Inception: Rise of the Heir
After the murder of Hepzibah Smith, Tom Riddle disappeared for ten long years. He sank deeper into the Dark Arts & pursued knowledge that others could only dream of, consorting with the darkest members of wizarding society. With his eyes set on North America, he has no idea that the magic he so desperately seeks will shape his life & his inevitable future for years to come. TomxOC
DISCLAIMER: I own nothing except for my o/c's and my own storyline.
"Once the Bokor has given the victim the draught necessary for resurrection, the corpse may then be buried, believed to be dead. With the incantation of a simple spell, the Bokor may then reanimate the dead body, forcing it to respond to his will. In modern times, those who practice voodoo have perfected the art of reanimating the dead, needing to only perform simple spells to will the dead back to life, abolishing the need for special draughts and potions."
Tom closed the book he had been reading fervently and rubbed his eyes. They had been in Salem a little over a month and his days now consisted of waking up in the small bedroom Lyra had arranged for him above a small pub in the heart of Chadwick Square and heading straight to the Atheneum to scroll through piles of books he had never seen before. She had explained to him that the woods that surrounded the old city weren't safe enough to seek refuge in and they would be better off having proper accommodations. Of Lyra herself he had seen very little of in the past weeks, only catching glimpses of her leaving her room as he came back to sleep for the night, or in occasional passing as they had happened across each other for brief moments in the halls of the tremendous library.
He ran his hands through his hair as he calmly stood up from his seat and grabbed the book to return to it to where it belonged amongst the old wooden shelves covered in dust. Placing it back neatly, he smiled as brushed his fingertips against the spines of the books in the same row, walking slowly back towards the lift in the back of the bowels of the Atheneum. His research thus far had proven far more successful than it had been reading the books he had been able to come across back in Europe. The text were littered with spells and incantations he had never heard of before and were far more detailed in practice than anything he had ever dreamed of. He rubbed his eyes once more as he stepped out of the lift and exited out of the library through the vacant and dark lobby, the moonlight danced across his face as he descended down the great stairs. His eyes were tired and dry, he had spent over thirteen hours in the dark of the library, reading book after book, he hadn't realized the time until he had looked at the large enchanted clock floating in the middle of the floor.
His thoughts strayed back to Lyra as he walked towards the pub, today had marked the seventh day he hadn't seen her at all, not even a glimpse or whisper of her long dark hair turning a corner in the library. He had grown curious in the past few days as to what she was studying or where she went to in the middle of the night when everyone else was asleep.
"She's up to something." He thought to himself as he entered through the pub door and walked silently up the old stone steps to his room, slowly pausing for a moment as he passed her door listening for any trace of a sound that would give her whereabouts away. The room remained silent and dark. No noise or light could be heard or seen through the cracks of the large wooden aperture.
"She's not in there..." He glanced back once more as he reached for the doorknob to his room and quickly glanced back once more towards her door narrowing his eyes. "What are you up to..."
He quickly turned around from his doorway and made his way back down the slated steps.
The clock in the center of the square hit three in the morning as Lyra walked through the dead streets making her way back to the old pub in which she had taken up residency. Her pockets clinked as the sound of glass against glass could be heard faintly. As she slowly entered the silent and dimly lit bar, she tried to make her way softly up the stairs, not wanting to announce her arrival. She suddenly heard a voice speak to her from across the room.
"It's late."
Recognizing the voice, she lowered her eyes and turned around to face him. "Yes. I busy attending to something and I...I lost track of the time."
Tom got up slowly from the table he had been sitting at, closing a book and putting it under his arm, walking slowly towards her. She half smiled and nodded towards the book under his arm.
"Still reading? Your efforts at the Atheneum have been successful I trust?"
"Oh very much so."
"I'm glad to hear it." she said as she placed her foot on the next step of the staircase. "You'll understand if I take myself off to bed? It's been a long day and I'm in need of some rest."
"Of course...I was just about to retire myself." he lied.
She smiled faintly as she walked up two more steps and turned around hesitantly. "Goodnight Tom."
He walked towards the bottom of the banister as he looked up at her strangely. "And to you."
She nodded quickly and walked up to her room, slowly closing the door behind her, unaware of his eyes that still followed.
Tom stood there at the foot of the staircase watching as the night lay still.
Lyra closed the door slowly behind her as she let out a long breath. She hadn't anticipated running into Tom tonight and was thankful for the quick escape. For the past week she had purposefully avoided him and made sure to do her studying as far away from him as possible, she couldn't let her distractions interfere with what she wanted so desperately to attain. She waved her hand and watched as the candles in the room lit themselves. She took her robe off gently and placed it down onto the small bed that she had longed for days to take comfort in. Warming herself by the small fire that was lit in the hearth, she picked up her wand and stirred a small cauldron that hung carefully over it. Reaching slowly into her pocket, she pulled out two glass vials, one filled with a strange root-like plant inside, the other full of a grey dust. She emptied their contents into the cauldron and stirred the liquid three times in a counter-clockwise motion and waited. Suddenly the cauldron lit up the room with a glowing green light, small blankets of smoke spilling out from over its sides.
