This really shouldn't have taken so long. But what can I say, I needed a break from dark angst 24/7. Anyways! The bitch is back, kickin' and…well over. Lol. Hope you guys enjoy and have a happy new year!-Aspen

Epilogue: Hell

"Hell is so many different things, she would tell me. Hell is every one of your worst fears chasing you for a thousand years and forever on. For adults it's the anxiety of survival, responsibility. For children it is found in being defenseless, suppressed; knowing you're right but never being given the chance to be heard and suffering because of it."- Tom Riddle


I heard the words as he spoke to the air around my corpse. I watched him carelessly allow my body to fall in a heap on the ground, my once pale skin tainted by a creeping indigo. I felt like the helium in a balloon. So free and weightless, so trapped and tied down. I didn't know where I was but at the same time I was looking down on the girls' toilet, watching Tom mutter a few more spells over me. Perhaps to hide the damage he'd done. Perhaps to suck out a last bit of knowledge from my skull.

I wondered if I was in heaven. Was this real? Was I even dead?

Yes, I knew I was dead. I couldn't feel a body around me any longer and the one that had been mine was lying on the floor not so far from me. I couldn't feel temperature. Not the warmth of the blood in my wrists nor the cold that had liked to linger in my ankles. I was sure I wasn't floating but I wasn't falling and I certainly wasn't standing steady on the half wet, grimy bathroom floor. I had never imagined such strange experiences existed.

I watched in curious detachment from the world as Tom sent the satisfied Basilisk away, realizing he needed to hurry. As he murmured a different incantation which I recognized- Corpus Leviosa -my lifeless body rose about five feet in the air in front of him.

At first I wondered where I was following him to, for I was indeed following him. I wasn't even trying to, it seemed I didn't have a choice. Obviously this wasn't heaven.

We (he, my corpse and…whatever I had become) headed out into the corridor and to the grand staircase which lead to the entrance hall. Hanging a right, we crept through the main dungeon corridor for a few minutes before Tom opened the door of a spare closet. In amongst the spiders, boxes and dust I was lost and not spared more than a disgusted glance over his shoulder before we were off again. Next, as though nothing had happened, we went to class which was terribly odd for me. He sat there, hands folded neatly on his desk as though the murders he had just committed had been a minor social inconvenience. As though shoving my body away had been a short pit stop for water on the way to class. How could he be so at peace? Did he not feel the guilt of my blood on his hands?

I couldn't scream out or jump around or do anything at all. I was present in mind only and surveyed the entire happenings of that day's lesson. It drove me mad that the world was just going on as usual with no thought spared to what had become of Lydia Delatorre. And what had become of her? How could I be there when no one saw me, heard me or sensed my presence. I was dead and yet still my mind seemed alive. I wasn't a ghost, that much was clear. What had happened to me?

Time passed and I began growing very angry when no one said anything about my disappearance. I was sure someone would have noticed or cared. It took nearly the entire period for a teacher to come in and stop the lesson. She ordered everyone back to their dorms immediately, asking that Tom go to the dungeon entrance to escort the younger Slytherins back to the common room. As everyone exited the classroom the other woman explained that another death had occurred. Just the one though. This was what outraged me the most. That I had died in vain.

Dinner was served in the common rooms and most people were silent. Celeste and Jonathon didn't even talk to one another, though they sat close and alone per usual.

Tom seemed anxious through out the entire ordeal but it wasn't because of the two homicides he'd just committed. Oh no, he was afraid of being late to his meeting with Headmaster Dippet. I had forgotten all about it until finally he went to Professor Sator and explained his situation. Our head of house was reluctant but complied, knowing his young prefect could defend himself. Not that he had much to fear…

The windows on the way to Dippet's office betrayed a bloodstained sunset oozing it's rusty light across the grounds. I felt somewhat appeased that at least the earth seemed to be acknowledging my death.

