Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

The First Horcrux	By : magentasouth Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Tom Views: 27246 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 2
Disclaimer: I neither own nor profit from any part of the Harry Potter universe.

Chapter List
- 16
- 17
- 18
He was rather
lovely...�

Taking just a moment longer to
appreciate the naked, well built, seventh year laid out on the flagstones
before his own kneeling form, Tom sighed and reluctantly cast the spell
wandlessly.
�Draco, wake up..�� He
patted the aristocratic face lightly, although it was unnecessary.� The enervate would suffice to return the limp
blond to consciousness.
True to his breeding, Draco did not emit any undignified
little noises as he returned to himself.�
He barely twitched.� Grey eyes opened a cautious millimetre,
peering up through blonde lashes before the �boy apparently determined that it was safe and
opened them fully.
Even then...
rather than the flurry of foolish questions that Tom had half expected to flow from
between the thin, pale pink lips, Draco merely looked around, his eyes taking
in Tom�s appearance and position, kneeling close to him, dressed in a
nondescript pair of trousers and shirt;�
the rough stone walls of a cell around them; taking in his own unclothed state with admirable
nonchalance, and finally, drawn by the darker hue on the far side of the room,
lifting his head to better interpret what was in fact the splayed body of his
unconscious potions teacher and godfather.�

The latter creased the blonde�s brow into a barely-there frown of disturbed confusion.
Tom smirked, amused by the frantic calculation that was no
doubt going on behind the silvery grey eyes.�
Draco would be going over his most recent recollections hurriedly,
looking for something that could
explain the bizarre circumstances in which he presently found himself.�
�It would have been nice-�, Tom thought, �if Dumbledore
could have at least offered some kind of hint
as to what he had done to Draco with the last spell he had cast.� Judging by the focus upon the other boy�s
head, it would be some manner of memory altering charm � perhaps a variant of
the obliviate � but at this stage who knew
what the blasted old coot intended to do next.��

Tom had hardly expected him to open the door and wish him well, after all. ��

Dumbledore was batty.� Not at all stupid � no, let him never
again forget how alert and cunning the old man was � but he was definitely not all there.� Everything was a test.. everything was some
kind of examination of one�s moral compass.�

Anyone sane knew that there were far...far..
more important things than �whether one�s heart was in the right place�.
�You saved me� he offered quietly, hoping that this was
vague enough to fit with whatever Draco currently believed had recently
occurred.�

�- Thank you, Draco..�
This drew a deeper, even more bemused furrow to the brow of
the boy he observed.� Draco turned his
wide grey eyes back toward him and battled with his own expression, finally
triumphing and pasting an opaque confidence back upon his face.

�I live to serve you, my Lord.�
Tom�s well honed �expression of sincerest gratitude� faded
slightly as his smile took on shades of smirk.
�That is indisputably true� he agreed.� �Get up.�
Clothe yourself.� I am sure ..Snape.. would not begrudge his godson
the very shirt from his back.� I will
even resize the clothes for you, if you hurry.�

We are leaving..�
Pulling himself to his feet and brushing the nonexistent
dust from his trousers, Tom turned his attention to Snape and waved a wandless
disrobing charm in Snape�s direction, turning away without bothering to observe
its effects and pacing to the door.� ��

As much as he desired knowledge of all kinds, there were some limits.� He had no
interest in knowing exactly what the beaky potions master looked like beneath
his robes.��
Draco seemed to react the same way, he caught the grimacing
aversion of the blonde as he neared the pile of clothes with his face turned almost
completely away � as if the sight of the pallid white fishbreast of the other
man might burn out his retinas.
�Do I have to wear...everything?� he asked quietly, but with
a faint note of horror beneath the words.�

