Tom Riddle (aka Voldemort)
Tom drummed his fingers on the railing of the ship's stairwell, wondering impatiently where the others were. The other passengers were all lining up to disembark but his three traveling companions seemed to have missed the memo. He was just contemplating abandoning his place in line to go back up to the top deck to find them when they appeared.
"Where were you?" Tom demanded, glaring at his other self.
"I seem to remember you were the one who left us without a word." His counterpart replied, an edge to his voice that Tom hadn't noticed in it before. Sure, he had been in a foul mood since Tom had knocked him out and tied him up but now he seemed even more angry.
Tom looked at the Sasha from the other universe and, to his surprise, she looked away uncomfortably. Tom narrowed his eyes at her, confused by her reaction. She had never shown any fear of him before. Had she and her husband had a fight? Is that why they were both acting so strangely?
Before he could think any more on it, the line started moving and the four of them filed out in silence. When they reached the dock, Tom stopped and turned to them.
"Our train leaves in an hour. We can get a quick lunch on the way to the station." He said.
"I'm not hungry." The other universe's Sasha said. "I actually feel kind of nauseous still."
Tom raised an eyebrow.
"From the boat." Sasha added, as if that needed clarifying.
"Okay well the rest of us probably want to eat, right?" Tom snapped, turning to lead the way to the restaurant without waiting for a reply.
He heard the others follow after a moment, their footsteps hitting the pavement behind him. He took them up a residential road, following the path he had memorized from the maps he'd brought on the trip. Behind him, they were unusually silent, and Tom found himself wondering whether something really had happened on the boat.
When they reached the restaurant, the other universe's Sasha immediately announced she had to go to the lavatory and her husband followed soon after her. Tom took a seat at the table with the other Sasha, pulling the sticky and disgusting menu towards him. He pretended to read it for a moment and then looked up at Sasha.
"What's wrong with them?" He asked her.
Sasha looked up from the menu and frowned. "Oh, they're fine." She said, with a shrug. "Sasha just threw up. She got sea sick."
"Sea sick?" Tom repeated, skeptically.
Sasha nodded. "Yea, and, well, the story I told her probably didn't help."
Tom frowned. "What story?"
Sasha sighed, glancing at the doors Sasha and Tom had disappeared through. "Well in their universe no one died when the Chamber of Secrets was opened." She said, and Tom felt his blood run cold. "So it was a bit of a shock for them to hear what happened to Myrtle in our universe."
Tom felt his hands begin to shake, the menu in his hand vibrating ever so slightly. He quickly dropped it and pulled his hands down under the table so that Sasha wouldn't see them shaking. His heart was beating so fast he felt nauseous himself.
They knew. They knew. Of course they knew. No wonder Sasha had looked at him like that...
"Oh I see." Tom managed to get out. "Yes, I would imagine that would be a shock."
He needed a plan. He needed to think fast. They were probably already planning to move against him. He'd been stupid to think they wouldn't discover his secrets. He was dealing with another version of himself.
Sasha nodded and then frowned. "Are you okay?"
Tom stood up suddenly and felt the world spin. He grabbed onto the side of the booth, trying to hide the fact that he had nearly fallen over. His heart was pounding in his chest so loud he could swear it must be audible to the entirety of the restaurant. Sasha looked up at him with a look of concern that made him want to hex her face.
"I actually think I feel sick as well." He said. "Maybe there's a stomach flu going around." He said quickly, before leaving the table and making a beeline for the lavatories.
He would have to kill the couple from the other universe. Yes, that was the most prudent course of action. As long as the other Tom and Sasha lived, they would be able to figure out his secrets. If they had already discovered his murder of Myrtle Warren, how long would it be before they discovered his other murders and his Horcruxes? They knew too much to be allowed to walk free.
It had been foolish to have brought them on this trip. He couldn't use them the way he'd wanted to; they were too big of a liability. That much was clear now. He didn't know what he'd been thinking. He'd been careless; uncharacteristically so. What had been wrong with him?
He needed to eliminate them and he needed to do it now...before they figured out he knew they were on to him.
Tom pushed open the swinging doors that led to the hall outside of the lavatories and heard his demise before he saw the wand pointed at his face.
"Stupefy." Sasha's voice said, her face blurring before him as the world faded to black.
