A/N: Firstly, thanks so much for all the reviews. We appreciate each and every single one of them. Now, this is going to be the first chapter in Tom's perspective…no worries because there will be many more to come. After all, who wouldn't love to delve into the head of our favourite Slytherin ;) ENJOY!

DISCLAIMER: Do we have to say it again? Harry Potter isn't ours, as much as it pains us to admit.

Chapter 8- The Clutches of Death

Tom was frustrated. He never thought a homeschooled orphan like Grey could duel that well. Scratch that, he didn't know anyone who could duel that well… apart from himself of course. He ducked quickly, missing the powerful stunner Grey sent his way. This is it. He narrowed his eyes. He needed to do something fast, it was ruining his untarnished reputation as the best student in school. He would not let a silly girl beat him. He recalled the spell he had read just that lunchtime in 'Magick Moste Evile'. Concentrating hard on perfecting the curse he muttered a few well chosen words and sent it her way.

What happened next was far from what he expected and it sufficiently shocked him to drop his wand and walk toward her. She was eerily raised in the air poised like a dancer but somehow it wasn't quite right. Suddenly she started shuddering and twitching. After what seemed like an age she appeared to lose control and started screaming.

"STOP IT, STOP IT, NO DON'T KILL HER, AND PLEASE DON'T KILL HER."

After a minute of wild thrashing, she was once again silent and poised. It was like she was a puppet in the hands of an invisible man. Soon, she began to twitch erratically, her body jolting from side to side.

"NO! NO! NOT AGAIN, PLEASE NOT AGAIN," she begged, "STOP IT! TAKE ME BACK!"

The class was shell-shocked and everyone, including the Professor was speechless with their mouths wide open. Never had they seen something like this. Never had a curse taken this much control over a person.

Grey fell to the ground in a helpless heap and everyone else backed away against the wall, leaving her in the centre of the room with the spotlight of everyone's gaze on her.

Tom took quick steps towards her knelt down near her head. This wasn't supposed to happen. It was like the chamber of secrets all over again. Who would he blame this time if she was dead? The whole class had scene the duel take place, not to mention professor Merrythought. It wouldn't do to leave the castle at such a critical stage. He was so close finally enchanting the diary and gaining his first step to immortality and he would free from the clutches of death which now seemed to grip the girl lying in front of him.

She stirred slightly, leaning toward him and he stiffened considerably. He was brought out of his reverie by Merrythought's voice, "…Mr. Riddle, could you please take Miss Grey to the hospital wing."

He immediately picked her up and took her to the hospital wing, not wanting to linger near the scene of what could have been a catastrophe for him. He could feel her moving in his arms, her fingers intertwining, and then reopening, and intertwining again.

He couldn't fathom what could have happened if she died. Would the blame be on him? Would they find out the curse he used was Dark Magic? What if he was thrown out of Hogwarts? It would be easy to convince Dippet but there was no saying what that fool Dumbledore could do.

That's the last time I'll try out a spell from that book in front of an audience. Not to mention staying away from that stupid girl.

Seeing that she was shivering, he pulled up her covers. He didn't want her situation blamed on him so he left before the matron could arrive.

Lunch passed like any other lunch; in the library. Slughorn thought he worked himself too hard while the students were undoubtedly repulsed. Tom brushed past a group of giggling girls as he headed towards the restricted section. The librarian didn't even bother to ask for a signature anymore as this happened to be the hundred and seventh time he was heading that way. Tom of course, used this to his advantage and so the teachers, especially Dumbledore were unaware of his frequent wanderings into the restricted section.

"Horcruxes, horcruxes," he muttered to himself as he scanned the bookshelves, his long fingers brushing the spines of the faintly whispering tomes. As walked towards the end of the row he felt a powerful tug of intuition. There was something stopping him from going forward but nevertheless, he continued on. His hand paused over a suspicious book that had a dark stain on the corner and just as he was about to open it the bell rang signalling the end of lunch.

Now more aggravated than ever, Tom headed for Dumbledore's transfiguration class…how useless it was to go to such a pointless lesson conducted by the old fool Dumbledore no less, when he could be researching in the library. Worse still, Dumbledore had taken it upon himself to investigate Tom's every move.

He walked in, early as usual and took his seat in the front of the room. Soon, it was filled with more mindless teenagers and soon the batty old man himself walked in, proclaiming something about a mislaid pair of socks, confirming Tom's opinion on his mental stability.

Rolling his eyes at the mundane charm they were supposed to practice, he sighed and strolled over to the corner to obtain his animal. He duplicated it immediately and moved on to a bigger animal, which again proved no challenge. Seeing this, Dumbledore sent him to work with no other than Miss Grey who he had last seen lying unconscious in the hospital wing. He did not want anything to do with her.

"Hey Riddle," she said.

He ignored her and continued to replicate the cat…several times.

"So are you going to ignore me now?"

He was interrupted yet again by her jabbing her wand in the small of his back. He turned around glaring; How dare she.

"WHAT," he stated angrily.

"Hi." Was that all she wanted to say? That was a waste of both of their times. He could really only think of one thing to say to that.