Tom snickered to himself, tempted to oblige Draco to don Snape�s undergarments,
however black and overbuttoned they might be.
�Of course not. �The
clothes are not a punishment, Draco.�
Merely expedient, unless you would rather roam the corridors without
them.�
There was the soft shuffling of dressing behind him.�
He glanced back and smiled in genuine amusement at the sight
of the haughty blonde half drowned in baggy black robes.� They hung upon his not insignificant frame
like a full body chastity belt.� So many
fiddly little buttons and reinforced layers.�
The blonde had probably just slipped them on like a nightdress.
�Mordred... what do
you look like!� he poked harmlessly.� The
blonde grimaced and looked down uncomfortably.
It was endearing, Tom thought.� But Draco deserved a little more than this.��

He concentrated carefully, raising both hands to add focus and to be certain
that he could transfigure only the
clothing and not the pretty pureblood within.�
The robes were imbued with a number of different charms, a great many of
which were specifically intended to prevent transfiguration, vanishing or other
alteration via magic.�

Draco balked slightly but, to his credit, did not move.

It was satisfying when the charms eventually gave way and allowed the robes to
be transfigured into a vague facsimile of the standard Hogwarts uniform.

True, it was all one piece of fabric, but it looked close enough to normal to fool an observer.
The occupant of said robes breathed a relieved sigh and
looked up at him again with that expression of near awe, as if he were astounded that he had the honour of being in Tom�s
presence.
Tom brushed off the warm glow that flared inside him at that
admiration and tossed his hand in an upward gesture, conjuring a small
witchlight.� The pale blue orb bobbled
gently in the air above his hand and then stabilised and brightened slightly.

There would not be any torches outside this room.� The space outside the door was illuminated
only by the thin yellow rectangular slice of light that fell out through the
doorway from within the cell itself.
�Come along now� he said quietly.� �We will
no doubt meet with difficulties on the way.�
Remain behind me for now and try not to get in the way should anything
unexpected occur. �Without your wand, you
are more liability than asset.
His words caused the silvery grey eyes to fall once again to
the floor despondently.� Pursing his
lips, Tom paused, experiencing an odd feeling of regret.� He...didn�t intend to deride Draco as useless.�
He certainly wasn�t useless.� He had recently proven extraordinarily useful
on several fronts.� Nevertheless, there
really was no time to soothe Draco�s ego at present and he told himself that he
was a sot for even considering the merits of doing so.� �His
doubts thus assuaged, Tom turned away from the subdued blonde and set off into
the darkness.
The dark and shadowy corridor outside the cell was vaguely
familiar.� Tom thought, to judge by their
surroundings, that he had a reasonable idea of where this corridor might be
located in the castle.

Not that that necessarily helped.� ��Although he had spent the first few years in
the diary wandering aimlessly around the limited world in which he was
imprisoned, and although that world had been charted in far more detail than
Tom himself had expected � far more detail than he had himself written into the diary when he had been
constructing it - �he had not actually spent
much time in the third sub level of the dungeons after those initial
wanderings.�

There was, after all, nothing at all of interest down here.� It was a storage area for old desks, carpets
and lecterns.� It had been a dusty, boring
place and its atmosphere of disuse and abandonment had been disturbingly
metaphoric for Tom as he perused it.� He
thought of himself.. a book on a shelf, hidden somewhere;� Forgotten;�
Broken and never to be reanimated.�
A thing without purpose.�
He had never run across cells
down here when he was wandering.� He didn�t
think Hogwarts dungeons had ever been used as ...dungeons..as such.� At least.. he wasn�t aware of their ever
being put to that purpose in any of the history books he had consumed.�

Perhaps Dumbledore had had the castle create this cell specifically for him?
That was almost flattering.
The corridor they were following joined with an almost
identical adjacent one ahead. ��There
were no portraits on the walls down here.�
No decoration at all.� The walls
were featureless, windowless, torchless.�
Floors and ceilings were identical flagstone surfaces; turquoise in the
pale nimbus of his witchlight, fading out to sheer black only metres ahead.�

It had something barren and desolate to it.�
Like the abyssal depths of the oceans. �The air was thicker.. ranker...� It smelled of must and damp.� �
�It�s... this way, I think� he half whispered to Draco, who
was following with admirable stealth two paces behind him, before setting off
counter-intuitively down the left corridor direction, which sloped slightly
downhill.
�Are..are you sure?� Draco whispered back uneasily. ��
Tom did not dignify this with a response.� It was fortunate for Draco that he was still
languishing in Tom�s favour for the loyalty he had showed, or else he might
have bothered to attend to this mild slight.
The air seemed to become colder by the step as they padded
on quietly through the dark depths.�� Tom
could see his breath in front of his face.
�Something is up ahead� he murmured under his breath,
stopping and glancing back, to make sure that Draco was still with him and had
caught what he had said.�

The wide eyed misery on the blonde�s face was unmistakeable.� Draco was wishing
quite vehemently that he was elsewhere.
�Should we go back� he whispered at Tom � although the undertone
he gave it essentially conveyed ��I want
to go back!!�
Tom smiled thinly.�

�If my memory serves me � the other corridor
leads to a rather cluttered hexagonal foyer area with several other corridors
leading away from it and a narrow staircase that connects it to another storage
room in the second sub level.� This corridor leads, after a fashion, to
an entrance to an underground aquifer which feeds into the black lake some
distance outside of Hogwarts wards.� It
is a remnant of the days in which castles of this type were built to withstand sieges.� It is also
possibly a route out of the castle which Dumbledore might have disregarded.�
This information did not seem to reassure Draco at all.� The boy looked positively petrified now.�

�I don�t have my wand!� I... Surely there must be another way
out!� Why can�t we just walk?!�
Tom raised an eyebrow in the half-light.� �I don�t know what Dumbledore has placed in
the way of protections in the upper corridors.�
I am sure there will be wards
and obstacles to prevent me from getting near students or out onto the
grounds.�� Possibly these wards might extend down here...�� He paused, uncertain at this new
thought.� What if the supposedly lethal
wards at the outer perimeter of Hogwarts could affect him even deep
underground...underwater...
Well.. what other option was
there?!�

He could turn around and march in a generally upward direction until a ward
barrier knocked him out.� Draco would
probably try to carry him and possibly
might manage to drag him outside, where further wards would promptly render him
a dead, rather than a merely unconscious, body.�
Draco would likely not even realise this until he arrived at his
destination � at which point he too
would die when Tom�s other self realised what had happened.
That was not a promising alternative.

...He could try to get to one of the entrances to Salazar�s chamber.� Within, none of the wards could affect him
and Dumbledore himself would be hard pressed to reach him.

Harry had been in the chamber though.� He�d
killed the basilisk.�� He could bring Dumbledore
down there.

And even if there were a way to secure the chamber from within against entry �
not that Tom had ever happened across such a thing � there was no food within the chamber.� Tom was already
finding himself slightly uncomfortable in the region of his abdomen and he
suspected it might be hunger. �He had not
eaten the previous day, what with all of the distractions.
He could give up...
That thought grated against him though.� He couldn�t just...give up..� That would be
tantamount to giving himself over to Dumbledore�s will;� accepting that the old man had beaten him,
even with a free shot at escape.�� What
would follow?�� Tom.. I�m so glad to see
you made the right choice.� Now.. if you could see your way clear to
restoring Miss Granger to her previous, unbound state � we might see whether we
cannot give you another chance within a more comfortable manner of cell.� Of course you will not be able to have the
freedoms that you have unfortunately abused, but if you show good behaviour,
perhaps you may be able to grovel your way back to the same paltry distractions
you were given before.�
Tom glared at the dark corridor ahead.�
�You may go back, if you wish, Draco.�� I doubt that you will be wandering down here
for too long. �In all likelihood you would stumble across the
stairs up to the second sublevel in the dark eventually and from there, it
would only be a matter of following one wall until it led to another staircase
somewhere and you would be in the torchlit corridors that you know once
more.� ...Even if you became truly lost down
here in the dark - Dumbledore would send someone after you before you expired
of dehydration...probably.�
He could actually hear
the boy behind him swallow thickly as he considered the idea of wandering
around wandless..in the dark, unfamiliar corridors...alone until he collapsed and died.
�N-no...It�s alright.�
I won�t leave you� Draco answered weakly.
�Well then.� I�m glad
we resolved your uncertainty.� Shall we
see what exactly is lying in wait for us further down this corridor?��
He didn�t bother to wait for a response, but stalked
carefully on.�
There was a faint...scratching.. or...tapping.. somewhere ahead.�

Cautiously, Tom summoned the witchlight down and cupped it in his hand,
covering all but the minimum light he required to navigate.�� If he could have, he would have extinguished
it completely and used a spell to enhance his vision � but such spells were
only of use if there was a minimum of ambient light.� In total darkness, such as might be found in
sealed stone corridors deep within the earth, they were worthless.� A hand of glory would be a fine thing to have,
�however he had not run across one
conveniently lying about since his restoration from the diary and certainly hadn�t had the opportunity to
visit Knockturn Alley to shop for obscure dark artefacts that could come in
handy under unlikely circumstances.
�What is ��
�Shh-� he hushed quickly.
The tapping stopped.
Tom held his breath and strained to hear.
When the silence stretched on to the point that he could
feel his own hairs standing up on the
back of his neck, he risked a spell.
�Animalis revelio� he
thought clearly, directing the spray ahead.
The darkness remained unbroken.� Tom frowned.�
The spell to detect a lifeform, should have picked something up, whether human or animal.� Perhaps the source of the sound was obscured
behind some unseen object?!
After a while, the scratching sound started again.�

Tom startled at the sudden brush of something against his leg and turned, only
to find that Draco had inched so close to him that he was practically wearing
the larger boy like a cloak.�

He glared, but this served only to persuade the boy to edge back a few
inches.�

Draco apparently did not do well in the dark.
�What is it?!� he mouthed soundlessly, looking panicked.
Tom rolled his eyes and turned back to face the scratching..
and now tapping again..

His mind was conjuring up images of something blind and perhaps partially
amphibious that had been living down here undisturbed for decades, if not
centuries.� Something that had grown
large and fat on the creatures that wandered, overcurious, down the channel
from the black lake.. Something that existed here entirely without natural
predators.
Something that was feeling its slow way forward, white and
hideous, clawed and toothed and navigating purely by scent.� Salty sweat and human breath likely didn�t
waft down these corridors often.
Tom cursed silently.�
He was unsettling himself now.�

If such a thing was there, the animalis revelio would have picked it up and lit
up like a flare.�� Nothing large could
escape the spray.
So..
So... either it was hidden.. or... further away than it
sounded.... or it was something very small.
Narrowing his eyes, he considered this.�

Well.. if it was hidden, there wasn�t much he could do about it until it leapt
out at them both.� Perhaps he should
force Draco to walk ahead of him..��

The amount of terror this would provoke and the likely loss of loyalty he would
incur probably made this a losing venture.�
He discarded it.� If whatever it
was was hidden, he would deal with it
when it appeared.. or when he arrived at it, should it be much farther away
than it seemed.

If it was small though...�

Perhaps it was just a rat.. or an insect of some kind.�
He inched forward slowly. �
The tapping had an odd cadence to it.�� Admittedly this was a strong magical
environment and thus the lifeforms that made their homes here tended to acquire
an odd sentience after a while � even the insects � but he didn�t think he�d
ever heard a beetle that clicked in such a complex, repeating frequency.
On a hunch he crouched down low to the floor and recast the
animalis revelio.��

It sped off into the darkness and then, far off in the distance, a small white
light flared.� It was too dark to make
out any dimensions, but the glowing spot seemed very small.
And then the tapping stopped its odd rhythm and the white
spot raced toward them!
Tom ignored Draco�s hand which had dropped on his shoulder
as if the older boy wanted to tug him away to run pell-mell in the other
direction from whatever the small thing was that was virtually flying at them out of the darkness.
He would not run yet.�
Whatever this thing might be, Tom
was by no means helpless.� He would best
it.�

Opening his hand, he released the witchlight.�
There was no reason to observe stealth when they had already been
detected, and no sense in occupying a hand he might need.
He shifted his weight.. assuming a duelling stance in
preparation.. The light had almost reached the edge of the turquoise nimbus
thrown by his witchlight.

