So it seems that FFN may be having some bugs. It says that I don't have any views on my past two chapter updates (which I know isn't true cause of the comments) and at times I cannot even see some of the chapters. It seems like the app is working, so if you are struggling to see this - maybe try the mobile app.
I know, I know, I'm updating so soon, but I have a crazy rest of this week and next week, and I know I won't be able to focus having this chapter done and hanging over my head. Consider these three recent chapters my gift to you, readers, after such time away!
Honestly there are no words for what I'm feeling going into this. Ages ago I asked you to stay with me, to know that I have a plan for this story. I'm asking again for this here before chapter 46 for reasons that will become apparent at the conclusion of this chapter. Your comments last update meant so much to me, and I hope that after over 200,000 words of build up, everything that is about to take place will live up to your expectations. This chapter paired with this quote from Great Expectations has been in the forefront of my mind since the beginning, much like the scene of Tom freaking out about the truth of Achilles or the first night at Samhain, and I can't even begin to say how nervous/excited I am to have reached this point!
Ok, that is enough posturing and hyping up this chapter. I hope you read and I hope you forgive any grammatical errors. I wrote this in such an emotion frenzy there were times I felt like my heart was bleeding. Thanks for being here Xx
Chapter 46
"Out of my thoughts! You are part of my existence, part of myself. You have been in every line I have ever read, since I first came here, the rough common boy whose poor heart you wounded even then. You have been in every prospect I have ever seen since – on the river, on the sails of the ships, on the marshes, in the clouds, in the light, in the darkness, in the wind, in the woods, in the sea, in the streets. You have been the embodiment of every graceful fancy that my mind has ever become acquainted with. The stones of which the strongest London buildings are made, are not more real, or more impossible to displace with your hands, than your presence and influence have been to me, there and everywhere, and will be. Estella, to the last hour of my life, you cannot choose but remain part of my character, part of the little good in me, part of the evil. But, in this separation I associate you only with the good, and I will faithfully hold you to that always, for you must have done me far more good than harm, let me feel now what sharp distress I may. O God bless you, God forgive you!"
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations
Tom stands on the front step of the house, running an impatient hand through his hair for the fourth time. His curls are longer than they have ever been, spiraling beneath his ears and falling in his eyes in the morning when he rises from his meager hour or two of sleep – all that he can manage these days, if he can sleep at all.
He should have known better than to trust Borgin. Tom had given his eight months to the man, but upon arriving back in England, palm itching to pull from his robe the pocket watch portkey Florence had given him years ago and set the dial, Borgin had looked at him with a knowing smile and handed him a series of papers with an assignment. Tom's vision had flashed red – he'd begun to form the words that would leave the man a bleeding mess upon the floor, and then he'd seen what he was being sent to collect and his entire world had shifted into new alignment as it only had when Florence was near him.The locket. The cup. Whether Borgin knew of Tom's heritage was unknown – it was possible, with the number of pureblooded cliental that could be considered regulars at the shop – but it was certain that thiswas an assignment Tom could not refuse, his own desires to make the journey across the sea be damned.
He needed to see Florence to the point that thinking her name alone sent a bolt of agony down his spine, his breath catching in his throat until dizziness threatened.
He needed the locket like it was equivalent to the paltry, pulsing muscle within his chest – a signifier of the worth he'd been forced to prove to others for far too long.
In the end, Florence would have to wait, and that decision was how he'd found himself spending the past month between his apartment in London and the home of Hepzibah Smith. Tom smirks to himself, his hand closing around the worn piece of parchment in his pocket as he considers what awaits him today behind Hepzibah's door. I have something important to show you on your next visit, Tom she'd said with such relish, there could be no denying her intent. When the door opens and the house elf leads him into the overcrowded home, Tom's smile is the most genuine it has ever been while on the Smith premises. Without a word he summons a bouquet of flowers behind his back, stepping across the threshold with a sense of purpose he has not felt since he saw Florence Allman standing beneath the moon on Samhain and he became determined to make her his.
Nine months of near madness, but after today, more than one dream would fall into place. The thought makes his magic abound with enthusiasm, a wreath of power so tangible that the air tingles with it, the scent of burnt metal wafting across his tongue. Florence he thinks a final time before plastering the toothless smile he reserves for these meetings across his face, pulling the flowers from behind his back to present to the woman seated before him.
.
.
.
It is only a few hours later that the locket lays before him upon his bed, shining in resplendent green with the tiny cup gleaming with pale golden light beside it, two beacons that burn like sun-fire in his mind. Tom stands staring at the two objects with such a feeling of ardor he can hardly remember to breathe, let alone think. At last, at last, at last he ruminates until the words form a cacophony of sound within his mind so great that he must shake himself to release the noise.
