Chapter 19
“Time.
I know we’re out of time.
But what if sad thoughts come and I can’t stop it?
Bye.
I don’t wanna say bye.”
-- Karma, AJR.
.XoX.
Something went wrong.
Harry had a look on his face when Tom suggested it -- that look, the one that screams he knows something. That he has a gut feeling, a premonition, that exactly this would happen.
Tom had noticed his doubt. And he’d thought it reasonable, if unwarranted. Something a friend gives to a friend. And then he dismissed it and went on with his plan.
It was, he’d thought, an alright plan. He is sent to Marvolo, gets answers about what he talked about with Dumbledore, and maybe -- just maybe, if he is able, if he is lucky -- answers about his fascination with Harry, and anything else he can get him to answer. Get his answer, get sent back. It’s a good plan.
So he thought. But it wasn’t.
Because something went wrong.
He’s been stuck between the knowledge that he is nothing like Voldemort and Marvolo and whoever else the fuck is out there -- and the knowledge that he sort of is. You cannot separate the chicken from the egg.
Arrogance. The word for it is arrogance. Voldemort is egotistical and maniacal and arrogant, arrogant, arrogant, and…
And Tom is something like it. Something like him.
He is given to Marvolo a few days before the break. It is his last time in the castle for a long, long time.
Marvolo, he’s written. I’ve been meaning to talk to you.
What is it? Their handwriting is identical. How could Tom not have seen it before? He was blind or pretending to be.
You talked with Dumbledore. About Gellert’s Chrysalis Club--
Gellert’s? scrawls Marvolo. I don’t recall mentioning that fact to you. Nor do I recall mentioning, at all, the Chrysalis Club.
He’s suspicious. Instantly. Tom’s either lost his tact or Marvolo’s gained it. Either way, he scrambled to cover, It’s Harry. He’s clever sometimes, you know, and has put things together at an exceptional rate. You did talk to him about not joining the Club--
So you ARE close with him, ponders Marvolo. I warned you not to do that.
I didn’t do anything, Marvolo. I am close to him to gain his magic and gain a form; that’s all.
But you’ve been doing that for weeks. Draining his magic. Haven’t you been?
Yes, says Tom. (But something went wrong). But it appears his magic… well, it’s hard to drain. He’s got too much of it.
You really are a fool.
I have been doing as you instructed-- Why is he being insulted, undermined? (What went wrong?)
As I instructed before you revealed your diary owner to be Harry Potter. Were you not paying attention? I need him alive. Do you not remember that?
Marvolo, I--
Were you not smart enough to take a hint? You did not even think to consider stopping draining his magic and getting my dearest Harry to hand you off to another, more suitable person. You know I could not have done it myself, without Harry causing a fuss, bless him. Are you slow, Tom?
I can change course now, writes Tom. Marvolo is able to see his panic clearly because Tom is able to see his panic clearly -- and they are not so different after all.
No. You will not be doing anything, Tom.
Marvolo?
You’re rogue. That’s a good word for it, I’d think. He knows, thinks Tom. He KNOWS and he’s not supposed to but he does and (something went wrong.) Being so, so attached to the Potter boy -- and him being so attached to you; very clever -- would be useful if your own affection was not genuine. His malice toward me, it’s knowledgeable.
Well, he’s got one hell of an instinct, Tom tries to joke. And that instinct is coming into play now.
But that’s not all that’s in the way he looks at me. He knows.
Knows what? Voldemort has always been good at playing dumb but Tom… is not not Voldemort. Not completely.
That I am a Horcrux of Voldemort. That you are. You told him. Because you care for him. The word ‘care’ is used sickly written.
I am not rogue. I would never endanger us like that, Marvolo. Endangering them is actually exactly what he’s planning to do, but he can’t say that… even if it seems Marvolo already knows it.
You would. You were concerned with the amount of Horcruxes we’ve created -- what type of concern, Tom, that’s what I’m wondering. And I search through the library and find, missing and unaccounted for -- not even checked out, so rude, Tom, you should know better -- documentation of Voldemort’s war.
