Riddle's Riddles

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Chapter 25: Undertow Eyes

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"Undertow eyes? Why not? Undertow. That's the notion that the new expression put in my head. They held some kind of mysterious, active fluid, a force that dragged one in, like the undertow of a wave retreating from the shore on stormy days."

- Dom Casmurro

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

"Now, that's what a call a slap."

Tom Riddle turned around, ignoring his aching cheek, to see a man's painting. The man had dark, curly hair, wore a black top hat and was laughing at him. The boy shook his head, not believing what had just happened... Hermione Granger had slapped him. He had no idea where her strength had come from, but there was enough to make it hurt.

"By the way, thank you, my boy, for making my day a little bit more interesting," the man in the painting said, still laughing.

"Shut up."

"Ooo, now he's irritated!"

"Oh, leave him alone, you grumpy old man." Tom looked around to see who was speaking this time and found himself staring at a painting of a couple. The girl had dark long hair and was standing on a balcony, leaning against the railing, while the boy, who had blond hair and bright blue eyes, was trying to climb onto the balcony. "Ignore him, he's always like that."

"Why don't you go back to your lover, girl? I'm sure he's eager to hear your vows of true love."

"Well, I'm sorry if I have someone who loves me and...!"

"Don't talk to her like that!" This time it was the boy who spoke.

"I will talk to anyone with the tone of voice of my choice, thank you very much!"

"For Merlin's sake, be quiet!"

The paintings fell into silence while Tom watched them, annoyed. He heard a small giggle and saw another painting showing another couple. This one had a blonde woman wearing ancient Greek clothing and a man, who was also blonde, standing behind her. A pair of white wings coming from the man's back seemed to be embracing both of them.

"Oh, please, ignore us." The woman chuckled, hiding her mouth behind her hand.

"You're not really good with girls, right, young man?" The blonde man asked, laughing. "You have to be gentle with them, not abrupt and rude as you were with that young lady..."

"And who said I wanted something with her?" Tom asked, suddenly starting to feel uncomfortable.

"Didn't you?" Again, the girl from the balcony asked. "I thought you wanted to snog her... You seemed to want that."

"Well, you're wrong."

"It would be much more interesting if you did want to..."

"I don't think so." Tom shrugged. "Not everyone's life revolves around romance."

"They should, if you want to know my opinion," the girl whispered, letting her hand reach for the boy's, who was still climbing her balcony. "The world would be a better place if people were more romantic."

"I don't think so," said Riddle. "Look where romance led you."

"What do you mean?"

The wizard smiled smugly before walking towards the painting. The girl now had a serious expression on her beautiful face, while the boy seemed to be torn between choosing to look at his lover or at the stranger who was talking to them.

"Romeo and Juliet." Tom let his fingers touch the faces of the couple. "What did love do to both of you? It led you into a coffin."

"It... Well..." The girl, Juliet, now seemed to be uncomfortable. "That was just a consequence."

"A pretty important consequence, don't you think? After all, if you haven't been so foolish to fall in love with your enemy, you wouldn't be dead by the end of the story."

"We don't choose who we fall in love with, boy." He turned around to see the blonde man from the other painting talking. "It's not something we can control..."

"You can say that, right?" The wizard laughed. "The god who fell in love with the mortal. Eros and Psyche... Have any of you noticed that the only use love had for your lives was to make it harder for you?"

"Stop..."

"Stop what, my dear Juliet? Stop saying the truth? But that's how it is: love is not that beautiful thing you believe it is! Love is a... a stupid feeling that makes people lose their minds and act like idiots! It's... It's a useless thing that can ruin and even end our lives."

The paintings remained in silence, only staring at the wizard who, at that point, was almost yelling at them. It was a good thing, Tom thought, that the corridor was empty, occupied only by him and the people inside the paintings, otherwise the other students that may have been there would think he was mad.

"For someone who thinks so badly of love," a sweet, calm voice spoke. "You know a lot about the feeling."

Riddle was ready to reply rudely, but stopped when he saw who was speaking to him. It was, as he had imagined, another painting, but it was different from the others; he didn't know who the couple in it was. The boy had dark, curly hair and dark brown eyes, kind eyes... He was an average teenager, with nothing special about his innocent appearance. It was the girl who caught his attention. She also had dark curly hair which kept falling over her face, and a mischievous smile on her lips. But her eyes... it was her eyes which got most of his attention: Tom couldn't tell which color they were, a mixture of green and blue maybe, and there was something about them that made the wizard feel uncomfortable and enchanted at the same time. It was as if her eyes were talking to him, mocking him.

"I don't know what you are talking about."

"I think you do know, my dear." She laughed, lowering her head, but still looking at him. "You do like that girl, don't you?"

"No."

"The way you were speaking to her tells me otherwise," she said. "The way you're talking to me right now is also telling me the opposite."