He'd always craved both items, one as a part of his heritage, the other as a sign of wealth and ability – that nothing was beyond his reach. But to have secured both at the same time, and so much sooner than he'd originally considered? Tom presses his palm to his chest, feeling for his racing pulse in order to assure himself this is not a dream. Mine he thinks with such a surge of greed that his sight flickers crimson in the corners, the two Founders artifacts glistening in his vision.
The question now was only what to do with them, for it was a decision he had not thought he'd be faced with for many years. Unbidden his mind recalled the threats of Clifford Allman, the promise that he would forever deny Tom Florence's hand in marriage if he proceeded down the path of Horcrux creation upon which he'd begun.
Standing before the locket etched with an ornate green S, the idea that anything could stop him, let alone a tired old farmer, was preposterous.
He'd just secured two of the four Founders objects with nothing more than his charm, a few well-placed smiles. What control did Clifford Allman think he held over Tom who held power in his magnetism alone, not to mention his magical prowess? Florence had already committed herself to Tom, the idea that even without her father's blessing she would choose to walk away from the magic they shared? Ridiculous. Florence had stood before the effigy of Salazar Slytherin and eaten the spoon fed lie crafted just for her, she'd written to him every day after work after he'd written to say that he was going abroad for eight months – diligent even when he did not respond for weeks at a time. Florence, who had given his magic life through his Dittany tree, who had given him laughter and kindness and other human sentiments that Clifford Allman could not withdraw under any circumstance.
Suddenly Tom's chest is burning, and he ducks to the side as his system attempts to dry heave, but there is nothing in his stomach. Like his inability to sleep, he'd found that food no longer held any pleasure for him, that he hardly needed to eat. I am sustained by my dreams alone. By thoughts of Florence.
A moan slips from his throat before he can stop himself. Florence. It had been a hell he had never considered to be away from her for such a time, even as he studied in the most prominent libraries across the continent he could not stop the tremors that would wrack his body when he caught a whiff of coffee, the surges of lust when he caught a flash of tanned skin that could never be her. He had suffered for months without her, sometimes to the brink of madness, but it had all been worth it because now he had the locket of Salazar Slytherin, the cup of Helga Hufflepuff. As he studies the two prizes before him, Tom remembers how he would watch the parchment for hours, searching for the familiar slanted writing that meant wherever she was she was thinking of him. When his need for her had grown too great to be contained, he would apparate into far away forests and burn trees to the ground or crucify the creatures of the wood until his bloodlust was satisfied and he could remember her name without blinding pain.
"I have undergone much, Florence, but it will all be worth it for what we will gain in the end," Tom says to no one in particular, running his finger across the face of the locket. It is cold to his touch. Perhaps she could wear the locket as she wore his ring, maybe the cup with his beating soul would be their wedding chalice.
Tom feels himself break out into a smile that stretches from one corner of his face to the other. If he had looked in the mirror, he would have found that he looked quite deranged with deep bruises under his eyes, hair mussed and wild after apparating away from the Smith residence and the false memory he'd planted within Hokey's memory. I have suffered nearly three years without her constant presence, but today I am beholden to nothing and no one. With a sense of conviction, Tom reaches for the locket before him, his mind already recalling the incantation that he has used only twice before.
Today, he would take another step towards immortality, and then he would travel to Georgia and claim for himself that person magic itself had gifted him.
When he says the spell, a long and complex Latin phrase he memorized years ago, he closes his eyes, and unbidden he remembers the warmth of Florence's skin beneath his fingers, the tears in her eyes at the Symphony, the way her laughter melds with birdsong when they walk through the Dittany fields. Tom whispers the spell that will make him into a living god, and he thinks only of the way her hair gets caught in her mouth when she sleeps, the way her fingers drive into his scalp, how Florence feels pressed against him as they read on the sofa or in bed or anywhere. Tom offers his magic and his soul to the locket before him, but his mind has space only for Florence's smile, for the way she'd told him he mattered simply because he was, for the letters he'd kept hidden in a sealed lock box beneath his floorboards and the access she had given him alone to her family wards. Tom finishes the spell and he remembers the way she laughed with unadulterated joy when she'd taken his hands and told him she loved him swathed in white like some enchantress of old, how she managed to say his name like a song and a promise and every other thing he'd never understood too many times to recall.
Tom smiles for a moment, and then the pain hits him, and he remembers no more for a time.
.
.
.
