XXI
Fear of Nothing
[Little Hangleton | May 1944]


When she is alone the house is so cold. It creaks. Sometimes, it speaks. There are nights she gets so chilled she tears the pages out of books and uses them for kindling in the sooty fireplace in the master bedroom. Boring books on muggle things. Lists and lists of telephone numbers bound together. In the heavy wooden bed she sits up, cross-legged, sheets clutched to her chest, breathing very slowly, attempting to listen to the faint stirrings in the air, the ghostly movements. She would love to speak with them, Tom's father especially. There's been some activity, some shifting of her possessions, and she's sure that her presence is aggravating them. She climbs out of bed and lights a candle, carries it with her, and sets it down in the middle of the floor. Then, taking a tube of lipstick still sitting on the vanity in the corner, she draws a circle in the thick gummy pink stuff and steps inside, with the candle. She kneels, takes a deep breath, shuts her eyes, and begins an incantation. No more than two words are uttered before a gust of wind sweeps through the room from the hall and blows the candle out.

"Hello there." V whispers, relighting the candle with a snap of her fingers.

"Leave this place." A voice creeps in on the wind.

"I'm actually quite comfortable here, if you don't mind…" V says. "Who are you?"

"Leave this place." The voice repeats.

"Show yourself." V orders. "Go on." "I do not have to listen to your orders." The voice says. "Haven't you done enough to our family?"

"I…um…do I know you?" V stammers, confused.

"You seduced our boy. Tricked him. Brought shame upon our reputation, our good name. You filthy girl. Heathen scum."

"Have I now?" She thinks, then realizes that this ghost has her mistaken for someone else.

"Terrible girl. Leave this place at once. You are not welcome here."

"If you're Tom's grandmother…"

"He is no grandson of mine."

"That's biologically inaccurate." V says, "Hey buy the way, I was wondering…what's it feel like? To die, that is?"

"It felt like nothing."

"Nothing?"

"Nothing!" Another strong gust of wind whips up. The word echoes in her ears, each time deconstructing itself an element further, until at last it is just a collection of letters, a coincidence of sound. She stands up, crosses her arms upon her chest, and then, with her wand, closes the circle, the counterclockwise movement drawing the red wax up from the floor. Once the task of sealing the connection with the otherworld is complete, she stands there for a while, looking across the room at her reflection in the vanity mirror. Her hair is growing long and unruly. Her eyes are sinking into the shadows of her skull from all the consecutive sleepless nights, the wakeful unease, the constant solitude. This house was built for citizens, for upright members of some sort of society, for those who have use for all these rooms, all these things. Some days she doesn't leave the bed, which wouldn't be a terrible thing if she had someone to share it with her. Other days she sits at the window and peers out, watching the people down the hill traveling the road into and out of town. All those comings and goings. It was on one of these days, the window watching days, that she saw him approach, watched him walk right up to the front door. She swings it open before he even has a chance to knock.

"Were you waiting by the door?" Tom Riddle asks, eyebrows raised.

"Don't flatter yourself. Get over here." She drags him inside, fists stuffed with his shirtfront, and graces him with a long, cool kiss. With a careless thump his bags rattle the floorboards, his arms encircle the girl he's been longing for, the girl he's decided, while planning out the trajectory of his life from here on out, he's going to marry.

"My god it's been hard without you." He breathes, his breath hot, his skin hotter. The house itself is warm, fresh May sunlight filling the rooms within.

"How hard?" She playfully curls a strand of his hair around her index finger. As he presses himself into her the answer becomes evident.

"What happened to that soldier you had hanging around?" Tom's eyes dart this way and that.

"He…well…" V frowns, pulls slightly away, the thought of Tyrone really killing the mood for her. "There was an accident…He's no longer working for us."

"You mean…dead? Is he dead?"

"I don't want to talk about it right now."

"Fine. For the record, he was very irritating." Tom scoops her up, her lightness settling easy in his arms.

A storm has quickly gathered itself, its ranks raining down upon the faulty old roof, its arrows cracking across the sky, striking without aiming, a blind assault. On the second floor, amid a nest of tangled blankets and sheets, Tom Riddle reclines against the headboard of his grandparents' bed and stares up at the ceiling. Creaking floorboards in the hall alert him to V's return and he sits up. She appears in the doorway holding a candle in one hand and a freshly uncorked bottle of wine in the other, her skin pale as a pearl in the moonlight. She sets the candle on the bedside table before climbing back into bed. After handing the bottle to Tom, she tucks herself under the fold of his arm, lying back against his warm skin. Inside his chest his heart rattles and pounds.

