Crimson || Tom Riddle

𝖙𝖜𝖔

He thought she'd come back the next morning. That's what monsters did, wasn't it?

Well, vampires. Not monsters. But Arabella was both, and if a killing curse brought her back, a measly little knife should too.

Tom remembered how she fell into him, slow, collapsing like a puppet with its strings cur. He had caught her. Instinct, maybe. His hands were gentle — gentle — and he hated that.

Her blood had been warm. Not burning, not icy. Just warm. Human-warm. Not what he expected from a monster.

He had laid her on the table like a meal. The final course. Undressed, blood pooling beneath her ribs, tricking down the edge of the wood. Red against her pale skin. Red on his fingerprints. Red on her undergarments. Red on the table. Red everywhere.

It should've felt like victory. It didn't. All he did was stare, stare at her lips still parted, as if she was about to say something. Like she was going to laugh. That's what Tom had expected, but... she didn't.

He had waited. She didn't move. He paced. Came back. Looked again. Nothing.

Tom told himself she was trying to scare him. That she was playing a game, she always did, that was her thing. He imagined her eyes snapping open. He imagined her teeth bared. He imagined her calling him stupid.

But she didn't say anything.

He had gone upstairs. Washed his hands. Washed them again. And again. And again. Still smelled like her. Still smelled like blood.

She was still there in the morning. Still dead. Still beautiful.

Tom had left her there for two days. They were supposed to come back, didn't they? Vampires. That was the whole point. Immortality. That was her lie.

Day three. Her skin hadn't turn. Not even a little. It was the same — pale, smooth, perfect. Her lips, full, dark. The wound was there, the blood was there. She was dead. He did that. He won. So why did he feel like he was losing?

Day four. He moved her. The dining room had smelled like death and roses. Her blood had dried like paint on the wood. He stared at it for hours. Vampires drank blood, didn't they? That's what kept them powerful, right?

Tom had little knowledge on vampires, considering he had believed they were mythical.

Had Arabella drank anyone's blood during her time at Hogwarts? Anyone he knew? His followers? His?

The thoughts were silly. Of course she hadn't drank his blood.

Tom had carried Arabella upstairs. Three flights, but it wasn't any trouble. She was so light.

He didn't look at her face. Not until he set her down in a random bedroom. He found a short nightgown and dressed her. Slowly. Carefully. He didn't know why, maybe he'd sleep better with her hidden. But he didn't sleep. Not really.

She should've come back by now.

Day five. Day six. He visited her at least fifteen times a day. Grabbed a book and read silently on an armchair beside her bed. Sometimes he'd even read out loud. Not like she could hear him. Or... could she?

Sometimes he even talked to her. Only sometimes. Little things.

"I hated your laugh."
"I should've killed you slower."
"I should've broken your fingers. One by one. Made you tell me everything."
"You liked feeling powerful. I could see it in your eyes, that smug little—"

He would look at her. The pale, still body in the bed. Blank face. Shut eyes.
"You're not laughing now."
"Say something."
"Say something, say something, say something—"