16 October 1942 — 17 October 1942
For the past week, as rumours and stories about the Chamber of Secrets spread, there was an unspoken supposition among the Slytherins. If it truly was the Heir of Salazar Slytherin behind the attack on Leonard Wright, then it followed that everyone in their House would not be targeted. They were safe, they all assumed, by virtue of their sorting.
The discovery of Margot Droope's Petrified body shattered that complacency.
The morning after she was found, the Slytherin table was uncharacteristically subdued. As his eyes swept over his housemates, Tom found each one had a satisfactory expression — their uncertainty was palpable, the discomfort on their faces as clear as day. Even Malfoy, to Tom's delight, was unnerved.
Of course, the real terror would come later as the Petrifications continued and when — if Malfoy and his ilk were not cowed into following him — the deaths began. For now they were uncomfortable, resting on the edge of fear and unease, and these feelings all belonged to Tom. They were a product of his actions, and he would drink them down like ambrosia.
Only Tom's corner of the table, the few he had told of his plan and whose support he now irrevocably held, didn't share in the school's unrest.
"It's about time," said Marius Mulciber. "I thought you were never going to get rid of her."
"Did you doubt I would, Marius?" said Tom mildly.
Mulciber chuckled. "Of course not."
"Yeah, he did," said Tyrell Nott, pausing mid-bite to poke Mulciber with his elbow. "Thought you were a bit too cosy with her."
They tittered at this as Mulciber flushed, the thought clearly too ridiculous to be entertained.
"Good riddance," scoffed Ronan Rosier.
"Perfect timing too," said Dunstan Avery, shooting an irritated glance at the Gryffindor table. "I've had just about enough of their showboating."
"Maybe the next one should be one of their lot," said Raoul Lestrange, smirking. "Might shut them up for once."
"Well," said Tom, still lightly, "since you all seem to think I'm taking requests."
They laughed and cast him admiring looks.
"Haven't got a preference either way," said Rosier eagerly. "A Mudblood's a Mudblood, whatever colours they wear."
"I'd be careful with that word if I were you, Ronan," said Tom, with a ringing force to his words even as he kept his tone level. "We wouldn't want anyone getting the wrong idea, do we?"
There was a murmur of assent as Rosier faltered and ducked his head. Soon his followers were talking among themselves and Tom, his amusement gone, tuned them all out.
Mudblood. The word echoed like a drumbeat in his ears. It wasn't so long ago when these same people, who now all looked to him for favour, taunted Tom with that damned name. Since his first-year, they had mocked him with the word, using it to remind him of his dirty blood, his lack of heritage, his status as an orphan — that he was unwanted and forgotten, with nothing to his name.
How easy it was, for those less capable, less skilled, simply less than him to sneer and cast him aside because of it. Worse were people like Slughorn, who praised his accomplishments as a miracle — because surely it was an aberration, that Mudblood Riddle, someone so low of birth, could be so talented.
Riddle the Mudblood, so intelligent, so accomplished, yet such a waste.
For years, Tom had worked so they would see past that, to ignore his surname — him and Droope both. They might have been Mudbloods, but they were the best in their year, and everyone learned to simply shut up and accept they were exceptions to the rule.
But where Droope was content to have their grudging acceptance, Tom wasn't satisfied. He would force them to remember his name. It had become his burning purpose, to make them recognize his worth and follow him, in spite of his poor Muggle background.
And then he had learned who he was — what he was. Riddle the Mudblood was a lie, and he had never existed at all.
He was a Slytherin, a direct descendant, the purest of all. He wasn't one of those pure-blooded bastards — no, he was better than them, and worth more than all of them combined.
For Mulciber, Rosier, and all these brutes seeking to share in his glory, they were more than eager to accept his claim. It wasn't because they believed him, but because they were looking for an excuse to ignore his unfortunate background.
Alphard Black wasn't one of them. He had bluntly demanded proof near the end of their fourth-year, and Tom had little choice but to accept the challenge.
He spent the following summer counting the days until he could return to Hogwarts and continue his search for the Chamber of Secrets. He pored over Lestrange's books and threw himself into his research, looking for leads and pursuing immortality. The more he read and learned, the more he realized that this — simply finding the Chamber, simply reclaiming what was rightfully his — wasn't good enough. It would never be good enough for the likes of Black, Malfoy, and those with old money, who were too secure in their wealth and their influence.
