This is written for practice round three of the International Wizarding School Championship. The following is judging info for that competition. Happy reading! :))
School & Theme: Beauxbatons – fallen leaves: "Fallen leaves lying on the grass in the November sun bring more happiness than the daffodils." - Cyril Connolly (goth, graveyard, evil wins, ruins.)
Mandatory Prompt: [colour] Gold - meaning prestige
Additional Prompt(s): [genre] Romance & [setting] Living Room
Word Count: 2,660
Disclaimer: All the dialogue between Tom Riddle and Hepzibah Smith is taken directly from Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince!
.: all that glitters is gold :.
Tom Riddle reached out his hand, his skin a stark white against his dark blazer, and gently lifted the small golden cup from the hold of its rich velvet wrappings. He held the object in a single palm with a type of care that he afforded to very few things in his life. Finally, after ages of research and searching — after the hellish year of being at the beck and call of the insufferable Mr. Burke — he was holding the long-looked-for priceless artifact in his hand
Finally.
The large woman opposite him leaned across the ottoman that separated them, and her eyelashes fluttered ridiculously against her blush-painted cheeks. Tom was no stranger to those who catered to him based upon his looks alone, but cloistered in this sweet smelling parlor with the odiously flirtatious Hepzibah Smith, he found her especially obvious and annoyingly airheaded. Tom consciously loosened his muscles one by one, though, because he was free now, and he was one step closer to possessing his quartet of Founder artifacts. So he forced himself to remark upon perfectly inane details about the anything-but-inane cup for the sake of Hepzibah.
"A badger," he murmured, brushing his thumb over the engraving on the front of the cup. "Then this was…?"
"Helga Hufflepuff's, as you very well know, you clever boy!" Hepzibah trilled, her ruddy cheeks flushing even more as she reached out with her claw-like fingers to pinch his cheek. Maybe he was a bit too inane in his observations, but he decided to reevaluate his steadfast decision to label her an airhead anyway, even if she retained her status as a loathsome flirt. The woman continued, "Didn't I tell you I was distantly descended? This has been handed down in the family for years and years. Lovely, isn't it? And all sorts of powers it's supposed to possess too, but I haven't tested them thoroughly, I just keep it nice and safe in here…"
Hepzibah hooked the cup off his long forefinger, and Tom had to catch himself so he didn't snatch it right back, consequences and his plan be damned. He glared at her as she placed it back into its box and gently wrapped it up, but she remained oblivious to the slight that Tom had just catalogued. It was unconscionable to him to have come this close, to have the artifact in his grasp, only for this woman to take it away immediately afterwards. For her to lock it up "safe" in a place where it was not properly appreciated or fawned over was even worse.
Though Tom rarely placed restraints upon himself when it came to his rage — when it came to his ability to wield his wand and satiate said rage — he forced his hands to lower to his lap and not to his pocket where his wand resided.
"Now then," Hepzibah said happily. She began mumbling to herself about her house-elf as the wrinkled creature obediently took the boxed up cup in its gnarled hands and stepped away. Tom blinked once — the only sign of his irritation he'd show. The house-elf being allowed to hold such an object when it was so lowly a creature raised Tom's hackles, and he simply filed it away as another slight of Hepzibah's.
"I think you'll like this even more, Tom," Hepzibah said, redrawing his attention. And this… this was the true reason why he kept returning to this foul smelling house. "Lean in a little, dear boy, so you can see… Of course, Burke knows I've got this one, I bought it from him, and I daresay he'd love to get it back when I'm gone…"
Which will be sooner than you think, Tom thought, as he did indeed lean closer to better see the smaller box the woman now held in her hand.
Hepzibah freed the delicate filigree clasp and eagerly flipped open the smooth oak box. The heavy golden locket that was nestled amongst the folds of crimson velvet wrappings seemed to call to him — as it should, he thought, eyeing the intricately curved, green glittering, serpentine 'S' on the opaque glass face.
Tom shrugged off his blazer and reached in unbidden by Hepzibah, reverently lifting the locket. He held it up to the sunlight that was filtering through the gauzy-sheer curtains to better admire its reflectiveness in the light, and a rainbow danced off its surface, sharding over the paleness of his arm.
"Slytherin's mark," he said quietly. My mark, he thought.
"That's right!" Hepzibah said, delight marring her words. He knew her joy was less about him knowing whom the locket had belonged to and more so because her eyes had yet to stray from his face — just as his own had yet to stray from the locket. Two objects of desire in one place.
