guard this token of praise well...
Reading it over several more times, he folds up both the letter and note to stuff in a working pocket and then pulls the chain over his head, letting the dark red ruby warm against his bare skin.
Witches and wizards from Withertons begin to arrive and gap at the mystery surrounding the area. Others too appear, friends from word-of-mouth and even reporters are already scurrying closer to snap pictures. The Aurors growl and rumble trying to keep the growing mass at bay. A mediwitch is taking note of his medical attention and trying to explain that he very well needs to go to Saint Mungos at once! Minister Shacklebolt apparates in at some point while he and his friends are planning to make a safe jump to the hospital.
Many prod for information... all Harry can do is rub the pendant mindlessly as a little smile tugs at the side of his lips.
~*End*~
21 February Update: *It's been decided, there will be a following story. Look out for The Unseen Lurker!