SUMMARY: "Harry Evans was like lightning in a bottle. An impossibility." Tamsin Marvolo Riddle hides her cruelty and thirst for power under a perfected mask of charisma. When war-weathered Harry Evans transfers to Hogwarts, she is intrigued by the hatred, seemingly spurred on by nothing, he feels for her. A festering interest gives way to obsession. fem!Riddle/Harry
Voldemort.
Tamsin's breath fluttered.
Harry Evans knew.
He knew a secret buried so deep within her, it was practically ingrained into her soul. A secret that none of her Knights of Walpurgis knew—a secret she had intended to hide until she graduated, until she succeeded in splitting her soul into seven pieces. Voldemort was a private fantasy, an idea, an aspiration. It was not something mudblood transfer students, who had spent a grand total of two weeks at Hogwarts, should know.
The name—French for "flight from death," which was rather fitting as she was immortal—had stayed only in her thoughts in her years at Hogwarts, safe and guarded. She'd created the moniker sometime in her fifth year, a clever anagram of the name she'd been first given: the masculine Tom Marvolo Riddle. Tamsin had been told the story: Mrs. Cole had berated her weak, pathetic witch mother dying on the doorstep, telling her that Tom was no proper name for a little girl. Then her mother's last words: Tamsin. Her name will be Tamsin, then.
Tamsin was the feminine version of the name "Tom."
Sometimes, Tamsin wondered what it would be like to be born a male. She was sure she would've amassed a following either way; she would have been equally attuned to magic. She would still be, at her core, brilliant. But it would have been different, she was sure of it. Easier to control her Knights, easier in Wool's, though perhaps harder in different ways.
She stopped these thoughts, bringing herself back to how Harry Evans—a mudblood, a nobody—knew.
The more she thought about it, the more she noticed that she was becoming increasingly more and more neurotic. Her mind was spinning with the gravity of this revelation, wild theories running through her head, which she assessed rapidly.
Had he managed to penetrate her mind, at a previous time? He didn't seem particularly gifted at Legilimency...but it could be a disguise, a lie... But seriously, that Legilimency was really shoddy. Harry Evans had inched in, like a skittish animal—he had put his brunt force into one area, without precision or practice or subtlety.
It was the way, Tamsin had noticed, he approached everything: swiftly, though recklessly. It reminded her of his dueling. She analyzed his personality. Lonesome, isolated, angry, vicious. Probably suffering some form of war-related trauma.
How did he know? How did he know? How did Harry Evans know?
Tamsin sucked in a breath, feeling her heart hasten in her chest. For so long now, Tamsin had been calm and composed in her goals; an intrinsic part of her was unraveling. The adrenaline was doing wild things to her self-control.
She sat there, still, with a million ideas flitting through her head.
She decided quickly that she needed to torture him.
Yes—that was a good plan. People talked when under pain, and she would get her answers. Then she could Obliviate him and wipe the evidence. That sounded like a delightful, little ploy... Harry Evans had watched as she tortured Cadmium Lestrange; perhaps the damned fool would like to see how it felt—
Or she would brew Veritaserum, extract the truth from him. Afterward, she would kill him, leave no traces remaining—she would blame it on someone else, just as she'd done with the half-breed oaf, Hagrid. She could make this work. She just needed to be precise with it. Would have to dispose of the body in the Black Lake, make sure the corpse sunk deep, deep down into the abyss of darkness, make sure the inky ripples of lake water consumed him...
What a waste, some part of her whispered, temptingly sweet. A litany of reasons why he should be kept alive capered foolishly through her head. He was a talented wizard, she couldn't even deny it. He was strange...a mystery wrapped in a mystery. That might be good fun. He might be a valuable ally to have. He might know more than he let on. He might...
She folded her arms neatly at the table. The Knights were talking about Hogsmeade plans; it was all nonsensical and bland. For Slytherins, their ambitions stretched rather thin, as they talked about the new candies they hoped to snatch at Honeydukes. Tamsin took a breath, added a few meaningless comments, and directed her focus back at Evans.
And she pushed into the pale wasteland of Evans' head again.