"I had to pay an arm and a leg for it," Hepzibah continued, "but I couldn't let it pass, not a real treasure like that — had to have it for my collection. Burke bought it apparently, from a ragged-looking woman who seemed to have stolen it, but had no idea of its true value—"
Tom's fist clenched around the heavy chain of the locket, his knuckles white as his breath stuttered in his chest. A haze settled over his vision and momentarily blinded him as his focus narrowed to the lying and treacherous way that Burke had spoken of his mother. That that man was unaware of Merope Gaunt's prestigious pedigree — no matter her state of dress or being when he'd met her — made Tom marvel that he ever managed to buy or sell anything of true value. Burke was a useful man, though, and Tom would again remember this fact when his head cleared of this rage; in this man's absence, Tom glared at Hepzibah. His eyes flashed as he pictured the multitude of ways she could die by the end of their meeting — the way that she soon would die so Tom could make off with the objects that should belong to him in the first place.
Hepzibah continued, "I daresay Burke paid her a pittance but there you are... Pretty, isn't it? And again, all kinds of powers attributed to it, though I just keep it nice and safe..."
Hepzibah reached for the locket, and something akin to pain flashed through his chest as the small links of chain slipped through his fingers. The woman placed it back in its box and shut it away. What she said next escaped him, as he continued to stare at the closed lid of the box — as he continued to marvel at the fact that the woman was none the wiser to the disastrous thoughts swirling in the eddies of his mind.
"Are you all right, dear?" Hepzibah asked, an almost imperceptible waver to her voice. Tom was drawn back to the present just in time for him to see the woman's foolish smile slide from her lips.
"Oh yes," Tom replied quietly, schooling his features but unable to offer her the usual baneful smile she went all a-titter over.
"I thought — but a trick of the light, I suppose…" she trailed off. Tom could see on her face that she may have finally realized who, exactly, she had been so eagerly inviting into her home. The woman looked distinctly unnerved, and this fact filled Tom with a vicious sort of pleasure.
Not an airhead at all, he mused. Just mindlessly besotted.
Hepzibah placed the box containing the locket on top of the box the house-elf was already holding and mumbled to the creature about enchantments. Tom settled in to wait for the thing to hobble out of the room before rising to his feet, pulling out his wand, and without another word, saying clearly, "Imperio."
.:..:.
Tom waved his hand to wandlessly unlock the front door to his flat, and he clutched the two boxes against his chest as he stepped into the foyer. He briefly placed the boxes on the entry table and removed his winter peacoat, hanging the garment next to its twin on the coat rack. He kept his shoes on, and the slight heel of his leather boot clipped against the floor as he headed down the hallway and into the living room.
"Merlin, Tom," a man said from the couch, his back to Tom as he faced the crackling fireplace, "must you always wear your shoes inside? You know how much it grates on me."
"But that's why I do it," Tom replied, still not taking his shoes off as he rounded the couch and sat next to one Alphard Black.
Alphard was in his dressing gown, the green one that made his eyes seem brighter, and he was sitting sideways on the couch with his feet tucked up next to him. Tom knew he was a conventionally attractive man, and he used both this and his practiced charm to his advantage every chance he got, but it was a softer, cherubic beauty that lulled others into a false sense of security before he struck — as quick and deadly as an asp. Alphard, on the other hand, looked as though he were carved from marble, all hard lines and unforgiving angles, and reminiscent of Grecian gods.
It was what made Tom notice him — what drew Tom to the other man in the first place. Now he found himself unwittingly attached, but there were worse attachments to be made.
There was a book open in Alphard's lap that Tom unceremoniously plucked from his grip and tossed to the coffee table. Alphard, used to Tom's antics and whims, just sighed in annoyance before tilting his head so Tom knew he was listening.
"I have them," Tom stated.
Alphard's head whipped towards Tom.
"She sold them?" Alphard asked, incredulous.
Tom said nothing, just opened the box containing Helga Hufflepuff's cup and angled it for Alphard to see. Alphard reached out a steady hand, but he apparently couldn't bring himself to actually touch it — which absolutely wouldn't do. If anyone in the world was worthy enough to handle these objects, it would be Alphard. After all, Alphard had been more than half the brains behind finding them for Tom in the first place.
Tom pulled the cup out and placed it in Alphard's hand before opening the locket's box as well. This time, as Tom held the locket in his hand, he let himself fully feel the triumph of his heirloom being returned at last. He felt buoyed, and his head was blessedly clear for the first time in months. He had long since shelved the anger he held towards his mother, both for choosing death over him and for trading such an heirloom for scraps, but he felt as though that anger was well and truly gone as he held the locket in his grip. The apathy he now felt for his mother was a welcome relief.