As we ascended the escalating staircase of the headmaster I felt failure easing in on me. It was heavier than my body had ever been. I was dead, there was no one to play snitch and tattle on Slytherin's golden boy. Tom had won. He would stay at the school over the summer. Possibly wreak even more havoc next year. Perhaps he wouldn't bother with Hogwarts though. Perhaps he had already begun working towards bigger goals. More absurd aspirations.

Suddenly Tom was knocking on the door. A feeble 'Enter' could be heard from within.

"Ah, Riddle." the Headmaster greeted the horrific boy below me.

"You wanted to see me Professor Dippet?" he stood, still looking rather nervous. I wondered if his stomach was in knots though I suddenly found I could no longer recall what that felt like.

"Sit down," the headmaster replied, "I've just been reading the letter you sent me."

"Oh," Tom replied, already having known this was what he was there for. He took his seat obediently, oddly gripping his hands together very tightly. Suddenly Tom was the same boy I'd passed dirty looks at in third year. He was once more the same freak I'd laughed at in fifth year. He was a useless, disgusting, lower-than-me mudblood. No charm hovered around him anymore. I looked at him and he just looked so differently. I had to wonder how I had ever fallen in love with him.

"My dear boy," Dippet was trying to put whatever news was coming as lightly as possible and this made me perk up in curiosity, "I cannot possibly let you stay at the school over the summer. Surely you want to go home for the holidays?"

If I'd been able to frown at the Headmaster with a look that said just how crazy I thought he was then I would have. Tom hated the orphanage, he always had. Hogwarts was the only home the young boy had. Didn't Dippet know that? Still, I was amazed and jubilant all at once. Tom wouldn't be staying!

"No," Tom jumped on the statement at once, scooting forward to sit on the edge of his seat, "I'd much rather stay at Hogwarts than go back to that…to that…"

They garbled for a few more moments on things which I found terribly dull since they were plainly obvious to me. Things like the orphanage, where Tom got his name from, what had happened to his parents. Honestly, why didn't our headmaster know these things of one of his favorite pupils?

"The thing is Tom," Dippet finally sighed, "special arrangements might have been made for you, but in the current circumstances…"

"You mean all these attacks, sir?" Tom replied half knowledgeably half warily.

"Precisely," said our headmaster, "My dear boy, you must see how foolish it would be of me to allow you to remain at the castle when term ends. Particularly in light of the recent tragedy…the death of that poor little girl…" If he was talking about Myrtle I desperately wanted to roll my eyes. I also wanted to scream in joy at the fact that not only was Tom being forced to go back to the orphanage, but it was my doing. The guilt of inflicting certain death upon Myrtle was long gone and had replaced itself with the swelling pride of victory. "You will be safer by far at your orphanage." Dippet continued, "As a matter of fact, the Ministry of Magic is even now talking about closing the school. We are no nearer locating the-er-source of all this unpleasantness."

Tom's striking green eyes widened and he sat up straighter, "Sir…if the person was caught…if it all stopped"-

"What do you mean?" said Dippet with a squeak in his voice, sitting up just as straight as the student across from him. "Riddle, do you mean you know something about all these attacks?"

The line sounded almost hokey given the fact that Tom was all there was to know about the attacks.

"No, sir," he replied quickly. 'He would have come to you immediately if he knew something and it wasn't him you old codger!' I thought. Dippet sank low again in his chair, looking disappointed.

"You may go, Tom."

That was all and we left. Down the moving staircase we went, emerging in a darkening corridor. Tom stopped and stood thinking for a while, chewing his lower lip and furrowing his eyebrow. A possibility had formed in my head earlier only I desperately hoped Tom wouldn't see his advantage. It was like playing chess and knowing your opponent has a defeating move staring him blank in the face if he would only take it and you pray and pray that he doesn't see it.

Well sadly, Tom saw his move. He always had and he always would. After all that's all life was to a Slytherin. A game of chess. You think carefully about each move you make and you make sure every move plays to your advantage. It was simply how we worked. Hell, it was how I had found myself ensnared in Tom's charms.

