Tom’s knuckle-white grip on his wand relaxes in tandem to the resisting flutter of his eyes, exposed to a moonless sky and faint remembrance.
It was intrusive and vexingly cryptic.
He can’t remember the last time he’s had proper sleep.
Sleep was a cheap luxury, afforded only by the purposeless, aimless musings of Muggles. Sleep was the passage of success for those too weakened by morals to achieve. Sleep was the first cowardly death of Tom Riddle, Sr. The second, made permanent by a reimagined take of Gatsby’s green light.
But, books were like sleep. Silly stories, whether real or imagined, suited only for a child’s ears when disturbed by too many hours spent in the waking world, under imperious influence of adults.
A lullaby was a death sentence.
To sleep was to be at the mercy of another. To be utterly and irrevocably blind and resigned in relinquishing control to another.
The pads of his fingers trace bone disguised as wood. An odd number of splinters prick at the whorls as a smarting reminder of his recent… activity.
Perhaps, two may well have been enough. But, third time’s the charm. Wasn’t that the Muggle saying? The third time was unlike the first or second. The first, which was all exciting, adolescent intensity, a potency which threatened to reduce not only the manor to cinders, but the seedy shack that was their festering canker.
The second, which was an utter blunder. Amateur and almost shameful, if not for laughable absurdity. Still, the deed was done. Whether by blood or bint, his dream of defeating Death was no mere stint.
Indeed, third was the charm. Hepzibah Smith and her treasures of alarm that made no sound when titillated and bound. Two for the price of one. In due reward for a more seasoned slip of tongue that slithered and slithers and will slither again and again. And again…
Splinters hook and thread beneath his skin, tasting the essence of what was both replenishing and draining from him. A nosy little thing with a name of no importance. Worked at the Ministry. Department of Magical Games and Sports. No importance.
Equally vapid were the memories he stripped through like fraying ribbons. An unimportant person who was intimately familiar with important people, yet impossibly unconcerned about hierarchy. Her mind was as flat and flavourless as the gum she personified beneath the incumbency’s heel.
She was not the fourth.
She was still alive.
A heart that was very much beating dreadfully with an alacrity unmatched by any metronome, by any sundial, horologe or enchanted hourglass. A soul that was screaming with a strong and healthy reach that danced like ritualistic magic against the thicket of swaying trees.
The lady of ardent conquest, of true importance, still hidden somewhere among these shrivelled leaves, hushed and secreted in one of the trees’ gaping hollows, huddled and weeping sapphire tears.
All he needs to see is a glister, no matter how faint and frangible, catching against the moon’s rapid phasing. A star peering through the umbrage. A pale hue of dull blue sparking alight at the presence of a new master.
Fear.
To be afraid was to go at great lengths to impede or altogether halt the source.
This was not a show of ambition.
This was fear.
A fearless man does not oppose. A fearless man does not fight against that which he fears. A fearless man admits his fear. If Death is his fear, the fearless man does not dream of fleeing.
But, Tom dreams of being feared, not fearless. Adhered to, but not respected.
Being feared meant never being alone, whereas respect was simply a delayed form of betrayal. Fear was inherited. Respect was not. It was fabricated, deceptive and fleeting.
Like…
Hot, humid, dizzy and oppressive. Albanian air was a far cry from London’s cold embrace. Even in the remote wilderness of northern mountains, snow became rain before the clouds could spit them out.
Perhaps it is the blanketing mist that mires his thoughts in mirages. The Mirror of Erised materialising in each gaping maw of languishing bark. None reflecting the object of his desire. The illusion of trepidation dotting his forehead, the stinging mockery of melancholy descending over the sharp contours of his cheeks, evaporating like anxious, constricted swallows.
Reflections of male desire shifting through the haze.
Mocking.
A pair of lips, rosy and parted.
Mocking.
A pair of eyes, wide with fear.
Mocking.
First, confused, curious, searching.
Then, appraising.
Watching and waving.
Greeting and departing.
Curved and ossified, the knuckle-white thumb grazes impatiently against the dormant vein of his wrist. His grip is tenuous, but there is intent. Heady and redolent like the perfumed rot of Merope Gaunt.
A man who fears Death; deathly afraid of loneliness.
Lumos.
A careless, juvenile turn in time.
Nox.
A newborn left alone in the dark.
Protego Diabolica.
A woman who fears discovery…