Though he knew nothing was going to be housed in the locket, he couldn't help his curiosity. He murmured 'open' in a low parseltongue hiss just so he could further inspect and admire it. The inside of the locket was just as beautiful and finely made as the outside, with gold plating and smooth ridges. Tom gently clicked the locket shut, and the tiny emeralds scraped gently over his skin as he again ran his thumb over the serpentine 'S' on its face.
"It's beautiful craftsmanship," Alphard mused, reaching out to finger the heavy chain. He didn't pull it from Tom's grip like Hepzibah had, though; he only reached out to feel the thing for himself.
"Of course it is," Tom whispered, his voice low and sincere and slightly worshipful.
"And the cup… you can feel the hum of the Goblin's forges. It possesses a very powerful type of magic."
The hum that Alphard was feeling was not because of any inherent magic the cup possessed, but because of what Tom had made the cup into only four hours before. His horcruxes were something that were private to him, though, and so he still agreed with Alphard, saying, "They both do, and they're finally in the right hands."
Mine.
After the artifacts were secure in Tom's possession, Tom had resigned from Borgin and Burkes, all apologetic to Mr. Burke about his inability to persuade Hepzibah Smith to part with her precious treasures. Oh, he had been achingly sincere — the hardest emotion to prefect, in his opinion — as he'd stepped away from his position. He had even parted sans his last paycheck, citing he didn't deserve it as he hadn't accomplished his objective. Tom hadn't worked there for the abysmal pay, anyway, and it left fewer questions.
"What's wrong with your face?" Alphard asked. He placed the cup back in the box and lifted it from Tom's lap, setting it next to his discarded book.
Tom raised an eyebrow. "You've always had such an eloquent way with words, dear."
"And now you're mocking, dear," Alphard scoffed. "Spit it out.
"I have to disappear," Tom said after a moment's pause. "There are things I have to get in order, not to mention people that are better to be… avoided, come the week's end."
Alphard rose to his feet at Tom's words, picking up his book as he did so, before leveling a glare at Tom.
"She didn't sell them," Alphard stated.
Tom still didn't answer that particular question, knowing Alphard would hate him for the response. Tom casually wiped his upper lip with the back of his thumb, sniffing in slight annoyance — not at Alphard, but rather at himself for the way he constantly found himself catering to the man. Alphard wasn't giving up on this one, though, given his stern expression and the way he gripped the hardcover tightly.
Tom settled on saying, "Why ask questions you don't want to know the answers to?"
Alphard huffed as he walked away. Tom was never going to give up his pursuit of the power he craved, and Alphard was never going to understand the extremes Tom went to in attempts to achieve it. This put them at an impossible impasse, and Tom hated nothing more. He knew he had two days left with Alphard, though, before he was to leave this flat, and possibly leave him, forever. So Tom followed him to the doorway and roughly spun the man around, only to press him into the wall next to the exit, halting him.
"I don't like when you walk away," Tom said. His voice was low and gravelly, and his tone was one that usually sent others running for the hills. As it were, Alphard had never been afraid of Tom, and he just stood there, very unamused.
"Don't say things that make me walk away," Alphard countered.
Tom smirked at him, his fingers messing with the locket chain still clutched in his fist. Tom was never one for impulsive pursuits; when he went into a situation, he'd already analyzed it a hundred different ways and thought of even a hundred more ways to get out of it. Going with one's "gut" was an idiotic approach to life, in Tom's opinion, yet he then found himself full of hasty thoughts.
Tom placed Slytherin's locket around Alphard's neck, settling the gold chain gently against the man's collarbones. He knew the esteem Alphard held that locket in and how much joy the man would take from wearing such a thing. Tom was satisfied to see the pleased flush extend over Alphard's cheeks — he was even more satisfied with how Alphard's anger at him could be flipped as easily as the lightswitches Tom remembered from the orphanage.
With his most prized possession around the neck of the person he valued most, Tom let himself lean in, pulling Alphard close by the chain of Slytherin's Locket.
i blame twitter for making me interested in this pairing * rolls eyes * so here i am, writing something i never thought i'd write. this was fun, though, and i'm happy i gave myself the chance to do it — even though trying to get into tom riddle's head was extremely difficult.
i'm not sure why, but i feel the need to explain both the 'gold - meaning prestige' prompt and the "someone with dark connotations bringing joy/beauty to someone's world" because it's a little subtle (or it's not subtle at all, and this is unnecessary lol): tom riddle holds both the locket and the cup in high esteem, and they're gold in color. tom — the one with dark connotations — brings joy/beauty to alphard's world by showing him the cup and the locket, and even more so by placing the locket around alphard's neck.
the title for this is from the led zeppelin song, "stairway to heaven," NOT the shakespeare quote from "the merchant in venice."
anyway, thanks so much for giving this a read!