Chapter 3
The young boy on the floor writhed in bone-breaking pain as another curse hit the centre of his body. His skin was now purple-blue, veins popping up on the expanse of his arms and thick gulps of blood spilled from his mouth onto the shiny black marble floor. He gave one last blood-curdling scream—inaudible due to the silencing charm placed on him—as his glassy hazel eyes rolled to the back of his head. One last wave of tremors went through his frail frame and he went still.
"Abraxas, I told you to bring me a stronger one this time. Pray tell, what was so hard to understand about that simple instruction." Tom slowly twirled the pale wand between his hands whilst he lounged comfortably on a sofa in front of the body.
Abraxas wiped his sweaty palms at the sides of his robes. Witnessing Tom's unwinding sessions—as he referred to them—always managed to unnerve him to the highest degree. "He—He was the strongest we could find, he's a beater on the Ravenclaw Quidditch team."
Edmund who stood to the side leaning against a pillar had watched the whole ordeal with a look of point blank disinterest, finally spoke up. "You went harder than usual today Tom. You might have crossed the limit."
"But I didn't. And I don't need you reminding me of my limits Edmund, I'm quite well aware of them." Tom sneered.
"Tom, darling, not again…you made this one leak all over the floor. Ugh, the last one left behind stains for weeks." Druella Black moaned as she walked into the Slytherin common rooms. Her face wore an expression of blatant disgust as she lifted up the hem of her robes and side stepped past the body—without paying it a second glance—and settled with a huff into Tom's lap, looping her fair slender arms around his neck.
Tom's eyes flashed with a definite warning as he pushed her hands away. "I am not in the mood right now Druella."
Druella Black, though brave enough to approach Riddle openly, did not dare test his set boundaries. She had quickly—and quite painfully discovered that patience was not one of the virtues he had been greatly endowed with. She let out a miserable whine like a kicked puppy, got up and slowly moved away. "You don't have any time for me these days. Its always this or that with you. You haven't even come up to my room in weeks, a girl has needs—"
"Druella. Go upstairs and go to bed now." Tom gritted his teeth.
Abraxas and Edmund watched as Druella turned red in the face—her now puffy cheeks and long, swaying ebony curls making her look like a life size angry doll. She whisked around and with purposely loud steps ascended the stairs leading to the girls dormitory.
"Well, are you two waiting for a formal invitation? A parade perhaps? Clean this mess up." Riddle got up and waved nonchalantly at the body which had gone dangerously pale by now.
Abraxas hurried forward while Edmund walked at a casual pace. Both of them had a routine which they carried out mechanically: Abraxas would mutter a cleaning charm up to wipe all the blood away from the floors and clean the body while Edmund would check the vitals of the victim and mutter a few healing spells to close wounds and mend minor cracks. But this time though Abraxas carried out his half of the job, Edmund crouched completely still—his face drawn in immense concentration, fingers pressed tight against the boy's pulse point.
"He's dead. You killed him." He announced, monotone.
Abraxas' wand fell out of his hands and he gulped. "Oh fuck no, please."
Edmund's words snapped Tom from his reverie. The other two moved out of his way as he crouched down quickly and checked for a pulse himself. First in the wrist, then the neck and lastly the chest—not a single faint beat. The body had gone completely cold.
Tom ran a hand roughly through his hair. He had just broken one of his own sacred rules. "If you two idiots would have stepped in right after I was done, this wouldn't have happened."
"But you told us not to move until you tell us to." Abraxas voiced weakly.
"How very fucking convenient of you to be a stickler to that rule Abraxas." Tom growled.
Most muggle machines are installed with a backup system, a type of autopilot, that takes charge when things go haywire. It temporarily disables all parts and takes over until system stability is reached once again.
Tom Riddle was built like a machine.
