A/N: So this is definitely a lot later than I originally intended it to be! I guess that's because I've literally written this chapter five times, five different ways. And even now, I'm not sure I'm wholly satisfied with the product (I'm worried it skips around too much too fast). I'm much more excited for the next chapter, which will be titled "Three Last Days". I'm actually really curious as to how many people are gonna wanna kill me after reading this, heh heh. All I can tell you to soothe any worries you have is this: the story isn't over yet, and I actually do know what I'm doing! Anyways, the next chapter is turning out to be a lot easier to write, thank god! And I also want to thank anyone who reads/faves/alerts/reviews! I absolutely adore reviews, they give me a lot of incentive to hurry my ass up.
Without further ado, the twenty-first chapter of our journey!
Chapter Twenty-One: No Time to Spare
They slammed into the ground, accompanied by a torrential flood of water. It threatened to invade his lungs, to steal the air from them and draw him into unconsciousness. Flames of pain licked at his left shoulder, dancing all the way down to his wrist. Even the slightest movement fed the inferno, causing him to bite out a groan of pain.
Beside him, someone was coughing. "Look sharp, eh Anthony?" the voice said scathingly, and Tom Riddle glanced upwards to see his partner on his feet.
He gave a noncommittal grunt in response, rising to his knees slowly. Blood ran down his arm in rivers, as it'd been doing ever since the Chimera took a swipe at him. The smart beast had chosen the exact moment he was distracted by Leah's arrival to strike, and his inattention cost him dearly.
Tom retrieved his wand from a nearby pile of mud and set to work on healing his injuries. His medical examination was cut short when he heard Matthew make a short sound of disappointment. "Oh no," he said, "I think she's dead."
He was on his feet instantly, taking long strides towards Matthew, who knelt beside Leah. Her skin was dead pale, her lips slightly blue. She wasn't breathing.
"Probably drowned," Matthew said.
Tom made a distinct noise of displeasure, falling to his knees near her head. Two fingers sought for a pulse on her neck, and he let his mouth twist upwards when he detected a very faint one. "Still alive," he replied.
"Not for long."
Tom ignored Matthew and set to work summoning the water from his fallen companion's lungs. A long stream of the liquid pooled from her mouth, dyed red with blood.
"Bloody hell," Matthew continued, "was our mission debrief misleading or what? 'Slight complications may arise' bullshit," he scoffed. "We lost everyone. Not exactly a normal day at the office, if you catch my drift." He trailed off, his next words spoken more to himself than his partner, "Better get paid well for this. Trisha will have my head if I don't pay her three months rent. Nearly talked my ear off last week—women!"
Tom ignored Matthew, choosing to focus on Leah. He pulled the wet sleeves of her sweater up, his brow furrowing after seeing the extent of the damage done to her wand-wrist. The bone was poking out of her skin.
Normally, setting bones was easy, but after hours of exposure...well, that was a different story. Riddle wasn't sure how well he could heal Leah. He hadn't been given much to work with. The skin around the injury was grey and falling to the ground in mutilated lumps. If he didn't work soon, he would have to amputate.
"Ouch," Matthew said helpfully, having returned to Tom's side to peek at his progress. "Can you heal that?"
"Not well," Tom admitted. He began waving his wand in a complex set of patterns, mumbling under his breath all the while. Matthew watched silently, nodding his approval when the bone of Leah's wrist retracted itself into her skin. New tissue bubbled up over the wound, and disfigured and twisted as it was, it served its purpose.
"It's not a permanent solution," Tom said. "She'll need to go see a proper healer later. The rest of her injuries do not look nearly as bad, though." And he was right. Besides from a few bruises and a deep gash on her other hand, Leah appeared perfectly healthy. If only she didn't look so frail and sickly…
"Don't suppose you'd heal me?"
"Heal you? Why Matthew, when were you even hurt? Did you trip and fall while trying to run out the back door?" Tom did nothing to hide the anger lacing his tone, recalling perfectly well how the older man had tried to leave their team to the mercy of the Chimeras and Acromantula.
Matthew was either oblivious to sarcasm or rather adept at ignoring it, for he replied: "Most likely. I think I twisted my ankle on the damn bridge."
"How unfortunate."
Matthew grinned, his lips stretched taut. The smile fell, however, when he gazed at his partner. "What are you doing?"
Tom followed Matthew's eyes, and found his hand tangled in Leah's hair, occasionally grazing her jaw. He snapped backwards immediately, stuffing both hands in his pockets and turning his attention to the room they resided in.
It was plain, boring really, like a cave one would find in the woods. The cavern was completely empty, except for a large stone pillar near the back that appeared to be glowing. The light was gold in color and ethereal in nature, stemming from the object the rock held.
Matthew crossed his arms, "That was a pretty smart move, the little witch did, saved our lives I should say." He kept his eyes trained on his partner's back, watching for a physical reaction.
Tom gave him none. "It was stupid. She almost died. There was no way of knowing whether or not that little maneuver would work. Dumb luck."
"It does not matter, I suppose. I think we found what we came for." Matthew gestured to the stone pillar. "Grab it, and let's get out of here."
"You want me to grab it?" Tom said disbelievingly, "Just like that? Shouldn't you be the one to check for possible curses, considering how you so skillfully managed to come out of our other skirmishes unscathed?"
Matthew glared. Hard. "I'm in charge here, so yeah, just like fucking that."
Tom fought back a sneer. No one ordered him to do anything, much less with such a disrespectful tone. If only the insolent bastard knew who he was. Tom would take pleasure in killing him when the time came.