Suddenly, he was off, having reached his conclusion. Meeting another person didn't seem to have crossed Tom's mind but meet one we did. It was Dumbledore. I hated him for his wretched timing. Figures I wouldn't be able to get to him until after I was dead. After an oddly trailing sort of speech about keeping out of the corridors in the face of this latest tragedy we were off once more. I had a smug sort of air about me after that, knowing I'd shaken someone like Dumbledore up so much. This death thing had a morbid power kick to it.

Tom's trail took us dungeon bound after this, as I had been hoping it wouldn't. He fit himself snugly into the same closet I had been thrown in, though the dark provided such good hiding that one would have had to quite been looking for a corpse to have ever seen me. The door was left ajar just enough to get a good view of the dungeon corridor beyond and in the dark we waited.

I was going out of my mind with how quickly things were happening and how I could barely keep up with it all and I must admit it was good to get a bit of a rest. Though a bit of a rest soon turned into what felt like hours and hours of watching Tom stand, his eyes flickering in the torchlight of the hallway. I was somehow confined to the closet we were shut up in and this quickly irritated me. Settling near a large wooden trunk I tried to think of clues from the past months that would shed some understanding on what had was happening to me. Suddenly a memory floated to the surface of my mind, like a cataloged file being pulled up from a cabinet full of them. One I didn't know I had…

I was walking, slow and zombie like down a poorly lit corridor. It seemed like a tunnel or catacombs…I then realized it was the way to Slytherin's study.

"What did he do to you?" the low murmur in my ear caught me off guard but I recognized it faintly…

"He told my friends about what we did. How I went to the prefects' bath with you after curfew." It frightened me how words were just coming out of my mouth with no control or pretense.

"Did you not want them to find out?" It was Tom! But when had this happened?

"Of course not." In absolute horror I realized this was one of the memories suppressed from my mind because I had been subconscious at the time it was happening. Tom had been controlling my mind and this was one of the results. I could see these things now, remember them, because the charms on my body which had been used to keep them out of reach of my conscious were no longer a restriction.

"And why not?" He had to have known the answer to that, but he asked anyway. Wanting to hear me state the reasons out loud.

"They could not know. You have dirty blood. Filthy muggle blood. People like me do not associate with people like you. We have kept to that tradition too long to break it now."

"And yet here we are." he was sneering. Bastard.

"I know."

"You have begun to tolerate my company. Somewhere in your mind you are intrigued with me."

"Yes." I didn't have a choice, I wouldn't have done it in my right mind you buggering mud blooded little-

"You even wish I had pure wizarding blood sometimes."

"Yes."

He sighed, "So do I, my dear Lydie, so do I."

All sorts of memories so very similar to that one were surfacing on the pool of my thoughts. Soon I was able to piece together exactly what had happened to me throughout my time with Tom and everything seemed so much clearer, so much more painfully obvious. Just as hate was boiling up inside me again, a figure passed by the door, momentarily casting a shadow on the sliver of light snaking into the closet.

What Tom did next amazed me. I guess he'd sucked what he could from my brain and learned of my meeting with Hagrid that night. Hagrid had had some business of his own to take care of, always playing with creatures and all. He framed the giant for my murder and just before calling administration down, pulled my own body into the empty corridor as perfect evidence of catching Hagrid red handed. The boy's wand was snapped and the dark cloud guilt hung over him and his name forever after.

Tom of course got away scot-free. The only hope for me came when Dumbledore fought to allow Hagrid to stay at Hogwarts to train as groundkeeper. Again, Dumbledore proved himself to me in later years as headmaster when he turned Tom down for a teaching position at Hogwarts. Still, I was forced to follow Tom in all his endeavors. When he played games with someone's mind, I had to watch. When he tortured muggles mercilessly for days on end, I had to watch. I had no eyes to close nor a neck to turn my head away. I had no throat to scream with nor hands to seek vengeance with. I was driven mad by the sheer pain of it all that never ended. Day in and day out. I was in Hell.