Clifford Allman is sitting on the back porch of the main Allman estate reading the Wizarding Times, his chin tucked against his chest as he scans through the various stories when Tom arrives that afternoon to ask for Florence's hand. Tom had knocked on the front door like any gentleman would, smiling and offering Eudora Allman conjured yellow carnations, moving with easy confidence down the hall and around the Allman heart tree as one of the many house elves he could no longer remember the names of pointed toward the rocking chair where the patriarch sat. Disappearing with a crack, Tom takes a deep breath and adjusts his cuffs before approaching the seated man, allowing an easy smile to spread across his face. Here upon the land of Florence's ancestors, he can feel her song pressing against the skin like a caress of tenderness. The thought that she is so near had threatened to incense him upon passing through the wards, but he'd regained control as the familiar feeling of conviction settled over his shoulders like a mantle.
"Mr. Allman," Tom calls out, letting his voice deepen and his hands clasp before him, hoping that none of his impatience is audible in his tone. Clifford peers to his left, umber eyes meeting Tom's midnight, and the worn face breaks into a hearty smile as he throws aside the paper and gets to his feet.
"Tom! What a surprise, have you gone to see Florence yet? I know she's getting desperate to see you," the man cries in his easy, southern drawl that grates upon Tom's nerves like nothing else does. Desperate to see you. Clifford's words reverberate through his mind for a moment before he can stow the smirk that threatens his visage. Not even the hand that claps him on the shoulder or the overly vigorous handshake can deter Tom from his mission.
"No sir, I haven't been to see Florence yet," he says with perfect poise, careful to enunciate each word with practiced diction. "I just returned from my assignment and I'd hoped to speak to you before going to see her, that is if you are available?"
Clifford's typically stoic face deepens into a lined smile, and he nods, stepping before Tom and waving over his shoulder in a motion that clearly says follow. Tom does, content that after today, he will never again be beholden to the man before him again.
"Kristofferson," the patriarch calls out as they walk back into the house. At once the elf is there, clapping and smiling at the sight of Tom before turning his gaze to his master. "If you could, send an eagle to my study. Quick as you can if you don't mind," Mr. Allman requests with another smile as they move across the dark, oriental rug.
"I appreciate you taking the time to speak to me," Tom murmurs as they step into the office, Tom once again taking in the wall-sized mural of the Allman shipping empire, the delicately tossing waves, the dotted lines that traverse the Atlantic ocean. Clifford nods, closing the door behind them, and moves across the room to open a window before seating himself behind the desk, the map stretching out behind him in what Tom hates to admit is an impressive backdrop. Seconds later an eagle swoops through the open window and settles upon the brass perch built into the mahogany desk, bringing with it the cool March air which brushes across Tom's skin. It smells medicinal, clinically clean, and slightly sweet – all the familiar signs of a healthy and strong Dittany crop. Tom inhales deeply.
"Forgive me, I forgot I had a letter I meant to mail earlier. Thought I'd get two things done at once," Clifford explains with an amused grin, reaching into the bottom drawer of his desk and pulling out a sealed scroll, attaching it to the eagle's leg with practiced ease before the bird disappears once more out of the open window and the two men are left with nothing but silence between them.
Tom crosses his leg, the corner of his mouth twitching upward. He'd been forced to cast a variety of charms on his visage to hide the bags beneath his eyes and the point of his cheekbones, the spell he'd cast earlier today leaving him weak and deathly pale. But it was worth it so as not to arouse unnecessary suspicion from the man before him.
"So, Tom, what can I do for you?" Clifford asks, rocking back in his chair and lacing his fingers over his stomach like he is preparing to enter into a business discussion with him. Tom smiles – he's gotten very good at negotiations over the past few years.
"Well sir, without wishing to come across as too blunt, you are aware that I have been courting Florence with the intention of marrying her since we left Hogwarts." Tom begins, his words easily falling from his tongue because he has practiced this speech countless times – at night when he could not sleep, or walking up and down the aisles of the innumerable libraries he had perused over the past months. Clifford nods, but does not speak, indicating that he would like for Tom to continue. Tom leans against the hard back of his chair, picking at a piece of white lint that clung to his robe.
"I have come now to make good on that intention, and to ask you for Florence's hand in marriage. I had hoped that after so long apart, I might be able to return to her with more than good news, but a gift as well."
Tom smiles as the words hang between them, Clifford's eyes drifting from his face and back to the window, clearly considering Tom's words slowly, peeling apart each sentiment within his incessantly dull, sun-addled, farmer's mind. It is nearly five minutes later, by which point Tom feels that he might overturn the table and burn the home to the ground, that Clifford's umber gaze returns to Tom's face, and he smiles. Tom's breath catches in his throat, and his heart shudders to a screeching stop.