The man was an idiot, anyways. He didn't even have the skills to pick out imposters. Matthew was so woefully detached from his partner, Anthony, that Tom had no trouble masquerading as him. The Polyjuice Potion wasn't going to last for much longer, though, so perhaps it was best to hurry up and leave the grounds.
"Oh wait! The girl's waking up. Grab the necklace and I'll take care of her."
Tom didn't reply, his eyes already drawn to the artifact piled amidst the rubble atop the pillar. Raw power pulsed from it, outlining the necklace in a way that made it seem surreal. As he ascended the block steps towards the Founders Necklace, he felt its power gradually sink into his skin.
When his eyes finally settled on the necklace his world ceased to spin. Everything melted away, until there was nothing but him and an astute awareness of the energy expanding outwards to cocoon him. An electrified feeling seared through his veins, making his whole body ache in a mixture of pain, fear, and excitement.
The lulling pull of the necklace was strong, so strong that Tom feared he was being completely consumed. He felt as if he only had moments left before he was ripped from his body, destroyed by what he had sought for so diligently.
His heartbeat thundered in his ears. His hand stretched forward, unconsciously seeking the power, unconsciously bringing him closer to madness. Closer, closer, closer, almost there…
A retching noise bounced against the cavern walls.
Gone.
An unpleasant pressure squeezed his heart, making it pump white hot rage into his veins. He had been so close! So close that he could still feel the desire pooling in his stomach. How dare someone take that away from him?
His rage screamed retribution, and his wand was already in his hand when rationality took control. Thinking logically, he found that the unbounded energy had been too much for him to handle. He had been caught unawares by its dangerous seduction. He'd been flirting with death. The wand settled back in his pocket.
Shaking his head of the fog that had claimed his mind, Tom spied Leah crouched on her hands and knees, spewing blood from her mouth. He gritted his teeth and discovered the sight uneasy to watch.
Turning his head, Tom reached for the necklace again, more aware of its potentially deadly appeal. With his mental shields firmly in place, he found his mind thankfully clear. He clutched the glowing item to his chest, unable to stop himself from admiring its raw energy and power.
He reached Matthew and Leah before controlling the recognizable admiration burning in his eye, and whispered an appreciative word: "Beautiful". He placed the Founders Necklace in his pocket, and turned his attention to Leah.
Decidedly less blue in the face, the girl was a jumbled mess of dirt, blood, and bruises—an unattractive combination. Her jaw was locked, though, and her shoulders tense.
She didn't look surprised or uncomfortable when they mentioned her death would be a very plausible way to end the evening. And indeed, when Matthew began questioning Leah, she lied with her best poker face. She was…expectant, or resigned at the very least, to her fate.
But Tom had seen expectation and resignation in others before, and he knew how easily a little pain could crumble the most honorable man's will. From the way Leah's thin body shook, and her hands trembled, he guessed that she was in quite a bit of pain already, and wondered how long she would keep quiet and resist divulging information.
Matthew gave her one last chance to answer his questions, one last chance to avoid a most unpleasant experience.
Leah wheezed, "No thanks," and crumbled further into the ground when Matthew's torture curse collided with her chest.
Screams echoed throughout the cave, bouncing along the rocky walls. Tom was used to such cries, but couldn't help feeling a bit sick listening to them come from Leah's mouth. To distract himself, he wondered about her sudden appearance.
They had fought before leaving Hogwarts. She was furious at him for the manipulative steps he took to receive her assistance in distracting Matthew. He'd only been expectant of her fury, but not of all the words she'd thrown at him during their confrontation in the Room of Requirement.
"Why didn't you trust me enough to ask?"she'd shouted, or something close to that.
The words had taken him by surprise. He'd never even consider being truthful in his pursuit of gaining her help, and now realized it was because he couldn't trust her. Trusting anyone had become a taboo practice, and he was more than less inclined to break it for someone who was dishonest herself.
Leah wanted them to be equals. She believed that if he stopped building up walls of mistrust and simply let her in, than their inequality would be dissolved. But it was much more complicated than that. If anything, indulging Leah's requests would only tip the scales even further in her direction. Leah was surprisingly well informed about his past, while he was kept in the dark about hers. His secrets were the only leverage he held against her. Keeping them was the only way to maintain the balance.
Tom couldn't completely repress the resentment he felt about how little power he held in their relationship. She was the one who had sworn some dark oath of loyalty to him. He should be in total control, and confident of this power. Instead, he stood around questioning just who held a greater stake against whom. It was a novel experience, and an unwelcomed one.
His anger and nervousness at this revelation was outshined by the curiosity he harbored for the circumstances surrounding Leah's arrival. When she hadn't shown up at the designated spot at the designated time, he'd just assumed she was out. He had felt slightly pained at the realization that her absence meant he would have to erase her memory. But it was an unavoidable consequence. She knew too much of his actions and plans, she would have to be silenced one way or another.
Such an event would mark the end of their rocky relationship. When he erased her memory, he would sneak a peek into it as well, satisfying the intoxicating curiosity he felt. Without the mystery, there would no longer be a reason to stay around her.
It was because of this, he realized, that he dreaded discovering her secrets. He desperately wanted to know what she knew, and how, but at the same time he wasn't sure he was ready to destroy the one excuse he had to see her.
It was frustrating to think about, he decided as Leah's screams finally died. It had always been his quest for knowledge that drew him to her, but perhaps something else kept him at her heels. There had to be, for there was no other reason for him to loathe the thought of letting her go. Was it physical attraction? He certainly lusted after her to an extent, but he'd felt lust before, and it was nowhere near as all-consuming as it was now. No, there was something more, a combination of things impossible to name, though the end result was the same. He wanted her with him.