They would never accept him. They would never let him rule over them. There was too much history, too much taint behind his wretched father's name.
He would need to leave Tom Marvolo Riddle behind.
And so in between his research, Tom began writing names, transforming his own in the process. At first, it was just word play, nothing more than a list of anagrams, but as he twisted and rearranged the letters, he became more convinced that his new name had to come from himself. It would be a reminder that although they saw him now as Riddle the Mudblood, he could transcend that existence — and he would.
Finding the Chamber must have been the happiest he had ever felt. As Tom stood there, drinking in the sight of Slytherin's legacy — his legacy, his future, everything he would force himself to become — he had decided on his name at last.
I am Lord Voldemort.
Tom Riddle may have been belittled, ignored, and sent to a bomb-riddled London when he desperately pleaded to stay, but never again. Voldemort was everything he could be, everything he had dreamed for himself as a child in an orphanage with only his magic to call his own. He would be revered, he would be respected, and he would start now, here at Hogwarts.
And he had started — first with Leonard Wright, then with Margot Droope, and now —
Tom's eyes landed on Ginevra Smith, who was wearing a pinched expression as her friends spoke to her. They were most likely interrogating her about him, no doubt thinking it odd that she and Tom had entered the Great Hall separately.
Tom had kept his distance from Smith when she first befriended Black, wary of what Black might reveal to her and, subsequently, Dumbledore. But when Black confronted him at Hogsmeade, Tom had peered into his mind and learned he was too afraid of how Smith might react, of losing her friendship, to tell her what he knew of Tom.
Black's fears hadn't been unfounded — Smith hadn't so much as looked at him since Wright's body had been found. Whatever satisfaction Tom might have gotten from this, however, was eclipsed by everything else.
Smith had known, somehow, about the Chamber. Tom was certain it couldn't have been because of his followers; looking through their memories, he learned she hadn't spoken to any of them at all. Yet she knew what the writing on the wall meant, and her words when they were in the headmaster's office were clear — she knew and feared what he was capable of, but she didn't fear him.
Smith would never fall to her feet, would never worship him, would never live in terror of the Heir of Slytherin.
More than that, what disconcerted Tom was that she knew his name. Inconceivably, beyond all reason, she knew of Voldemort, and she said his name as though she had decided to march forward into battle.
How could she have known, when not even his followers knew of Voldemort?
His first and so far only guess was Legilimency, but Tom dismissed the thought almost immediately. It explained why she held him in contempt since the beginning, but it didn't explain her reaction to the Chamber's opening. Twice, she had spoken to him when he returned from the Chamber; she should have known as early as then what he intended to do. If she had, she wouldn't have been so surprised at the Petrifications that followed.
But she had been . . . she knew of the Chamber, and yet she was still so surprised, so troubled, by his actions.
It didn't make sense.
Feeling his eyes on her, Smith looked up and met his gaze with a hard, determined look. The same challenging look she often wore when she looked at him, daring him to act, waiting for him to falter.
For the past few days, Tom had seen Smith on edge. He had watched her squirm in helplessness, and he knew she was continuously aware of the danger and peril that lay beneath the school. Gone was that restlessness, replaced by a sense of resolve so tangible that now it was Tom fighting to hold her gaze.
Now, more than ever, he wanted to make her as afraid as he was, as he pretended he wasn't, until he could divine her inner workings as easily as she could his. It wasn't fair, that Smith was playing the game with all the pieces in her corner.
He didn't understand her, he didn't know what to make of her, but he was certain of one thing: Smith would not bow to Lord Voldemort, even as the world around them burned.
It alarmed him, yes, but he found that his nervousness was not purely out of fear. There wasn't a cold, straightforward need to crush Smith beneath his heel, but some part of Tom was waiting for her to confront him. Perhaps a little part of him even wanted her to, because what was a great lord without a lone adversary, what was an empire without at least one futile rebellion.
Somehow, Voldemort could not be complete without this moment, without his Cassandra crying out warnings of the fall of Troy.
As the bell rang for the first period, Smith stood and looked away at last, but the look in her eyes still lingered, the contempt burning almost as brightly as the rest of her.
"Don't worry, my boy," said Slughorn, patting Tom's shoulder gently. "We'll be able to revive Margot in no time."