"I'm surprised the place hasn't been looted. It's been vacant for nearly a year now." Tom says.

"There are some things missing. Like the silverware. And the china…"

"We won't be able to stay here for long. The groundskeeper will get suspicious." He says, handing the bottle to her. She takes a long swig, then licks her lips.

"I spoke to your grandmother. Her ghost, that is. I asked her what it felt like to die. She said dying feels like nothing."

"She said that?"

"Like nothing. Isn't that terrifying?" V lowers her voice almost to a whisper.

"Nothing." Tom says, the word lingering, refusing to be pushed away. "That is…That's awful. That's really terrible." He shivers.

"I know. It's the worst thought. You just end. You're just done. You're clock's tick-ticking along and then…silence." She takes another swig of wine and looks up into Tom's face, now bearing a mask of great unease. She hands the bottle to him and he takes it hastily. He's not one to show fear, Tom Riddle. No, he keeps that close to his chest. V turns her body towards him, loops her leg around his middle, and sits atop his lap, facing him. She leans in close and kisses his neck, his collarbone, the curve of his shoulder. There's a far-off look embedded deep within in the globes of his eyes. "But why worry about things that don't apply to us?"

"Do you really think it's possible?" He breathes, a hopeful spark buried in his deep smooth voice.

"I know it is. Once I finish tweaking that potion I've been working on, I really believe we'll…"

"Live forever." They say at the same time. He smiles. She kisses him deeply.


A rickety dock juts into the black waters of the Arctic Sea. Ice drifts in great chunks, slow moving and serene like fallen clouds. The tinkling of wind chimes mingles with the cry of the gulls above, as two sets of feet crunch down the frozen roadway towards a squat hut nearly completely concealed by snow. The two figures push back a pelt that looks like it once belonged to a bear, and duck inside the hut. The air is sooty, oily, and only mildly oppressive. V briefly considers leaving, but that would be counter-intuitive. They had just come all this way, at least a two-hour hike by foot. Something about the place prevented apparition. Some kind of old magic.

A stout, yet still unusually large, broad-shouldered man kneels by the fire and stirs a cauldron of what looks like water and bones. A thinner man, with long blond hair, sits on a stool and draws his sword across a stone. The metal rings. The sword glints in the firelight. The man with the sword looks up, and says something to the two snow-caked visitors that neither of them can understand. V takes out her wand and casts a translation charm. The man drops his sword on the stone with a clang, his eyes widening at the sight of the wand.

"Wizards?" He asks, although it's more like an exclamation. His face lights up, like a child who's just caught Santa Claus nipping a cookie from the plate by the fireplace.

"We seek passage to Svalbard." V removes her hood, her long black hair tumbling forth, eyes black and shiny in the firelight, skin rose-tinted at the cheeks and the tip of her nose.

"I knew a wizard once." The man by the fire muses, stirring the bones with a ladle. "He had terrible taste in literature."

"How about that. The next voyage is tomorrow morning at sunrise." The blond one says.

"Tomorrow morning?" Tom whines, dusting the snow off his jacket, and neglecting to introduce himself.

"You are welcome to stay here for the night." The blond one says, rising from the stool and standing the sword against the wall. "I'm the Captain." He says, offering his hand to V. "You can call me Captain." V shakes Captain's hand.

"Captain of what?" V asks absently.
"The ship." Captain says. "You know, the ship Ship. The good ship Ship."

"He's terrible at naming things." The one by the fire pipes up. "No surprise, considering his own name…" V and Tom stare at him blankly. "He named the ship 'Ship.'" Silence. "The vessel. You know, the boat. That you'll be taking to Svalbard tomorrow." V nods stiffly. "I'm Meznik." He drops the ladle in the pot and holds out his hand, which both Tom and V shake politely.

"Meznik, see that our guests are made comfortable." Captain says, walking about as if suddenly fifteen things popped into his mind that he had to take care of, and was sorting through which to do first.