More gently, this time, softly.
Tamsin adopted Evans' method, breathing in concentration, as she carved a message in the other boy's skull, deftly and lightly.
Where did you learn that, Harry Evans?
Tamsin had never used the Mind Arts like this before. She had always seen Legilimency as a tool of secrecy, used to extract the true thoughts of someone. She never performed this strange sort of telepathy with anyone; she hadn't even been aware it was possible.
To stay perched on the edge of someone's mind, while the other person was conscious of her presence, was strange.
Tamsin didn't linger long though, as Evans replied without missing a beat.
I know lots of things about you, Tamsin Riddle. Evans had a look of satisfaction on his face that Tamsin wished she could rip off. Or should I call you by your preferred name...
Her heart thundered violently in her chest. She felt the vaguest sense of unease.
...Voldemort.
You've been spying on me, she indicated slowly.
Evans shrugged nonchalantly, a movement that was translated into this sort of mental communication. Why would I need to? I already know everything about you. About who you were. Who you are. Who you become.
Her breath drew short at that. Her palms sweat, her pupils dilated, and she felt a fight-or-flight instinct kick in. Was it a bluff? Was it true? How did he know the future...of who she would become? Was he a seer? A practitioner of Divination?
I saw you that night in the Forbidden Forest, Tamsin said, trying to gain some semblance of control in the situation. You cannot lie to me. You stayed the whole time, motionless, while I tortured Cadmium Lestrange. I've seen it in your memories... A scream that never came...
Evans didn't reply. He drew in a sharp breath, which Tamsin savored. She continued.
You thought I was frightening, then. I could feel it. Her lips curled into a smile, feeling herself regain control. I'm rather good at getting what I want. You may think you're clever, but you've just made yourself my target.
Tamsin crowed, What I did to him...it's nothing compared to what I can do to you.
He pulled back, fled, from her mind. His mouth had a firm-pressed snarl.
Tamsin should have felt satisfied, but she didn't. Harry Evans had fled, but it wasn't necessarily in a cowardly way. It was, loathsome as she were to admit it, in a calculating way. Like he was goading her to find the answers...telling her that he was not threatened by her words. Tamsin felt herself grow very still.
Within, all she felt was a growing, consuming desire, mixed with a pure and undeniable hatred, unfurl in her mind. Who was Harry Evans? Where had he come from?
What did he know...how did he know...and could he be used?
Her eyes—intense and cutting—observed the dark-haired boy, sitting so unassumingly and quietly at the corner of the table. Tamsin would destroy him.
Tamsin could have been quick about it—she could have ordered her Knights to tackle Evans in the dorms, petrifying him and rendering his magical talent useless. Then she could have stood over him, with any array of truth-seeking weapons in her arsenal: Veritaserum, more concentrated Legilimency, or good old-fashioned torture. And once she had extracted enough information from him, turning the boy from a paradox into an axiom, she would choose the best course of action. Whether she would kill him or keep him would be up to her and what she'd discovered.
But with that quickness came recklessness. She would have to give a reason to her Knights for the ambush, and at the moment, while her blood feverishly sizzled with adrenaline, she didn't think she was suited for any diplomacy. Tamsin didn't want her Knights to see the chinks in her armor—didn't want them to understand how rattled and unnerved she was, all because of some puny mudblood.
She needed to do this alone.
Actually, Tamsin would prefer to do it alone. It made it more personal, more intense. She thought to herself, I want to watch you writhe, Harry Evans.
If that even is your name...
That unbidden, unwanted thought made her mind throb. Evans could be anyone. With the knowledge he had, it would be unlikely if he was merely just a refugee, fifteen-year-old, muggle-born student from France. She doubted everything now—his name, his origin, his age. He could be anyone.
And foolishly, had underestimated him, believing in whatever background story Slughorn had announced. Her own biases had caught up to her, making her truly feel the shackles of her human weakness. No matter how brilliant or powerful she was, all of her actions were marred by fallibility and uncertainty. Fierce rage and frustration built up within her.