Tom Riddle (aka Sasha's husband)
"Okay now what?" Sasha asked shrilly, pacing back and forth in front of the mirrors in the women's lavatory.
Tom barely registered her question, his attention too focused on the unconscious face of his twin. The twisted, sickly face of what he could have become.
"Here we are again in a ladies' lavatory with an unconscious person." Sasha said, laughing somewhat hysterically. "Just like the day we met. Is this becoming some kind of weird pattern for us?"
How narrowly had he avoided this fate? He'd understood why his counterpart had killed his father and even his grandparents. But Myrtle Warren? A random Ravenclaw girl who had just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time? Why kill her?
"Tom." Sasha said, placing a hand on his arm when he didn't respond.
Tom pried his eyes away from his counterpart's face and looked at Sasha. "I don't understand why he killed her." He said, finding the words sounded like a lie when he said them out loud.
Sasha glanced at the unconscious man and then looked back at him. "Maybe it was an accident." She said.
Tom snorted, turning away and running a hand through his hair. An accident, he thought derisively. An accident was just another word for a mistake and Tom didn't make mistakes. He had learned too early on that life was hard enough without suffering the consequences of mistakes that could have been avoided.
"No he meant to kill her." Tom said, his hands shaking from pent up fury. "The only question is why."
Sasha wrung her hands, seeming uncomfortable, and Tom looked at her pointedly. "What?"
"Myrtle is...was...Muggle-born." Sasha said carefully. "Did you know that?"
Tom clenched his jaw, trying to suppress the wave of anger that crashed over him. "You're suggesting he was trying to rid the school of mudbloods like Slytherin always wanted?"
Sasha shrugged. "Well that is what Almeda was put there for."
"But it would be insanity to actually do it!" Tom cried, louder than he had intended. "He was 16. Barely finished 5th year. To set a Basilisk loose on the school would mean the end of Hogwarts. He'd be sent back to the orphanage. His training would never be complete. Or, even worse, they'd figure out it was him who was behind it all and they'd send him to Azkaban and suck out his soul!"
Sasha nodded slowly. "I know. It would be insanity." She said. "But, to be fair, he doesn't seem very sane to me."
Tom let out an exasperated sigh and began pacing. He was going to lose his mind. How was he supposed to deal with this? How was he supposed to just accept that, in another universe, he had killed four people by the age of 16? That one of them had been an innocent child? Sure he had harbored anger towards Muggles for quite some time. Maybe he had irrationally pinned all of his problems on them when he was a teenager. But he had never killed a little girl because her parents happened to be Muggles.
He needed answers. He needed to know why his counterpart had killed Myrtle.
Walking up to his counterpart, Tom angrily turned his pockets inside out, pulling out all of their contents. Maps, notebooks, quills, potions...Tom paused when he found what he was looking for. He held up the vial of veritaserum to show Sasha.
"Now we find out the truth." He said. "The whole truth."
"What about the other Sasha?" Sasha asked, and Tom realized with a sinking feeling he had completely forgotten about their fourth companion.
"We'll make up some excuse." He said. "We'll say Tom got sick. Food poisoning. We'll say we need to take him to the hospital but can she please go get us a room in an inn for the night. We'll meet up with her later."
Sasha nodded. "Okay. We just need some place to keep him."
"There are rooms for rent here. Go get two and bring Sasha to one of them. I'll bring Tom to the other once she's inside." Tom said.
"Okay. Okay." Sasha repeated, running a hand over her face. "Wait here. I'll come get you when it's safe to- what?"
"The window." Tom hissed in Parseltongue, his eyes landing on the dove that perched on the windowsill.
Noticing his gaze, the dove took flight. Tom whipped out his wand, running to the window.
"Hold on, I'll handle this. Stay here!" Sasha cried, yanking the window open as quickly as possible.
"Wait, don't tell her everything." Tom said, grabbing her arm.
"How else am I supposed to explain why we stupified him?" Sasha asked.
"Obliviate her." Tom said. "She can't know. She'll never help us if she knows."
Sasha shook her head. "She deserves to know."
Tom suppressed the surge of rage that threatened to explode out of him. "Sasha, this is a mistake, don't-"
Sasha turned into a dove before Tom could finish the sentence and flew out the window. Tom slammed his hand into the window frame, cursing out loud. Their entire plan was going up in flames and there was nothing he could do to stop it.