"All right." Meznik says, and waves the two visitors closer to the fire. "Come, sit." He produces two tin mugs, fills them with the liquid the bones are floating around in, and hands one to each of them. Tom sniffs it suspiciously. V drinks it without a second thought, and cannot conceal the pure joy the beverage spreads to every inch of her body. It's the best broth she's ever tasted, and probably ever will taste. Pure liquid alchemy. Tom sips his slowly, the color slowly coming back into his cheeks. Warmed by the broth, they both slip off their heavy outer cloaks. "That's better." Meznik says heartily. "So what brings you two to Svalbard? It's not a very interesting place. Just a hunk of frozen land, really."

"Just…curious." Tom says, unconvincingly.
"We like…very cold temperatures." V adds, not helping.

"So you're…scientists?" Meznik asks.
"Something like that." Tom says. Meznik narrows his eyes, but only slightly, still maintaining his affable demeanor.

"How long have you lived here?" V asks, resting the mug on her knee.

"A long time. Since I can remember. Maybe my whole life." Meznik muses. "Time does funny things up here. The snow and the quiet, it slows things down, stretches them out. Sometimes a day can feel like a year. Sometimes a year can feel like a lifetime." He stirs the bones. "Sometimes I imagine it that way, you know. That I've lived all these lifetimes. Always the same sort of person though. But who knows? Maybe not. There's always the opportunity for change, at the beginning…"

"But you never do. Change, that is." V says, listening intently.

"Oh no, I just like the idea of it. The imagination of it, you know. I have no reason to change anything."

"You mean to tell me…" Now V narrows her eyes. "There's no other person you'd rather be than yourself, no other place you would rather be than right here in this hut, stirring these bones, taking orders from that guy?" She nods her head in the direction of Captain. Meznik smiles wide and nods. V struggles with this concept silently for the next few minutes.

"We don't get many visitors, you know. Maybe you're surprised to hear it. But I think the last time we had a visitor might've been that wizard, that Salamander guy."

"Newt Scamander? The Magizoologist?" Tom straightens up.

"That's the one. Was studying some creatures, and needed to go to Svalbard to catch a fish or something."

"Fish?" Tom puzzles back to when he read through Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, but couldn't recall anything about a magic fish from the Arctic Ocean. Whatever, this guy just referred to him as the "Salamander guy," so if that's any indication of what they're dealing with, the fish could be a dragon. Perhaps a sea dragon? Wait, do those even exist?

"So tell me, wizard scientists. What are you studying?" Meznik folds his arms.

Tom and V look at each other, both tired, neither caring to explain, or to put the effort into crafting a half-decent lie. With a small sigh, V leans onto Tom's shoulder, resting her head.

"Herbology." She says wistfully. "Plants, that is. We study plants."

"Plants?" Meznik laughs. "Not gonna find many plants on Svalbard, let me tell you. Just a lot of ice."

"Yes, but we want to check to see if there are any frozen plants embedded in the ice, from before the last ice age." Tom says. Good one, V thinks.

"So you're historians then. Wizard historian scientists. Fascinating." Meznik's face lights up for a minute, perhaps imagining what it's like to be a wizard historian scientist, trekking to the most remote, neglected corners of the globe to see what nature preserved of it's long-forgotten past. "Well, Mr. and Mrs…sorry I didn't catch your names…" Again V and Tom exchange looks, V indicating this time that it's Tom's turn to chose how to answer.

"Voldemort." Tom says. V rolls her eyes.

"Right, so, Mr. and Mrs. Voldemort, as Captain said, we set sail tomorrow morning at dawn." Meznik rises, goes over to a large stack of animal skins, and returns, plopping them down by the fire. "You can use these to make a bed and keep warm, I guess. It's all we have. Like I said, we don't get too many visitors…"

"This is fine." V says, unable to conceal her disdain as she peels apart the animal skins and starts to layer them to make some sort of mattress. Meznik nods and bids them goodnight, then retreats to the far corner of the hut, out of reach of the fire.

"Mr. and Mrs. Voldemort." V sneers.

"Why don't you like it? What's wrong with it?" Tom sighs, exasperated, as he gingerly settles on the lumpy stack of skins.

"I just have a bad feeling about it, that's all. It creeps me out. Riddle is better." V settles down next to him.

"My filthy muggle father's name? Are you serious?" He raises his voice, but V quickly shushes him.