Tom gave him a wan smile, his features set in a look of sorrowful understanding. Next to him, Lestrange bit back a snicker as Slughorn waddled away and began his lecture.
As the class dragged on, Tom found his eyes drifting to the back of the room. To his surprise, Smith was leaning close to Black and peering at his cauldron. Black nudged her away and made shooing motions with his hands. When Smith didn't move, he said something that made her laugh so suddenly that she had to clamp her hand over her mouth.
Tom's knife slipped in his hand and slightly nicked his thumb.
Lestrange, noticing this, stopped chopping his gurdyroot. "All right there, Tom?"
"Fine," said Tom curtly, hastily putting the knife down as he accepted the offered napkin.
"You — er — don't need help, do you?"
Tom resisted the urge to snap at him. The very suggestion was absurd, and even Lestrange knew it.
"Not at all," said Tom, smiling thinly.
His mood soured as the day progressed, and Tom found it increasingly harder to ignore the signs of what he had thought was unlikely to happen: Smith had forgiven Black. After only a handful of days of ignoring him, of pretending he didn't exist, she was now acting as though they had never fought to begin with.
It irritated Tom more than he expected, and he attributed it to his failure to make sense of Smith's actions. Knowing she blamed Black for the attacks, Tom was hard-pressed to understand why she would be so quick to forgive him, especially now that Droope had been Petrified.
Throughout the day, Black seemed glued to Smith's side. By the end of the last period, Tom was more than a little incensed, watching Smith leave the room with Black trailing after her. It didn't help that Kincaid and Turner had blocked Tom's way just as Smith and Black disappeared around a corner out of sight.
"Hey, Tom!" said Kincaid, then she faltered, her eyes darting to Lestrange behind him.
"We were going to go see Leonard and Margot," said Turner, just as warily. "Do you want to come?"
"I was planning on visiting later, actually," said Tom, smiling apologetically, "once I'm away from, well . . ."
He trailed away with a meaningful glance in Lestrange's direction. They would interpret that glance however they wished.
It was a careful balancing act, having to appease both his followers and his Muggle-born allies. The latter, those Tom had charmed outside his House, were the ones who had boosted his popularity, whose friendship had aided in maintaining the image of perfect, charming Tom Riddle. They were useful now, here in Hogwarts, but they didn't have the connections and influence that the Slytherins could give him. Once he had his housemates' support, he would have little need of them.
But for now he had to keep them mollified. Entertaining Kincaid and Turner meant Tom had missed his chance to talk to Smith, and he had no choice but to search for her on his own.
In the Great Hall during dinner, Tom waited for Smith to show. With a pang of unease, he noticed that Dumbledore's seat at the High Table was empty, as was Black's place next to Malfoy. When her friends, looking rather pale and subdued, entered without her, he approached them at once and asked after Smith.
"She was in such a rush earlier," he said. "I didn't even get a chance to say hi."
"Off to see Dumbledore, she said," Travers answered him. "We'll tell her you were looking for her."
Tom felt a jolt of panic. "I suppose Black is still with her. She left so quickly with him, after Charms."
Burke looked annoyed, her grip on her fork tightening, and she hastily modified her expression to one of nonchalance. "Alphard isn't with her. He went with us to the hospital wing."
"He's probably still there too," said Travers.
"Waiting for Ginny, I expect," said Tom sullenly, with a worried look.
"I don't think so," said Crockett reassuringly. "Ginny said she was skipping dinner."
It didn't guarantee Black would. He might still be with Smith . . . he could have gone with her to Dumbledore. . . .
His dread growing, Tom headed to the hospital wing as fast as his legs could carry him. He had half-expected to find it empty of visitors, but to his relief, Black was still there, sitting next to Droope's bed with a drawn, miserable look on his face.
How disgustingly sentimental.
What good did Black expect to come from this visit of his? It was plain that Droope and Wright didn't have the faintest inkling they had visitors, and Black might just as well be staring at a blank wall for all the good his sulking would do.
He was so lost in his thoughts that he didn't hear Tom approach. When he finally noticed Tom, he paled and leapt to his feet, sliding his chair back with a squeal.
"What are you doing here?" he hissed.
"Visiting a friend," said Tom, more than a little amused at his skittishness.
Black's eyes darted around the room, and his shoulders visibly sagged when he found Madam Galen, the matron, behind her desk.
