A/N: Apparently doesn't let me put in line breaks or asterisks so it's really hard to tell when I split the chapters. Which is driving me nuts.
"I can't do this," she whispered. But unlike the girl she wanted to be who got up and left, she couldn't move. And neither could he.
The boy who was to be the most soulless person that had ever existed in Wizarding History and still was. The most evil and secretive person that man had ever known. The person she was supposed to murder; had shown a passion that didn't revolve around magic.
Chapter Five
Marie stumbled around her dorm – half awake – her mind still trying to cope with just what exactly she'd gotten herself into. She wasn't the type of person to kiss people unless she truly liked them – despite her extroverted behavior – and she did not like Tom Riddle. Firstly, they'd barely spoken a handful of words to each other which wasn't her style, she preferred to be able to have an actual conversation with the person she –
"You going to the match?" Christa Van Horn asked, tucking her dark brown hair into precarious braids, her silver and green scarf wrapped around her neck. She looked like one of those girls who belonged in the Style edition of Witch Weekly. It was a far cry from Marie's own ripped pajamas and dark bruises underneath her eyes from lack of sleep.
"I'm going," Zelda announced, pushing Christa away from the mirror so she could check that her Slytherin pin was placed directly in the center of the left side on her cloak. "And I'm definitely going to meet Marcus later."
The remaining girls giggled, filing out one after the other like they were an inseparable group of friends. She'd had that once. Friends that she could always count on. Her group had consisted of Emily Ross, a very loyal and vivacious Gryffindor who happened to be her best friend, Jane Burgundy, another Gryffindor, and Claire Cristobel, the only one of their friends who belonged to another house. They'd laughed together, told each other everything, except this…
"Are you coming?" Zelda had poked her head back in the room, grinning broadly at some joke that Christa had just cracked out of earshot.
Marie shook her head. "Transfiguration homework," she said, hoping she sounded apologetic. A part of her wanted desperately to go, she loved Quidditch, but if she wanted to look intelligent in a classroom full of even smarter Slytherins she'd better stay inside.
"See you."
She waved at the girl's retreating back, pitying herself slightly for being so terrible at Transfiguration.
An hour later Marie was seated in her usual place at the library, her books laid out in front of her. She was pouring over the Complete History of Tangent spells and finding it as boring as it probably found her when he sat down across from her.
What, Did he live here?
Unlike all the other times she'd seen him in the library there wasn't a book anywhere near him. He sat, his stormy eyes watching her with keen fascination. Marie flushed, hoping to ignore him – hoping to not think of what she was here to do and how easy it would be to do it right now.But her curiosity was lit and no matter how hard she tried she couldn't just be done with her mission. Not until he played his hand.
"Are you going to ignore me?" His voice was cool, completely calm but there was a hint of irritation beneath the surface that told her she was striking gold.
"Planning on it," she said, taking out her Potions essay and began to revise it.
He sat for a few more moments in silent patience before he stood, walking around the table to sit next to her. But he didn't sit down; his hands went to her neck smoothing the hair away. It should have been creepy – and it was – but apart of her enjoyed it. And then he squeezed, cutting off her air supply.
"Would you like to ignore me now?" He whispered in her ear.
Panic swelled in her gut as she choked out, shaking her head in fear. Wasn't he always serene and deadly or murderous with annoyance? He let her go, her head shooting forwards nearly smacking into the table.
"You want more of me," she rasped, breathing being extremely painful. He laughed, leaning forwards. This time he initiated it, gently kissing her– torturing her until he had complete control.
The fear was still there pounding in her chest but there was something else that was going to eventually crush her resolve – she knew it. She was already emotionally entangled when she shouldn't be. They hadn't even spoken! He was practically the incarnate of pure evil and he was going to kill hundreds of people and she was falling.
"No!"
It hadn't come from her. She was still practically melting into him when he pushed her away. He turned away, heading down the hallway and her brain didn't react but her legs did.
"Tom," she said, softly.
"Don't call me that," he hissed, turning on her. "Don't ever use that name with me."
"Tom," she said again, stretching out a hand towards him.
"I said –!"
She touched his arm, hoping the gesture would soften. But whom was she kidding, it was Lord Voldemort, nothing mellowed him.
