Not a professional, and definitely not the owner of Harry Potter.
Written by third Chaser of the team Tutshill Tornadoes.
Round 11: I Open at the Close
Prompt: Hand of Glory
Other Prompts:
(word) shatter
(quote) 'Dream a little harder' – Team Starkid, Twisted
(word count) 1,089
Nothing in this world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
—Martin Luther King Jr.
Ignorance Paid, Hard
Light streamed in through the splits between the heavy curtains draped over the windows, catching the dust motes dancing in the rays, and reflecting towards him from the unseeing eyes of the fat old woman. Tom sneered at foam gathered at the corner of her mouth; she had died an easy death — poisoned and unconscious while dying was not the way he usually liked to kill.
Well, the task wasn't completed yet. The best man was the one who never left an evidence — at least the one pointing to him, behind. He turned around, his nose wrinkling at the sight of the stunned old elf. How did this woman have objects worth heaps of gold, yet couldn't afford a better house-elf. This pathetic creature had to be sacrificed.
Shaking his head in mock pity, Tom drew his wand out from the pocket of his robes. His hand moved on its own accord, magic empowering its movement. A few precise flicks and slashes later, he smiled, satisfied. Conjuring a handkerchief, he wiped the sweat off his brow — even with his prowess, the task of modifying memories — especially that of a now unbonded house-elf — was a tedious one and took its toll on the magical core. Well, it wasn't as if a good night's sleep wouldn't cure it.
Right now, he had a more important task at hand — he needed to sort out the treasures this witch had collected. He could always sell the ones he did not need to Bruke. The only reason Tom was working at that shop was to collect enough money to vanish from this country, and to reappear as the person he was: Lord Voldemort. Stunning the elf again for a good measure, he turned his back to it.
Looking around at the room wherein all the prized possessions of Late He[zibah Smith lay, Tom smiled to himself. No, the old lady wasn't in need of the precious artefacts or the money she gained from them. All she used her gold for was buying wigs to cover her balding head and powder to cake her face. There were better things that money could pay for, and he, the one who had gifted her salvation, would make sure of that.
A wooden chest stored on the mantlepiece seemed to beckon to him, a weird feeling came from there, as if what lay inside would determine his fate when he died. Tom laughed. Did the object not know Lord Voldemort was above the pitious things like Death?
Anyways, he was going to go through each object, and there was no reason the wooden chest wasn't the right place to begin. He was the only human — only living human in the house, and what harm could come to him, the Heir of Slytherin? With this thought in mind, he walked up to the mantelpiece.
He checked for curses and hexes and muttered counter-curses, his fingers then trailing along the intricate design of the chest. The box would fetch him a good ten galleons, he decided. He delicately opened the latch and removed the lid; it wouldn't do to harm the wooden box, and, after all, he had nothing to rush for.
Inside lay a grey hand with shrivelled up, rotten skin, holding an unburnt candle. The object seemed centuries old, and Tom couldn't help but wonder why this thing had been gathering dust in this room when people could have gained profit. Looking over his shoulder, he tutted at the woman's body. Clearly, not everyone thought about the welfare of the pureblood society like he did.
Before he could close the lid, a piece of parchment tucked in the side called for his attention. He picked it up and carefully unfolded it, the writing proving his theory that the artefact was indeed the Hand of Glory.
Below the name were written a few lines, which read as follows:
Stolen from rightfully hanged,
The candle shall be lighted by a dark wand.
Shall provide light only to the kin,
Shall dispel the darkness rooted within.
Tom couldn't help but burst out laughing at the silly words of prophecy; the intellectuals like him would of course know nothing worthy lay in the world of prophecies or the art of Divination.
Anyways, those who were Dark would remain eternally Dark; it was those who were Light who could be swayed to addictive world of darkness. And he, being the Lord of Darkness, would never need something to guide him out of the world he ruled.
With a quick, wordless Incendio, the prophecy-words were gone. Thankfully, Tom — who had the most extensive knowledge than any other being in the world — knew what the Hand of Glory actually did. He reached for a quill, a bottle of ink, and fresh parchment and wrote:
This is the fabled Hand of Glory which will provide light only to the holder. If you don't know what to do with it, you need to dream a little harder.
-L.V.
Chuckling at the last line, Tom folded the parchment and placed it inside the chest, closing the lid after it. This item could most certainly be sold to the Borgins and Bruke — they would definitely make some profit from this piece of junk. He hoped one day this thing would make way to one of his servants; he looked forward to see what they would make of the note signed by their Lord.
Still dreaming of the world he would make, Tom placed the wooden chest in a bottomless rucksack, without the knowledge that the thing he had just discarded was the last chance of redemption he had been granted.
They say ignorance is a voluntary misfortune. In that precise moment, unknowingly, Tom had sealed the fate of one of the families who would serve him faithfully for a very long time, before one day, one of them would come across the same Hand of Glory, in the same shop where Tom was going to sell it, and despite Tom's ignorance of the prophecy, another member of the same family would later cement the path to the downfall of Lord Voldemort.
As he moved for the next item, it was for one of the first — but not the last — time that Tom Marvolo Riddle had underestimated the power of truth and honesty, purity, and light.
A/N: If you have any confusions on who the bearer of Hand of Glory was, it was Draco Malfoy, and Narcissa indeed let to the downfall of the Dark Lord.