"My dear boy, do you really think after what you've done, I can give you my blessing?" He asks, his voice low and easy and completely at odds with the smile stretched across his tanned face. The question hangs in the air for the briefest moment, and then Tom's vision is blurring and his world is rotating and he can feel nothing and everything at once. It is a possibility that had always been present, but one that Tom had never truly believed would come true. The idea that anyone could refuse him, could stand against him? Impossible, and yet Clifford Allman had done just that.
"You are refusing my request?" Tom asks, knowing what the answer will be before he has finished posing the query, but he must ask despite himself.
"Yes, Tom. I am refusing you. You do not have my blessing to marry Florence, and you never shall while I live," he says evenly, and the smile slides from his face. "Do you really think I could give her over to you after what you have done?"
"Sir?" Tom grinds out again, closing his eyes so that he will not betray himself or his rising anger with the telltale red sheen of his gaze. He still cannot feel his body, alarm bells slowly ringing within his mind and up and down his nerves as he pitches forward slightly at the waist, as if warding off pain.
"It is commendable, really, your hastiness to be reunited with Florence. But in the process you have forgotten that I can parse out your magic, and the moment your hand met mine out on the porch a few minutes ago, I knew that even less of your soul was inside you than when we last spoke one-on-one at Florence's debut."
Tom opens his eyes to find Clifford staring at the sole of his boot, his face now formed into a deep frown.
"For all of your intelligence, I did not believe you to be so short sited," Clifford continues, and if Tom had been in his right mind, he might have heard the grief that warbled in every syllable, the rasping low in his voice. "I hoped and prayed that you would see it inside yourself to set aside these destructive dreams for Florence, but I see it was all in vain."
"You know nothing old man," Tom spits, and he knows that his eyes are deep ruby now, his hands curling around empty air as he fights the urge to rip his wand from his pocket and commit murder for the second time today. "I will be the greatest sorcerer to ever live, I who have gone further to carve my name into the annals of history, and you think it right to deny Florence the chance to stand beside me?"
Clifford does not flinch at Tom's anger, his face an impassive wall that has Tom on his feet in seconds, kicking over the chair he was seated in only moments ago with such force that it slams against the wall with a sickening crunch.
"She has been mine since the first day I beheld her in Hogwarts, pathetic and incapable and barely a witch in any sense, but I molded her into the woman she is now. She is nothing without me, don't you understand that?"
"You once told me she was remarkable," Clifford counters, his voice still too static for Tom who wants to rage and fight and duel. These words give Tom pause, and he shoves his hand into his pocket, his fist closing around the small velvet box that he had ordered Lestrange to purchase for him years ago. He had lain such careful plans, how could they have gone so amiss? How could Clifford Allman not understand that what he had accomplished was nothing to fear?
"It seems to matter little what I think of Florence," Tom hisses. "No matter what I say, you have already given your answer. I doubt you intent to change it."
"I do not," Clifford agrees, inclining his head towards Tom. "I have never been and will never be as gifted as you when it comes to magic, Tom, but did you truly believe that you could arrive here with death singing in your veins and have me condone your actions?"
"And what is to stop Florence from saying yes anyways, to agreeing to marriage without your blessing?"
"Nothing," Clifford says evenly, but the downcast of his eyes tells Tom that there is more to the story. "I have of course, notified her of your circumstances, therefore any question you pose to her in regards to marriage will be done with Florence in full faculties of the situation at hand."
Rage boils within Tom as realization sets in. He had been outplayed at every turn the moment he stepped onto the Allman estate that afternoon, and his loathing for the slow-paced, easy-set man before him grows to match his hatred of Dumbledore, of perhaps death itself.
"The letter you just sent…" he spits, looking for confirmation in the face of the man before him. He receives it with another jerking nod.
"It was to Florence," Clifford explains. "I drafted it the night of Florence's debut after we first spoke, intending only to send it should I become aware of another transgression on your part. By now she will have had plenty of time to read it, being only a quick eagles flight from this home."
"She loves me," Tom says evenly, his voice betraying none of the fury that is ripping to shreds every nerve, every cell within his body. "She will say yes."
"She does love you, which has always been more than you deserve, incapable as you are of understanding what that means," Clifford murmurs. "Florence loves you so deeply, that even now with the understanding of what you have done, I detest this act I have completed because I know the pain it will bring her. Were you able to love as humans do, you might understand this agony."
"She will say yes, when I ask," Tom repeats, but even to himself the words sound like a question and he despises Clifford Allman for taking away this certainty from him.
"Forgive me, Tom, but I think not," Clifford says, and some of his sadness at last melts into anger. It is a sign of Tom's dementia that he relishes in the coldness of the voice set against his skin – anger was an emotion he could understand, an emotion he could master. "We are speaking of the girl who cries at the beauty of hatching seedlings, and you truly believe she would consent to tie herself for eternity to a murderer?"