Trying to calm herself down, Tamsin forwent her ruminations, and instead, after breathing deeply several times, she began to cogitate a plan to catch Evans off-guard and finally feast on the secrets hidden so guardedly in his mind. She needed to be purposeful, deliberate, and calm. She couldn't be angry and reckless; one mistake might send the empire she'd built at Hogwarts tumbling.
Tamsin scoured for mistakes in Evans. Foibles, shortcomings, flaws. She paced her dorm room, running her hands through her dark hair, pulling. Her lips twisted, her hands were shaking, and her breaths were short and sudden. She took a look in the mirror, grabbed Druella's silver hairbrush, and began brushing out her hair in an attempt to calm herself down, back to parasympathetic calmness. She ran it over and over, through the already-untangled strands.
Her mind was lost in thought, in a maze of the bits and pieces she knew about Harry Evans. She just needed to get him alone, but how could she? Tamsin needed to find his Achilles' heel; she needed to know where to strike... She began to introspect, to analyze, to deduce.
Harry Evans had followed Cadmium Lestrange to the Forbidden Forest.
There. That was a point to work with, a thought that had been tugging on her relentlessly since last night. The question was why.
What reason did he have for following his tormentor to the Forbidden Forest?
It came to her in a snap.
Tamsin arrived at an epiphany that was both bone-rattling and breath-stealing, like a moment of insight.
Perhaps, she thought to herself, Harry Evans cared.
He might have...come to the forest, perhaps, theoretically, to make sure Cadmium Lestrange would be all right. Even to...defend him? Evans had seemed like the perfect bystander, but that might've been a ruse.
Although he had stayed silently watchful last night, he might've still done something...
The twig snap.
The memory came flashing back to her. Harry Evans could've done that with his magic, to get her attention away from Lestrange. To stop her from torturing him.
What an intriguing, enticing thought that was. One she had never pondered before.
There. She found it: Harry Evans' weakness was his empathy.
She put the brush down, feeling as though she had come to the clear conclusion. Evans hid his feelings under a standoffish exterior, but it turned out that he was deeply empathetic and sympathetic, which led him to a nasty habit of stalking and spying on her.
And if that was true, Tamsin could use that.
Tamsin would lure him out again. She would pretend to take a student for a torture session, in order to coerce Evans into following. Then she would strike, poised and powerful as a predator. Then she would take him to a secluded part of the castle, restrain him, and force the answers out of him.
It seemed like a simple plan, built upon what she already knew about Harry Evans.
But the only problem with this plan was Evans would know she was provoking him. After Tamsin had recklessly, to get an upper hand, admitted that she had seen him in the forest, any attempt afterward would seem planned and calculated. He would know it was a trap.
But would it matter?
At the end of the day, thoughts didn't matter. Only actions did. It didn't matter if Evans thought, This is a trap. All that would matter was what he'd do, and Tamsin could wager a good guess of what would happen. He would follow her, trying to gauge the situation. Tamsin wondered if Evans had some kind of savior complex, some do-gooder nonsense ingrained into him...
Either way, Evans wouldn't care if it was a trap.
Just the mere thought that there was a chance that it wasn't—that someone might be in danger—would make him come running.
Her plans faltered, and then took on a more solid form, that night in the Common Room.
The Common Room was a place fit for several things: hastily scribbled homework, meaningless chatter, and the relaxed lounging upon luxurious, ivy-green couches of arrogant pureblood heirs.
It was also, as it turned out, a place where Harry Evans and Eileen Prince played Gobstones.
After two weeks of friendless isolation, Evans seemed to have manage to scavenge some company, although the quality of the company was questionable:
Eileen Prince. A sallow, sickly-looking girl in the same year as him. Tamsin had never seen the pair together—and Tamsin had spent, whether she liked to admit it or not, a lot of time watching Evans. She did not recall Evans spending time with anyone, much less Eileen Prince.