"Hi."

"So, are you going to say anything else to me?" she tried.

"I don't know, am I?" He answered swiftly.

"Are you?" The annoying girl questioned yet again. It was time to stop her before she made a fool of herself.

"We should work on the charm."

"Pshh, the charm, you and I both know we don't need any work on that Riddle."

"Fine then. What do you want to talk about." She could obviously do the spell as well as him. This annoyed him further.

"I don't know, stuff"

"Stuff?" The imprecision of her statement was driving him crazy. What kind of an undignified word was stuff?

"Ok, I know, let's play twenty questions."

"Twenty questions?"

"Are you going to repeat everything I say and add a question mark?" Look here, she knows her punctuations. Too bad she is severely lacking in the vocabulary department.

"Maybe."

"Ok, well it's like a game…"

"I really couldn't have guessed that." His tone was sarcastic.

"STOP INTERRUPTING!...ok so it's like this game where we each take turns asking the other questions about themselves until we reach twenty and we have to answer."

"And why would we play such a futile game?"

"Because we have nothing better to do"

He realised that she had a point. The floor was now littered with white cats all fighting over the one ball of yarn. Would creating more cats really be a good way to spend his time? She took the initiative and started the game.

"So, uhh, my go, so I ask you, what's your favourite colour?"

What kind of a ridiculous game was this? Asking him to answer such a fruitless question. This seemed like a bigger waste of time than creating cats. And that was really saying something.

"I don't have a favourite colour," Tom firmly answered.

"Come on, EVERYONE has a favourite colour!" Evidently, she had some weird preconceived ideas on regular human tendencies which he was proud not to share. He would never waste his time contemplating colours of all things.

"I just don't, it's not obligatory to have one."

"Ok, fine, don't get so touchy."

"I wasn't getting touchy" God she was infuriating!

"Ok fine you don't have a favourite colour, your turn."

He thought carefully before asking his question, changing the phrasing. She probably wouldn't understand him if he spoke his thoughts. "You obviously seem very well versed in all your subjects although your attitude and vocabulary prove otherwise. You can't possibly have had a tutor who taught you so much that you would be ahead of every class. I want to ask, who was this remarkable man who taught you this?"

He saw her squirming in her chair. Ahh, I've hit a soft spot, didn't her tutor run away leaving her?

"Who says it was a man, huh?" Well, what else could it be? Surely, he thought to himself, a woman would never have the knowledge to teach her all that. (a/n: Alas, Tom too is a sexist pig…well, blame the 1940s)

"Was it?"

"It was my uncle, he's actually my godfather and he lived with us, he tutored me sorta as payment for living in our house and stuff…"

That was interesting, her uncle was obviously a very powerful wizard and he wondered why he left when Grindelwald attacked.

"Ok, what's your favourite food?" she asked.

"I don't waste time on such frivolous rituals. Food is merely a basic necessity to keep us alive, why bother having a favourite one, you know where it ends up."

"I can't believe this."

"Believe it."

"THAT'S IT. This evening, you are coming with me, to the kitchens and I really don't care whether I have to force feed you but you NEED to eat chocolate chip waffles and ice cream. It is going to be the best thing you will ever taste."

"Whatever," he said, in a tone that scarily resembled hers. He had absolutely no interest in taking her up on her request. He had better things to do than spend time eating.

"ARE YOU MOCKING ME?" She shouted out. He turned his back on her indignant expression, and sprinted towards the dinner hall. Having missed lunch, he was after all, hungry and than inane conversation about food had made him hungrier still.

After dinner, he immediately drifted towards the library, more out of habit than anything else as it was proving to be useless to him. At the rate he was going, he would be older than Dippet before he found the book he was looking for.

He returned to the exact position he was in (a/n: THAT'S WHAT SHE SAID!) and looked for the book that he was about to open. (a/n: we could actually make another sexual joke about that…but we won't…) To his fury, it was no where to be seen. It was as if someone had deliberately removed it right after he had seen it.

After another hour of unproductive searching, Tom resigned to the fact that no other book could give him the information he needed. A wave of foreign helplessness washed over him.

He moodily walked down to the Slytherin common room and wrenched open the hangings of his four poster bed. There lying in the silken green sheets was the miniscule bottle Slughorn had presented to him. Of course, he thought, this was the answer to all his problems. With a bit of luck, he could find the key to creating his first ever horcrux.

He carefully unscrewed the bottle and took a cautious sip. After nothing out of the ordinary happened, he tossed back the entire bottle. He did after all need as much luck as he could possibly get.

A/N: Well, there you go. That's Tom's perspective of all the things that happened. Unfortunately, he didn't feel any remorse for his actions in the Defence Duel…but he did regret them. At the moment he has no feelings for her other than annoyance. And it is natural that he only thought of saving his own skin (he is after all a Slytherin.) Well now, both Tom AND Elena have taken the lucky potion…what's gonna happen now? ;)

The title of the next chapter though? Be careful what you drink, it just might be the wrong potion.

We'll let you try to think of what horrible things we have in store for our two lovely characters. It could be anything. –EVIL GRIN-

Well, don't forget to review! :D