This was especially dissatisfying, because the same didn't hold true for Leah. She was his unwilling companion, bound to him by dark magic. And even though the bind would stay intact after he found what she was hiding, it wouldn't be the same.
Their relationship had been defined by business—he needed to reveal her secrets, she needed the Founders Necklace. Tom wanted something more to define their interactions. He didn't want her to come to him because some mark forced her to, he didn't want to seek her out only to try and batter down her mental defenses.
It was the strangest thing in the world, but Tom found he anticipated the day when he and Leah became true equals. It would be the day she told him everything he would ever want to know about her, and the day when he finally stopped throwing up smokescreens to distract her from his true intentions. And on this day, the one thing that tied them together would be broken, and he was more than willing to create something else to keep her with him, because he liked her, and he wanted her, and he believed he was finally ready to accept this fact.
But why was she here?
Matthew sighed and gathered Leah's wet hair into one hand, holding it away from her face as she choked blood from her lungs. Catching Tom's gaze from over her head, he shrugged. "She won't be able to handle more," he admitted, "if this goes on for much longer, she'll die."
Leah didn't appear to hear him.
Tom worked to keep his face indifferent, but it was turning out to be very difficult.
"I didn't like doing that anymore than you liked suffering through it. I'll ask you again: who do you work for and how did you find this place?" Matthew directed his slightly abashed tone towards their captive.
Leah continued shuddering, having a hard time getting control of her body. The torture curse was one of—if not the—most painful spells to endure, so it was understandable that her body was having a hard time obeying its commands.
Tom's hand clenched tightly around Anthony's wand in his pocket. He was saving it to kill Matthew with, as it was better to use a wand other than his own. Now was as good a time as any other to get rid of the man who had served his purpose, but for some reason, Tom held back.
He wanted to see if Leah had any sense of self-preservation. After suffering through an Unforgivable like that, it was expected of her to break down and sob for her life.
"I politely decline to answer the question," Leah hacked, trying to wipe the blood from her chin. She missed.
Tom scowled. Did she have any idea that another round of torture would kill her? End her existence? Who was so wholly important that she needed to protect them with her life?
"Okay. Another round then, cru—"
"—Avada Kedavra."
Tom said the killing spell lazily, watching impassively as it met its mark somewhere near Matthew's ribs. It sent him sprawling straight into Leah, dead, as they were both brought to the muddy cavern floor. Just in time, too, for seconds later Tom doubled over in pain as the Polyjuice Potion wore off, shrinking his skin and bones and readjusting them to their original size and shape.
With very little respect, he kicked Matthew's dead body off of Leah, making sure it landed face first in the mud. He threw Anthony's wand next to the body, content with the fact that all who knew of his involvement were dead.
Thankful for the glowing plant-life stuck to the cave walls, Tom kneeled next to Leah's unconscious body, reassuring himself that she was alive when he checked her pulse. He anchored her body against his chest and retrieved a bottled Blood-Replenishing Potion from his pocket.
Gently, he tipped Leah's head back and set the edge of the bottle to her lips. He let a generous amount seep pass them, and held her mouth and nose closed. He rubbed her neck to help ease the concoction down her throat.
Dead white skin turned slightly pink, though replacing the blood she had lost did nothing for the cold. Now in a more stable condition, Leah's body shook with shivers. Tom frowned at the blood stained skin of her chin. Something was most definitely wrong with her organs, but he wasn't sure he had the medical skill required to help her.
He spent his time learning how to make people suffer, not heal them. If Tom wanted her to live, he would have to contact a healer, one who was discreet. He had someone in mind.
But for now, all Leah had was him, and he would fight to keep her alive. He eased the thick cloak off his shoulders, wrapping it tightly around her body before casting a levitation spell. There was a tunnel behind the stone pillar where he had discovered the Founders Necklace. If there was an exit out of this labyrinth, it was there.
Tom followed the steep incline of the tunnel. He'd been walking for a little over ten minutes, twisting and turning with the corridor, when he finally caught sight of the moonlit exit. He slowly eased Leah's body in front of him, and walked away from the dark cave until they hit the edge of the forest. It was only then that he reached the end of the Anti-Apparition wards.
He completed a Side-Along Apparition that left him and Leah in the room he rented at the Leaky Cauldron. It was small, with only one bed, a fireplace nestled into the wall to the left of the door, and a dresser situated besides the headboard of the bed. There was a small door to the right of the entrance, and that led to the equally small bathroom.
Tom quickly stole the thick cloak from around Leah's shoulders and spread it like a blanket on the floor, a safe distance away from the fireplace. This done, he situated Leah's body atop the makeshift bedding and started a small fire to keep her warm.
Crouching before her, he observed her dirty clothes. He casted a quick cleaning and drying charm, and then set to work on removing her shoes. It was when this endeavor was almost complete that he felt how feverish her skin had become.
He could probably charm the sickness away, but found he was more inclined to go about things the Muggle way, for once.
With a meticulousness he was known for, Tom's fingers skimmed the bottom of Leah's thick blue sweater. He grasped its edges and gently worked it over her arms, shoulders, and head.
This revealed a plain white button down that he removed more slowly. Each undone button exposed another inch of tantalizing skin, until at last he was staring at a bare torso, clad with only one necessary undergarment.