I thought we weren’t calling it a war, Marvolo, is weakly said.
You think a lot of things, Tom. Like that you would get away with this. But thinking it does not make it true. Goodbye, Tom. We will talk alter. If you are lucky.
Wait? No, Marvolo, I have -- you can’t-- and Tom throws himself out of the diary, his soggy form made defensive. His magic gathers up beside him, ready for use, ready for protecting him.
Marvolo’s wand is already out. They’re in the Slytherin common room. Tom knows this place, save the changes around the edges. It was one of the last places he was before that eventful evening at the entrance to the Chamber
Tom, the Horcrux, was born here.
Would this not be a fitting place for his death to be sealed?
“You can’t kill me, Marvolo,” Tom snarls. “We’re the same person. You’d be killing yourself.”
“I,” says Marvolo, “and we are nothing like you.” And then he casts a stunning charm and Tom jumps to dodge, but Marvolo was not aiming at him.
He was aiming at the diary.
Tom’s form falls in on itself and folds back into the diary. A restless slumber ensues.
.xox.
When Tom wakes, he pulls himself from the diary slowly and groggily. He is on a floor that is rotten and wooden. Vines spill down the walls. Portraits of a family are hung up. This is the emptied drawing room of a once praised, once nicely upheld manor.
Now… now it’s not. And that family, the one that must’ve owned this place years upon years ago, must’ve been Tom’s family. Because a boy that shares his face is sitting between two older adults.
“The old Riddle manor,” says a voice behind him. “A charmer. Isn’t it?
Tom turns around. In the dull kitchen light coming from the room behind him, his presence looks almost menacing. He is taller than Tom and shows obvious signs of aging, but he is just as clearly matching to the portrait on the wall as Tom is. His chestnut hair, styled to perfection. Striking grey eyes. A smile fit for only a Snake.
Tom knows him because he is him… in some sense of the word. “Voldemort?” he asks.
“No,” says the boy, more a man, tilting his head. “But close enough. I’m like you.”
“A Horcrux,” Tom breathes. He tries to walk toward him, but he is stopped. Around him, in a 9 by 9 feet square, with the diary at the middle, is an invisible barrier. Tom places his fist against it and pushes. It moves like plastic wrap against his skin but does not break.
Uncrossable.
Trapped.
“I was tasked with handling you,” continues the Horcrux, approaching Tom, a curious look in his eyes. “And upon doing so, I will receive my freedom. So, so. It is nothing personal.”
Freedom? He’s… talking about taking someone’s magic, ending their life, stealing their skin.
It seems it is not only Tom who has a goal he is willing to kill for.
“Handling,” says Tom, head following the Horcrux’s slow pace around his box. “What do you mean by handling?”
“Destruction, I assume,” he drawls, looking him up and down.
“You assume?”
The Horcrux stops pacing. “I’ve been merely instructed to keep you, for the moment. I am awaiting further dictation. I assume, however, that the end goal is your demise.”
Tom breathes deeply, setting his head against the barrier. “That,” he says quietly, “is not comforting.”
Something went wrong. And hadn’t Harry known it would, hadn’t he thought it?
And Tom…
Didn’t listen to him.
Tom tries out his magic. As expected, it flickered out in his hand as soon as he conjured it.
“Ah, yes. That,” notes the Horcrux. “It is a precaution, tailored to your magical signature, to not allow any magical use within your confinement.” He smirks. “Evidently, it is a necessary one.”
“Why are you doing this?” Tom all but begs. He does not want to die here. He has so many things to do, a yet undetermined number of Horcruxes to destroy, least of which is standing right in front of him.
Later, he will die. But he will do it willingly, and on his own terms.
“I explained already,” he says, pacing once again. “I am in the need of a new body, and this is the task I must complete in order to gain it.”
