Chapter Seven – Tom Riddle and Experience

Darius Ahlee watched the dying embers of his fireplace, seated and sipping his cup of evening tea. A rat ran across the mantle, leaped to his bookshelf and sat there for a moment, swinging its head back and forth to sniff the air. He snorted. A home that will protect me from the most dreaded foe! but no protection against minor vermin!

Arcane magic tended to work like that: excellent for one purpose, horribly lacking in other ways. Yet woe to him who dared to tamper with a mage's spellcraft…

Yawning, he stretched upwards out of his chair. His wand was on the couch to his right, but by the time he reached it and turned to dispatch the pest, it had fled.

Darius yawned again, and with some difficulty managed to shuffle to the sink to dispose of his cold tea. The cumbersome weight of his golden amulet almost made him stagger, and forced him to more alertness. Unfortunately, he was not quite alert enough to remember that his wand was not in his robes, and searched futilely till he looked back, where it still sat on the couch.

He sighed, put the dirty cup into the sink and walked straight to bed.

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He was at the head of his pack of brothers, mere feet away from the house.

The house was ancient, created in a time when wizardry was much more powerful and raw. It appeared to be a small run down shack from the outside, but inside it was quite a bit larger and more lavish. No wizard could approach the shack openly without the owner's consent, nor could any long range magic affect it. The protection on it was very heavy indeed.

"Sso heavy that creator didn't bother with other ssecurity meassuress, it sseemss."

The rats he had placed under the Imperius curse while human were able to penetrate the shack, withdraw, and willingly march in the open mouths of his brothers with full enthusiasm. But he didn't dare turn back into a wizard, not yet, and he didn't dare enter the home himself.

He reared up on his tail, nearly six feet high, and turned to his brothers.

"Go, bring him to me," he hissed at his pack, "Do not harm, only impede… Thiss iss my kill…" At that, hundreds of snakes cautiously went forward towards the house.

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Darius Ahlee slept in a dark and chilly bedroom, as was his preference. He lay atop his bed in his sleeping robes, with a brilliant golden chain securely around his throat. His house was a fortress, and his device made him invincible. Darius slept very well indeed - despite the number of enemies he had.

If he didn't sleep so deeply, it was possible that he may have heard the noises: the sounds of soft rustling of the leaves on the roof, quiet scraping coming from several places at once. But then, it was blended into the sounds of the nighttime forest at first; yet it continued, growing louder. Darius turned over in bed once, but never woke to the sounds.

One by one the snakes slithered in through the passages the rats had made, through tunnels in the walls, down the chimney, and out from the ashes of the extinguished fire. Dozens of multicolored serpents of all sizes began to fill the room slowly and quietly, surrounding the bed, and piling up on top of each other.

After only minutes, nearly five hundred snakes were in his room. There wasn't a surface that wasn't covered in several different colored S-shapes, except for his bed, and even that was on the verge of being swallowed by the walls of serpents. Yet they held formation, and waited.

The command came through the air on the wind, a low hiss. "Flussh him out."

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The Dark Wizard Ahlee came out of his front door screaming, swinging his wand around to little effect, tripping and falling over the river of snakes that pushed him forwards.

The largest snake, which had been outside waiting, suddenly transformed into a boy. As his human form took shape a wand, was already in his hand, thrust into the air.

The anti-Apparation ward went up a moment before the house itself vanished, but the man was still there, trying to get an even footing to cast something powerful to destroy the snakes, but failing. It took him a moment to notice that his home had disappeared without him; when it did, his eyes widened in shock.

Tom didn't waste any time. Just as the man started to turn towards him, Tom flicked his left wrist, and the long wooden tube he had made, it flew up his robes and appeared in his hand. As he started to raise it, the Dark Wizard yelled something Tom couldn't make out; the ground beneath him shook so hard he lost his balance and fell. Tom leaned into the fall, tucking and rolling, behind a tree, then back onto his feet.

Interesting, I haven't the slightest clue how he did that… This may be trickier than anticipated.

Tom pressed his wand to the tree, and it exploded in a shower of large foot long splinters. He flung the mass at the man with a wave before running to a new position.