"The Draught of Expulsion is finally complete. " she thought to herself as she reached for a small glass she had placed on her nightstand next to her bed. "If I read the potion book correctly, this should work."
The first day she had been at the Atheneum she had immersed herself into the darkest potions section, searching desperately for something that could cure her affliction. Only one had even come close to potentially be what she had needed and this was it. The ingredients had been very hard to come by and she had to procure on her own what the market did not sell, one being a human heart burnt to dust. She shook her head at the thought of the last item, she did not want to relive what she had gone through to get the last ingredient.
"Desperate times call for desperate measures…" Lyra reassured herself as she stared into the belly of the cauldron. Her face illuminated by the soft green glow.
She took the cup and slowly dipped it into the potion, filling to the brim with the dark black liquid that had been brewing over the fire. As she raised it to her lips, her hands shook with anticipation she closed her eyes. "Please work."
She opened her mouth as she took her first sip and gagged at the taste. Forcing it down her throat she tried to ignore the taste of decaying flesh as it continued to slip down her esophagus, thick and putrid. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand as she placed the cup down with a loud thud. Her stomach churned as she walked over to a standing mirror in the corner of the room, looking at her face as if waiting for something to happen. Ten minutes passed as she continued to study her appearance, nothing had changed.
"It didn't work." Bowing her head and clasping her face in her hands, she started to tremble until she felt a small dull pain behind her eye. She looked up quickly, her face lighting up with delight as she watched her blue eye start to glow, growing darker and darker with every second until it matched the soft amber one that had always been.
Lyra smiled and grabbed her face once more, looking into the mirror as she observed her weary appearance start to fade, replaced with one that looked refreshed and familiar. She laughed she touch her cheeks and laid her hand gently across the one eye that had regained its original color.
"It worked…" she whispered softly as she choked back tears of relief. All of her pain, all her torment, it was finally over. She smiled as she turned away from the mirror and started to take off her clothes, eager to enjoy a full nights sleep.
As she bent over to pull the sheets back from the bed she paused, feeling a strange sensation in her torso. A small dull pain started to throb inside her belly, the pain growing unbearable as the pain exploded; she felt as if a white hot knife was being plunged into her belly over and over repeatedly. Grabbing her stomach, she felt her vision beginning to blur as she turned quickly towards the mirror once more.
"What's happening to me?" she thought as she writhed in agony, terrified, as she watched black beads of sweat running down from her forehead. "What's going on?"
Her eyes widened in horror as the same liquid she had just drank had started to flow from her eyes, thick and hot like tar. She screamed as she watched, her vision slowly fading as the viscous fluid continued to pour down her face, oozing into her lap and hands. As Lyra collapsed onto her knees, shaking and convulsing from her body's rejection of the potion, she felt her stomach start to roll as she wretched up whatever else there was left onto the cold wooden floor. She sat there, hunched over and grasping her stomach for what felt like an eternity until her vision slowly began to come back, shaky and blurred. Propping herself up with weakly with one hand, she looked at the giant black pool that lay on the floor in front of her. She weakly grasped the side of the bed as she got to her feet, holding her sides as her chest rose and fell raggedly, her lungs heaving for air.
As she reached for a glass of water she had laid on the bedside, she gasped as she watched the pool of liquid rise from the floor and quickly become vaporous, taking the form of a giant skull as it raced towards her, jaws wide open. She opened her mouth to scream but no sound came out as it collided with her, the world slowly fading around her as she collapsed and hit the floor with a heavy thud.
Tom stood patiently as he watched Lyra's room from the staircase, he had been ready to give up on his hopes of seeing something suspicious, until a green glow emanating from the bottom of the door caught his eye. His eyes became transfixed as he approached her quarters and stared at the intense flickering emerald light.
"What are you doing in there?…" A strange but familiar smell hit his nose as he stood at the entrance to her door. "Hellebore...Interesting. One would only use a hellebore plant in a potion for a specific reason…."
He put his chin between his thumb and index finger as he rubbed it, deep in thought. "Hellebore is toxic, to use it safely in a potion, it must brew for a month. Which is almost exactly as long as we've been here…"
He walked over towards his bedchamber and went inside without a backward glance at her door. He had seen everything he had needed to try to figure out what Lyra was up to behind closed doors. He paced around the room as he tried to rack his brain thinking of potions that included the deadly ingredient, he had always been gifted at them and had never brewed anything incorrectly.
"Alihotsy Draught...Bloodroot Potion...Essence of Insanity...Oculus Potion…"
He shook his head as he thought of the list he had recollected, if memory served him correctly they didn't match. "If I can recall, two of those take longer than a month to brew and the other two when finished would not emit a green glow or odor upon brewing or completion."
He grew frustrated at the lack of draughts that matched the description of what had unfolded before him and resigned himself to dedicating his day at the library tomorrow in search of the mysterious potion. He knew immediately where to search and what to look for, he had passed Lyra reading fervently in the Restricted Potions Section, holding an old green text. She had closed it and tried to hide it from Tom's view as he passed her, trying to distract him by making pleasantries, but not before he had caught a glimpse of its worn and weathered emerald cover, strange runes littered across its front in gold embellished lettering. He hadn't given the moment a second thought, he had been too preoccupied with his own studies to care about her own, but today as he scoured over books dedicated to his needs and desires, he had found his mind wandering to her again.
