Series - A Honeyed Poison
Chapter III - Anguis Diluculum, Dawn of the Snake
Spiritual possession of inanimate objects was a highly confusing and dangerous process, Tom Riddle was discovering. The last three hours aboard the Hogwarts Express had been spent poring over texts relating to the subject, and Tom was disappointed in the realisation that the path to immortality, within his original body or otherwise, would not come immediately and without prodigious effort. The first step, according to the plan that he had laid out in his head after a starling epiphany that he'd been blessed with at the end of the summer, was to incarnate his mental self within an article that would last better than his natural flesh. Just before his departure to King's Cross Station, he'd bought a blank journal at the stationer's on Vauxhall Road. He now surveyed the diary that sat demurely and innocently beside him on the seat.
No matter... he would eventually accomplish it with the signature hard work that he devoted to everything of importance to him. He had already mastered the first of the infamous Unforgivable Curses, had he not? Tom remembered briefly the dreamlike sight of the little girl bent under his will.
He had caught a fleeting glimpse of the Daily Prophet headlines earlier that day... "New Underage Wizard Codes to be Enforced". It seemed that students, over the holidays, would no longer be allowed to practise magic without desperate need, under penalty of prosecution and possibly expulsion. It was a policy that half of Platform 9 3/4 had been discussing with outrage when he'd arrived... "a breach of privacy", "will they be suspending the Writ of Unconditional Wand Possession next, too?", "absolutely out of the question in times like this!", and like comments. It was only fortunate for Tom that the law was not to be strictly enforced until mid-summer of the following year. He'd succeeded in his necessary experimentation thus far and would have at least a couple weeks of next summer as well.
Stewart Shipley seemed to materialise without warning, as was his rather annoying custom. The boy was wiry and rodent faced with rough, reddish hair... his pale, almost non-existent eyebrows gave him a queer, sad-eyed look that didn't exactly fit his character. Tom closed the book he'd been paging through discreetly and looked up.
"And how are you, Voldemort, my friend?" Shipley asked, tightening his school tie in preparation for their arrival.
"Same as always, I suppose," Tom replied detachedly.
Shipley studied him critically for a moment and twitched his fingers, another odd habit... one that gave him away as nervously formulating something within. He was quick-witted but an extremely unconvincing liar. "No. There's something different around you. What is it?"
Tom was ashamed that he hadn't been able to disguise his new found power and confidence better than that if Shipley could spot it within seconds. "It's nothing. I just had a trying summer what with living in London --"
"And it's not shell shock either. Go on."
Tom was irritated and shot a glare towards his classmate. "I've been developing Lord Voldemort rather... er... rigorously lately, Stewart. It's... accelerating," he said quietly, looking not so much at Stewart as though him. No one that surrounded him seemed "real" anymore... they were all just mortal creatures, even those who relatively understood him like Shipley, were nothing more than translucent things that would pass out of his life in the bat of an eye. He was in a different dimension than them all... a higher plane of dominance altogether.
"It?" Shipley was now picking vigorously at his fingernails and blinking rapidly. "I know that you're trying to make something of yourself, but I didn't think you'd be getting around to it so soon, Tom."
"Voldemort," Tom corrected impulsively under his breath. Shipley looked piercingly at him, but he took no notice. "I... I can't wait forever, you know," he stated uncertainly.
"True... I guess no one lives forever," Shipley agreed, seeming to shrink now from the subject. Awkward silence ensued.
Tom Riddle had barely heard the comment, but it's meaning suddenly struck him a few seconds later. "No one lives forever". Hadn't the alchemist Flamel been continuing happily for some six hundred years? Why was it not possible for himself? Shipley's words stung him and the "screaming" panic attacks that had begun to occur more and more frequently within his head erupted now. It was like a chorus of banshees urging him frantically on, but he was unable to think over their incessant screeching.
"Headache?" Shipley asked.
Tom did little more than shake his head, and Shipley shortly departed from the compartment without another word. It was a struggle to calm the panic, the irrational, overtaking fear of failure, but Tom forced himself to regain mental control through sheer willpower. He would live forever. He would not die a nameless and obscure wizard. He would not only take a prominent place in the history books, he would be their sole subject for centuries to come.. he would write history.
And so, upon his return, Tom Riddle took up his continued search for the fabled Chamber of Secrets. Terrorization of Hogwarts and the basic furtherance of Slytherin's work was the launching pad and, without it, Tom was in for a life of pining monotony, unable to achieve any of his greater goals. There were certain things on the metaphorical agenda and, as he hadn't yet been able to work out a practicable plan with the diary transference, he turned, once again, toward his initial ambition. World domination was so far ahead of him that Tom didn't even allow himself to fantasize about it when there were more important and pragmatic efforts to tackle... more simple stepping stones. He would have to start small, as all the Greats did.