When he messed up—which he rarely ever did—instead of going through the phase of panicking and fumbling, like any normal person would before they came up with a rushed solution, Tom's psyche would immediately kick itself into autopilot. And just like that his anger and guilt would fade away, his hands would stop jittering and he would zero in on the problem at hand. This man was made only to function at maximum efficiency.
And so Tom Riddle carefully assessed the situation. The gears in his head turning, his steely eyes narrowed at the dead body. He rolled up his sleeves.
Riddle took out his wand, which glowed gold, as he muttered a spell—an illusioning charm that would hide any traces of his magic on the body as well as fingerprints.
He then brought his fist up and slammed it down with immense force on the right side of the boy's ribcage.
And again.
Once more.
The loud crunch of bones shattering punctuated the deadly silence.
"He's gone mental." Abraxas breathed.
Tom— now completely oblivious to his surroundings— carried out the same action on the left side of the ribcage. He moved down the body and delivered the same damage to both the knees until the distinct sound of shattering knee caps was heard. He got up, eyes still on the body and drops of sweat matting his dark hair onto his forehead.
"Abraxas, go and get me two broomsticks and meet us at the balcony on the first floor." His voiced was low and controlled.
A pale faced, shock-stricken Abraxas immediately rushed upstairs to to the boys dormitory to grab his and Edmund's broomsticks.
"Edmund, go and make sure the corridors are clear." Tom flicked his wand and the body rose into the air.
Edmund nodded and headed out, still trying to piece together what the fuck Riddle was trying to accomplish here.
Tom walked up the stairs to the first floor, his hands behind his back and with an immense sense of calm—like there was't a dead body floating just a couple of steps behind him. He had picked the corridor which he was to be patrolling tonight and as expected, not a murmur could be heard.
The night was cool and the sky starry. Abraxas and Edmund stood tense against the railing, whispering amongst themselves, moonlight shining on their backs. They whipped around when they heard him enter.
Tom was still eerily calm, a perfect poker face placed on.
"Both of you, get on the broomsticks. You're going to deposit the body right in the middle of the Forbidden Forest. Don't put a single finger on it." He stressed. "I've put a charm on the body, take your wands out and just guide it along with you."
Riddle turned to Edmund. "When you leave the body, perform the spell Masemerta, it'll remove the trace of the charm." He rolled his neck and with a swish of his wand brought the body forward.
Abraxas and Edmund stood still for moment before his words registered in. They climbed onto their broomsticks and took their wands out—the body now floating between them. And with simultaneous soft kicks they took off together.
Tom watched with a fixated gaze as the two rode swiftly across the shadowed grounds and the body followed. With a couple of minutes they disappeared within the the thicket of trees. Tom had put together his plan meticulously. By wiping away all traces of his magic he had erased all the tracks leading to him. He had chosen to fly the body into the forest instead of hiding it in the castle or dragging it through, for the best concealment and an easily decipherable cause of death.
His fists clenched by his side, this was the most precarious part of the plan—anything going wrong at this stage could cost him severely.
Surely they were competent enough to not fuck this up.
Tom's heart thumped loudly in his ears as he waited for them to emerge. He checked his watch, 11:15. It had been eight minutes since they had went in. He paced across the balcony, hands behind his back in fists, keeping his eyes trained on the night skyline.
His breath left his lungs in a large exhale when he spotted them shoot up from the forest on their broomsticks. They rode much faster in their return and were landing on the balcony in under a minute. Abraxas had turned pale as milk and his face took on a ghostly appearance in the moonlight, his fair hair windblown. Edmund wore a look of expertly concealed irritation, making him look only slightly agitated.
"We did what you said." Edward stated, running a hand haphazardly through his hair. "Didn't touch him, performed the spell. Left the body in a clearing."
Tom's body relaxed at the words and rubbed his temples. "Good. We should all go to bed now, its been a rather taxing night."
"Don't you even want to know the boy's name?" Edmund asked, an edge to his voice.
Tom levied him with his gaze. "The less I know about him the better."