There was a skittering sound too.�

Best to play it safe.� He prepared a blasting
hex.� It had a fairly wide spray and would
likely stop most lifeforms that might be a threat.�

Perhaps the killing curse would be better.. but it needed to be aimed exactly �
not good with something small and fast � and he hadn�t used it in...a long
time.� It hadn�t been reliable then either.
And then there was no more time for deliberation as the
speeding white dot reached the pall of his witchlight and the monster was
revealed.
It was a bit of a let-down, all things considered.�� Tom deflated and lowered his hands, feeling
the adrenalin that had been coursing through him subside, only to leave him
with trembling fingers.
Behind him, Draco sniggered
and Tom was tempted to blast the creature for the sake of it.
It was a mouse.
A tiny..itty-bitty..white
mouse.�� It had stopped a few paces
ahead of them, in the centre of the corridor, bathed in the turquoise light and
was balancing on its back paws, sniffing the air and peering up at them
curiously,� little black eyes glittering
and whiskers twitching adorably.�

Draco and Tom did not seem to constitute much of a threat for the little mite,
as it promptly began to clean itself, running little hands over its head and
whiskers like a showman twirling his moustache.
And then it pulled out from
nowhere a tiny top hat and cane and began to dance.
Tom swore in his mind that he was going to kill Dumbledore at the earliest possible
opportunity
Mind the mice, he�d said.�
Mind the bloody mice..�
�Is that it?!� Draco
jeered in paradoxically-euphoric disdain as if to declare that HE had not been wetting himself in fear
at all, whatever impression Tom might have had.�
He stamped with his foot on the flagstones as if to scare the mouse
off.�

Tom rolled his eyes silently and endured it.��
It didn�t take much to understand Draco�s mortification at his own recent
weakness and the resulting unnecessary overcompensation.
However, when Draco stepped past him to better �scare off�
the vaudeville-esque rodent, Tom was momentarily taken off guard and reached
for him just a second too late.
Draco�s fabulously girly squeal at the sudden attack of the
ickle bitty mouse was something that Tom thought he would savour remembering
for a long time to come.�

And then there was the unceremonious thud of the unconscious body descending to
the floor unhindered and the mouse was skittering back and re-sheathing it�s
miniscule pin inside it�s cane.
Bloody Dumbledore!�
Tom shook his head ruefully.� Words
failed him.�� The man was utterly insane!

This was undoubtedly his �gentle warning�.�

Tom could probably easily blast,
slice, incinerate or otherwise dispatch this ...relatively harmless...little
mouse and continue on � but who knew what lay in wait further on?! ��

Whatever it was.. it would be hidden, it would be virtually impossible to
escape and it would be utterly devoid of mercy.�
That was how the man worked!

This was Dumbledore�s invisible, irritatingly paternal, hand resting gently on
one�s shoulder and saying.. �I really wish
you would reconsider this unwise course of action...I do not want to have to do
what you are forcing me to do�.
�I suppose you�re pleased with yourself� he spat half
heartedly at the mouse.�� It squeaked
amiably and did a little tap-dance for him.
It was so damned frustrating.�� He was out of the room finally.. out of the
cell.. and now he knew he was going
to turn around and march right back into it!�
There was no other truly viable option!�
This route out of the castle was just about the only one he had thought had the slightest chance of success.�
�Fine.� Then let�s get
on with it.� he snarked, flinging an imperious hand to levitate Draco�s limp
body.�� He was briefly tempted to leave
the idiot down here in the dark, but it was not really Draco that he was angry with and the blonde could ...would...still be useful to him.�

He had no intention of healing him
again though.� Whatever Dumbledore had
just stuck him with, he could fix the results himself!
He made a sweeping gesture, ushering the mouse ahead of
him.� �Well?!� Lead the way!�
The mouse squeaked in a manner that somehow sounded
insulted; re-stowed its hat and cane somewhere impossible according to recorded
murine anatomy and the laws of physics and then zipped off into the darkness at
a pace that made following it impossible.�
Of course.�
Tom sighed long sufferingly and started off in the direction
of the stairwell up to the second sublevel.