Something urged his hand forwards, and he found his fingers barely skimming over her cheek and jaw before they were drawn downwards. Along the slope of her neck, over the curve of one breast, and across the scarred tissue of her abdomen, Tom continued his exploration of her body with fascinated and dark eyes.
Now that he'd acknowledge his longing for her in the cave—accepted that he wanted her for much more and much longer than originally intended—it was hard to keep his hands to himself. The only thing harder was to recognize that Leah had already rejected his advances.
Her rejection hadn't bothered him much at the time. Sure, he'd been angry and confused and frustrated, but it'd been easy to direct those emotions elsewhere, once he convinced himself he only desired her body. And honestly, it had never been hard for Tom Riddle to get a lady to turn her attention to him. But now that he realized he craved all of her, and wanted the satisfaction of having her accept and ache for his contact as much as he did hers, her dismissal of him was like a kick to the stomach.
A thunderous scowl broke across his face, and Tom worked slightly faster. He slid her dark skirt down her ridiculously small hips and off her legs, exposing the stockings underneath. He peeled back these tights next; unable to completely suppress the pure frustration he felt when the body-hugging material required a lot of handling to remove.
Every brush of skin against skin set his blood on fire, amplified a million times over when he decided to carry, rather than levitate, her to the bed. He was a masochist, apparently.
She settled against the blankets easily enough, and when he released her completely from his grasp, she burrowed her head in his pillow and inhaled deeply. It made him feel slightly better.
Pausing over her coiled form, he brushed the wet hair over her shoulder, pushing it back on the pillow. Her bare neck glared startlingly white in the moonlight, and Tom could just barely make out long lashes that flirted with high cheek bones. Deciding to send logical thinking on a short vacation, he leaned down until his nose bumped her jaw. Her skin was cold and sticky with sweat, a symptom of her feverish state. He settled his lips over her pulse and applied little pressure, a thank-you to the beating heart that kept her alive.
After, he took a very, very cold shower.
When Morgan awoke, it was with a great deal of coughing and pain. One minute she was deliriously close to that wonderful interlude between awareness and unawareness, and the next her body was in a whirl of motion. She was bent at the waist, a hand clamped tightly around her mouth, and her chest heaving so terribly that she thought she would fall off the bed she rested in.
When she drew her hand away, it was wet with blood. It wasn't a surprising sight, but still woefully depressing.
Glancing towards the chest of drawers next to her, she found three bottles of different potions resting atop a piece of parchment. Curious, she stretched a sore arm out to retrieve the items.
The parchment was a hastily written note. It explained that one potion was a Blood-Replenishing, the next a Cough potion, and the last a Strengthening Solution. The rest of the words explained she was resting in a hotel room at the Leaky Cauldron, and suggested she stay put. It was signed 'Tom Marvolo Riddle'.
Morgan was significantly cheered when she read this, for she would rather Tom Riddle undress her as opposed to some stranger. It also meant that Tom, wherever the hell he'd been, had made it out of the cave alive. Content, she rubbed at her eyes and discovered her previously broken wrist strained painfully at the movement. It had been healed, but not very well. Swell.
Shaky legs sought purchase against the aging floorboards as Morgan's desire to get clean outweighed any of her body's other needs, including the need for the three potions.
She was forced to use the bed as a crutch on the way to the bathroom, because apparently, her legs had adopted the horrible habit of simply ceasing to work at rather frequent intervals.
The sight of her naked body made her want to gag. She was so thin! Her ribs and collarbone were beginning to jut from her skin, and she was pretty sure she had no muscle to speak of anymore. Lips puckered back at her from the reflection, and she turned on the water before she could grow anymore distressed. The temperature of the water was allowed to increase steadily, until steam flooded the bathroom—from past experiences, Morgan had learned hot water was best for scrubbing the grime off your skin until it was raw.
The blood washed from her body easily enough, but Morgan still felt…dirty? Soiled? It was a hard emotion to name. Did causing someone's death, like she had down in the cave, always leave you so…hopeless—so filled with the desire to get clean, but left with the inability to do so?
Morgan didn't understand why it was bothering her so much. She'd contemplated killing people before, had even casted a successful killing curse on Voldemort (wasn't her fault it missed). Why was it different this time? Why was thinking about the act, trying to commit the act, so, so, so, different than actually doing it?
For all the time she spent in the small shower, she couldn't figure it out. So Morgan did what she did best—she locked the disturbing feeling in a box and threw away the key. If she could care about a future psychopath and pretend it was okay, she could certainly put her compartmentalization skills to work and separate her feelings of self-loathing from her memory of the killing. In fact, while she was at it, she might as well lock away all the images of bloodied water and floating limbs and death.
Lock them away and burn the key.
Besides, the dude had been a Grindelwald lackey. He wouldn't have hesitated to kill her, right? Right.
Morgan gave herself a little mental pat on the back and willed her legs to get her out of the shower. She patted herself dry with a towel, taking exceptional care around her abdomen and chest area, and staggered out to the dingy room she had woken up in.
Thankfully, the dresser was within arms' length of the bed, so Morgan was able to sit down and riffle through them without worrying if her knees would give out. The first drawer held a couple pairs of trousers and some button down shirts. She smiled slightly—they were most definitely Tom's.
Moving on, she found her clothes cleaned and dry hiding in the second drawer. Her wand was bundled between her sweater, and she wasted no time putting off the inevitable—actually getting dressed.
The nasty little habit her legs had adopted seemed to spread to her arms as well, so maneuvering her shirt and sweater on took more time than strictly necessary. But that struggle was nothing compared to the fight against gravity she endured whilst trying to slide her skirt up around her waist.