He knew that simple research was probably not the best approach to finding the Chamber, but it was the nature of the honour student to turn to the library in time of need. The state of becoming a prefect had trained him to engage himself in such trite methods of approach and it was a difficult habit to shake. Of course, Tom had read and reread every possibly related volume and even considered that there may be a complex system of cryptology in the ancient writings of Slytherin, but could come to no conclusion with it. Nevertheless, he retired to the library on a warm, comfortably sleepy afternoon a few weeks into the term... always willing to give the trite another try.
Tom set aside his Advanced Arithmancy homework and surveyed the vaulted and arched room about him, plastered floor to ceiling in leather, binding paste, parchment, and ink. It had a strange appeal... but full of useless books, Tom thought bitterly. Any theories that he'd thought remotely feasible had all been refuted lately and he was becoming frustrated and downtrodden. His gaze shifted to the far end of the ornately gated Restricted Section. He'd been there many time, of course... on legitimate as well as dishonest business. There was one book, however, that he now suddenly dragged out of the dusty closets of his brain and remembered... a book kept under lock and key on a nearly forgotten, long un-tidied shelf. It was nameless and apparently authorless as well, but the ancient, half-rotten hide it was bound in was a curious deep green and the manuscript was covered in cryptic carvings and deteriorating embroidery, much of it including classic serpentine imagery. If his answers lay in any book at Hogwarts, it was that mysterious and formidable tome.
Tom closed and stacked what he'd been working on in a flushed excitement, even though he realised that keeping a low profile was imperative. He couldn't believe that he'd let the book slip his mind for so long now... but things with names are prone to slips of the mind, much less things without them. It was not really so surprising. He remembered when he'd come across it originally, he'd cast every unlocking charm he knew at the time, all of them to no avail although many of them well outside the proper school rules. As he made his mock casual way toward the Restricted Section, Tom knew that there was something important in that book. Salazar Slytherin had surely granted his rightful heir with this sudden revelation... to what else could it be attributed? But would he come through? Could he open the book or would he fail his great Ancestor? And even so... would he be capable of comprehending it and using the resulting information to some successful end? Questions flooded Tom's mind and as he fumbled with the latch on the gates, he felt a great exultation, the perfect antithesis of, although equally powerful as, the panic attacks that often plagued him.
He became conscious of the fact that even prefects needed to show the librarian a pass. He was aware of the library proctor, Mr. Crockford, giving him a piercing and inquiring stare. It was by sheer luck that Tom had a pass issued by Professor Albion, the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, that wasn't void until the end of the term and it included unlimited visits to the Restricted Section. He scrabbled in his pocket and found the slip, flashing it to the old man and receiving an unruffled nod of acknowledgement in return.
Even in his hurry, Tom paused for a moment of sick, private amusement. It was terribly ironic that Professor Albion, the very woman who so earnestly tried to deter her students from the Dark path , had granted him with the essential means by which he would ultimately attain that very path. She, the well meaning "white witch", had aided the greatest wizard of all time in coming to terms with his first significant unearthing. He would have laughed if it wouldn't have been so noticeable in the silence.
Tom trotted a wending course through the aisles of the Restricted Section until he came to a familiar area in the last row. The mouldy green volume was still in its place, as he'd expected. He tried to keep the book's chains from rattling too sharply, but his hands were somewhat unsteady in his excitement. Late afternoon light shone in amber waves through the lattice-work crystal window, illuminating floating dust motes in the thick, stuffy air and sending a particular ray upon the face of the book. It was an inhuman, inanimate face, of course, but Tom immediately loved it... it's features did not contain a recognisable visage, but rather a mesh of snakes and runes, elements that were more beloved to him, at that moment, than the eyes or lips of any woman or veela on Earth. The light that shone upon it seemed otherworldly and intended... as though even the Sun himself ushered in this new Golden Era that was about to come into being.
And how to open the treasure chest of secrets within? If the book was meant for the Heir of Slytherin there was only one foolproof way. Tom looked about him like a startled rabbit about to make a courageous dash into some known danger... he brushed his fingered reverently over the surface of the text and savoured the feel of it... he licked his lips, focused on the snakes that now seemed to writhe animatedly before him, and spoke a single word of Parseltongue.