Written for the Quidditch League (Season 9, Round 4) as the Falcons' captain.
Prompt: 1984
Word count: 1452
Many thanks to Lucy and shy for beta'ing super last minute!
Warnings: Character Deaths!
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The Last Kill
Just one more. If what she said all those years ago is true, he only has one more kill left.
It makes sense that this one is going to be him. Harry Potter. The Boy Who Lived.
He raises his hand, the deathstick held lightly between his fingers pointing towards his enemy. His equal. He lets out a laugh at that, and the spell falls easily from his tongue.
Avada Kedavra!
She introduces herself as Sybill. He doesn't care.
He's here for Cassandra Trelawney's divination tools—Borgin thinks they can fetch a good price, and Tom is here to talk this woman into accepting a hefty amount of gold in exchange for a box of old artefacts collecting dust in a cellar somewhere.
What he doesn't expect, when she leads him to the living room of her little cottage, is for the very same objects to be sitting on top of the table in front of the armchairs, placed as if they're in frequent use.
She offers him tea; he accepts. It always does well to ease into the conversation instead of coming straight to the point, however much he might prefer to do the latter. She watches him, as he sips the said tea, through the humongous glasses that sit on her nose, looking very out of place on her young face. Her gaze doesn't waver for a long time, but he doesn't react, calmly finishing his drink.
Then, as soon as his cup touches the table, she is scrambling for it, reaching across the table and knocking down a glass ball in the process.
She breathes out one word: snakes. He stills in his seat.
He came here for a seer's tools; he never expected to meet another seer.
For the first time in a long while, he feels an emotion he had distanced himself from: fear. He has always believed in writing his own fate, but the future has always seemed too questionable to rely on, and he isn't sure if he wants to know something which hasn't happened yet or not.
He says his goodbyes and leaves.
He finds himself at the doorstep of Trelawney's cottage, less than a week later. This time, he is here on his own accord, and Sybill is overjoyed that he has come to spend time with her.
He isn't sure what he is seeking, as he converses with her about useless nonsense, humming replies and speaking a few nothings here and there, letting her maintain the flow of their talk. Then, she freezes mid-word, and when he turns, her eyes are wide open, looking eerily large through her thick glasses. In a trance, she croaks:
The Slyterin heir lurks around,
Hiding in shadows until he chooses to wreak havoc.
A thousand shall die at his hand,
And another nine hundred and eighty four.
The Slytherin heir lurks.
Then she is coughing, and he makes himself move his hand to pat her back, humming in agreement when she mentions choking on her tea. Of course she doesn't remember, true seers never do. He has read everything the store had, and then some, on the magic of divination these past few days.
He lets her kiss his cheek at the door, nodding along to her wish of seeing him soon. He knows he is never returning again.
He spends the next month and a half devising a spell to count the number of people he kills. It's complex magic, and his hand shakes as he points his wand at himself, muttering the words to tie it to his mind and soul, but he needs this. He needs to keep a track, because now he knows at least one thing in his future has a limit.
Once he's sure he is done, he reaches out to the spellwork that resides in his brain now, letting it take over his thoughts. The number seven comes to his mind, and he lets out a sigh of relief. It works. Seven is a powerful number.
(Myrtle, Riddle, Riddle's new wife, his two half-siblings, the elder Riddles)
He Apparates to the cave he'd claimed as his a long time ago and gets to work, a heavy locket dangling from his neck. He mutters spell after spell, enlarging the cave, laying down the protections, setting up an island to hold his treasure, poisoning the lakewater around it with his magic.
He drops the locket in an ornate basin and tips the contents of his unique potion over it, then lays down protective spellwork over it.
Then, he walks over to the village nearby, his breath heavy from the magical exhaustion and the sun beating down on his neck.
An hour later, when the entire village is following him back to the cave in a trance, a smirk finds its place on his lips. The similarity of the scene to the story of The Pied Piper, the very same one the woman at the front of the queue used to read to them every single night, tickles him to no end.
They walk across the stream, into the cave, and into the water with no resistance, drowning silently, only to rise as his puppets.
Tom smirks again and lets his mind brush over his counting spell. Four hundred thirty seven. He still has a long way to go.
He gets to his feet, pushing Bellatrix away, and lets the complex spell he did so many years ago take hold of his thoughts, then pauses.
That can't be right. The number that he senses is more than 1983, but not quite 1984. His head pounds with the force of the spell, and he feels his own fingers at his temple, yet he doesn't let go of the numbers. He knows his spellwork isn't malfunctioning, it can't, and he doesn't understand what exactly is happening.
"You!" He snarls, pointing at the Malfoy bitch. "Check if he's dead." As he speaks, he feels his hold on the spell loosen, yet the ache at his temples doesn't quite go away, and he watches as the woman kneels next to what he presumes (hopes) is just a corpse.
"He's dead, my lord."
Her voice is barely more than a whisper, but it rings loud amidst the silence that has settled over the clearing, seemingly every follower of his having stopped breathing. The quiet stretches on for another moment, and then he hears Bellatrix cackle.
The rest follow, laughing, stomping feet, celebrating the war they have known they would win.
He asks the half-giant to pick up the boy's body, but even as they march towards the castle as victors, he feels a sense of unease gripping him, clawing at his chest.
He stopped counting years ago, when what the spell that was supposed to be his 1777th kill had reflected back from a little babe and hit him instead.
It's been over sixteen years, and he knows many have died at his hand since then.
Yet, as he marches to Hogwarts for what he thinks is the final battle, his steps falter for a brief moment when the number 1982 fills his head.
Two more people shall die at his hand, and that will be it. It's just as well, he muses. When the war is done, he will do just fine with crucio. He has enough attack dogs to pick up the dirt.
He knows, already, who his final two murders will be. He needs to win, truly win, the Elder Wand. Then, he will win the war.
Avada Kedavra!
The green bursts from the deathstick, and the unease that has settled inside him grows. His count… isn't complete yet, but he doesn't quite have a whole number left. How can a fraction of something die? Did he kill some part of Potter, but not whole?
Expelliarmus!
Scarlet rushes in to collide with the green, and for a moment, he's back in the graveyard. But the spells don't connect, and then the red is hitting him.
The Elder Wand is snatched away from his fingers, and he stumbles back half a step before he can find his footing, only to find his own death spell returning towards him.
Fear grips him as it draws nearer, and his heart thuds in his chest, as if trying to escape before it is silenced forever. If Potter is speaking the truth, all his horcruxes are gone.
A sigh escapes him, and a part of him accepts this fate, understanding hitting him, even as the rest of him stands stiff, in denial about what is to happen. Idly, he lets his death-count spell take over his mind, and finally, when the Avada-green collides with his chest, the number ticks to 1984.
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