“No. That’s not what I… It’s just that… You look plenty corporeal already.” He is not even mildly transparent, like Tom is. Wherever his Horcruxed object is at, he is not attached to it directly. “Why kill a person -- and follow Voldemort’s orders -- if… if you’re already alive?”
The Horcrux grins. It is too wide, like if it went any further, it would rip the seams of his mouth. He holds out his hand, rotating it for inspection.”Yes,” he mutters. “It’s rather convincing magic, don’t you think? They call them ‘glamours.’ They did not have them in your time, but they’re more popularized now. They hide so the untrained eyes cannot see through it. Here,” he says, “I’ll show you what mine’s hiding.”
He drops the glamour.
Tom stumbles back, a screaming rising in his throat.
Tom looks upon his thousand rows of sharpened teeth, all gleamed with his own blood -- unable to close his mouth without slicing deeply into his own flesh. His eyes are hollow slits. Veins throb rhythmically at such a pace that Tom isn’t sure he should still be alive--
And then Tom gets it. He is not alive. He wants to live because he isn’t currently.
The Horcrux slips the glamour back on easily, smoothly. Normal, lidded eyes return with a smile that is so normal it would be so easy to forget the monster that resides under it.
(So easy and yet utterly impossible.)
Tom finds it easier to breathe.
“So you see, Tom,” says the Horcrux. “I do need to live. I’m like you right now -- thriving off someone’s magic, a poor fellow wearing my diadem, unconscious in the other room. He was given to me by Voldemort. I will not get to keep him if I do not do this. I assure you again it is by no means personal.” He smiles. So charming, so sweet. A lie. “It’s business.”
The information is… a lot to soak in. It’s worrying. This is a man who wants to live and that means he cannot be reasoned with -- his rationality has been thrown out the window at the same time his self preservation peaks through.
It is worrying. (Tom does not want to die here.) But… it’s also confusing.
Why is he so willing to give up information? Was it done in the heat of the moment -- passion bleeding in? A mistake. Was it a mere mistake?
Tom latches onto that word, that phrase. ‘My diadem.’ Tom swallows then ventures, set to prove a theory, see if it was just a mistake, “What diadem?”
“The Founder, Rowena’s,” says the Horcrux, shrugging. “It was a doozy to get our hands on, such a valued magical artefact…”
Tom’s mind is racing (he’s connecting the dots. The diadem, the Founder’s artefacts, the locket…), but he still coughs out, “Don’t do that. Don’t do this.”
“Do what, Tom?”
“Would you really tell me anything if I dared to ask?”
“Anything.”
“Anything?”
“Yes, Tom. Whyever wouldn’t you find this proposition favorable?” His smile takes on a predatory hook; the fickle light highlighting his features in a way that is paralyzing.
Tom will humour him, as if he does not already know his answer. “Because I know this one,” he says, voice sounding thick with desperation. “This -- this trick, this piss poor attempt at physiological warfare. You don’t mind telling me shit because you don’t think I’ll live long enough for it to matter.”
“You’re right. But why shouldn’t I act as if you will die soon?” The Horcrux tilts his head. “It’s an outcome all but guaranteed, Tom.”
No. I will not die. I -- I won’t leave Harry alone. I still have things to tell. He’s…
He’s my first ever friend. I will not leave without a proper goodbye.
You tell me that you’re killing me because of business.
Well, Voldemort. I have business here, too.
So even though Tom will escape here (for certain!), he’s still opting to use this Horcrux’s belief that he will not to his advantage. “What’s your name, then?”
“Maître Detous,” Maître says, humming. “I picked it myself. French for ‘ruler of all.’ Do you like it?” He bats his eyelashes.
“It’s awfully Voldemort,” says Tom, repulsed. “I can’t believe we ever liked that melodramatic shit.”
“Ah, well. It’s a good name notwithstanding.”
Tom grumbles. He looks around the room again. His eyes fall on the portrait. “Why here?”
“There’s power in everything, Tom,” says Maître. “In names. In,” he chuckles, “appearances. And the power in places? It’s immense. It’s helping along my draining magic routine. It’s helping contain you.”