She was fascinating in way that was both irritating and intriguing to him at the same time. Most of the people he had come to know or had studied from a distance were painfully predictable and disappointing. Lyra was proving to be neither. She had already displayed her magical prowess to him in the first fifteen minutes of their first meeting and she had continued to display her knowledge and abilities up until the last moment they had seen each other. It was impressive. He had watched her consum books fervently, mirroring his appetite and seemed to prefer her solitude, secluding herself off from the world and only letting it see what she wanted it to. He felt slightly akin to her, as if he had found the only other person in the world who valued and understood knowledge and power as much as he.
He shook his head angrily as his last thought. "We are nothing alike. She could never hold a candle to what I have done, what I have achieved."
Still, he continued to think of her as he lay in his bed. His fingers mindlessly twirling the chain of the locket around themselves as he reflected. After he had read and researched every book on every topic he had been particularly interested in, he found his mind now unpreoccupied, often drifting to her and her whereabout. As to wh, he was unsure. He awoke early in the morning, eager to make his way to the Atheneum where he might catch a glimpse of her roaming amongst the vast halls and sections of the library, biting her lip as she often did when she had been lost in a book. He shook his head once more at the thought. He had prided himself on never falling victim to lust, as so many of people often did and furrowed his brows at the mere thought of it. Was it lust that led him to often think of her?
"Surely not.." his mind whispered softly back to him. "It's just simple curiosity, when you find out what she is hiding and when you have outgrown your need for her, all thoughts of her will fade back to the hole from which they slithered. Nothing more."
He stared up towards the ceiling, satisfied with his last ideation. His thoughts drifted as he fell into a dreamless sleep.
Tom left the pub the next morning quickly, his thirst to discover what she had been brewing gnawing at his mind. He walked through the Restricted potions section for what felt like an eternity, scanning through the shelves, pulling out book after book with a green cover until he had finally found what he had been looking for. He ran his fingers across the cover and gently opened the book, scouring through forbidden potions, draughts and elixirs.
He grew weary as he turned another page, his eyes reading the effects and descriptions of yet another potion that did not match what he had encountered last night. The book had proved a challenging read, mostly all the potions that resided in the book had called for syrup of hellebore and his research had advanced slowly, half of the draughts were written in ancient runes, something he hadn't studied in years. He understood the texts, but translating them was an intricate process.
"Damn it." He cursed to himself as he put down his quill and leaned his head angrily against his head. The draught he had been translating currently had taken him over an hour to complete and it still didn't fit the necessary characterization he had been looking for. He flipped to the next page, as he read on. Thankfully this one was in a language he didn't have to figure out.
"The Draught of Expulsion...a remedy for those who bodies are inhabited by malevolent forces." As he read the ingredients, he sat upright; his heart starting to beat faster. "Potion must be brewed on months where the days are thirty one. Part One. Add three dashes of leech juice, two bundles of hemlock that have been picked exactly at midnight and stir clockwise twice. Boil for two days. Part Two. Add two scoops of dried dittany that has been aged five years and four pours of moondew. Stir counter clockwise three times and wave wand over twice. Let simmer for two weeks. Part Three. Add two portions of deadylius and stir for an hour. Boil for a day. Part Four. Ten minutes before drinking add in final ingredients, one root of hellebore and the burnt ashes of a human heart, charred in a small hole dug under a yew tree at midnight. When potion is complete, it will emit a green glow and smoke will pour thickly over the sides. The consistency should be thick, dark and smell heavily of hellebore root, with the taste of decayed flesh."
Tom closed the book as he walked back over to the shelf, placing it back gingerly. His thoughts were racing as he thought back to what he had read. "The burnt ashes of a human heart...it seems we aren't so different as I thought Lyra. What else are you keeping from me?"
IMO I think the story is starting to pick up steam but I figured I'd give you guys a couple of little insights as to character development. I just want everyone to know off the bat that Lyra is NOT a hero. I wanted to make that perfectly clear especially in this chapter as her character starts to change from her initial introduction. Burnt ashes of a human heart seems like a pretty illegal potion ingredient to me and she had to get that from somewhere no? ;)
I also hope Tom is still remaining IN character. He is not voldy yet, he still retains some of his humanity. Tom Riddle was inquisitive and competitive and I'm sure if he was faced with a person in the books who was as secretive as he was it would irritate the hell out of him and he would immediately make their business his.
ALSO if anyone is curious as to why I chose the name Lyra, i tried to stick with the Harry Potter theme of dark and tormented characters having astrological and constellation related names. Lyra happens to be a constellation and named after a lyre which represents harmony as well as poetic and musical inspiration. Who knows, maybe she'll inspire Tom to show a side he didn't know he had. Or maybe he's just a psychopath that is way too far gone. Who knows.
Read, Review, and follow please! Would love to have some feedback!