The Snake in the Waters [Tom Riddle]

Chapter 13 - [Barriers]

Scotland, Hogwarts April 1944

Tom Riddle was pleased with himself.

He had gotten the girl to join their cause, or at least to come to one of their meetings.

The boy now knew more about her, about the hate her heart bore for the dark wizard Grindelwald. Now, Tom would only need to chanel that hate into something useful for his own cause, corrupting the girl until she was nothing more than a pawn in his giant chess game.

She might've won their little game a few months ago but he was determined to win in the natural world. Everyone would bow before him and she would help him achieve that power.

But before he could assemble her how he wanted, he had to break her apart, learn all her secrets.

He didn't pay attention to his campanions beside him, plotting instead to overthrow the world.

After finishing his dinner, he looked for his potions partner. But upon seeing her still eating, absorbed in a conversation with Louisa Travers, he decided that he would not wait for her. Instead he said goodbye to his companions and made his way to the dungeon potion lab.

"Alohomora," he said, pointing his wand at the door. Satisfied, he heard the click of a door clock opening. Tom might've not known the spells Maélys had used but they couldn't have been very powerful, if he lifted them with a simple Unlocking Charm that students learned in the first year.

But when he tried to grab the door handle, he couldn't get a hold of it. Instead, his hand touched an invisible barrier that was hard like a wall.

He cursed.

His "Alohomora" opened only the first spell, the one that sealed the door, but not the boundary spell.

His mind tried to come up with another charm, but even with "Dissera portus" the barrier wouldn't budge.

Tom cursed again.

He remembered that Evan Rosier had showed him a boundary counter spell book last year but he had never made the effort to learn them, especially not the complex ones. Although the girl had said that the spells were minor ones he felt like she had played it down.

"Dissero!"

"Aven safa sa belise, de la mer!"

He had to watch as the spells hit the invisible barrier and vanished immediantly.

Growing frustrated, he growled and in his anger, he threw all of the destruction spells that he knew against the spell.

"Bombarda!"

"Bombarda Maxima!"

"Perditio!"

"Exitie!"

But just like before, the barrier absorbed the magic and soon it began to faintly shimmer in the barely-lit hallway.

"Do you need help?," someone asked behind the boy.

Tom spun around.

And there Maélys stood, leaning against the wall, raised eyebrows and a smirk on her lips.

"How long have you been standing there?," he demanded to know. He did not like it when others see him fail at something. And she was the last person to whom he wanted to appear weak.

"Long enough," she teased, "to know that you definitely need help, Mister Riddle."

She pushed off the wall and wiped off some invisible dust from her uniform, smiling at him.