Finally more-or-less dressed and clean, she popped the corks on all three potion bottles and downed them in quick succession. They tasted terrible, as potions tend to, but she couldn't deny how much better she felt. Energy and small amounts of strength burst into her arms and legs, and her head no longer felt sluggish.
It was a breath of fresh air, especially considering she was able to breathe without coughing every ten seconds or so.
How could Tom expect her to stay inside and rest now?
With a small smile, she went back to the drawer that held Tom's clothes. She grabbed one of his pristine shirts and buried her face in it. The smell of his cologne flooded her senses. It was a sharp scent, ordinarily musky like most cologne, but somewhat more…subtly sweet, like citrus. Long story short, Morgan decided it was downright alluring.
She almost replaced her shirt with Tom's, a mischievous smirk bringing her lips to life, before pausing to consider the unpleasant implications that would arise. With one last farewell sniff, she left the shirt in its former residence and continued her perusal of the other drawers.
The last one held a swath of dark fabric, that when fully withdrawn, revealed itself to be a thick, black cloak. Phantom fingers of pain caressed her shoulder while she acknowledged there was something very familiar about the clothing.
She spread the cloak on the bed, and her eyes were immediately drawn to the rips that nearly destroyed the entire left side of it. Suddenly, the remembrance of pain in her shoulder made more sense.
Morgan had last seen the cloak on one of Grindelwald's me: Anthony. His whole entire shoulder had been ripped apart, but he'd still taken the time to try and save her from falling off the bridge in Gryffindor's cave. Not that it had mattered in the long run, for the entire thing disappeared, sending them into the murky, watery depths of Hufflepuff's cave. He'd been the guy she wrestled the black gem away from, the same gem she found in the Chamber of Secrets earlier in the year, the one she surrendered to Tom.
A frown chased away the last vestiges of her good humor. Why did Tom have Anthony's cloak? And why did Anthony have Tom's gem?
Fingers chased along the torn seams of the fabric as Morgan contemplated the situation. The answer was blaringly obvious, screaming curse words in her face, but she didn't want to acknowledge it unless she was sure.
So, she looked at the facts.
She'd given Tom the black gem she discovered in the statue of Salazar Slytherin. To her knowledge, he'd kept the trinket under his watchful eye.
Weeks earlier, Tom had mentioned that he already had a plan to steal the Founders Necklace, the details of which he didn't find it prudent for her to know.
Matthew had been a guest at Slughorn's Christmas Party. They spoke throughout most of the night while she observed Tom entertaining a decidedly less guarded Anthony—the partner Matthew mentioned despising.
Tom had been brewing a potion in the Room of Requirement, one she wasn't supposed to know anything about.
When the facts were lined up like that, they all pointed to a solution that was impossible to ignore, one that fit too well to consider it a coincidence. Tom had Anthony's cloak, and Anthony had Tom's gem, because Tom was Anthony.
Morgan was supposed to distract Matthew at the Christmas Party so Tom could snag a bit of Anthony's DNA to use for a Polyjuice Potion, the concoction he'd been brewing in the Room of Requirement. Tom's plan to steal the Founders Necklace had been to masquerade as a member of the team Grindelwald sent to retrieve the item.
Damn.
"What an asshole," Morgan sniffed unhappily, telling herself that no, those weren't tears building behind her eyes, but a side-effect of the potions she'd taken. "Would it kill you to tell me the truth for once? To not lie?"
She supposed so. Honestly, what was their relationship really, if not one manipulation piled atop another? They brought out the worst in each other. He manipulated her because he didn't trust her (didn't trust anyone, is more like it), and she was constantly jeopardizing her mission for a silly little crush!
Though it wasn't the manipulation that caused her hands to shake with fury, it was the fact that the idiot had sat there while she was getting tortured! She'd gone down that stupid cave for him, because she was worried for him, and how does he repay such fucking consideration? He watches her get tortured.
Morgan didn't know why it hurt so much. It wasn't like she was surprised—Voldemort got off torturing anything that breathed, and spent Sunday afternoons kicking puppies at his leisure. The guy was the epitome of all evil, and you don't get to that level of Evil Asshole without a little practice first. So of course it was logical that Tom wasn't bothered by the screams of tortured innocents.
But she, she wasn't a tortured innocent. She was supposed to be his friend. Friends don't let friends get the life kicked out of them (literally speaking), and she figured that was why her heart hurt so much.
While Morgan thought they were friends, while she cared for Tom, he obviously didn't give a shit about her. The feeling was fairly reminiscent of getting kicked in the face—it made her head hurt and caused her face to scrunch up in an unpleasant manner.
Well, then, if Tom didn't care about her, there really wasn't a reason to dawdle in the past, was there? No, none at all. She'd get the Time Turner dust, the slip of paper with Snape's spell, and nab the necklace. Then, she'd leave.
It was slightly ironic, actually, that in Hufflepuff's cave she discovered one of her greatest fears was to have Tom Riddle either hate or love her. It turned out that Tom felt neither of those things for her—he felt nothing for her. It was better this way, then, right?
Morgan didn't know.
It still hurt, more than she ever wanted to acknowledge.
He shouldn't have been surprised to find her inhabiting the table hidden in the corner shadows of the Leaky Cauldron. Leah rarely took his words seriously, and often went out of her way to disobey him.
So no, Tom wasn't surprised to see her twirling her finger around a glass of water with a carefully contorted blank face. She didn't so much as glance in his direction when he took the seat opposite her, leaning back in his chair.
"Good evening, Leah," he said neutrally.