The splinters were not under the class of attacks the man's amulet would dispel, so he had to defend. The man was already protected by some type of shield, clearly keeping the snakes away, but he managed to cast a pyro spell on the mass of sharp stakes flying towards him before he turned his wand on Tom.

Too damn slow!

Tom flicked his wrist at several trees near the man, and each tree fell toward him. The man raised his wand, spun it around, and the trees flew up and back towards Tom, in a wall too wide to dodge.

"Reducto!" Tom yelled and pointed at the ground in front of him. A large patch of soil was blasted loose from the earth. Tom dove into the hole as the trees flew over top of him. He saw a large loose pebble, touched his wand to it, then grabbed the Transfigured grenade, pulling the pin from it and throwing it at the man.

He seemed confused for a moment. Unfamiliar with the Muggle weapon, he hesitated a moment before deciding to repel it back to Tom. It exploded in the air, and the man was apparently startled for a moment by the unexpected blast.

I need to get closer. Tom waved his wand in front of him and yelled "Fumus Parietem!" A thick grey haze appeared between them, obscuring everything. Tom immediately zigged to the left and then zagged towards the man's position. He could feel a curse fly past him as he moved, could hear the man yelling more.

Tom first silently used a Ventriloquo Charm on himself to throw his voice to the far right, and then yelled "Protego Maximus!" A heavy blue shield formed around him. It won't stop his best attacks, but I won't need to.

The man was casting curses in the direction he'd heard Tom's voice, over by dense patch of trees. Tom could make out the blurred jets of light through the haze, and he determined their origin.

Silencio, thought Tom, and his movements were silenced. He started to run up to the man from the other side, but he hadn't gone more than a few feet before the man summoned a wind to blow the conjured haze away. The Dark wizard rounded on Tom, beginning some terrible incantation, so Tom stopped running towards him and simply pointed his wand in his general direction and casually said, "Avada Kedavera!"

The wizard went quiet as the brilliant streak of green light jetted toward him. He tried to dodge, but lost his balance, nearly leaping directly into the path of the miss fired curse and fell to the ground. Tom used this opportunity closer.

As the dark wizard tried to stand, he threw some kind of Dark magical rope at Tom, but Tom simply jumped over the cracking barbed wire and continued, sweeping up a stone from the ground with his wand and Transfiguring it into a dangerous looking yellow gas. Tom had banished the gas away from himself the moment it formed, and it flew towards the dark wizard.

The man jumped up, dropped his current shield to place some sort of Bubblehead charm not just over his head, but his entire body.

Tom took his opportunity and pulled out his blow gun. He raised it to his lips and blew hard. The dart flew through the air faster than the man could register, and it passed through the shield that had saved him from the poison gas. It struck him just under the arm as he was raising his wand. The Muggle tranquilizer worked quickly - the man's words were already slurring as he started to yell something Tom wouldn't have understood.

Suddenly there was nothing but blue light, a brilliant blue light taking up every bit of Tom's perceptions and senses. He couldn't move because he had no body, he couldn't think because he had no mind, he was nothing but blue light. And then nothing.

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Tom woke a short time later, his wand still clutched out of instinct. He immediately rolled a few times and stopped on his back, looking up to get a better view of his surroundings as he swept them with his wand.

Except, it wasn't a wand anymore; it was a mere stick.

Tom didn't stop to consider the trickery. He dropped the unmagical stick and jumped to his feet; the last thing he remembered was blue light as the dark wizard fell unconscious.

It only took him a moment to see that the other wizard was still lying on the ground, asleep.

He looked around: all of the snakes had fled the war zone, there were fallen trees, dying fires, craters and ground that was simply stripped clean, in a great circle around where Tom stood above his fallen foe.

He flicked his wrist to summon his wand from, wherever it was; nothing happened.

WHAT!? Tom thought in a panic, he waved his hand to cast a particularly destructive spell at a tree but the words wouldn't come to him, he didn't even know how to…

Just stop panicking, concentrate. Tom tried to reach out with… And feel it in the air. However he found he was simply staring at the sky.