Prince was a Slytherin, and she was talentless, tactless, and unattractive. She always looked a mixture between depressed and enraged, and she played a game called Gobstones that added to her scorned reputation. Also, unlike Tamsin—born with a beauty that was both magnetic and disarming—Prince had no such luck: pallid, wrinkled skin; lips like dried dates; thinning, stringy hair; a large, spherical forehead; and dark, pebble-sized eyes. Prince, for the most part, was friendless.
Evans seemed perfectly amicable to her company. He tossed a gobstone, and Prince—as this was the only thing the girl was remotely good at—aimed one at Evans' formation. Evans' gobstones clattered, and he cursed. From the gobstones, a putrid liquid was sent in Evans' direction, and he, trying to avoid it by waving his hands in front of his face, began to laugh—genuinely. It was clear and bright. Tamsin had never heard Evans laugh before. It was strange—and rage-inducing.
After all, it hadn't even been two hours since they had engaged in their little Legilimency tug-of-war back-and-forth, yet Evans had already seemingly forgotten. Judging by his carefree laugh and languid posturing, he was utterly nonchalant by the fact that he had known her true name. It was like it meant nothing to him.
An expansive tidal wave of rage swept through her.
Her heart and fists clenched. He had forgotten about her...because of some half-wit weakling who liked to play with repugnant marbles. Brilliant. Tamsin really needed that.
And worst of all, when Prince heaved out several chortles, Evans' mouth folded into a wide, blinding grin, which spread to his eyes.
Tamsin felt something burning and heavy, deep and painful, in her chest. Like a hot coal.
The rest of the Slytherins watched the odd pair at the far corner of the room with taunting eyes and snide comments. The Knights and other Slytherins associated with them sniggered at Evans' and Prince's newfound friendship. Tamsin didn't, but it was mainly because it was so...confusing. Where had it come from? Why was Evans throwing curveballs at her, without pause? It gave her whiplash, over and over; she was starting to think Evans was doing all of this to fuck with her.
Her Knights continued to laugh—it was some joke to them, really: The two outcasts banding together to form their weird, little club. And it is, Tamsin agreed. I've never seen such a strange pair in my life.
Rosier kept making smooching motions when mimicking Prince and Evans. The Slytherins joined in, having fun in their mockeries.
And even Tamsin—aggrieved and irritated—let out a laugh, wild and unrestrained, at the sheer absurdity of the situation. How had Evans gone from a threat...from the only person who knew her true name...to some laughing idiot who played Gobstones with another laughing idiot? It was almost offensive to witness this transformation.
Where did Eileen Prince fit in? Harry Evans was a mysterious, strange paradox that she couldn't wait to unravel. That she couldn't wait to crack open and consume. He made her feel delirious—made her both want him dead and want to know him. He was a powerful nobody, and he somehow knew her moniker for reasons that were unknown to her. Harry Evans kept her walking on a tightrope, and that danger was both exhilarating and treacherous.
In comparison, Prince was...dull.
"Usually, I'd be against purebloods sullying their bloodlines with mudbloods," Malfoy said haughtily, leaning back on his chair leisurely, snickering, "but I approve of this pair. They fit perfectly."
"Oh, do they? How so?" asked Tamsin conversationally. A part of her tightened.
Malfoy grinned. "Similar characteristics. Both worthless, both pathetic, both undeserving of a place at Hogwarts... Their union would be fascinating...like breeding the two most defective dogs together."
Orion smirked back, flashing his teeth. "I'd attend their wedding. Wouldn't miss it. With his blood and her looks, their child will be quite the combination."
Tamsin, ignoring the anger pooling in her stomach, felt herself ponder this. Although she realized that she should treat them both disdainfully, she found herself holding Evans at a slightly higher pedestal. Tamsin hadn't so much as passed her a glance in all of her years at Hogwarts, even though they were in the same year. However, in comparison, Tamsin had been intrigued—had felt something coiling like a serpent in her chest—the first day she met Evans. Eileen Prince was useless. Bland. Uninteresting. Ugly. Unpowerful. Unworthy.
But...Tamsin was thinking, Prince might have some use—
To lure Harry Evans.
The only problem with this though—with kidnapping Prince and torturing her until Evans came to play hero—was that Evans wouldn't know about it. Unlike with Cadmium, he didn't sleep in the same dorms as her, and he wouldn't notice her disappearance.