“And what is the power in this place?”
“We killed our father. Do you recall?”
Tom recalls being told about it. The death of a father, the creation of another Horcrux. And it seemed the start of Tom’s irrelevancy. “I do.”
Maître spreads his arms out. “This is the very place it happened. There is so much death here; so much death of our bloodline. And blood, bloodline… There’s power in those, too.”
Power. He is obsessed with power. With the power he has now and the power he thinks he will gain -- and the power he will gain, if Tom does not have anything to say about it.
“How many other Horcruxes are there?” The locket’s location is still unknown, but the very fact Tom knows it exists (and now, thanks to Maître, he knows a little more than that) is a good step forward. Voldemort had told him something about a ring. Rowena’s diadem is in the other room. Tom has his diary with him.
Four is not a number Voldemort would stop at.
“There’s six as of current,” explains Maître. “Me, you, Marvolo… A few unnamed. Oh, and Voldemort himself. Six soul pieces broke off; seven of us in total. Though,” he grins, “this number may be destined to change in the future.”
Tom thinks that every villain loves themselves a good monologue. He asks, rolling his eyes, “And why’s that?”
“You’re well informed of our… adventitious plans surrounding Harry, aren’t you?”
Tom’s heart clenches. “Not fully,” he says. “I’m still unsure why Marvolo’s taken the interest he has… and -- and I’m even more unsure why it would have anything to do with our Horcruxes.”
“It doesn’t,” assures Maître quickly. “At least, it’s not set in stone. Marvolo is pushing for it, but I don’t think Voldemort will allow it, personally.”
“Allow what?”
“The creation of a human Horcrux, of course. Not that we’re even certain if it’s possible… Bottom line is, Harry has something that we want. We do not know where it is and may not have access to it without him. Marvolo is to wed him, get the item given to him willingly -- or wed him, then inherit it after Harry’s death.”
“Which you will cause.” A venomous accusation.
“If we need to,” amends Maître. “Marvolo is… quite smitten with the boy, in only the sense Marvolo can be smitten with anything. His attachment is a different brand than yours. With enough push and prod, he’ll either be ripe to die or ripe to love -- and, if Marvolo has his way, become one with us in the most intimate matter.”
“You’re sick,” Tom spits. “You’re sick as fuck, playing with him like that -- he’s ill. You know he’s ill and he’s -- he’s lonely. You’re going to twist him with grief over me until he’s yours.”
“We do seem to be taking that course,” is said conversationally.
Tom bangs his fist against the barrier. “Let me out! Keep your sick hands off of him! Let me out! Put down the barrier!” He bangs it again, harder, stomping his food down. “PUT IT DOWN!”
Maître just stares. “You’re throwing a tantrum, Tom,” he says, shaking his head. “Do calm yourself.”
“Let me out -- you’re going to kill him! Let me out!”
“In our defense, we only might kill him.”
Tom’s head falls against the barrier. “Like that’s any better,” he mutters, angrily.
“It is,” says Maître softly. “I cannot let you out. There is no way to break out. If it is any consolation,” he says, quiet. “Killing you is not the choice I would make, if I had any say in it.”
“But you don’t.”
“Right. I don’t.” He lets Tom stew in his despair for a moment before asking, “Is there anything else you would like to know? About Marvolo’s loverboy, perhaps?”
Tom would like to know how he plans to marry a boy who is in a marriage contract that doesn’t seem like it’s being broken any time soon -- and he wants to know why Harry was put in an arranged marriage around the exact same time Tom was sent to murder James Potter. He wants to know these things…
But he already has a good idea of what the answer would be.
What he does not knows revolves Voldemort. And whatever Voldemort knows… Maître should, too.
Maître Detous. ‘Rule of all.’ A power hungry monster who wishes ferociously to be a man.
Voldemort. ‘Flight of death.’ A mass murderer who Weeps over all the wrong things.