Sasha Sayer (aka the only one who doesn't understand Parseltongue)
Sasha could hear her counterpart following her. She swooped and dived through the air, trying to lose her pursuer, but it was no use. Whatever she could do, the other Sasha could do just as well, if not better. Once again, Sasha felt that same gnawing fear that, for some reason, she had failed to live up to her potential.
Coming to the conclusion she could not outfly her other self, Sasha headed for a wide flat rooftop. She landed near a chimney, returned to human form, and whipped out her wand. She pointed it at her other self as she landed and turned back into a human.
The other Sasha lifted her hands up in a gesture of surrender. "Wait, I can explain." Her counterpart said.
"Well I certainly hope you can!" Sasha cried.
"How much did you hear?" Her counterpart asked.
"Nothing." Sasha admitted. "But I saw plenty. What did you do to him? Is he dead?"
"No!" Her counterpart cried, sounding aghast. "No, he's not dead. I stupefied him."
"Why!?" Sasha asked, the hand on her wand shaking.
"Because he's..." Her counterpart seemed to be having a hard time getting the words past her lips. "He's a murderer." She said at last.
Sasha blinked, struggling for a moment to register the meaning of what her other self was saying.
"He killed Myrtle Warren, Sasha." Her counterpart said. "He opened the Chamber of Secrets. I know because Tom did the same in our universe. Only he never killed anyone-"
"Wait but Hagrid was found guilty-"
"Tom framed him." Her counterpart explained. "The monster inside the Chamber of Secrets isn't a spider. It's a snake. A Basilisk."
Sasha stared at her counterpart, unable to think clearly through the fear that had filled her heart. "That's why you- you reacted so strongly-"
"Yes." Her counterpart said, her face looking torn.
Sasha ran a shaky hand through her hair, trying to digest this new information. She had been traveling with a murderer and she hadn't even known it.
"That's not all." Her counterpart said, and Sasha felt her stomach sink.
"He killed his father and grandparents too." Her counterpart said. "Tom found out when we went to his father's house to get you your payment-"
"You knew this before you dragged me on this trip!?" Sasha cried, her panic turning to fury in a split second.
"No!" Her counterpart cried, but then seemed to catch herself. "Well Tom knew, but he didn't tell me until late last night-"
"You found out last night!?" Sasha exclaimed furiously. "When were you going to tell me about this?"
Her counterpart flinched, looking guilty. "We hadn't decided what to do yet. At first we thought the murder of the Riddles might have been an isolated incident. But then when we found out about Myrtle-"
"Oh so if you hadn't found out about Myrtle, you would have just kept the fact that he murdered his entire family a secret!?" Sasha screamed.
Her counterpart made no reply, looking deeply uncomfortable. "I don't know. We needed time to process it-"
"You and Tom, you mean." Sasha snapped. "You and the same person who committed all of these murders-"
"Woah, my Tom never killed anyone!" Her counterpart interjected sharply. "His father and grandparents are perfectly safe at home in our universe. Myrtle is working as a librarian at Hogwarts. My husband has never hurt anyone!"
"Well then why is he a serial killer in my universe?" Sasha asked, struggling to keep a grip on the wave of panic that threatened to overwhelm her. She had gone to school with this boy. She had found the body of his murder victim. Suddenly, Sasha felt sick as sick as her counterpart must have felt on the boat.
"I don't know." Her counterpart said, and Sasha shook her head.
"You must know." She snapped. "You married him."
"I married a very different version of him!" Her counterpart cried, exasperatedly. "Don't you dare blame my husband for any of this. Can't you imagine how hard it is for him already?"
Sasha grit her teeth and looked away. Of all the people she was feeling sorry for at the moment, Tom Riddle wasn't top of the list.
"We found some more veritaserum in his pocket." Her counterpart continued after a moment. "We're going to get the truth out of him. If you have questions, you can ask them. He will have to answer them."
Sasha looked back at her counterpart, distrust still tainting her heart. There was, of course, a small chance this was a trap. But at this point, she wanted the truth more than she wanted to run away. Curiosity killed the cat, but she was a bird. She always had the option of flying away.
"Okay." Sasha said, nodding at last. "Let's go."