enigmatic |t.r.|

20.

do you want to know a secret?

tom riddle was never interested in people's secrets but they made excellent
weapons. he was good at taking people's vulnerability and turning it into a knife, a gun, a killing curse, something to cause pain and fear with.

tom knew meredith's secret, he knew her feelings about pain, about hands hugging her neck like a python or a rope and he had used it for his own benefit.

he was taking and taking and taking.

and he was greedy.

yes. he would love another secret.

yes. I'd love to know a secret of yours.

he didn't say

i must know every horrible thing that has ever crossed your mind because i can't always read you and when i don't silence is loud and pain is an illusion because i don't want to hurt you if i don't know that i do, if i don't take satisfaction out of it.
i don't want to cause pain if i can't hear the scream.

i used to hate them, you know.

this took him by surprise but, as always, his expression remain stoic

a fucking beautiful unmoving face

a statue created by the finest materials with the greatest talent the creator had to offer

a statue that the creator fell in love with so he never saw the knife in the statue's hands, he never even noticed the blood running down his own stomach.

he died with the extraordinary honor of being killed by his own creation.

muggles?

wizards. my father was a pureblood wizard. my mum's a muggle. he was all about blood superiority and a muggle hater, but he didn't make discriminations against his women. he liked hurting them all. blood is all the same when it runs down your hands.

from pureblood witches to muggles and everyone in between, he liked making them scream in the most cruel way. he would hurt them with magic or even his bear hands. for a wizard, he sure knew how to cause pain like a muggle. and he wouldn't stop until he saw blood, or them dead.

i think he liked my mother more than the others because she would fight back and give him another reason to hit harder, to cause more pain. but he had both magic and violence on his side and my mother was always soft even though she was a true fighter at heart.

this secret was deep, deeper than knife wounds. this secret was a knife wound itself, big enough for tom to squeeze into it, to stretch it out and create more pain, more desperation.

he wanted to see her undone.

he was the only wizard i knew. i thought everyone was like him. only using their power to cause pain without a reason. my father never had a reason. he only had a twisted and sadistic mind. but a sick mind is no reason to kill and break and destroy, if you have a sick mind you don't kill, you blow your fucking brains out!

there is was.

he had never heard her yelling before. never losing her temper, never exploding out of her quiet coffin of solitude and melancholy.

it was cathartic in a way tom couldn't explain.

i tried to deny my powers. to control them. I wouldn't do magic in front of him so he would think that i was a squib and leave me alone. if that was that magic was all about, I had decided i didn't want it.

i only did it one time. their fight was a bad one. my mum was lying on the floor, blood all around her. she wasn't moving. she wasn't dead but i swear i could feel death kissing her. i had to do something.
i used my powers to stop her bleeding somehow, to make her hurt less and i called a doctor. i was ten. one year later i got my letter. and i realised that my magic wasn't a weakness but my ticket out of hell.

she paused.

and i used to feel very guilty.

the 'why?' never came out of his mouth but she knew him well enough now. he hadn't moved.

she didn't want him to comfort her, he realized.

she wanted him to just know.

she was making a confession.

she was sharing a secret just like he had shared his.

an eye for an eye, a soul for a soul, a broken person for another broken person.

i didn't help her out of love. i didn't feel sad about her. i was scared. for me. with her gone, i was next. the blood on the carpet would be mine in a few days. with her gone, i was already with one leg in the grave. i needed her alive so she could take all the pain. i needed her fear to forget mine.

the guilt for my inappropriate thoughts would never leave me. all i could think was "people shouldn't think like that. your actions must come from your heart. you were selfish. you could have saved her by letting her die."

i even thought that my mind was as sick as his. i caused her more pain without a reason.

and then i realised that i had a reason. my fear, this feeling boiling inside of me, possessing me in every filthy way, freezing my heart so i couldn't think of anyone but me.

and then i realised that morals are for fools. sincere emotions are never inappropriate or wrong. who will tell me how i have to act if i have a reason to act in a different way? i am my one person and morals are made for holding us still. i want to go forward. i refuse all morals except for motive. if i have a solid reason i can do anything.

she gave him her prettiest smile, the one he knew she would give him after he would have destroyed the world.

if you have a reason, burn the fucking world down and light me up as a symbol of your revolution.