"Relax," drawled Tom, keeping his voice low so she wouldn't hear. "If I wanted you here, you would be."
Black scowled. "Afraid of getting your hands dirty?"
"You aren't worth the effort," said Tom blithely. "Malfoy, on the other hand . . ."
The remaining colour drained out of Black's face, leaving his skin looking like pale parchment.
Tom smirked. As satisfying as it would have been to make good on his threat to Smith, he knew he couldn't afford it. Loathe as he was to admit it, Black's name had too much weight. If Tom were to target Black directly and they knew who was to blame, he would lose all his chances of getting the Black family's support and connections.
No, it was better if Tom kept Black as he was — terrified, anxious, and too frightened of Tom to act.
Before, Tom had foolishly thought Black would be his key to securing control over his housemates. But Black was nothing more than a dog trailing after its master — beyond his name, he had no real power of his own.
Malfoy, however, did. Tom didn't need Black when he could sway Malfoy to his side. It would be easy, now that Tom had found the Chamber and the basilisk, and once he had Malfoy, the rest of Slytherin would follow.
"When is this going to end, Riddle?" said Black in a brittle voice. "You have the entire school terrified, more than half of them already think you're a bloody saint — isn't this enough?"
Not nearly enough. There was so much he could do now, as Voldemort, that Tom Riddle the Mudblood never could. The indifference of his housemates, the too shocked expression on Slughorn's face when he showed his talents, the constant uphill struggle to prove his worth — soon, these would mean nothing. They would stop existing, because Voldemort was real, would be real, and his victory was his future.
And he wasn't going to let Smith and her secrets stop him.
"What did you tell her?"
Black stiffened. "Nothing," he said flatly. "Nothing she didn't already know."
Somehow, inexplicably, it was true. Looking into Black's mind, Tom saw fragments of his memories with Smith, and each one showed Black was telling the truth.
More baffling to Tom was how Smith seemed to trust Black enough to confide in him her intent to stop the attacks. The memory of them sitting by the fireplace, their shoulders and knees brushing, left a sour taste in Tom's mouth. What did Smith see in Black, who was little more than a snivelling coward, that made her trust him so easily?
It wasn't hard to see the inverse. Black would follow Smith, that much was apparent. He would follow her, a girl he had known for mere months, over Lestrange, whose friendship he had for years before they had stepped foot on Hogwarts.
"For someone so eager for hard evidence," said Tom, his voice cold now, "you put a great deal of blind faith in her."
"Maybe she deserves it more than you."
"More than Malfoy?"
Black looked away. Tom didn't need to read his mind then to know what he was thinking.
"I never wanted this," said Black quietly, staring at Droope as if she could hear him. "I never wanted to pick sides."
But it seemed he finally had.
Suddenly, Tom felt his irritation spike. Seeing Black's guilt laid bare before him was more irksome than it was amusing — as though Black had anything to do with Voldemort, beyond telling him of the Chamber. As though Black had any right to share in Voldemort's achievements.
Tom didn't owe him a thing.
"Generous of you," said Tom acidly, "to include yourself in my accomplishments."
Taken aback, Black glanced up at him in askance.
"Wash your hands, Black. This is my doing."
Voldemort's doing. No matter where Black came from, Voldemort was so far above him that Black was little more than an ant underfoot.
Madam Galen passed by Droope's bed then, smiling at them kindly. Tom returned the look with an expression of carefully restrained grief, like he was forcing himself to smile through the despondency.
"Such sweet boys you are," she cooed. "Miss Droope and Mr. Wright are quite lucky to have friends like you."
Black, who had been struggling not to react, made a face when Madam Galen left. Seeing Tom had nothing else to say, Black fled from the hospital wing not long after, and Tom didn't stop him. He had seen all he needed from Black's memories. They confirmed what he already knew but brought him no closer to understanding Smith.
She intended to stop him and had told Black as much, but she didn't say how.
And wasn't that the question of the day. How did she know about the Chamber? How did she know about Voldemort? How did she intend to stop him?
Smith still had no proof to pin the attacks on him. The only one who could have corroborated her story, flimsy as it was without tangible evidence, was Black, but she hadn't sought his help. No doubt she intended to speak to Dumbledore what she knew of Tom, if Dumbledore himself didn't already know, but what good would it do? They still had no way of stopping the basilisk.
Even if Smith knew where the Chamber was, she couldn't get in. She wasn't Slytherin's heir, after all.