"Look, I'm not trying to start anything, but…" V whispers, turning on her side to face him.

"Then don't." Tom smiles harshly. She turns over abruptly. This muggle-hating thing has only been getting worse and worse as time goes on. V's not sure whether it's the name that creeps her out more, or the muggle-hating. Both give her a bad bad feeling in the pit of her stomach. She feels him shift closer to her, his arm rounding the curve of her hip, his chest pressed up against her back, his warm breath on her neck. She leans back into him, soaking up his warmth.


After only a few hours of closed eyes and shivering half-sleep, V is awoken by the crunch of footsteps and hot breath on her face. For a moment she assumes it is Tom, but snaps her eyes open anyways, and what did she see but Captain teetering over her, a carving knife clutched in his cracked and veiny fist. No sooner did V see the glint of the blade than it was in her hand, Captain staggering back, shaken and disoriented. Somewhere off in the icy shadows Meznik springs to his feet, the earth shifting beneath his mass. Tom wakes with a gasp, scrambles a bit and grabs his wand, aiming it at the trundling giant, and firing a hasty killing curse, stopping the poor Meznik dead in his tracks. His body stiffens and drops to the ground. Looking around hurriedly to see what's become of the other assailant, his gaze falls on V, the carving knife lodged up under the Captain's chin, blood painting the wall behind, the floor, and V herself.

"Bloody hell." Tom heaves, his breath quickened, his heart beating out of his chest. "What…" He briefly considers whether he's about to faint, and settles on the conclusion that it's highly possible.

"I don't think our story was very convincing." She says, pulling the knife out of Captian, and letting him drop in a bloody heap upon the floor.

"I guess not." He frowns, stepping out of the way of the pool of blood as its' boundaries widen.

"Oh shit. The ship. We're screwed." V says, dropping the knife, and absentmindedly running her bloody hand through her hair.

"Not necessarily." Tom says, looking at the dead Captain. "There's this spell…you know the one…" She does know the one, but she seriously doubts it actually will work, not that she's going to tell Tom that to his face. He rolls up his sleeves and squats next to Captain, who's arm has flopped over into the fire pit, and is now caked in hot ash. While V rummages for her wand amongst the animal skins, Tom mutters a strange backward incantation, holding his wand steadily above the dead captain's heart. A spark shoots from the corpse's chest and rests delicately on the tip of Tom's wand. He blows on it softly and it drifts back down onto Captain, disappearing as soon as it makes contact with his shirt, like a snowflake on a warm palm. There's a moment of stillness, and then, a breath, and another, then rapid breaths, punctuated by the scraping of feet, the hustled retreat of Tom Riddle as Captain's dead body convulses on the floor. V's found her wand, and just as she's poised to clean herself up she stops, and instead watches as the dead man slowly rises to his feet.

"My god." She says, mouth agape, eyes wide with awe. It's a beautiful thing, to see her like that, standing there admiring his work. The drawback, he's found, to being involved with someone on such equal footing as himself, is that it grows much harder to impress her as time goes on. And, though he might hate to admit it, he does love to impress—to make a good show, as it were. "Incredible."

"Imperio." Tom says. The dead man looks around, confused, as though waiting for instructions. "Give him a name."

"Let's see…" V muses. "Cornflake." Tom squints, slightly annoyed, as though she's making a joke of the whole thing.

"Cornflake."

"That's Captain Cornflake to you." V says.

"I'm a captain?" Cornflake asks. "I've always wanted to dig holes!"

"This is going to get very weird very quickly." Tom sighs. V laughs, kneels down, and starts wiping the blood off of Cornflake's neck.

"Why all this?" Cornflake asks.

"You were just born. It's pretty normal." V says.

"Ah. Right. Of course." Cornflake says, starting to unlace his shoes. He pops the left one off, then the right, and tosses them into the fire. "Won't be needing these anymore!"

"Oh my god, make him stop." Tom whines, climbing back into the animal skins to get warm.

"You're the one who imperius-ed him." V says, crossing her arms.

"Oh. Right." Tom grabs his wand, points it at Cornflake, and orders him to shut up and go to bed. "And put out that fire, will you?" He asks V. V glares at him, grabs a bucket of water and throws it on the fire, the wood hissing and cracking at the contact of the substance, like so many coiled and angry snakes disturbed from their reverie.