Darkness and Devotion - A Tom Riddle Story

The Chamber

Tom looked at where Evelyn slept. The ghost of a smile almost crept onto his face as he watched the sleeping girl. His sleeping girl, he should say. He had come back to the room to check on her just to make sure that she was doing alright. The charms guarding his dormitory were strong—any spell he did was practically impenetrable—but he still trusted himself to look after her more than any magic.

It was why he made her stay in his bedroom even when he slept elsewhere, usually the Chamber of Secrets where the grunts of a basilisk lulled him into a restless sleep. Tom's bedroom was guarded heavily by all sorts of spells, mainly ones that disallowed anyone other than him and her to enter. Even Mattheo would be locked out. If he tried to enter using magic, a curse would rebound onto him. Nowhere was safer for Evelyn, Tom was sure it.

Nowhere other than his arms, of course.

Evelyn began to stir, whimpering in her sleep. Tom peeked into her mind to find a nightmare of the lake outside of the Black family mansion. Whether she knew that was where her father drowned or not, he didn't know. Regulus had been pulled under the thick, goopy water by Inferi that guarded the Black family from those who attempted to make it past the wards using the water. Why Regulus had ever decided to get into the water was something Tom would never know. No one in their right mind would venture where the Inferi lie. Perhaps Regulus wasn't in his right mind.

The girl's eyelids fluttered rapidly, her fear increasing even more. She began to lightly thrash in the bed. Tom walked over and placed a cold kiss on her forehead. Sleep, Little Dove. And in your dreams, think of me as I think of you, he bade her mind, allowing his shadows to enter and caress her back to sleep. Immediately, Evelyn calmed down. It was almost as if her soul had sensed its partner nearby, calming from just his presence. Tom wished that he could stay with her to keep the nightmares at bay but he couldn't.

He had business to take care of.

He tightened his cloak. It was black and long, belonging to his father at one point. It had taken years for the rotten smell of death and ash to leave the fabric. Now, it just smelled of cold musk. At first, the cloak resisted him. It hardly settled on his shoulders, wanting to be back with his former master. What it had failed to realize was that Voldemort was gone and Tom had risen from the ashes in his place. It soon learned its place. Now, it molded to his body as if the dark cloak was one.

Tom apparated to the chamber. It, too, was his father's, though it had never obeyed his command quite as well as it obeyed him. Voldemort was a poor excuse for a parseltongue, borrowing words to fill in the gaps he didn't know. He attempted to teach Tom but he hadn't realized that his son didn't need touching; Tom was a prodigy from the moment he could speak. 

Plus, the giant basilisk answered to him much better.

She waited at the edge of the chamber, hissing occasionally as she circled through the giant statue of Salazar Slytherin surrounded by great stone columns. It was a menacing sound that haunted the boy at the center of the room. She obeyed Tom's every command. Master and servant. His father's master had been Nagini but Tom found her to be worthless and slaughtered her shortly after his father died. She was easy to kill, even as a child.

Angus McLaggen was covered in a mixture of mud, water, blood, piss, and vomit. Perhaps a bit of shit, too, but he had already smelled so badly at that point that Tom couldn't tell. He whimpered every time the basilisk made another noise. Good. Let him fear when he had the audacity to make her afraid.

Tom didn't believe in second chances. Not when it came to Evelyn.

By now, Mattheo was probably spreading the rumor about how the same boy who attempted to kiss Evelyn without consent was conveniently missing. The professors never suspected him—not when he was their best student, their charming head boy—and the students wouldn't dare question Voldemort's son. They all knew the darkness that lingered beneath his skin. Get too close and it might snap.