Riddle locked his eyes onto hers, trying to understand what she was trying to do with him. Again, those eyes seemed to be trying to persuade him, convince him to say something... Dragging him in.

"Why do you fear love? It's a beautiful feeling." She looked away from him, now turning to observe the boy at her side. "It may be cruel, some times... But during the period in which it is nice to you, it's the most beautiful thing in the world."

"I do not fear it," he whispered. "I just think it's stupid and useless, a waste of time."

"Stop making up excuses."

"I'm not...!"

"If you want to know what I think," Once again, the man who had mocked Tom after Hermione slapped him spoke. "The boy is right: love is useless."

"Oh, please!" The girl shook her head. "You just say that because you were unfortunate in love."

"You'd know a lot about that, right, darling?" The man narrowed his eyes.

"Of course." She smiled before turning to Riddle once again. "Now, where was I? Oh, yes... Stop running away from your emotions. Not only love, but every emotion you have inside yourself. Stop trying to hide them, stop trying to get rid of them... Believe me, it wouldn't hurt to let yourself feel something."

"Yes, but you can't feel something that doesn't exist," said Tom. "Emotions are not like... Cold, heat, pain... You can actually feel these things, but love? You can't! It's not something that... That you know it exists!"

The girl giggled. "You don't even know what love is, you poor thing."

"I know what it is, and I already told you: something useless."

"No, it's not." She sighed. "Well, I'm not going to keep you here, I believe you must go somewhere to take care of your..." She pointed at her own cheek. "Your face... It's very red, does it still hurt?"

Riddle rolled his eyes and didn't answer. Looking one last time at the girl, who was still looking at him with those odd eyes, the young wizard turned around, ignoring the whispers from the other paintings. He could still hear the protests from Romeo, who kept saying things like "the idiot doesn't know what he's missing", or the sighs from Psyche... The only thing he wanted to do at the moment was to get away from that damned corridor full of paintings of couples. It was disturbing! Why would someone put so many romantic fans in only one corridor?

"Before you go!" The boy sighed, listening, once again, to the voice of the man who, he had noticed, was the only single portrait there. "Listen to my meaning of love, young man: love is selfishness, only it is duplicated!"

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

Hermione sighed as she sat down on the couch of the Heads' common room and put her recently acquired book down on the table in front of her. When she bought Magical Objects and Their Uses, she had been excited about reading it, even though she knew the chances of her finding anything useful about time-turners were really small, but now, after her recent argument with Tom, the girl simply couldn't concentrate on reading, for her mind kept wandering back to the Slytherin boy whose face must be red and hurting thanks to her.

"He deserved it," she whispered to herself. "Stop feeling bad about that."

The Gryffindor's head snapped up when she heard the dormitory's door opening and she saw Riddle entering the room. The boy was quiet as he went to his room, but, as soon as he reached the door, Tom stopped and turned to her.

"Granger?"

"What is it now?" The witch said, watching as the Slytherin approached and sat down next her, but kept a good distance between their bodies.

"You're a girl," he said, looking at his own hands and furrowing his brows.

"Oh, well, thank Merlin you noticed that." She rolled her eyes, sighing.

"Then, answer me this," Tom whispered, finally looking up and locking his blue eyes with Hermione's brown ones. "What is love?"

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

A/N: I love this chapter so much. It's mad, but I love it.

1- The portraits: as you must have noticed, this "corridor" at Hogwarts is a place where I imagined there would be paintings of famous couples. I only showed three of them in there, but I like to believe there are more. So, the couples:

a) Romeo and Juliet: the first painting, the "most beautiful love story of all time", also the most tragic one... It show exactly what Tom feels about emotions, I think, that they can lead you to your destruction. Romeo and Juliet fell in love and this love made them act carelessly and, in the end, they ended up dead.

b) Eros and Psyche: I read their story when I was younger for school and fell in love with it. Again, I think it may show how love can make a person's live complicated... Like how it did with Eros and Psyche. `-`