So what was she planning?
Looking down at Droope's rigid face, Tom couldn't help but think this would all be much easier if Smith was a little more like her. Less interesting, certainly, but easier to deal with. Droope trusted him implicitly and would have believed his lies without question. If it had been Droope, she would have been taken in by the sob story he had told Smith that morning.
But Smith had dismissed it quickly. "Rubbish," she had said, and perhaps it was. Dippet's apathy hadn't been on the forefront of Tom's mind when he had released the basilisk. Still, it wasn't a lie to say that Dippet's words nagged at him to this day, burning and festering in his subconscious with Dumbledore's judgment, his father's abandonment, and all the other wrongs that had been dealt to him.
Droope would have understood; she would have seen the truth of his words. She had more loyalty than his followers did now. It was a shame, really, that she didn't have their money or their connections.
It was Droope, in their earliest days in Hogwarts, who took away what was left of Tom's accent, who weeded his speech and clipped his vowels like she was making a topiary. She was with him in his hidden corner of the library until curfew, and she stayed up late with him in the common room, talking and correcting until their lips were numb and Tom's tongue felt stiff and ungainly.
"Sometimes I think it's only us who are properly Slytherin," he remembered telling her. "You have to want something, if you're ambitious. The others — they've already got everything."
Tom had meant it then, and it was true even now. Droope was as Slytherin as he was — not in blood, obviously, but in spirit.
She might even be of use to him still, gifted as she was. It was part of the reason why he had instructed the basilisk to Petrify rather than kill, if there was an opportunity. It mattered little in the grand scheme of things, but it was better to err on the side of caution. At the time, Tom wasn't sure how much Dumbledore knew, and mysterious deaths would have drawn Dumbledore's attention to him more than he already had.
It didn't seem to matter now, with Smith so apparently determined to stop Tom. She was so sure she could . . . even in Black's memories, she seemed certain she would succeed. . . .
Who did she think she was? Why was she so convinced she could defeat him — defeat Voldemort?
Even if he had asked her, Tom knew Smith wouldn't answer. She would stand there and look at him with fire in her eyes and judge him as if she had some right to.
There was something infuriating in that silent judgment, more than her taunts and evasiveness, more than Billy Stubbs with his bloody rabbit, more than Dumbledore setting his wardrobe alight. There was something patronizing in Smith's unwavering contempt of him, and it wiped away all his panic and left only rage.
Who was she?
For the first time, Tom wasn't satisfied with the name Smith.
Winters in Wool's Orphanage were bitterly cold and icy, and Christmases were as dreary and sullen as the people. They all blended together, those bleak, colourless days before Tom had met Dumbledore, before he had learned the truth about his gifts. One particular winter, though, stood out in Tom's memories.
It had been a hard year, with more blizzards than the orphanage could withstand and days when the only source of heat was the fireplace in the kitchen. A fever had been going around and had already claimed two orphans by the time it had latched onto Tom. The fever had taunted him for days, seeming to fade, then circling back and inflicting more pain as it took hold of his senses.
Tom couldn't remember what had happened to him at the time. It was as if he hadn't been present in his sweating, shivering body, as if he was being pushed out of his own skin as his mortal frame prepared to shut down and surrender. Tom, during that fever, had gone somewhere else.
The trouble was, he didn't know where that somewhere was, where he had gone during his brush with death. It was a great black void in his memory, a gaping pit reminding him that in those long hours before the fever had subsided, Tom Riddle had ceased to exist.
No one had expected him to come back; Mrs. Cole might have even hoped he hadn't. Tom would have called it a miracle, if he believed at all in the word.
But he had never forgotten what it had felt like to not exist.
Tom had vowed then that it would never happen again, but he hadn't realized his childish declaration could be a reality until he had learned of magic. He was a wizard, someone who might have the means to combat death itself, and he promised himself he would never pass onto the other side.
He would find a way to make it happen. He would find the power to defeat the great equalizer.
When Tom first opened the Chamber, he felt as though that power, that dream, was no longer out of reach. He could abandon Tom Marvolo Riddle, useless and worthless as he had ever been, and he could choose to be someone — something greater and more extraordinary.
And so he did choose. The path before him was clear.
Voldemort was now his present, and it would be his future.