Her mouth opened, closed. Her eyes flitted to the rim of her glass, then to the table, and then the glass again. She swallowed a sigh, straightened and slumped her shoulders, locked her fingers together.
Oh. So she figured out his deception.
Feeling his intent gaze on her, Leah said to her cup of water, "Ah."
Pausing to consider a particularly riveting smudge of discolored wood on the table, Leah offered Tom a nice profile of her prominent cheekbones. He could just spy dark lashes fluttering against pale skin, and was instantly reminded of the previous night when he'd pressed a soft kiss to her neck.
It was this memory that had him reaching across the table, his hands closing around the ones that held her cup of water steady. "Leah," he whispered, his voice an octave lower.
Her brow lifted in surprise, and he saw her blue eyes settle on their joined hands before finally lifting to his stare. "Tom," her hoarse voice replied. She gave her hand an experimental tug. He released it with thinly veiled reluctance.
"Funny," he remarked, "I could have sworn I asked you to stay in the room."
Leah considered him, displeasure slowly leaking past her indifferent façade. "Funny, I could have sworn I asked you to help me if someone decided they wanted to crucio me to their heart's desire. Oh no, I didn't ask that of you? Silly me, I must have figured it to be a well known fact: friends don't let friends get tortured to a near-death pulp. Jerk!"
At some point during her hushed tirade, Leah had leaned away from her seat and across the table, trying to convey as much anger as possible without resorting to bodily harm.
Tom smirked lightly, because he was fairly certain no one else he knew would ever call him a jerk to his face, and was rewarded with an unbecoming snarl.
"You're making a scene," he pointed out.
"Oh fuck you," she said. She returned to her seat, though, continued to glower in his direction.
There was a long period of silence, during which Tom observed Leah with open interest, and she tried in vain to pretend she wasn't watching him watch her. Her hand began to fidget with her water glass again.
Content that he'd flustered her enough, Tom broke the silence. "How are you feeling? Did you take the potions I left for you?" She was certainly looking better. Her dark hair was thick and curled, piled back in a messy bun. The delicious color had returned to her cheeks (partly due to the smoky heat of the pub, he would guess), and her eyes were bright and alive.
Leah slumped in her seat, "Physically? Fine. Emotionally—drained, annoyed, I don't know. I guess—I mean, this isn't surprising or anything but it's just that—oh goddamn it."
Curious now, Tom prompted her, "Start from the beginning."
She snorted, her eyes weeping concentration as she carefully selected her next words. "I can't, not now, probably not ever. All I can really say is this: I know who you are Tom Marvolo Riddle, and I should have expected nothing but betrayal from you. Expected as it was, it still hurt—hurts, even now."
"I see," Tom replied, decidedly less warm. All the mirth and excitement drained from his features, and he was once again bathed in a cold fury he'd only experienced a few times in his life.
"All you ever do is cause hurt," she continued. "You're not good for me Tom."
He was on his feet in a second, and in the next, he was dragging Leah into the corner with him. They were inches apart, their noses almost touching and his eyes bleeding red. "You may be right about that, Leah, but you should consider all the pain you've caused before you go around accusing others."
Leah sucked in a sharp breath through her nose, her hands locked into the fabric of his shirt. Just feeling her that close was a test of self-restraint, and Tom pushed their boundaries even further. He placed his hands on the wall on either side of her head, and bent low to whisper in her ear, "I respect that you don't want me, I've accepted this, but don't you dare go disregarding everything I have done to keep you safe and alive."
And then he was pulling away, straightening his tie and dropping a slip of parchment on the table. He didn't look back.
Violetta Fanding scrubbed the tears from her eyes and swiped her wand along the edge of her jaw, spelling away the swollen red skin. The days leading up to Christmas were always the most unsettling times for her father—he was often reminded of her mother. Violent outbursts were a guarantee, as were random bouts of destruction. It was a tiring time for the eldest child of the family.
Sighing, Violetta dropped to her bed, hands clasped on knees. Wandering eyes caught sight of her friend's trunk, carelessly tucked into the corner by the night stand, and she smiled. It had already been a little over two days since she'd last seen or heard from Leah, and she was beginning to miss her.
And alright, maybe she was a little worried.
She was busy wondering about her friend when there was a knock at the door, and the pitter-patter of small feet pounding against carpet signaled that her younger sister, Marti, was answering it.
"Oh, it's you, Miss Leah!" Marti screeched happily.
Violetta gave a small smirk; speak of the devil, and he shall appear.
She met the duo in the hall. Marti was wearing her holiday outfit consisting of a blue skirt and white blouse, her hair done up in high pigtails. The blue fabric brought out the color of her companion's eyes.
Leah was just as poorly poised as ever, though her skin had adopted a deathly pale pallor. She looked sick, with bruised skin under her eyes and unsteady limbs. Nonetheless, the young woman gave a tremendous smile and went to embrace Violetta in a swift hug.
Violetta was given just a second to reflect on how fragile and thin her friend had become before the girl was pulling away again, swiftly. "How have you been, Violetta?" she asked in a raspy voice.
The blond witch ignored the shivers that rode down her spine at the sound. "My time has been mostly spent taking care of the house and cleaning up after the children, nothing apart from the usual." She gave her younger sister a pointed glance, which let Marti know she had overstayed her welcome at Violetta's reunion with her friend. The child carefully strolled back to the kitchen, where she would undoubtedly go searching through the cabinets for cookies.
"Ah," Leah answered Violetta, "is your dad still an asshole?" The cheeky grin chased away any meanness the comment brought.
