Marked • Tom Riddle

His Marked One

   I would be executed for the thoughts I was having - my existence erased from every document, wiped clean from this world. His next wife wouldn't even know I existed - that there was someone else here, another woman who once roamed these halls believing her husband loved her... wanted nothing but the best for her. All that would be left of me might be enough to create a ghost - the lingering scent of my perfume forever clouding our sacred bedroom, a forgotten piece of my jewelry lost alongside my innocence somewhere within the cushions of his office couch, a strand of my hair trapped within his shiny gifts, a streak of my nail polish marking a page of one of his letters, the miles and miles of fruitless flowers he'd had planted for me in our garden. Would she see it? Would my dust be enough to warn her from falling for it all? Would she find my ghost before he turned her into one? Maybe.... then again, I'd found Mila's ghost and even she couldn't manage to save me.

   He sat exactly where I'd left him - slumbering soundly against his writing desk, unaware that his toy doll had finally realized what had been done to her. Karina Amara Rosier - the puppet. Karina Amara Rosier Riddle - the fool. Karina, the Dark Lord's wife - a ghost. The potion had worn off now and he would soon awake, but I would still be here, the ghost of his perfect creation.

   My fingers clutched tighter around my wand, my hand begging me to do the deed. I could kill him. I could do it right now and no one would come - not until it was time for this room to be cleaned. The maids would find him dead and I would be long gone. It would be so easy. It would be so satisfying. Mila would want me to. She would beg me to. Mila. Merlin... what had he done to her body? Did I even want to know?

   Raising my wand, I steadied the tip at his head. I knew the spell. I knew it would be painless. I knew it would be like falling asleep and never waking up. But looking at his face - at this horrible, beast's face - my heart refused to comply with my thoughts. 

   "You deserve to die," I forced the words through my lips, my cheeks wet with frustrated tears, but even as the sound of those words registered through my ears, I did not believe them. I loved him. Merlin, I hated him too. But oh, how I loved him. And how could I not? 

   He'd created this - this half that solely belonged to him. This half that he'd only ever shown his light to, blinded from seeing the true extent of his darkness. He'd created it, but it was part of me indefinitely, and worse, I did not want to lose it. Because what was I without it? That girl from my memories wasn't me, not anymore. She was but a girl - fearful and unsure of herself, aware of all the secrets he so desperately tried to hide, yet void of any courage to do anything about them. I'd outgrown her. He'd taken her from me. My girlhood was gone - stolen by a man who should have known better. Now, the only thing she and I could relate to was the anger and pain he'd caused us. But I knew, that no matter how much time passed between us, this half would always belong to him. I would always be his. 

   Hating myself for it, I lowered my wand and I sat and waited, allowing the pain to fester and grow until it was all that I could feel. Allowing every lie and possible act of deception he'd performed for me to sink into my bones, forever marking me so that not even a spell could strip me of this pain. And before me, he slept, so peacefully, so soundly, while I grew harder, more rough and calloused by his afflictions, letting them sink in like shards of glass cutting through the fibers of my skin, becoming more and more marked until empathy and forgiveness and trust were but a cacophony of the harshest phonemes that could have ever possibly been strung together. Lies. Deceptions. Bull shit.

   Time passing was of little importance to me, but the beast had to wake up eventually, and finally, he did. 

   He stirred first, groaning slightly at the pounding headache the tea I'd brewed just for him had given him. It took a harsh form of enforcement to compel the body to sleep against its will. I should have known - I'd been forced asleep for far too long myself. Now, awakened, I watched him blink away the drowsiness, seeming more and more confused as to how he could have possibly fallen asleep in broad daylight against his writing desk. He'd piece it together soon enough - he was smart if nothing else. A liar, deceiver, a manipulative bastard, but still intelligent.