Now that she thought about it...Tamsin didn't need to kidnap her.
She just needed to make him think she had.
There had been a conduit between them: that was why they easily shared messages back and forth. If she could send her thoughts over to him, who was to say she couldn't share visual thoughts? She could send him an image...televising Eileen Prince in trouble in the girls' lavatory. He would come running, she could see it already, forgoing his hesitations. She would lure him, then Stupefy him. Then they would have the entire night in the Chamber of Secrets, where she would string him up and pluck every safeguarded, tiny secret he had. Then she would decide, beseechingly, his fate.
Eileen Prince was practically a stranger to him. They were friendly, but they'd known each other for a very short period of time. Evans had probably begged Prince to be friends, probably bribing her with a new gobstones set or some other inane bargain. Tamsin had been keeping a watchful, careful eye on Evans, and she had never seen Prince close to him. He'd had to have made the first move.
At the end of the day though, Tamsin realized that it didn't matter if Prince was a stranger to Evans. Cadmium Lestrange had been Evans' archenemy, his bully, his source of annoyance and turmoil. Evans had still followed him out, watchful like the good little samaritan he was. Like some benevolent savior. It didn't matter if he barely knew her.
All Tamsin needed to do was send a vision of Eileen Prince in trouble.
And her white knight would come to her rescue.
In the darkness, all Tamsin could see was the faint, soft lightness of her wand. Tamsin was currently in the girls' lavatory at half past midnight, rubbing her thumb lovingly against the engraving of a snake on a faucet. A wistful feeling rose within her. The beautiful basilisk within had been hidden for too long, but it could not be set free... Not unless she wanted blasted Dumbledore to try closing the school again. She sighed.
In her pocket swirled about half a liter of Veritaserum. She had rummaged the potions storeroom a couple hours before, carefully sneaking in with Slughorn ahead of her to stealthily grab the vial. The Veritaserum in the vial was transparent, and it shimmered under wand-light. Tamsin would dose Evans when she stunned him, and he would be forced unwillingly to reveal his secrets. He would tell he how exactly he'd learned about Voldemort.
Leaning, gently caressing the faucet's engravings, she sealed her eyes with her lids.
She had never sent a vision to someone before.
It felt like the most personal kind of communication. Intimate, almost.
She embroidered the false memory, the vision, in her mind with tender, precise care. The inky blackness, thin and slimy, of Prince's hair. The girl's eyelids were fluttering, her head bobbing up and down erratically. A flash of light in the memory, animated and vivid, that hit Prince, causing her to convulse and for tears to leak out of her eyes and trickle across her wrinkly, greyish skin. She was screaming, but it was soundless. Tamsin made it clear Prince was being tortured in the girls' lavatory, stitching details in the back of the vision: the faucets etched with snakes and the high mirrors. Tamsin also made sure her wand was in the full view of the vision, taking careful time to imagine it.
Once she felt she'd done an impressively realistic job fabricating the vision, she began to reach out to Evans—her eyelids fluttered, the darkness greeting her, as she cast Nox wordlessly with her wand. In the abyss, her mind reached out...
Tamsin hadn't been sure where her confidence had come from. Why she had assumed that she would be able to reach out to Evans, despite their distance. It was something instinctual within her, perhaps. Primal, even. She had the strangest gut feeling that, no matter what, she could always find Evans' mind.
If minds were stones in a quarry, Evans' mind was like an emerald—bright and glistening and tempting.
She grasped onto it, sure it was his, firmly. She imagined the vision that she'd carefully constructed moments before, and let it drip into his mind, slowly but profoundly. Tamsin made it as visual and audible as possible. She poured all of her creativity into it. In the vision, crimson blood dripped in the periphery, causing a rhythmic, echoing sound that seemed to punctuate every one of Prince's spasms.
Merlin, the lengths Tamsin was going to—Prince's "torture" was almost artistic, in a way.
In the vision, Tamsin let out a small, amused chuckle. It pulsed, echoing, around the room.
