Confrontation
“Of all the love I have taken, all the hearts I’ve turned to hate
Hearts are easily broken when you’re bein’ made in the shade”
-Judgement Day (Stealth)
Tom remembers how Dumbledore stopped him, right as his foot passed the threshold of the now-empty classroom.
“Tom! Would you mind staying behind after class, for a moment?”
A pause.
“Of course, sir.”
The Head Boy forces a polite smile onto his features. Neither of them are fooled. Dumbledore has always been able to see straight through him.
He remembers how the professor waited, smiling benignly, as Tom stepped away from the safety of the crowded halls and headed back towards the front of the classroom.
How hilariously foolish he’d been. How unprepared.
“I was hoping to talk to you about Voldemort.”
Tom drops his bag. He’s dimly aware of the books that have gone flying, of the ink pot that has no doubt smashed and leaked ink over the precious pages.
“I beg your pardon?”
“And your Horcruxes.”
Tom isn’t quite sure if he heard him right, if he’s even still breathing.
“Oh, and your rather unfortunate fixation on blood purity.”
Tom Riddle prides himself on his near-perfect mask and flawless self control (that seems to be fading, now he thinks of it) but hearing the professor throw out all of his deepest, darkest secrets like that after years of dancing around the issue, years of cold, suspicious glances and irritating passing comments about the ‘Power of Love™’-
Well.
Surely that warranted some kind of reaction?
With difficulty, he pulls himself together, and meets the man’s eyes.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
The ink seeping into his once-nice shoes seems to disagree. The lie is a poor one, a classic failure that he finds himself regretting the moment it slips from his lips.
Dumbledore looks at him, not unkindly for once, and tells him in the gentlest of tones that it’s ‘never too late to change’.
Tom scoffs and turns on his heel.
It’s a little reckless and a terrible idea, but when you’re inching towards death nothing really seems like a bad idea anymore. Besides, what proof does the old fool really have?
Dumbledore, of course, he muses, was entirely too open.
“Where did you pick up those ideas Tom? Your fellow Slytherins?”
That almost makes Tom stop walking. A wave of irritation hits him at the insinuation that the only place he could’ve picked up something so ‘depraved’ was from the house of snakes- prejudiced Gryffindor.
Every house has its fair share of pureblooded families and every house has its fair share of blood purists. The Ravens, the Lions, the Snakes, and the Badgers, the only difference between them is that Slytherin is a little more vocal about their opinion on the matter. Tom had mixed with purebloods from all over England and they all had the same thing to say- magic was growing weaker and weaker generation by generation and the only difference they could find was the increasing number of muggleborns in their community.
“It’s odd. I always took you to be more of a leader than a follower, Tom.”
That’s it.
Tom stops.
“Gryffindors, actually.”
He hadn’t entirely been lying. In first year, before he’d learned the power of a disarming smile and carefully chosen words, he’d been one of the many victims of the purebloods’ prejudice. He still remembers the fear and shame that had rushed through his veins when Charles Figg had practically thrown him down the astronomy tower stairs, suggesting that his silence over his parentage could only mean he was a ‘magic-stealing mudblood’. Tom had punished him in his later years for it, of course, but the words had stuck with him.
He found himself trying to pass himself off as pureblood- even succeeding. No one doubted his word. After all, a half-blood or a muggleborn surely couldn’t perform as well as Tom did.
And if Tom listened a little closer when purebloods spouted rot about blood and power and all that, who cared?
And if Tom slowly, reluctantly, began to believe it, what did it really matter?
He looks Dumbledore in the eye.
Smiles, coldly.
“Besides. It’s a bit late for you to pretend to care now, Professor.”
This time, when he tries to leave, Dumbledore doesn’t stop him.
THEN
The next time Tom Riddle finds himself in the library, he’s horrified to find himself actually reflecting on the man’s words, and more pressingly, the words of the girl in the smoke.
“I always took you to be more of a leader than a follower, Tom.”
“Do you want to know what happens in the future, Tom Marvolo Riddle? You lose. All your hatred, your cruelty, your prejudice is for nothing. Brilliant muggleborns ace every class and some of your precious purebloods can’t even stand a cauldron the right way up.
You’re a murderer- a killer- a torturer- and all for nothing.”
Her eyes had flashed as she said it, her whole body tensing like a coiled spring, ready to pounce or flee at any moment.