"I could take her against her will, and you know you have not the strength to stop me," Tom says, and he does not even attempt to conceal the threat that it is. I will Tom tells himself. I will spirit her across the ocean where he will never again be able to take her from me, to stand between us.
"You would attempt to cage her? To stifle the most beautiful parts of her spirt? Florence would wither and die like a plant without light under those conditions, you know this too, Tom."
Tom gnashes his teeth, drawing his wand and twirling it between his fingers, ignoring the sparks that shoot from the end of it, recalling almost against his will those months during his final year at Hogwarts in which he had held his response to her debut over her head. How she had cowed to his will, how even though Florence had been his, she'd lost whatever made her worth having. Fire erupts up and down his spine as the truth of Clifford's words sink into his being – taking Florence against her will would destroy what he needed from her in the first place, the devotion he neither had to command nor coax into being. The devotion that had simply existed. She would either have to say yes or else he would not have her at all, because possessing a shell of her surely hurt more than not possessing her at all. I love you she had said to him, but was that enough? The thought sends him staggering across the room as his knees threaten to buckle.
"You are weak," Tom hisses at Clifford Allman when he regains his balance, because there is nothing else to say and no face left to save with the truth open between them. "And a fool, and you will never have strength or power."
"You assume I wish for those things," Clifford murmurs. Tom sneers at him, for a brief moment considering cursing him into the void, but finding that even this idea brings Tom no pleasure. For now he must find Florence and discover what damage her father has wrought with the truth, to see what was left to salvage.
Without another word he disapparates, reappearing in the gravel circle before Florence's home, the structure drawing nearer under his hurried footsteps. How many times had he made this walk, desperate for the touch of her after months away, and yet they all paled to the energy that swirled within him now – the unforgivable fear, the mountainous anger.
The front door swings open, but the house is dark and Tom does not need to call out for Florence to locate her. After nine months apart, the magic that has tied them together stirs into action, drawing him to the rear of the house and out onto the back porch like a mouse following a trail of crumbs.
She is seated on the steps in a simple t-shirt and mud stained jeans, elbows resting upon knees, caramel hair longer than it was when last he saw her but still familiar and soft and the sight makes his already faint brain threaten to keel over. Florence he thinks, and the screen door slams closed behind him, breaking the silence like a gunshot as he approaches her from behind. Even now he wants to rush to her, to carve his name into every inch of her skin, to make her his in every way known and unknown to man, and the thought makes his pulse erratic and his breathing unsteady.
Tom feels the final, spluttering flame of hope within his chest flicker and die when she turns to look at him, her face red from crying, cheeks stained with tears, and lips cracked and parched although she cannot have received the letter which is crumpled in her grasp more than ten minutes ago. He has seen her cry countless times, but each of these characteristics pales in comparison to the hardness of her gaze, umber eyes like burning arrows which pierce his skin with the intent to draw blood, to maim and kill.
"Florence," he croaks, and despite his prior anger, to be in her presence after three quarters of a year is nothing short of nirvana. Even now, with the shift in her gaze informing him that everything has changed, Tom feels the overwhelming desire for her swell within that gaping cave in his chest. He wants to touch her, under normal circumstances he would touch her, but Florence's face is still impassive, her eyes like stones, and instead he swallows.
"I spoke to your father," he starts again stepping down the stairs and into the grass so that they are eye to eye. The sun which is setting behind him shines a dusky orange upon her skin, disguising the pallor in her face.
"I know," she says after a moment, and the hand that holds the crumpled letter twitches. It is the first time he has heard her voice since his last visit here, and even with its unnatural stillness it is perhaps the most beautiful sound he has ever heard. "I know what you're here to ask, but please…" her voice breaks, and Tom notes the wobble in her lip, her eyes fluttering closed as if the mere sight of him had made her ill. He feels like he did the morning after Slughorn's party – their first confrontation. So close that he can smell the coffee on her skin and connect the freckles beneath her eyes, and yet she is repulsed by him, by those very things he stands for. "Please don't ask."
"Florence," he begins again, pleased that this time his voice is less hoarse despite the tremors that are now coursing through him. "Come back with me to England –"
"Tom, please stop –"
"– I can give you the world, I'll give you magic, power, anything you could ever want –"
"– I don't want to hear what you have to say, Tom – "
"– your name will live on through the ages, you would write history alongside me –"
"– what is wrong with you, can't you understand I don't want to hear this –"
"– just marry me." Tom finishes, the final command coming out as nothing short of a plea, his voice raised over her own so that she has no choice but to hear the words she was resisting. Florence's head falls forward, her face burying itself within her palms so that Tom cannot read the expression that he knows must be written plainly there. He can see her shoulders shaking, but her silence breathes back to life the embers of his hope. Perhaps… he dares to think, and reaching into his pocket he pulls out the ring Lestrange had purchased for him. Without even glancing at the diamond, Tom opens the case, waiting for her to uncover her eyes once more.