He recalls a journal entry from Voldemort, years ago. About love.
What do these monsters know about love?
And Tom thinks this is a good time to find out.
“Speaking of love,” says Tom, voice sounding light, “There was one entry. Years ago. I didn’t ask about it at the time -- didn’t care for it, or him -- and… It talked about a boy we loved. Who did we love, Maître? That’s what I want to know.”
Maître chuckles. “The boy we love, yes. I’m surprised you haven’t heard, or hadn’t guessed, considering who your diary was sent off too.” He hums, then shrugs. “No matter. I’ll tell you. His name is Gellert Grindelwald. Perhaps you’ve heard of him.”
Gellert.
Gellert Grindelwald. War criminal and murderer and lover.
Lover or almost lover or whatever -- he is loved by Voldemort.
Tom laughs. It is a bitter thing. Only a monster could love a monster -- and only a monster could find worth in someone so heartless.
Only a monster. Only Voldemort.
Tom does not know what else he could’ve expected.
Maître’s voice freaks him from his train of thought. “I’ll allow you one last question before I attend to my guest,” says Maître. “Choose, I suppose, wisely.”
Tom’s mouth moves before he permits it. “Why did you leave me?”
“Excuse me?”
“Why did you leave me with the Potters? I could’ve died.” He laughs, incredulous. “I should’ve. Why am I not valued like you are?”
“Because you are not like us.”
Tom’s not arguing with that. “You didn’t know that then,” he says. "There was no way you could’ve known that back then -- our differences, my hatred, the hazard I impose. None of it was known so known of it should’ve been a reason to leave me to die.”
Maître steps closer to him. “We seem,” he says, slowly, “to have a very different idea of what ‘different than us’ means. Here. Let me clear it up for you: You are nothing like us because you failed and are a failure. You failed to kill James Potter years ago and you failed to take the hint you shouldn’t kill this one. I would keep you alive for the very reason you were created; you are a key to our immortality. But let it be clear, Tom: I do not fail. Voldemort does not fail. So you are not Voldemort.”
Tom is outraged at his audacity, the presumptuous and pretentious and without basis assumptions. The sentiment that almost killed him is ridiculous. “If you’re going to disown every failure,” he barks out, nearly a laugh, “you’re going to have to get Marvolo next, you know that, right?”
Maître looks at him. Almost disinterested. “Whatever do you mean?” he asks flatly.
“I mean,” Tom cackles, “He’s trying to woo Harry and it’s not going to happen. Harry doesn’t want to be married, to be in a romantic relationship -- much less to Vold-e-fucking-MORT -- so beg my fucking pardon if I’m doubtful of his chances.”
Tom sighs. “I‘d thought we were friends, man. I mean, not friends in the average sense… but close. We were supposed to be close.” (But something went wrong.) “Like -- like we were buddies at the start, you know? And then you stopped caring about whether I lived or died and now you’re working to make sure the latter happens.” And now Tom is working to ensure it happens, too. Betrayal has not been kind to his morale. “And I don't… I don't know what happened.”
“I grew up,” says Maître, like it is nothing. Like growing up justifies anything. “You didn’t. It’s that simple.”
“I don’t think it is.” Tom thinks Marvolo goes by the only wizarding part of their name. He thinks Voldemort and stupid Maître have chosen names that do not sound Muggle.
He thinks he goes by Tom for a reason. There is, after all, power in names.
“Is that a hill you are willing to die on?”
“It’s a hill that I will.”
.xox.
Tom is unable to pinpoint how long he spends at the manor. He will learn later it was a little over two weeks.
Maître will come to visit him every once in a while. Answer any questions that Tom has stopped having. He is told once that, “Voldemort will decide what to do with you after the First Task,” which has Tom thinking about Harry all over again.
Harry. Maître. Voldemort. His rage toward one and love toward the other -- it consumes him. He worries for Harry. How he is taking his absence. How he is preparing for the Task. How things are going with Luna.