c) The unkown couple: the third couple is my favourite... Tom doesn't recognize them and, when I fisrt posted this fic in portuguese, I didn't tell the readers right away about who they were, I asked them if they had any idea... I got a lot of guessing (they even said Cinderella and her prince), but none got it correct... Which is funny because this couple is REALLY well known in the brazilian literature. We're talking about Bentinho and Capitu from Machado de Assis' Dom Casmurro. I'll give you a quick explanation of the plot: Bento (Bentinho) and Capitolina (Capitu) had always been friends, and he fell in love for her... but they can't be together because his mother made a promise that she would put him in a seminary when he got older. A lot of stuff happens and Bentinho finds a way not to become a priest as his mother had promised, so he can go back to Capitu... Blah, I don't want to spoil the story for you, but I can't explain without spoiling it x_x So, if you don't wanna know, don't read past this: Bentinho, when he was still in the seminary, becomes friends with a boy called Escobar. Even after they both left the seminary, they were still friends... Bentinho married Capitu and Escobar married Capitu's friend, Sancha. Sancha and Capitu have kids {Sancha's little girl is called Capitolina, and Capitu's little boy is called Ezequiel, a tribute to Escobar, whose name is Ezequiel de Sousa Escobar} and they are all happy... until the day Escobar {Bento's friend} dies, drowned while swiming in the sea. During his funeral, Capitu was comforting Sancha and being watched by her husband... and he saw her staring intensely to Escobar's body and shedding a tear. From this moment on, Bentinho is convinced Capitu had been cheating on him with Escobar... and the rest of the book is about it. It's great because you notice small details that can have a huge meaning in the story... The best thing is that you never know if she really cheated on him or not, the only person who knew it was the author who is dead for years now... The writing is great, the descriptions are beautiful and it is really worth reading if you can find a good translation of it... So, yeah, the couple is young Bentinho and Capitu.

d) The solitary man: if the unknown couple is young Bentinho and Capitu, the old and grumpy man is the older version of Bento, the man known as Dom Casmurro due to the fact he is arrogant and grumpy.

2- "Again, those eyes seemed to be trying to persuade him, convince him to say something... Dragging him in.": I went by the description of Capitu's eyes from the book. Everything in the book revolves around her eyes... They are said to be really exquisite and beautiful, manipulative... The exact quote is here:

"Lovers' language, give me an exact and poetic comparison to say what those eyes of Capitu were like. No image comes to mind that doesn't offend against the rules of good style, to say what they were and what they did to me. Undertow eyes? Why not? Undertow. That's the notion that the new expression put in my head. They held some kind of mysterious, active fluid, a force that dragged one in, like the undertow of a wave retreating from the shore on stormy days. So as not to be dragged in, I held on to anything around them, her ears, her arms, her hair, spread about her shoulders; but as soon as I returned to the pupils of her eyes again, the wave emerging from them grew towards me, deep and dark, threatening to envelop me, draw me in and swallow me up."

I have a friend who says the "undertow eyes" are the greatest comparison she has ever read in a book... Because it's not obvious but at the same time it is effective. Her eyes are important for one to understand her personality {she is, accourding to my literature teacher, the most complex character from the brazilian literature}... She's inteligent and persuasive, she can seem to be sweet and inocent, but when something goes against her will, she gets annoyed and drops that sweet mask of hers. Another thing that is interesting about the book is that when Escobar dies, the sea is in the undertow period {is that how you say it in english? in portuguese we say that the sea is in undertow/ está de maré alta}... The waves dragged him as Capitu's eyes dragged people into them.

It's also said her eyes are of "a gypsy, oblique and sly."

3- But why did you put all this stuff about Dom Casmurro? It makes no sense!: Well... I put Capitu and Bentinho in there because I love them way too much, but also because Capitu's character reminds me a lot of young Tom Riddle. Both of them are inteligent, charming, persuasive and cunning {she would be a great Slytherin}... A lot of times, during this fic, I described Tom's eyes as I described Capitu's in this chapter:

"She felt as if his cold blue eyes were trying to convince her to talk, dragging her in so he could discover what was going on inside her mind." {chapter 3}

This is only one example because I can't remember where I put the other descriptions, but I'm sure there are more of them... Anyway, I had a class about Dom Casmurro and ended up thinking that, yes, my Tom and Capitu have a lot in common, so why don't I try to put them together in a scene and see how it works? Yeah.

4- " Love is selfishness, only it is duplicated.": "Amor é egoísmo duplicado."... this is a quote from Dom Casmurro's author, Machado de Assis.

5- "Granger? You're a girl." : I bet Hermione wants to slap everyone who says that to her.

I like this chapter and I hope you guys liked it too :3 I leave today with a few recomendations {all about Dom Casmurro, but okay}:

- The book, Dom Casmurro by Machado de Assis.

- The miniseries, Capitu, that was on the brazilians TVs about two years ago, which can be found on youtube {I swear I once found it with English subtitles, but now I can't find it D: anyway, I have the DVDs which have the subtitles and I'll try to upload it to youtube... but if you want just to take a look at its visual, search for "Capitu , globo " ... this, in my opinion, is the most beaufitul scene of it: youtube . com / watch?v=-AB6m7PtCkk&feature=related }

- A song about Capitu's character, it's called, well, Capitu and is sung by Ná Ozetti. {the english lyrics can be found here: aribh . livejournal . com / 39080 . html?mode=reply ignore the fact they are horrible, I didn't have much time to translate it.}.

Also, an illustration: arileli . deviantart . com / gallery / # / d425ioe {Tom and Capitu :3}.

Thanks everyone who left a review on last chapter and to Shaddow6116, for beta reading it. As I said, I hope you enjoyed it :3 Tell me what you think, please...

Ari.