Also, this is my first fan-fic so go easy
on me, okay? Also, 'Of Blood and Ink' sounds suspiciously like that piece
of trash novel 'Of Mice and Men' so maybe John Steinbeck owns the title.
*sobs*
Of Blood and Ink
Shadowen
Tom Marvelo Riddle stood
over a strange collection of objects: a knife, a thin piece of wood, several
jars, a shallow dish, a quill-pen, an ink pot, a two locks of hair, and
a diary.
Tom wasn't ordinary.
Where most boys spent
most of their time worrying about Nazi's, the Germans were at the back
of Tom's mind.
Most boys couldn't talk
to snakes.
Most boys weren't wizards.
Most boys hadn't set a
basilisk on their school.
And most boys hadn't just
finished killing their fathers.
Tom was the only living
soul left in the Riddle House. There were other people, but they, of course,
were dead. He was silent, and no sound ran through the house except the
wind...
Picking up one lock of
hair, a raven curl as dark as his own midnight hair, he fingered it fondly.
He closed his eyes, gritted his teeth, and put it in the stone dish. It
was the last link to his mother and that part of his past. The spell needed
things from his origins. His mother was his past.
Then he picked up the
other lock and tossed it carelessly in. The dark brown hairs of his deserting,
scum-bag, father didn't deserve any worse than what it would be getting.
Which was pretty much a tormented awareness for all eternity.
Carefully, with long,
pale fingers, he held up one of the jars. "Phoenix tears," he whispered
hoarsely, his voice dusty from almost two days of disuse and silence. The
pearly silver fluid slashed softly into the dish with the hairs, which
floated on top of it.
Slowly, Tom put down the
jar and picked up another. "Basilisk venom," he smiled. Milked from the
fangs of his own serpent, now laid to rest until he returned. It hissed
and steamed. The brown hairs began to dissolve in the venom, but the black
ones glowed faintly green with a touch of silver. It was fitting for a
descendent of the great Lord Slytherin.
"Salamander scales," A
turquoise dust quickly melted away in the venom and tears. The dust, when
swirling slightly in the eddies of air, matched the boy's eyes.
"Powdered griffin's talon,"
A golden powder that seemed to sigh slightly as it faded into the now pale
green mixture.
"Unicorn blood," Slowly
it dripped out of the small crystal vial...it was not red, like the blood
of humans, animals, and other creatures. It was white. Pure white, the
color of snow just dropping from the clouds. The color of moonbeams dancing
on a gently rippling lake. The color of an angel's wings. The concotion
was silver.
Tom took a deep breath
and picked up the silver bladed knife. The handle was studded with rubies
and emeralds, for blood and his heritage. It glimmered in the faint candle
light. He held it to his wrist.
"My blood."
The dark haired boy let
out a faint gasp of pain and shock as his blood splashed into the bowl.
When it hit the potion, it spread out in green ripples, not red. The green
and the silver swirled slowly toghether as he fumbled to mend it with his
wand. The house was silent.
When the vein in his wrist
had at last stopped bleeding, he picked up the pot, sapphire blue, and
the reddish hawk quill pen. And the diary.
He poured a bit of the
mixture into the inkpot. He dipped the quill in. He opened the diary and
penned the three glistening emerald words...
Tom Marvelo Riddle
The world disappeared in
a haze of smoke.
He was floating.
But he was also drifting
down.
Softly he landed, feet
making no noise at all on a soft, cloud like substance.
He saw nothing, and heard
nothing. But now there was a flash on the horizon, a flash that he started
running to...running forever...
It was two figures, one
garbed in a gown the same perfectly pure white as the unicorn blood and
radiating an air of calm and peace. The other was pure chaos, shifting
shapes and colors like fire, and somehow attatched and rather close to
Tom.
"Hello," said a voice
in his mind. He looked to the white person, but its lips did not move.
But the words came from him all the same.
"You have come to give
your soul to the pages, boy," said the shifting person. The words from
him too, were in his mind yet as real as though they had been spoken aloud.
"I guess so..." Tom tried
to say, but nothing came out. The white person smiled indulgently and seemingly
took the words from his mouth and hung them in the air. He tried to focus
hims ind to send out his words this time, and knew the two figures could
hear him. "But I would rather like to keep a soul with me..."
"There is a way," said
the white figure.
"It requires a great sacrifice,"
the Shifter told him.
"I am ready," the boy
said resolutely.
The White shook his head
sadly. "You must make a choice."
"To determine who you
will be now, and thus who the soul of the diary will be," Shifter said.
"A choice between the
Light and the Dark."
"Forever shall one or
the other dominate your destiny, with no turning back."
"That you have come here
shows that you have great courage and skill, young mage."
"And if the dark is what
you have chosen, your powers shall grow ten-fold. And I will be with you,
to guide you always."
"The light will bring
happiness, joy, peace, and love."
A choice...Light and Dark...power...love?
Tom Riddle didn't know the word. His mother had been taken. His father
had left. He had no friends. No happiness, joy, or peace. He had lived
with out them, and could do so. Power was temping...
"The Dark," he shouted
to the two figures.
The calm, white robed
figure disappeared in a wisp of smoke. It left only a faint sense of regret
in the air that blew to Tom.
"You are wise," rasped
Shifter. "You become now a Disciple of the Dark, and I, your master, give
you a new name."
Three burning words appeared,
and the little diary. Tom Marvelo Riddle. The boy felt a catch in
this throat, and a small winged thing flew into the book. The letters of
his old name flew frantically around each other, and reformed into four
different words.
I Am Lord Voldemort.
The dark-haired boy rose
slowly. There was the diary sitting on the desk. All of his other things
had vanished.
Slowly he rose to his
feet. He picked up the diary and, hands trembling, opened to the first
page, as blank as anything. He took a pot of regular ink from his pocket,
and placed anothe quill in it. He wrote the words:
I
Am Lord Voldemort
Voldemort.
It was a good name. Translated, it could be read as 'Flight of Death'.
For the death that he would cause, and his enemies would flee from.
"What else do you think
I would give you, my protegee?" the Shifter asked from inside his head.
"You powers will be great, Lord of Death. Vanquish the Light. Let the Dark
rule on this mortal realm."
"Don't worry," Lord Voldemort
promised silently, nodding so feverently his dark hair bounced childishly.
But he was a child no
longer.
He was the Heir of Slytherin.
The Disciple of Dark.
Lord Voldemort.