The mice were obnoxious.
Tom scowled down at the tiny white tutu�d creature, sorely
tempted to curse it. ��The creatures had
appeared several times now � always at points where Tom might choose to take a
different path � a path that might lead somewhere �unproductive�.� For example � toward the bulk potion stores,
the broom repair workshop or the Slytherin house entrance.
As a result of needing to steer wide of these (and other) inadvisably-tempting locales, Tom
had been obliged by the mice to follow an extremely meandering and twisting
path upward
Glaring impotently at the ridiculous solo rendition of swan
lake he was being treated to by the latest mouse, Tom huffed under his
breath.� The path to the right � the one
presently advertised - would bring them up to the third floor, and from there, probably
via the north corridor, up the less frequented fixed stairs in the northeast
tower to the fourth floor and by means of further annoying circuitous routes onward
to the head boy and girl�s chambers.�
Where Dumbledore would be waiting.�� ...In all likelihood sitting calmly and
drinking a cup of tea.
The path on the left
however would bring him to one of the more inconvenient entrances to the
chamber of secrets.�� It involved a very
rusty and unstable iron spiral staircase.�
He suspected it was one of Slytherin�s barriers and would only carry the
heir.�

While technically, as Draco was being levitated currently, this should not pose
a problem in terms of weight, Tom highly doubted that the thousand year old
stairs gave a twirly fuck about weight.�
If he took Draco down them, he would either end up dropping him or they would both plummet.
The mouse on the right path squeaked impatiently.
�yes, yes� Tom muttered in irritation and stomped off down
the right path after it.
His feet hurt.�� And
his back was starting to ache too.
Nothing had ever hurt, when he had been in the diary.� And while pain, since his restoration, had at
first been a rare novelty and something to be enjoyed, it had lost that status
somewhere around the ground floor where he discovered that beyond taking the
paths that Dumbledore advised, he was politely requested not to dawdle also.�

When he had sat down in the corridor for a rest, a mouse had emerged within a
couple of minutes and had promptly started offensively playing a tiny bagpipe
at him very badly until he started moving again.�
He had walked for weeks without stopping in the false world
inside the diary, but out here his body was not prepared for this level of exertion. �

Hogwarts was vast and traversing it,
even via the most efficient routes, tended to keep the most gluttonous of
students fairly trim.� The �scenic route�
that the mice were taking him on had to have spanned miles by now � a considerable portion of which had been composed of
narrow stone staircases where he had had to carefully negotiate Draco�s body up
ahead of him.

As a result, he was almost looking
forward to getting back to his comfortable cell now; �getting through whatever irritating demands Dumbledore
would have of him, taking a long
drink of water and going to sleep until the bastard woke him to demand
something more of him.

Which he would.� Of that, Tom had no doubt.

He was miserably relieved, when he finally did
arrive at the head boy and girl�s rooms, Draco in tow, although far less buoyantly
than he had been originally � if magic
could be said to ache, Tom thought his magic
might be aching from the length of time that he had had to maintain the
levitation charm on the blonde.
It was similarly bitterly gratifying to discover that he had
been right in his expectations.� When he reached the wide open door to the
head common rooms, Dumbledore sat quite peacefully oblivious, in front of a
crackling fire, in one of the armchairs; apparently reading from a book on his
lap and sipping now and then at a cup of tea.��
A small dish of lemon drops sat on one of the armrests beside him. ��He glanced up at the resounding bang of Tom
slamming the door after himself and smiled benevolently.
�Ah Tom.� Did you have
a pleasant walk?� I do myself enjoy exploring
some of the lesser known parts of the castle.�
It is always a surprise what one will discover.��

He peered obnoxiously over the rim of his half moon spectacles with a knowing
twinkle.� ��
Tom wanted to stab him with something.� Preferably something that could be
transfigured from a mouse.
�Get on with it, then.� he muttered, lowering Draco to the floor
with less care than he might have displayed, had he not had to carry the twit
for hours now.� �Tell me what you want me to do so that I can
do it and you can get out and leave me in peace.�
Dumbledore frowned at him reproachfully, though whether it
was due to his cynical response or his treatment of the Malfoy heir, Tom could
not say.� It hardly mattered anyway.
�I am afraid that it will not be quite so simple, Tom� he said ominously.� �Although it might help if you could trouble
yourself to place Draco upon the sofa rather than discarding him upon the floor
as you have done.� I think that he does
not...entirely.. merit such callous treatment, don�t you agree?�
Tom struggled not to snarl and complied, levitating Draco
with more effort than it had taken several hours prior, and shifting him
carefully to the sofa.�
�Is he otherwise injured� Dumbledore asked hesitantly, with
an edge to his voice that sounded like hope.�
His expression shifted once more to disappointment when Tom told him
that he hadn�t bothered to check.� For a
long, silent, minute he stared at Draco and seemed to be entirely preoccupied
with his own thoughts, before he turned back to Tom, his blue eyes now hardened
to piercing little stones.
�Could you tell me, Tom, because I would very much like to understand, why exactly you took the time to heal
and soothe Draco in the holding chamber, when only a very short time later you appear
almost entirely disinterested in whether he lives or dies.?�
Tom glared; �he was more
infuriated by this pointed line of questioning than he knew he should be, but
then he had already been quite put-out when he had arrived up here.� If Dumbledore wanted him to feel bad, he was
going to remain unsatisfied because Tom was just too tired and fed-up to simulate remorse right now.
�He fell from a normal standing height onto a stone floor, as
was to be expected, considering whatever potion you gave the blasted mice.�� If you were concerned about his well being, then you could have either not caused him to be tranquilized
unexpectedly while standing in a corridor at the rectal-end of the castle, or
you could have not required me to
walk every winding back-route possible to get here.� Either way, I considered that whatever damage
might have been done to him through the fall would more reasonably be healed by the one who had indirectly caused it - preferably at the same time you
counteracted your own potion - than by me, when I might confuse intended-injury for accidental-injury.�
He finished his blustery response by tossing himself into
the other armchair, uncaring if it made him appear a sulky teenager.�

All of this was...so..annoying..
As if to prove that he was completely barmy, Dumbledore
smiled indulgently once more and gestured at the tea, offering him a cup as if
in reward for some perceived �right-doing�.
�No.� he muttered, just for the spite of it, although he was
so thirsty he could hardly care less what potion the bastard might dose him
with.
This drew a tolerant sigh, a twinkle and a half-hearted
gesture at the lemon drop bowl.�

Tom only glared, as if he might flay the skin from the old man�s bones with the
sheer force of his irritation.
�Very well then, Tom.�
Since you seem to be comfortable for the moment, Perhaps we might turn
our attention to the matter of Hermione Granger...�
Tom narrowed his eyes at the man, vividly imagining his
festering corpse impaled on a spike and hoping
that the old goat could see it in his mind.�

It was entirely unsatisfying to be proven right in his predictions of Dumbledore�s
behaviour when he could neither derive advantage from his knowledge nor avoid
his fate.
�Yes, lets, shall
we?!� he replied with acidic enthusiasm.
------------------------------------------------
Author note.
In case anyone has been wondering.. the version of Tom I
tend to imagine when I think of him in this story can be found here:

http://images2.fanpop.com/images/photos/7600000/Tom-Riddle-in-HBP-Harry-Potter-7670439-500-667.jpg
Review replies can be found at
http://www2.adult-fanfiction.org/forum/index.php/topic/18725-review-replies/
- 16
- 17
- 18
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

The First Horcrux