Tom opened his eyes. Every inch of his body was covered in icy sweat, and his head felt as though it was burning inside out. Taking great gulps of air, he pushed himself up in bed and clutched his head in his hands, the pain half-blinding him. He couldn't say how long he sat there, sweating and shivering feverishly before the pain receded. When it was finally gone, it was a little past midnight, and his roommates slept on, undisturbed and unaware.
Still breathing hard, Tom tried to make sense of what happened, what it was that jolted him awake. He had never felt anything quite like it before, that white-hot, searing pain. Perhaps the closest he had ever felt to it was —
The mark. The burning mark on his hand that led him to the Chamber . . . the voices of the castle's snakes whispering in his head, telling him to find the King of Serpents. . . .
Suddenly, Tom realized that the night was too quiet. It was as though a bell that had always been ringing, too familiar to notice, had fallen silent. A melody, dancing on towards the next song, then nothing.
He couldn't hear the basilisk.
Dread swept over Tom. Somehow he knew, as he sat there in the too silent dungeons, that everything was falling apart.
Before he could comprehend what was happening, he was jumping out of bed, casting a Disillusionment Charm on himself, and racing towards the Chamber. He felt as though the panic inside him might spill over at any moment, even as he tried to reassure himself that the worst couldn't have possibly happened.
There was simply no way . . . he was Slytherin's heir and him alone . . . no one could have known where the Chamber was . . . no one could have opened it. . . .
And yet someone did.
The basilisk was dead, lying on the floor of the Chamber, its eyes staring blindly forward and a lake of blood extending beneath it.
Tom felt his heart stop at the sight of it. He could do nothing but walk silently forward and stare. This great monster, this leviathan, the reflection of Voldemort and his entire legacy —
Gone.
And then he was screaming, forcing the rage and grief up out of his chest and into the open. He sank to the ground, screaming until his voice was too hoarse to go on and he was on his knees taking rattling breaths.
Until he heard footsteps padding across the stone floor.
Tom's gaze turned unwillingly to the sole figure standing. Smith, covered in blood, with her wand in one hand and a gleaming sword in the other. She looked like a figure from a story, a fairy-tale Tom had never had the luxury to know. Like a knight more grim than charming, a Pyrrhic victor with only scars to show for her troubles.
"I did warn you," said Smith softly. The pity in her expression was more damning to him than her contempt.
Tom tried to find something worth saying, but there was nothing. There was a sudden absence within him, a blankness and emptiness he couldn't put into words. He felt oddly vacant, as if he could neither see nor hear nor feel anything at all. Just this blankness, just this emptiness.
There was only a dead basilisk and a ruined dream — this was all he had amounted to.
"This was my birthright," he heard himself say, his voice as hollow as he felt. "This was my future, and you took it from me."
"I had to," she said.
To his horror, he felt a burning feeling gathering at the edge of his vision and rising in his throat. "You didn't have to. I only wanted —"
"I know what you wanted."
But how could she, when Tom himself didn't know? What had he been thinking, really? Where had he imagined all this would lead to?
Tom started laughing then, because it was suddenly absurdly funny. Because he had been fooling himself when he opened the Chamber, when he had first set out to find it. Because this now empty room really was his legacy, what he was always meant for from the beginning — nothing but worthless, hollow promises, his existence consigned to oblivion.
He had thought he could cast aside Tom Marvolo Riddle, but there was no escaping him. There was no escaping his past. He was chained to it — his father's blood and name — and he would always be, no matter how many grand titles he created for himself.
Smith looked disconcerted, more perturbed than he had ever seen her. Now, finally, she was thrown off balance, and it made Tom laugh even harder.
He stood slowly, shaking, and stared at Smith directly and intently. "What happens now?"
She didn't answer. Tom felt the blankness replaced with indescribable anger, searing through him, clouding his judgment.
"You've always had all the pieces," he said coldly. "So tell me, Smith — what happens now?"
Smith threw the sword aside, and it clattered against the floor, the sound echoing off the stone walls. "I won't let you become Voldemort."
"Don't you see? There is no Voldemort."
She gripped her wand tighter, and Tom felt himself laughing again because of course — Ginevra Smith was always reaching for her wand, was always looking for a reason to fight. Hadn't he been waiting for this, in the common room when she had confronted him? Hadn't he been looking forward to this moment?
Smith was looking at him with that challenging look, and for the first time her thoughts were plain to him. For the first time, Tom knew with certainty what she was thinking.