"Marry me, Florence," he says again. "Magic has crafted your soul for mine, we were always meant to be as one."
When she lifts her head, Tom knows his cause is lost, the steady stream of tears those of undeniable grief – not joy.
"You speak of souls as if you had one," she cuts.
"And you of magic you cannot comprehend," Tom hisses in response.
"Are you trying to mock me by asking?" Florence demands, and the hair on the back of his neck stands on edge at the anger in her voice. "Do you truly believe after what you have done that I could ever agree to be with you?"
"Would you truly deny the magic we have crafted between us? I endured madness for nine months on your behalf because even now, with you attempting to turn me away, I can feel the energy that binds us together and I know it would be true insanity to walk away from this."
"Tom, you turned away from whatever it is that we share the moment you decided to murder someone."
"She was inconsequential, Florence," Tom hisses, and his vision is red because how can beautiful, otherworldly, powerful Florence Allman not understand what he has achieved, how could he have failed to predict this outcome? He wants to shake her. He wants to fucking kiss her and suck the air from her lungs and he hates her for the pain that is tearing him in two.
"Like your parents? Like Myrtle Warren?" Florence chokes, and a fresh stream of tears pours down her face. "Did you kill them too?"
"Their lives were better suited for my cause, I gave their pathetic existence purpose."
Tom does not consider lying, not now with the truth between them. He watches as her eyes flutter closed once more, reeling with the shock of his admission, and Tom grimaces as he fights the urge to hold her, to press his lips to the hollow under her jaw, to breathe in deeply of her scent. Nine months I suffered, and for what?
"Give me an answer, Florence," Tom commands when he realizes he is still holding the ring box before him like an offering. He must hear her say it, to form the rejection she has said in so many words, to choose her path of morality over the love she claims to feel for him, over the world he offers her. Tom knows it is madness, that her words will bring him nothing but further pain, but still he must hear her voice it.
"No, Tom, I cannot accept you." Florence's voice is small, each word heavy, like it has cost Florence her very sanity to utter the phrase.
They stand before each other in silence, the moment stretching on towards eternity, their eyes locked in a conversation that only they could ever comprehend. Tom waits for her to take it back, she waits for him to…Tom does not know what Florence is waiting for. An apology? Grief? Begging? I do not beg anyone, not even you he had once told her, but that was before he felt like the world was sliding through his fingers, before Florence's gaze had hardened to iron, before the unbearable pain like his soul was being split for the second time today wracked his body.
"Please," he whispers, and she flinches, as if this singular word more than anything else he has uttered since his arrival hurts her more than all the others combined. Her eyes are like beads of amber in the sunset, her face flushed and Tom wants to tell her she is beautiful, that he remembers every time she has laughed in his presence, the he compares the shape of her hands to everyone else he meets. Tom wants to sink his teeth into her bottom lip and feel her tug at the curl in the center of his forehead. He wants her to smile and he wants her to tell him his magic is miraculous and she finds him beautiful in return and that she loves him, even though he has never known what it means beyond the warm glow that is ushers into the hole in his chest. He wants her – Florence Allman – proud and sometimes selfish and often outspoken, who believes he matters.
"I won't say it again, I-I can't." Her voice is a whimper, and Tom despises her for the way she has forced him to lay himself bare, and that it isn't enough. In that moment he hates her so much that he wonders if he will ever feel anything beyond his fury ever again, the surge of betrayal that snakes through his mind, the inexplicable agony that burns across his skin and up and down his limbs as if his innards are turning to ash, ignited by the anguish in her refusal.
"You said you loved me," he spits, and he doesn't care if his vision is red now, if she can see the paleness of his skin or the bruises beneath his eyes. Florence has rejected him, and he does not know if he will ever care again what anyone thinks of him. Like a snake his arm shoots from his side to wrap around her chin, his forefinger and thumb pressing into her jaw until her mouth falls open in a silent cry for mercy that slates only slightly Tom's bloodthirsty urge to strike her down, to end the woman that has subjected him to this pain. "You said it was everything. If I am a liar, then so are you."
"And I told you I was yours because I chose to be. Love does not equate possession, Tom," Florence manages to say despite the hand that is crushing her throat. Her skin suddenly seems to burn beneath his palm, and with a scream of rage, he releases her, turning his back on her and drawing his wand for the sake of having something to hold. Facing the fields of Dittany trees, Tom feels hysteria bubbling within his chest, and a high cold laugh emanate from his lips. Turning to look at her, he sees that Florence has gotten to her feet, her expression warped with equal parts horror and revulsion and no small measure of grief.