He misses him. It is a weird feeling. It hurts, throbbing periodically in his chest. Beside it sits regret. Hope.
He tries out methods of escape often and finds them all lacking.
He thinks of, during his endless and restless pacing, his previous time in exile. When Voldemort had abandoned him -- a sin both of them will pay for -- and how he had spent years, decades, able only to feel a quill and a diary that not a soul cared to write in.
This is exile, too. In a way. It is better and worse for the fact that he is not alone.
Why, he thinks repeatedly, had he not listened to Harry? Does he not know Harry’s intuition is friend to fact?
Tom is a fool. He is an arrogant fool. Dying here would be inconvenient but deserved.
Tom feels regret overwhelm hope. He stays in his little square and paces; each second dreadfully thought of an inch closer to his demise.
.xox.
Time -- lots of it -- has passed by when Maître flies into the room, disheveled. “I need to get into contact with Voldemort immediately,” he rambles, moving things in the room around. He’s looking for something. “That is, if Voldemort doesn’t know already. We need a new game plan…”
Tom glances at him, perplexed. “What are you going on about?”
Maître ignores him. “And then we’ll need to… Ah! There it is.” He holds up a hanged tooth vicariously. Tom had to guess, it is some way to communicate with Voldemort disguised. ‘Glamour,’ maybe.
“What happened?” But time has passed. The Tournament. The one with Marvolo in it and, more importantly, Harry.
Tom does not think it’s been that long since his disappearance. But thinking it does not make it true.
Maître stands up straight. He looks at him intensely.
“Something went wrong,” he says.
For some reason, Tom shudders.
“I’ll be busy in the other room making it right,” Maître tells him over his shoulder as he leaves. “Please do be quiet.” It is a surprisingly solemn beg.
Tom watches Maître leave, listens to the quieting steps emitting from his boots. Distantly, he hears talking.
Something went wrong.
What? What happened?
If anything happened to Harry, if he is hurt or maimed or killed…
Tom slumps onto the floor, leaning his back against the barrier. If Harry is hurt, there is nothing he can do. Because he is here. Because he is trapped here. Because this is a prison of his own doing.
He did not listen to Harry. And now he’s here. It is his fault.
He feels guilt and remorse and wonders how people like Maître could ever live without it.
But he remembers Harry's mantra. “Feeling bad does nothing if it is just a feeling. Why use is guilt if you do nothing with it?”
And it’s… rude, but true. Calling yourself a bad person does not make you magically a good one. Blaming himself for being here does not get him out of here. He recalls, too, when Harry wrote about his childhood. His rage upon being forced into an arranged marriage.
He destroyed his room. His house. Made his parents’ life a living hell. Listen to me. I am being polite. If you do not listen when I whisper, then the only answer is to get loud.
But then he stopped hurting everything around him and started hurting himself. And it didn’t work.
Tom thinks it is a sorry revolution. When people want to hate yourself, want to hurt you, is not self love its own rebellion?
“Oh, Harry,” he whispers. He feels the name, his affection, thrum in his soul. Ruminate. “How can I get to you?”
And then he feels the barrier falter.
It’s just for a moment. It repairs itself instantly and the moment is gone just as quickly as it arrived -- but that’s the thing. There was a moment.
Tom turns around and places his hands against the barrier, pushing. It faltered why… why did it falter?
He had just… been thinking, brooding to himself. And then he’d said… Harry's name.
And hadn’t Maître said that there is power in everything? In this room. In his appearance.
In Harry’s name.
And this box had been tailored to Tom’s magic -- special fucking treatment -- and he thinks that there is power in Harry’s name. There is power… and magic.
(Look. There is magic in everything. Can’t you see it?
Tom can.)
Tom had been draining Harry of his magic. Has been for some time now. It is a regretful, if necessary, betrayal but now, it’s come in handy.
Because, in him, he doesn't just have his own magic. His contained and dead here magic -- he’s also got Harry’s. He must have channeled it, somehow, by saying his name.