Tom tears through section after section of the library but still no solution jumps to attention and his frantic recounts of his conversations with Hermione yield no clues, only a growing pain twisting throughout his body.
The words of the Girl still won’t leave him, and if the burning in his chest isn’t enough, memories of a similar debate with Granger just have to spring up.
“Where did they come from, anyway?”
The question is sudden, unprompted. They lean against the oak tree nearest the castle, halfway to the lake and Tom turns his head to look at her, his most loyal follower.
“Pardon?”
“The ideas about blood purity.”
She turns her head, meets his eyes.
“Who decided that all the mug- mudbloods were unworthy?”
She stumbles over the slur, correcting her mistake at the last moment. Tom almost admires her for it. Her ability to see past her peers’ prejudice enough to almost call them muggleborns. To almost acknowledge them as something different, but not worse. It’s a trait rarely found in Purebloods.
He sometimes has the odd feeling that if he were ever to reveal to her his half-blood roots that she wouldn’t shun him- wouldn’t breathe a word. He isn’t stupid enough to give in to the impulse, however.
Instead, he looks away, to the lake.
“Purebloods, of course. We saw that magic was fading- losing its potency. And we saw that mudbloods were marrying into our families, stealing our magic and diluting it.”
It’s a while before she speaks again, but her voice is flatter now, almost disappointed.
“Of course. It was a foolish question. Forgive my impertinence, my Lord.”
Tom can’t help but feel that he’s said something wrong when her mask comes out. When the warmth behind her deliverance of the name ‘Riddle’ (his godforsaken muggle name) is replaced by the cold, detached title of ‘My Lord’.
He ought to be pleased. He was, when she used the title at first. When anyone did.
But after growing used to her warmth, he finds her coldness unbearable.
“I’ll think nothing of it.”
But he does. It’s a whole week before he can banish the conversation from his mind, the disappointment in her tone, and the distant look in her eyes.
Tom re-evaluates his plans, re-reads old books and laws and rituals and he wonders if it’s not the muggles making the magic (his only refuge, his only saving grace-) disappear but the wizards.
He reads through the list of the thousands of spells and practices banned so far. He remembers the looks of surprise that flitted across Hermione’s face every now and again when a more dangerous spell was taught or when her magic reacted more strongly than she was expecting.
She rarely pulled her punches in a duel…
Tom wonders if it was always on purpose.
He props open a book and begins to write as, surely, it wouldn’t hurt to do a little extra research?
After all, he is a half-blood and he does just as well as the purebloods (if not better).
NOW
Tom looks wearily down at the book in his lap.
‘Malathew’s Moste Mystic Arts’-
If he wasn’t so desperate he thinks he might’ve set the bloody thing aflame. Page after page is nothing but nonsense proved incorrect by years of new magical theory. He throws his head back, looking at the ceiling.
When he looks down again, pages flying past wildly on release, his eyes widen. He grabs the book, flicking back to the words he was so certain he’d seen-
Yes.
“Cure to the Curse of Unrequited Affection-
The curse is often referred to as Narcissus’ Revenge, Blooming Death, or most rarely, the Hanahaki Disease. Notable cases include-“
Tom skimmed the paragraph, looking for details on the cure.
Quickly, he found it.
A potion, brewed over the span of three months containing fairly simple ingredients to find.
The three months was the only real issue but he was certain that he could hang on that long as long as he was careful.
It was the answer, he realised, excitement finally beginning to build. He kept reading, listing ingredients, making notes on the parchment on the bedside table.
He might actually be able to beat this.
His elation faded, however as he read the warning in minuscule print at the very bottom of the page-
“CAUTION- may have unpredictable effects on the emotions of the drinker. Must be taken daily.
Side effects may include sudden bursts of anger, heightened irritability, increased nausea, bouts of forgetfulness, dizziness, unpredictable highs, uncontrollable flatulence-“
He closes the book right then and there. He pinches the bridge of his nose. It might’ve even been amusing if time weren’t running out. He thinks his followers- friends?- might’ve sniggered if they read the passage. He can hear it now, see the eye roll he’d deliver, see her smug smile-
He adds the book to the disturbingly large ‘to be returned pile’ and takes a deep breath.
Don’t think about her.
He still has time.
He just has to use it effectively.