"You would blame me for what has broken between us, but I saw it in your eyes that day in the Chamber just as I see it in you now," Tom hisses, and his head weaves like a serpent side to side, his tongue slippery with the words that will pierce her like bolts, words he can never take back. "You chose to believe me, Florence Allman. You knew all along how I felt about Mudbloods and power, and you turned a blind eye upon it all. Yes, I killed disgusting Myrtle Warren and my filthy muggle father. I do not regret it, but can you live with the knowledge that you suspected, and chose to love me anyways?"
"What are you?" She asks, and he watches as she presses her palm flat to her chest as if feeling for her heart. Somewhere in the smallest part of his consciousness, he wonders if she too has pain between her ribs that makes her long to end it all, or if it is only him?
"I," Tom says, and his words drip with maniacal glee. "Am Lord Voldemort. I am immortal – strongest sorcerer in a generation, one day destined to be the greatest sorcerer of all time."
"No," Florence says, and her voice solidifies. "You're Tom Marvolo Riddle, and you're a fucking man, just as flawed and pathetic as the rest of us."
Tom laughs at her insistence, at the way she clings to her narrow minded understanding of life and death, of power and its reaches. His mind is running ragged with pain now, and unable to form coherent thoughts.How could I have ever thought her remarkable?He feels himself smile again, savage and cruel and terrible. So Florence Allman is a disappointment, just as the rest of them. I should have known…should have seen…
"No, Florence, that ring upon your finger is proof enough that I am no more a man than you are."
She looks down at the black stone, revulsion registering upon her face and Tom wants to slap the expression from her tanned skin. How dare she look at such a powerful magical object without the proper respect? I have honored her above all others, she is not worthy… With shaking hands Tom watches her slide the ring from her finger, and then toss it onto the ground between them, as if it singed her skin. Tom catches it with magic, returning it to his pocket, the small piece of his soul flickering with recognition at his touch.
They stare at each other again, two people who for a time were like halves of the same coin, now reverted to separate spaces that no longer shared bonds. The magic that once thrummed between them is still, and it is this more than her words or the pain that is still raging within him that brings Tom's fury to a climax. How could she stand there so indifferent too him? How could Florence fucking Allman cast dispersions upon him like all the other pure-blooded fools who thought to judge him? In the end she was no better than all of the other people who had let him down, he could see that clearly now.
"I want you to leave, Tom," Florence says, breaking the silence. He can see in the firm set of her mouth that she is trying to remain strong, but after everything they have shared, Tom knows every inflection in her voice. He laughs again, high and cold, at her false bravado.
"No you don't, Florence," he whispers, taking a step forward so that she must look at him. "You want me to be the poor, orphaned Tom Riddle you convinced yourself I was. But I am not he – I am more, I am Lord Voldemort, and I will reshape the magical world into a better form, into a stronger one, whether you are beside me or not."
"Leave," she says again, and her voice wobbles and the tears have started again. Tom bares his teeth as that small part of his mind tells him to wipe them away, to press his lips to her eyelids. She has chosen weakness Tom reminds himself, and it is a sign of the insanity that besets him that for a moment he wants to choose that weakness as well.
"To think, I actually thought to make you a queen," he hums, low and deep in his chest.
"Of the dead only," Florence responds.
"Of the world," he corrects. "My world. But I see now that you are not worthy of that honor. I will reshape magic in my own image and you will watch from afar, diminished, nothing."
"I want no part in the horrors you have in store," Florence insists, but he sees the hunger in her eyes, the remorse, and Tom knows it is a lie. At least some part of her still desired him, and onto this he latches. Perhaps, if he could reach a level of acclaim…yes in time… perhaps she would see the folly of her ways…Unbidden the image of Florence groveling at his feet, begging his forgiveness settles in his mind. It is a different dream than the one he'd first imagined of her, but it is no less pleasing. Perhaps I will be merciful, or I will kill her. Either option might bring him pleasure in the end.
"Leave now, Tom, I don't want to fight you, and I don't want you here," she repeats, and Tom feels himself grow annoyed at the insistence in her voice, at the conviction there.
"Such lies, Florence. But so be it," he hisses, his fingers tightening upon his wand. He would leave in flame and glory, a final reminder of what she had walked away from. "I give you this last gift to remember me by."
Tom turns and strides across the grass to the edge of the Dittany fields, and with a savage smirk he recalls the spell he had first used years ago at Samhain to summon a dragon of blue fire. It was only fitting that this final act mirror that of their first, that night she had first touched him, this night that he last touched her. Recalling the words, Tom closes his eyes and summons forth a jet of blue flames taller than Florence's home, releasing his magic in a torrent of anger and pain so great he must turn his face away from the heat, unbearable even to him – the caster.