Marie started, jerking upwards from her position sleeping at the library tables. She'd had a dream – a horrible, terrible dream. And she wanted it to happen in real life. She sat up groggily, rubbing her eyes, looking around to see what exactly had woken her up.
And there he was, reading across from her, casually flipping the pages of his book with those long slender fingers. She shuddered, uncharacteristically biting her lip. A part of her felt like asking how long he'd been sitting there. The other part, more growing, felt like the silence was somehow fitting. So she sat, waiting ridiculously for him to say something, which she knew he wouldn't. After a half of an hour past, he stood nodding to her, and left.
She watched his retreating back, a slight hope rising in the pit of her stomach that he might turn around and look at her. As much as she wished it, it didn't really seem like Tom Riddle was – he twitched. He twitched! Voldemort twitched; turning his cheek ever so slightly that she saw his eyes flicker quickly towards her. She turned away just as fast, staring blankly down at her book.
It occurred to her when she left the library that some underlying feeling – a womanly intuition that she hadn't known she had – that this had been some sort of date. And she'd been asleep for half of it.
She whispered his name when she was sleeping – she'd whispered his name. Tom sat in the Slytherin common room, twirling his wand absent-mindedly around his fingers. His friends sat around his feet, waiting for some sort of instruction. Some twittered aimlessly, but there was no mistake in the air of excitement that hovered around them.
"What are we to do, My Lord," said Avery, who knelt by the fireplace, his shoulders twitching nervously.
He raised a hand to silence him. They wanted to know what to do with Marie – and he couldn't exactly tell them what not to do. Not without raising a few suspicions. He waved his hand, in a sign of dismissal. "Leave her." They bowed to him, and he silently mused that someday they would be kissing the hem of his robes.
In past his meetings with the students who were smart enough – or scared enough in some respects – to follow him he enjoyed their revered worship they saved for him. He wanted Marie to adore him – but not in the same fearful way the rest of them did. His chest physically hurt today in the library when he studied her sleeping patterns. She was a deep sleeper, that moved around to get comfortable on top of her Transfiguration book – a class he had no idea how she'd gotten into – and only breathed his name once.
Just one time. But it had been enough.
The ambitious part of him matched up for the first time, outside his plans, with the side he kept leashed, the uncontrolled side.
The wall to the common room slid open; a gaggle of giggling girls entered and at the back was Marie. His eyes drew to her like a moth to flame, and he tracked her movements when they all dropped their book bags over by a clear table. She sat at the back, pretending to be listening, smiling when necessary. It was during the parts where no one was looking at her (but him) and her friends were gossiping insipidly over the clip in Harriet Godwin's hair last Saturday, that she looked away from them to stare aimlessly at the roaring fire. She glanced up, as if sensing his gaze, and stared at him. Shamelessly looking at him, analyzing him, as he was her.
"Marie," a girl named Christa hissed, looking positively mortified. He felt a rise of irritation as her gaze was drawn away from his. "Stop looking at him." All the girls glanced quickly at him and then away again as if he were dirty – but he knew that wasn't it. They were afraid of him – they all were – it was like some survival instinct within every person who avoided him. They knew that he was walking death.
Marie frowned, a determined and stubborn set to her jaw started up when she stood, walking at a normal pace to sit directly across from him. It seemed as if the whole world was watching – well at least the whole entire Slytherin house who would no doubt spread it to the rest of the school by morning. She cocked her head, her finger trembling around her wand.
He moved lightning quick to his, feeling under his skin that she was going to jinx him. And then she re-adjusted her wand, securing is safely in her pocket, looking up at him with wide, frightened doe eyes as she registered his own want sitting perfectly still on his lap.
"I need help," she said, still looking him directly in the eye. He didn't like it. She refused to give him control. "I'm dreadful at Transfiguration, as you well know, and I need… help," she finished lamely, a scowl crossing her face.
Tom didn't speak. Did she want him to help her? He didn't help people, and yet the idea of her being at his intellectual mercy when it came to a subject gave him a thrill. She was going to be prey – the hunted – and he was going to like ruling her. Only as long as she put up a fight.
He looked into her eyes, and saw the faintest glimmer of amusement. Oh, there was no doubt about her battling him. It would be warfare when he brought her down. And he would thoroughly enjoy it,
Tom Riddle nodded, flipping open to the first chapter on their Advanced Transfiguration book. They would start with basics.