And just like that he turned around and headed towards the Head's Dormitories. He heard Abraxas and Edmund heading back down into the dungeons— Abraxas' panicked whispering and Edmund's cool interjections.
Riddle reached the entrance to the Head's Dormitory, his demeanor still perfectly calm and collected.
"Good evening Tom, how was your day today? Your patrol lasted longer tonight than usual." Asked the Sir Patrick—the incredibly nosey, white haired wizard in the painting.
Tom gave an easy smile. "My day was splendid Sir Patrick. I was deep in thought and lost track of time while patrolling tonight."
"Yes that often happens. With a mind as strong as yours I'm not surprised. Uh, you must be wanting to rest now—password?"
"Dragons Duel."
The painting swung aside and Tom made his way in. The living area was dark—Minerva had punctually gone to bed at eleven and so he tiptoed his way into his own rooms.
He clicked open the lock and his legs carried him straight to bed. As soon as he sunk into the soft mattress the pressure and tiredness that he had been holding at bay for so long began to set into his body like a wave —from his forehead all the way to his toes. A light pain of a headache throbbed behind his eyes. Tom Riddle might've been the smartest and strongest wizard of his age but he was still a boy. A boy who still hadn't learned how to hold back the exhaustion—he made a mental note to find a way to work it out of his system later.
He was then struck felt a fresh wave of guilt, deep in his heart.
Not guilt for killing a young boy oh no, but for doing it erratically and without due preparation. That was not the way he worked, his work was always planned out and foolproof—he had gone against his own ethos today. And more importantly he had also broken one of his most sacred rules: no killing within the school's boundaries.
Tom spited himself for losing control and vowed to never let a repeat of his behavior happen again. As he drifted off to sleep he silently cursed the thing that appeared in his mind's eye that had caused his foul mood—a pretty puzzle with bushy brown hair and sharp eyes.
OOO
Hermione laid curled up in her bed in the guest chambers. The encounter with Riddle this morning had sent her reeling.
She didn't have much time to put together a good cover after landing in this time. She had hoped that it would suffice, that Riddle would not even care to divulge himself into a matters of a new student but she had greatly underestimated just how observant he was of the people around him.
Hermione had also convinced herself that she would able to match him in a conversation if he started asking questions but Merlin had she been wrong. She'd crumbled under his short onslaught—and this had been only on the beginning of his suspicion. Panic set into her nerves when she thought about what Riddle would do if she rose them up too much.
She kept replaying how he had looked down at her when he had her cornered in the hallway. The feral grin on his face that bared his teeth, the dangerous kind of mirth is his eyes and the way his body radiated sheer power made hers feel small and weak. In those few moments he was completely and utterly bared to her and in his element—she had had a glimpse of the monster in the making.
And it was that—and not his question—which sent her running.
She had retreated to the bathroom to fix her appearance and regain her calm before heading for Charms. Minerva had been put out when she heard that Hermione was sorted into Slytherin and voiced that she just had a feeling that Hermione was meant for Gryffindor.
They had spent the rest of the day chatting in between classes about Hogwarts. Hermione steering the conversation away from her personal life by asking as many questions as she could. Minerva had also gladly given her a mini-tour of the school. But throughout it all Hermione was in a sense of concealed shock.
Curtesy of Tom Riddle.
By the end of the day she had decided to retire early to the guest chambers choosing to skip dinner, claiming fatigue. A worried Minerva had suggested she go to the infirmary but on request had dropped her off at the guest chambers.
Hermione felt the heavy chain round her neck—cold to the touch. She brought out the time turner from under her shirt clutched tightly in her palm, glowing a faint gold against her fingers. At the sight of it, tears flooded her eyes and in that blurred vision she saw Harry and Ron's faces when she let go of their hands. She choked back a sob against the pillow.
I will destroy this son of a bitch.
I will would get back to them.
She repeated the sentences like a holy verse again again until sleep took her and the image of Riddle's dead face faded away.