She intended to kill him. Perhaps she even could.
"They'll send you to Azkaban," he said, with a calmness he didn't feel.
"I don't care what happens to me," said Smith, her grim smile carrying a sense of finality. Tom knew then that she was perfectly willing to die, if it meant he would die with her.
But he still remembered that winter, the fever that had almost taken him, and he had never forgotten his promise.
Tom brought his wand forward and struck, sending out a rope of fire. Smith countered it with a gust of wind that made the flames spiral upward. The fire hadn't yet dispersed when she immediately summoned a spray of hot oil that sizzled and hissed as it hit his silver shield.
And on and on it went.
It was almost as if they were dancing, their footwork just as intricate as their spells, their reactions born from adrenaline. It was obvious that Smith didn't know as many spells as he did, but she was creative with what she had. She knew how to throw her body around, how to give herself more room, how to dodge and recover from harsh landings.
What should have lasted a minute was now lasting ten, fifteen, more.
How long could they go on for? Would they be here all night, or would they last even longer than that? Perhaps this was what it felt like to play Quidditch, never knowing when it was going to end yet playing on regardless.
All Tom needed was one second of hesitation, an opening to disarm her and cast the Legilimency spell. He needed only a moment for her defences to waver, so that he could look into her mind at last, without her shields or deflections to get in his way. . . .
He sent animals and constructs leaping from the floor, fangs bared and weapons swinging in her direction. Smith was getting tired, her forehead beaded with sweat, as she cast the Reductor Curse at each of his constructs, too many for her to handle all at once.
And then he saw it, that one window he needed to win.
One moment, one slight pause in between spells — that was all it took.
"Imperio!"
Smith stilled as the spell meandered through her mind, trailing smears of complacency like honey.
"Drop your wand."
She did. Her wand fell to the floor with a satisfying clatter, rolling towards his feet, and he kicked it aside.
Tom, feeling exhaustion like lead in his blood, didn't waste another second. He ran towards her, lifted her chin up so that he was looking directly into her eyes, and, with his wand against her temple, said, "Legilimens."
Everything seemed to pause as her mind opened for him, revealing a river of moments — a gaggle of redheads, flying over a tall, crooked house . . . a young girl, hiding under red covers, grinning to herself as she scribbled in a black diary . . . the girl, sobbing now, lying on the ground as a ghostly visage stood over her . . . a dark-haired, bespectacled boy, his arm around her, laughing . . . the boy, again, pressing kisses along her spine . . . the same boy, still and lifeless, against a backdrop of wandfire and ruin . . . a castle in flames, dying bodies, corpses, ruin, ruin, ruin —
Tom flinched, feeling ice race down his spine. He wanted to leave, to go further back to memories that weren't drenched in suffocating darkness, but even now Smith was resisting. He could feel her trying to tear through the magic flowing from him, trying to rip it apart as she forced in her own scattered streaks of magic.
No, not yet — he needed to see, needed to know —
With a burst of rage that burned away the spiderweb of the Imperius, she grabbed on to his presence and pushed back. Another memory flickered in his mind's eye — Smith, a jet of green light flying from the tip of her wand . . . a gangly, red-haired boy telling her to move, to run, as masked wizards in dark robes moved towards her. . . . Because her aim had been true, and on the ground lay a corpse, his snakelike face white and gaunt, his red, slit-pupilled eyes unseeing —
The force of the memory slammed against his mind. As Tom wrenched himself away from it, he felt himself being pushed hard in the chest. He staggered back, falling to the floor. When he looked up, Smith was holding him at wandpoint — his wand.
Tom stared, frozen, unable to move. Behind Smith was the dead basilisk, the remains of his legacy.
This is it, he realized. This was what everything amounted to.
And it had all been for nothing.
He had been so desperate. He had needed so badly to see that Voldemort wasn't a delusion of grandeur, that it was possible. And now he knew that his grand dreams were no better than a house of cards — all it took was Smith, one gust of wind, to make it fall apart.
Lord Voldemort had no future, and neither did he.
"Do it then," said Tom absently. He thought of that awful winter and the gaping void of nonexistence.
There was a flash of light. For a moment, Smith was illuminated in the glow, her face covered in grime and blood, her expression unreadable.
It was the last thing he saw before the world fell into blackness.