Even so, Violetta felt the need to defend her father. "He's a good man."
"I've heard that one before," Leah responded, before throwing her arms up in surrender, "I know, I know. I apologize."
Violetta smiled, "It is very good to see you again, my friend. What has the past two days seen you doing?"
"A little bit of this, a little bit of that," Leah said. "I actually came for my luggage."
"Ah, it is right where you left it." Violetta led her friend back to the room they had once shared, pointing to the trunk near the nightstand. "I'll trust you to get your things settled, I have a dinner to cook."
Violetta wondered why her friend's eye brightened at the mention of being left alone, though thought it safer not to comment.
Violetta closed the door behind her, leaving Morgan in the room by herself. She wasted no time in hauling the trunk to the floor near the bed, and ripped open the lid. Her hands were shaking again, and if that was because Tom's potions were wearing off or because she was still startled by his actions at the pub, she couldn't tell.
All she knew was that she was overcome with the desire to do anything in her power to quicken her return journey home. The faster she retrieved the Time Turner sand and found the spell needed, the faster she could steal the necklace and go back to the time she belonged in.
Morgan pawed through piles of clothing, candy wrappers, trinkets, and the file consisting of the information for her mission. She hurriedly pushed items aside, tore others inside out, and threw others away before finally resorting to a simple summoning spell.
None of it worked. None of it changed the fact that the small black silk bag she'd traveled back in time with was missing. It had the Time-Turner sand in it, and the slip of paper with the spell she needed.
Morgan leaned against the end of the bed, straining herself with the effort it took to try and remember her trip through time. There had been pain, the stretching of bones, the black silk bag in her hand…oh no.
Everything spun around her and she tried to tuck her elbows in, gasping as the black bag with the time sand seemed to slip further and further from her grasp. She was so dizzy. An icy feeling was building in the pit of her stomach and spots flashed before her eyes. Nothing mattered anymore, not the time sand or the stupid Founders Necklace. It felt like she was being stretched to disgusting lengths, her bones cracking with the stress. It was a pain worse than dying; it was like nothing she ever felt before it was—
Over.
Of course! She bit back a sneer. The bag had been stolen from her grasp somewhere in time, and she'd forgotten all about it in the face of being discovered by Tom Riddle in his dorm.
There was no Time-Turned sand anymore. No spell to take her back home. She was stuck in the nineteen-forties. She was dead.
It took a long moment for the thought to really sink in. Throughout the course of the past months, she'd always known death was nipping at her ankles. But there was a difference between then and now—where there had been hope before, there wasn't any longer. Time would take its revenge on her, and she could do nothing about it.
Morgan tried to take a little time for introspection, but found she couldn't really think of anything but cold dark fingers closing in until the breath was stolen from her lungs. Her mind kept darting back to the all encompassing and terrifying blackness she'd felt in Hufflepuff's cave, moments before one of the sea-monsters was about to eat her.
That type of darkness had destroyed her senses, left her utterly alone until she couldn't tell if she was alive, or if she even wanted to live anymore. It'd been one of the scariest things she encountered throughout her life. Where trouble and strife had always left her feeling pain and panic, that blackness had left her numb—the true definition of lifelessness. Would death be like that?
Her body on auto-pilot, Morgan waved her wand until the contents of her trunk rearranged itself. She'd already shrunken it when she brushed her wrist across her eyes, startled to find tears steadily leaking from them.
Shocked, she stared at the drops soaking the back of her hand, and the new ones falling from the ends of her cheeks. They began a small puddle on the carpet.
Why had death been so easy to accept back in the Founders Cave? Why had she been so ready to give into the darkness then, but not now? Why couldn't she be strong now?
Was it because she'd thought she was dying to protect Tom? She hadn't answered any of Matthew's questions because she didn't want to lead Grindelwald's men to Tom Riddle, so maybe it'd been the fact that she was keeping him safe that allowed her to face her mortality head-on.
Or maybe she'd just been so desperate to make the pain end, that she didn't care whether she died or not.
Morgan stuffed her trunk into the pocket of her skirt, exiting the bedroom and walking into the hall. She felt strange; empty somehow—almost as if the fear of feeling numb had left her numb. It was scary, and when she ended up in the kitchen with no memory of walking there, the tears still sliding down her cheeks, she could only answer Violetta's cry of despair with one bewildered sounding sentence: "I'm dying."
"You're friend was quite the fly to get rid of, eh?" yellow teeth chomped into an apple, the juices traveling down the healer's face in small trails.
"Tell me about it," Morgan replied, her voice bland. "It took me two days to convince her to let me leave her house. And that was only because I kept throwing up blood on her living room floor, essentially scaring the shit out of her younger siblings."
"How did you keep her from sending you to St. Mungos?"
"I told her you were a family doctor, one who's had previous experience with my condition."
"She believed you?"
"She was willing to believe anything that gave her hope."
"You don't think you can be healed."
"I've got it on good authority that my death is inevitable."
"And how do you feel about that?"
"I've accepted it, if that's what you're asking."
Healer Banheart frowned, "I don't understand why you're here. You're not asking me to heal you, so what do you want from me?"
Morgan frowned. "I don't know. I didn't want my friend to see me die while trying to brush my teeth. I had nowhere else to go, I suppose." She took a long glance around Banheart's lodgings—a small apartment with a guest room fitted with the two beds she kept ready for patients.
"And what makes you think I want to clean up after you when you die?"
"You'll be paid for your troubles."