He sticks his diary in his waistband. He presses both of his hands to the barrier. He listens quietly for any signs of Maître. Swallows when he hears no difference.
An escape. It is time for an escape. He will not die here. He will not die today.
And it is all thanks to harry fucking Potter.
He squeezes his eyes shut. “Harry,” he whispers. Thinking of him. Trying to pull his magic from his chest. The barrier falters weakly. It is doing something.
But not enough.
He needs more.
He thinks of Harry Potter, drunk on the floor. Calling himself an asshole. Tom saying, “I know. So am I. We can work on that.”
“Both of us.”
“Together.”
“Harry,” repeats Tom. The barrier is warm against his palms.
He thinks of Harry Potter. His infectious slang. Ridiculous and silly… and endearing. He remembers telling Marvolo that he’s, “cappin,” and feeling like he is stealing more than just Harry’s magic.
“Harry,” he breathes. The barrier wobbles.
He thinks of Harry Potter sitting on the dirty ground of the Astronomy Tower. Telling Tom that he is in his element. “And your element,” he’d said, “... is on the floor?”
“So I’ve clarified,” Harry said.
Silly. He’s just silly.
“Harry,” says Tom.
He thinks of Harry Potter telling him he has always wanted a friend to do tarot with. A simple past, present, and future. Harry tells him in his future decisions, he will find balance.
“Tarot is stupid.”
“I’m sure, Tom.”
Tom says, one last time, thinking that there is balance inside him (that, maybe, tarot is not stupid), feeling Harry's magic hum and whirl throughout his body, “Harry.”
He pushes through the barrier and falls onto the floor unceremoniously. The barrier repairs itself behind him, but it’s too late.
He’s already free.
Tom feels like he can finally breathe.
He waits to see if Maître has heard his crashing. He pulls himself onto his knees and stares at his shaking hands, panting quietly once he is sure Maître hadn’t.
There’s scars, he notes absently. On his hands, from the barrier. They spread from his palm and out to the rest of his hand, reaching down a good length of his arm like a spiderweb.
He has not left this place unmarred. But one thing is for sure.
He will leave this place alone.
He closes his eyes. He feels his magic -- something that is free, too -- spread throughout the house like a spilled cup of water. He reaches the edge of the building.
He puts up walls. Wards. A different kind of barrier. He will go about it in a similar manner that Maître did.
Similar… but not the same.
With Tom’s wards, only Harry’s magical signature is allowed through. Exclusion through inclusion. Similar and not the same.
Tom sets his hands against the wood. “Incendio,” he whispers.
He watches the fire catch quickly on the wood. He watches it spread. Soon enough, it will get to where Maître is making his call. It will get to where a diadem rests on a sleeping man -- an innocent man. Maître will notice the fire. Grab the diadem, try to leave.
The sounds he will make when he realizes he cannot.
He will burn alive, dying a man who thought he was all but unkillable. All but safe.
And the flames will lick at the diadem, bending the metal and staining with with dirty ash. It will disappear from the manor with a pop, long after Tom had made his leave. It will disappear from the manor, a place Apparation is not capable from, and into Hogwarts… a place where Apparation into is equally not as possible.
Soon enough. But for right now, Tom rises from his knees and makes his way through the house that belonged to very father he killed. He looks at the portraits. The old, rotten through furniture. It was a place well lived in. And now it’s time for it to die.
There is power in this house. There is also power in fire. Tom wonders which one matters more.
He walks out of the manor and onto the Muggle street. He does not stop to look back at the raging fire. Does not stop to listen to Maître’s gut wrenching screams.
He doesn’t have time to, after all.
It is a long walk to Hogwarts.
.XoX.
“Hold me close
Feed me parasites
Like I’m a ghost.
‘Cause you hate me
So you ate me
Ate me up alive
And I’m not having it.
So keep on halving it.
I will lose this war
‘Cause I’m both sides.”
-- Harry Potter, “Two of Pentacles.”
End of Part One.