What is going on?

He walked over to the stick he dropped. Thirteen inches yew, in fact his wand, yet when he picked it up, it felt like nothing other than an ordinary stick.

Tom was trying very hard to supress his panic and remain calm; he had to stay logical and figure out what was going on.

He looked himself over, moved his body around. Other than a few scrapes and some dirt he looked no worse for wear. He closed his eyes and thought of as many details of the battle as he could. It all came to him without hesitation, and he was starting to see the mistakes he had made already, so his mind was intact. Yet that other thing, the indescribable sense of power that coursed through him and the world around him, was gone.

He may have attacked me in some way that depleted all my magic; it will return soon enough... Tom tried to convince himself, but he knew this was something terrible and was kicking himself for taking a moment too long drawing breath to blow the dart. At least the curse used had been interrupted, and therefore underpowered, else he may not.. have survived...

OK, clearly I need to get more serious about this whole immortality thing.

But for now, he needed to try to finish the job. Which would be simple, since it appeared the golden amulet was lying on the ground beside the Dark wizard.

Perfect… I hardly dare look at it without my power, never mind trying to claim it as my own…

Tom took the Dark wizard's wand and snapped it in half over his knee. The sun had not begun to come up yet, and he wasn't thirsty, so he could have only been unconscious for a couple of hours, and the man would be asleep for days yet.

Tom bent over to pull an eight-inch combat knife from a sheath on his boot, and then took another step towards the fallen wizard.

Tom tapped his chin with the tip of the knife, thinking. Even without the wand, a powerful wizard would be difficult to restrain without magic. But if he killed the man, Tobo wouldn't get his information.

Tom sighed and kneeled down before the man, leaned forward with his knife and cut his robes away, using the scraps to tie his arms and legs. When he finished, there was a rather large piece of white cloth left over.

He knew he couldn't spare too much blood; he would have to keep it short and simple.

How does one find a person using five words or less? He sighed in resignation after a moment, and decided he could come up with something better for his own private use later.

For now... Tom took his knife and cut his thumb open.

Of all the things I thought to bring, a quill and parchment never even crossed my mind…

"SOSV5 Reply and follow owl," Tom wrote out in messy, nearly illegible letters with his own blood.

The code was something they had agreed on, and Tobo had assured Tom that he would "rain down an unimaginable tornado of hell" on Tom if he ever used it for anything other than an absolute emergency. Tom was sure that this situation counted as an emergency.

Tom set the letter down to dry.

Now, I just have to find an owl to deliver this… As basically a non-magical person…

Tom knew that even though he could hear owls hooting all around him that not one of them would come to a non-magical person, or deliver their letters, perhaps not even understand them.

As interesting as this new level of difficulty is, I think I prefer approaching my problems with all of my power…

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Once again, Tom tugged on the long thread, and the dead mouse tied to the end seemed to jump under the tree.

The owl over head was clearly interested in it, but Tom knew the owl must think him stupid hiding here in the bush.

Perhaps it's not as smart as I thought. Tom laughed to himself as the large white owl swooped down towards the mouse.

Tom leaped up from his crouching position, stretching out his arms as he jumped, throwing his "net" out at the owl. His cloak flew through the air quickly with the weight of the stones in it. The makeshift net surrounded the owl and brought it down.

Tom pounced on top of it. He wrestled with the cloak and tried to hold it down, but the owl had a surprising amount of fight in it.

"Listen, I understand this is terribly rude…" he said to the struggling mass of cloth. "These are extraordinary circumstances, however… I need your assistance, I need a letter delivered."

The owl was still fighting, and Tom couldn't get a firm grasp to pin it down, nor did he want to be too violent with it. Something told him this was a useless effort; the owl probably didn't even understand the speech of a non-magical person.

"Look, I'll give you an entire bag of Hubbard's Not-so-Ordinary Owl Treats if you just…"

The owl stopped fighting at the mention of the ridiculously expensive snacks.

Tom slapped his forehead. I'm going to pay someone to breed a better species of owl someday, or rather, do it myself so it gets done properly...