Tamsin concentrated on the vision for several seconds, keeping it front and center, reaching out tenderly toward Evans' mind. Afterward, when she felt as though Evans had seen all she wanted him to see, a snapshot into an imagined torture, she left his mind without a second thought.
She wondered how he would've replied, if she'd stayed longer to find out. Perhaps some noble line about how he would free Prince. Tamsin's lips formed a half-smile at that, as she indulged in her own joke, in the blackness of the girls' lavatory. Waiting, waiting, waiting, like a predator.
It didn't take long at all. Intriguing as he was, Harry Evans was rather predictable.
Tamsin heard footsteps, quick though quiet, at the entrance not five minutes after she'd sent him the vision.
Then a hastily murmured Lumos that was brighter than it should be, a bubble of golden light that expanded, casting the whole restroom aglow.
Not five feet away from her was Harry Evans in all his glory. In wrinkled-up robes, without his Slytherin tie, wearing the ugliest expression she'd ever seen. Tamsin kept her wand steady, preparing herself to disarm and stop him in his tracks...
But she couldn't help it. For a moment there, she just stared.
Tamsin had never seen him this close before.
She'd had, admittedly, a penchant for staring at Harry Evans—one could call it a hobby, even, with her strange enjoyment of doing so—but she'd always stared from long distances. From the great expanse of the table at the Great Hall, across long hallways, in classes where they were positioned as humanly far as possible. Seeing him here was an out-of-body, shocking experience. Looking at him from this distance was bizarre, a bit like staring into the sun.
For a moment there, she wanted to torture him. Fire a Crucio and get it over with. But not yet. Not when he was so tantalizingly close to her, not when she wanted to play around a bit before getting what she wanted. Savor the chase, taste the elation.
Evans' wand was out too, and similarly, he stared, his mouth twitching. He made no motion to look around the room, to wave the brightened tip of his wand around in order to search for his friend. He just stayed there, as rigid as a board, as if waiting for Tamsin to make the first move. For some reason, against all reason and logic and carefully devised ploys, Tamsin lowered her wand. Evans didn't, keeping his wand focused directly on her. She smiled, soaking in his presence.
He looked at her. She looked at him. The world shifted, just slightly.
"Harry Evans," she said softly.
"Tamsin Marvolo Riddle," he drawled a moment later, his tone venomous.
She let out a low, cold laugh. "Enough of that. If you know my real name, you might as well use it."
"Voldemort, then," he practically spat out. A rush of adrenaline washed over her at the sound, and she almost shivered. "Not much of a name, is it? If no one uses it."
"Names have power, Harry," she purred. She slid into the usage of his first name rather easily; it felt natural on her tongue. She directed her wand, leisurely, idly, in his direction. Her eyes were darker than night, only gleaming as Evans straightened his wand-hand, causing the Lumos to dot her eyes with golden flecks. "And the fact that you know mine...well, it must be some story. Luckily for you, we have all the time in the world for you to indulge me."
"So, Harry Evans," continued Tamsin, "how do you know my name? My true name, that is?"
He smirked, cocked his head. "Wouldn't you like to know?"
Tamsin's grace fell away, replaced by impatience. She fired a soundless, precise Stupefy at him, causing him to react quickly by jumping out of the way, and he landed near a wall. His head darted up, those lovely, viridian-green eyes sharpening. She could feel his heartbeat speed up, and she too was simultaneously coated with that heady, welcome adrenaline. Ever since she had seen Harry Evans beat one of her best followers, she had been itching to fight him herself—though she was only now aware of the feeling.
Evans, wasting no time, stood up from where he'd been hunched-over. He had a fierce expression on his face, and Tamsin's heart sang, the adrenaline sending shockwaves through her bloodstream. He fired a powerful, vibrant spell in her direction, which she, smiling faux-demurely, blocked.
Tamsin sent another spell in his direction—this time, not with the motive to harm, but to watch Evans squirm.
And he thrust hid body to the right, out of the way, in a second's time.
"You're a fighter, aren't you?" crooned Tamsin, watching with lidded eyes as Evans regained his footing. "I can tell from your reflexes."