A silence bred between them, during which Banheart stared with wide eyes at the young woman shaking on her bed. There was something wholly disturbing about a person referring to their own demise as 'trouble'. But the medical witch didn't have it in her to give her patient false hope.
The girl was death warmed over, and even that was stretching it. Her body was disgustingly thin, her skin shallow and sickly, her eyes sunken. But it was more than that. Emotionally, she was empty and withdrawn. A part of the girl had already died.
"What about that boy," Banheart questioned, "the one who told me you would be coming to my apartment eventually? Surely, he cares about you. He would want to know what's going on."
"No. He doesn't care for me."
"I doubt that, lady. He was…disturbed when he spoke about you."
Morgan shrugged indifferently.
Banheart sighed with all the weariness of one who had seen too much of the world and was still weighed down with its sorrows. She took a seat next to Morgan, tossing her eaten apple into a garbage can by the door. Her wrinkled hand sought her patient's trembling one. "Listen, brat, we can go about this two ways. First way, I leave you to drown in self-inflicted isolation. I won't attempt to heal you, but simply administer pain potions when you feel unbearable agony. Eventually, the tissues of your lungs will fill with more blood than you can cough out, and you will drown. Of course, this is assuming the muscle tissue of your heart doesn't break down first, or your brain tissue. It's all very objective, you see."
"The second option," her patient croaked, and for a moment a misery so complete and a terror wholly parasitic washed across her features.
Banheart ached for the girl. She was scared, so terrified of her fate that there was no room inside her to feel anything else. The girl could hide it as much as she wanted, but she could never smother it.
"The second option," Banheart said, "would be for me to examine you. You're right—you are going to die, but I can slow the process. I can give you a week longer to live, and offer you a few more days out of bed. With the spells I cast over you, and the potions you ingest, I can promise you at least three days of strenuous activity. Three last days to really live."
Morgan's hand tightened around the healer's.
"I'll give you two hours to think about it. Any longer than that, and you're condemning yourself to the first option. The work I want to do will take days."
So Banheart left, with sunlight streaming from the window, basking her dying patient in a glow filled with life.
Morgan's fingers clenched and unclenched around the threadbare blanket. She worked its stitching until the pad of her thumb was sore and red with the effort. Tears wet the bed.
She thought she was done with this, done with crying and feeling so damned sorry. Morgan had believed the only thing she could feel now was a constant fear, an emotion that stayed with her like a slow burning fire—eventually, it would consume her.
After she'd announced to Violetta that she was dying, her friend had nearly set the house on fire. The blond witch rushed to her side, eased her onto the couch, and demanded an explanation. So Morgan had made one up—an elaborate tale about a long battle with some incurable disease. Violetta was skeptical at first, believing Morgan's declarations to be the by-product of some new brand of humor, but that was before Tom's potions wore off and she coughed a continuous flow of blood onto the floor.
Rushed into bed, she was taken care of to the best of her friend's ability. Violetta did everything she could for Morgan: made her soup, stayed to talk with her, tried to hide the distress and sorrow the rest of the household felt.
Eventually though, Violetta figured out Morgan simply couldn't hold down food, that there was nothing the witch could do to ease the constant pain and starvation her body was going through. Eventually, Violetta found herself no longer trying to nurse her friend back to health, but rather, preapre her for death.
That was when she pitched a fit, demanding Morgan be taken to the hospital. Morgan knew she couldn't go to the hospital; the reason for her condition would be in danger of being discovered. Violetta was adamant though, and the only compromise Morgan could reach with her was to go see Banheart.
Banheart was the name on the parchment Tom Riddle left for her at the Leaky Cauldron. It had the healer's address, and a polite request for Morgan to go see her as soon as possible.
So she was here now, alone, just like she'd be for the rest of her short life if she didn't take the medical witch up on her offer.
But really, what would Morgan do with three extra days of life?
Involuntarily, she found herself thinking about Tom again, the way his cologne smelled, his smirk, his dark eyes. She could never deny the fact that she cared for him, couldn't say she didn't wish for his touch. But the fact remained that he felt nothing for her.
Even though her feelings were unrequited, they were still there.
Three more days to live. What would she do if she had three days to live in her own time?
Spend it with her friends, of course. She'd spend every second with them, and probably have sex with an attractive guy, because seriously, who was gonna die without experiencing that!
Morgan coughed and swiped more blood from her mouth. She thought about how she's given up everything for Dumbledore's stupid mission, of how her friends back home hated her. She could never get cut some slack, could she? She could never be allowed to fucking enjoy herself.
Life had been one struggle after another for her. She lived through years of hell at the orphanage, was given reprieve at Hogwarts, only to have everything she learned to cherish taken away from her for some stupid mission.
It was the same in this time, too, wasn't it? Morgan grew to care about Tom and Violetta and those wily Gryffindors, and now some deity saw fit to take them from her without so much as a goodbye.
What did she want to do with three days?
She wanted to spend it with the new people she'd come to cherish. She wanted to confess her feelings to a guy, even if they weren't returned. She wanted to feel the sun on her skin, the wind messing up her hair. Hell, who cared what she did, as long as she lived!
Her ferocious and deep thoughts had chased away the fear previously clouding her senses. No longer was she satisfied with accepting death. Not now. Not yet.
She stumbled out into the front room of Banheart's apartment with quailing legs. And even though every muscle burned with each contraction, Morgan pushed herself forward.
She only had so much time to spare, you know.
Another Note: I actually thought about cutting this off at Morgan's "Oh, and I'm dying" sentence, but realized I valued my life far, far too much to do that to you guys, ha ha.