No Pain, No Glory | Tomarry

5: Stay on the line

Harry must have been twisting his brain machines around for hours. He had learned ten new spells in just five hours and it was simply exhausting.
His mind is all mushy. He cannot concentrate. It hurts. He feels dizzy.

He looks at that black book with the leather cover and scowls. What disturbing things will the other try to convince him of being valid? He might as well take a look at it.

_______________

He ends up reading the whole thing, not just up to page 305. He is... disgusted.

The information contained strange potions and rituals to make someone suffer. The ingredients used were mostly human parts. Eyes, ears, fingers. Spells about manipulating someone's body movements, taking away the last piece of a person's mind and sanity. Riddle is bonkers if he thinks he will ever be tempted to try out these wand movements. He won't.

The quicker he returns it, the quicker he will not feel his gut twisting and turning around from the urge to vomit. So he searches around the castle for the Slytherin.
He knows his favorite spots. They include the library, the west tower below Hufflepuf's common room, which almost no one ever uses, the Room of Requirement and the black lake. He checks every single one of them.
He finds him by the lake, in the end, writing something down on a parchment.

Once he gets close, he throws the book on the grass. "I read it, all of it."

Riddle totally ignores the spite in that sentence. "Did you? That's nice. And?"

"It was interesting. Some parts freaked me out, but overall... it was good."

"Which ones?"

Harry huffs. "Page 39, 56 and 111."

"Blood sacrifices. Yes, they can be... a bit challenging to stomach."

The green eyed purses his mouth into a thin line of disagreement. "That's one way to put it."

"Do you have any questions?"

"Yes, actually." He says. "Why are you such a creep? Who reads those things? You genuinely like it?"

"You mean you didn't? You said it was interesting."

Harry scoffs. "Yes, of course it was interesting, you git! The extreme always is. That doesn't mean I agree with the author."

"Are you going to sit down so we can discuss this properly or not? It will be your feet hurting in the end, not mine."

Harry sniffs contemptuously, but nontheless he sits down and dumps his bag nearby.

He raises his head to look directly into the other boy's eyes. "I want to see what kind of excuse you will come up with to support another one of your absurd ideas, I really do."

"Absurd, why?" Inquires the Slytherin, mannerisms perfectly polite.

Harry gives him a deadpan stare. "You're joking, right? Tell me you're joking."

"I'm never joking, hero. All these years in here, you must have picked up on that one. " Tom pauses a bit, before muttering. "On the other hand, there are other, more obvious things you haven't picked up on yet, so I shouldn't hold you accountable."

Harry grits his teeth and tries - honestly, he tries so hard - to contain his impatience. "We're talking about human sacrifices! You know, a circle on the ground, some poor fellow tied up, some fucked up ritual and incantations in gibberish-!"

"It's Latin."

"I don't care even if it's ancient Sumerian! It's still wrong!"

Tom arches an eyebrow that reveals pure judgment. "Is that what you picked up from this? 'It's wrong'? Sacrifices were always a part of this world, be it physical or metaphorical. And you need to wake up and accept it as part of the Wizarding culture."