"You're a fucking pervert, aren't you?" snapped Evans back. "I can tell from your sick torture fantasies."
She raised a brow, smirking, deeply satisfied. "But it worked, didn't it? I have you right where I want you." She fired another spell, lazily now, calmly.
Evans blocked it with a powerful, impactful shield, causing his Lumos to dissipate, leaving the two of them submerged under shadows; she could feel her spell die, upon collision, but her lips continued to form that same maddened smile.
Cocooned under the darkness, they were now circling one another, like predator and prey.
He laughed bitterly and sharply, the noise coerced out of his throat from frisson probably, and it echoed across the lavatory. It was nothing like that laugh with Eileen Prince in the Common Room; when he'd laughed, then, it had sounded a bit like sunshine given audible form. Now it was thick with repulsion. It radiated acridness.
"It's funny," Tamsin said, as Evans stared her down. "You seem to hate me, without reason."
"Plenty of reasons for it, Riddle," Evans retorted.
They fired off spells a moment later. And again. And again.
One would come from Tamsin, and seconds later, she would see one gliding across the room in her direction from Evans. As they dueled, she noticed several things: namely, that Evans was incredibly light on his feet and...lucky. Spells would swoop past him, and his agility and speed would be the only reason they didn't land on him. It was aggravating and fascinating all at once.
A few times, she pondered if perhaps she should cut Lestrange some slack; Evans was an exceptional dueler, and with that luck that seemed to pour out of him in every one of his movements, it made it difficult to pin him down. A streak of sweat ran across Tamsin's back. How was she going to fire a single spell on him, when he moved like that? He dueled with passion, with a sort of lightness to it that made his movements seem smooth and his spells effortless
Then suddenly, in the midst of their dueling, something strange occurred.
Tamsin yelled, "Crucio," just as a glowing, light blue spell left Evans' wand. In contrast to their typical back-and-forths, the two spells came out at the same time; they collided with one another with a brutish energy, causing Tamsin and Harry Evans to move backward to the far corners of the lavatory: Evans to the entrance, and Tamsin further in front. The mirrors of the lavatory shook with the force of the energy, and something strange—something deeply unusual—unfolded. The colors of their spell-work mixed together to form a bright gold color.
Connecting Tamsin's pale wand and Evans' wooden wand was a thin, golden string stretching tautly. More golden beams hovered over them, creating a dome of glistening patterns around the ceiling. Tamsin's eyes peered up, shock flushing her cheeks. The light from the dome of bright rivulets provided a better look at Evans' face. He looked miffed but not surprised, as he stared searingly into her.
Tamsin had never seen something like this, as she stared unblinkingly at the golden string tying their wands together. The string felt...cosmic. Larger-than-life.
Then suddenly, there was a force from the string, Evans directing his power across the beam—something that had seemed so pretty and delicate before—and Tamsin got a hold of herself as quickly as she could after staring at the golden bond between their wands. She forced all of her power through, but it was too late. Evans had the head-start.
Evans' spell reverberated back toward her, rushing in like a rapid river. Panic was not a strong enough word to describe how she felt.
Flashes zapped through her head. She saw a ghostly image of Lestrange writhing, as well as the Gaunts—her beloved family—he'd subjugated to torture, before she had killed them. Agony distorted their faces, turning them into unrecognizable, inhuman shades.
Distantly, she recognized that the visions had been summoned from the spell she had just uttered, the Cruciatus Curse. Tamsin felt no pity.
The only thing she felt was fear.
Harry Evans' eyes were cold and rough. The spell came closer and closer, the metallic, fiery-gold light bright and warm and violent. Tamsin felt it searing the skin near her wand, against her fingers and palms, hot and burning. Milliseconds later, it came slamming violently into collision with her hand.
Her wand was sent flying.
It clattered on the ground, several feet in front of her.
A/N: Hi, thank you so much for reading! I got a comment asking me to post this story on AO3 for convenience, so I did that if you want to check it out. Please leave comments, please forgive grammar and spelling mistakes, and have a wonderful day or night.