At once the trees catch fire, their leaves shriveling into nothingness, trunks popping and groaning and branches falling to the ground as they are consumed by the all-encompassing flames. From behind Tom he hears a scream, a sound of such mangled agony that he winces without thinking. Never, in all of their fights, had Florence ever made a sound of such anguish, and he hates her all the more for her ability to affect him even now after they have parted ways. When at last the fire is too large for any one person to dream of controlling it, he extinguishes the magic, breathing deeply of the ash and smoke that burns his eyes. Before him the blue wall of flame stretches across his horizon, and he smiles and feels his head pulse with lack of oxygen, with deranged glee to have caused her a modicum of the pain that sears through him now.
When he turns to take a final look at Florence, Tom remembers for the first time since arriving upon the Allman estate what it was that had attracted him to Florence in the first place, that misbegotten emotion of desire that had led him to waste years pursuing her. Native Magic he recalls, and against ever fiber in his being Tom feels his mouth fall open as he takes in the sight before him.
Still screaming and keening and thrashing as if the sight of her burning fields is ripping her limb from limb, Florence has lifted from the ground, her caramel waves alight with purple tongues of electricity, her eyes like slices of topaz in the sunset. Against every inch of his burning soul – what little remains of it – Tom registers that she is beautiful, that this sight of her flying will be etched into his brain for the rest of his eternal life. Tom curses her under his breath, for the way she worms her way into his mind even now, but the words bring him no solace. She is flying – she defeated him in the end, and she would defeat him now too because he can feel her magic as she calls upon the spirits of the sky and the land and the very air that swirls in his lungs.
Tom does not need to understand the language that she speaks to know that she summons the storm that crackles above his head, that the raindrops that fall from the sky are nothing more than the magical embodiment of Florence Allman. Behind him, he can hear the sizzling of the fire as the downpour becomes torrential, combating the spreading flames before they can engulf the entirety of the Allman estate. Tom stands in the rain, and he drinks in the sight of her flying and commanding the elements themselves, vaguely aware through his grief that this will be his last, and then he closes his eyes and turns on the spot, disapparating into darkness.
When he reappears, he falls to his knees and wretches, yellow bile and ash falling from his mouth until he feels empty and his stomach has settled enough for him to once more regain his feet. Purposeless, he stands in the center of downtown Spectre, soaked to the bone and face smeared with ash.
Tom reaches into his pocket to withdraw his international portkey, to set it for the final time, when his hand brushes against the velvet ring box and the Horcrux Florence returned to him. Bitterness overtakes him then, and unbearable pain that pulses at his temples and threatens to overwhelm his senses – equivalent to splitting his soul, and he fears for a moment that he will lose consciousness.
Florence Allman had chosen weakness, so be it – but for one hair splitting second he considers turning back, falling to his knees and begging for her mercy, and then it passes like a fit of madness and what is left of his heart – if he ever had one to start – hardens.
Sliding the Gaunt ring onto its rightful place upon his finger, Tom sets the portkey, confident that with Florence gone from his life, nothing could now stand in his way to grandeur and greatness. He ignores the voice that hisses at the back of his mind that in the end, by rejecting the notion of Achilles, he'd been resigned to the role of Menelaus – pining away for that person and thing which he could never truly possess. It was a ridiculous idea, and one that he manages to suppress after a moments wrestling.
He would reshape the world, he would burn brighter than the sun, and when his name was known and feared across the land, unremarkable Florence Allman would come to know her folly. Tom repeated the mantra over and over in his head, attempting to calm the agony that still tore at him from the cavern within his chest. He silenced the thought that perhaps the world was not worth having without her in it, and allowed himself to be transported across the ocean for a final time, certain that he would never return.
I can't believe it finally happened. We all knew confrontation was coming, and I agonized over every word of this chapter.
Always I have felt that your comments are a privilege and I endeavor not to ask for them, but after so much building I'd love to know your thoughts at this point in the story! Of course, please don't feel pressured too, but with so much ~happening~ in this update, I'd just love to gauge how everyone is feeling.
Never fear, there is still more to come. The story will not be ending on this tragic note, but I make no promises on where we are moving from here. I also recognize I played around a bit with the timeline. Even though we don't know when specifically he found the locket, I believe we're meant to assume it's a bit later. Moving it forward in time made more sense for this story, and so that's what I did. I hope everything else makes sense in the framework of Rowling's original story.
As I mentioned before, I will share the rest of the playlist at the end of the story - but if you have any songs you want me to share feel free to comment them. You are all wonderful, stay safe, wear your mask!
