Prism
"You don't have to do this," Dorcas's saying, and her palms face forward, and Tom has never loathed like he loathes her, damn her and that hair.
She liked him better, she'd told him, when he was kind.
And Tom's not kind, and Tom's always been the manipulator she's said he is, hasn't he, with his false alarms and his shaking in her arms, grappling for her arms and for something to restrain him from the solid that is himself; he could have paused someday, he thought, if could have held her arms there, but she wouldn't, and so Tom was left. He steels against the bodies, and Dorcas needs to join the pile.
Wand quivering, Tom tells her, "I think I loved you or something."
"Don't you still?"
"You didn't."
"Oh, Tom, let's not do this again."
But it doesn't matter, and Dorcas forgot fast.
When he saw her hair whipping waltzes around her spells in that first battle, watched her swap grins with filthy redheads and knock his boys down, he spewed into his mask and couldn't keep food down for days. Evanesco, he'd told his mask. Evanesco. Goodbye, Dorcas, goodbye.
Tom had thought things, silly things that are over and trapped in the eyes that she doesn't wear anymore, and he doesn't know where they've gone, the eyes, the things, the gold. Stay golden, she'd said to him before she knew him, I don't know anyone else who hasn't rusted, but he already had; he'd already done that thing in the cave, the one that made Dumbledore pity Tom and Tom pity no one, and Dorcas hadn't known him.
Then Dorcas knew him, and used to clean him up when the nights ended, until one day she didn't and the next she whipped her hair.
He used to twirl it in his fingers, and she didn't used to cringe. He was only kind when sad, she'd told him, and so she liked him better when he was sad, until she finished and suddenly he wasn't sad anymore.
"When you rot in hell," says Tom, "I hope you remember that I'm your fault—I'm all your fault."
The bodies, they'd bought him time to find a reason, and maybe Dorcas could've been the reason—maybe he wouldn't have needed more time—and she forgets fast, and now he does. The green compliments her eyes.
A/N: I hadn't been planning solidly on continuing this, but I'd always hoped to round out the last chapter with Dorcas's death, and then some personal drama happened that ~inspired~ me to finish up, lol. I'm considering eventually taking this down and reworking it into an original short story-I'm not sure how closely I'd follow the 'Tom kills people to make Horcruxes to buy time to find the meaning of life' element because I don't want to copy JK's Horcrux idea, but I'd really like to produce something original featuring 'that one time the sociopath almost wasn't anymore' that maybehopefully I could eventually publish. My first year of grad school is already kicking my ass, though, so that's a long way off, and so this guy will stay up indefinitely for your reading pleasure haha. (Shameless plug that my original stuff is linked in my profile if you'd like to check that out as well!) Reviews are love, and I hope you've enjoyed!
