Poison Ivy | T. Riddle ✔

[27] Losing Sanity

Tom's eyes lingered on the bloodied up wound on Perseus's lower leg. The old shirt he had tied on it was completely soaked in red and a puddle was forming underneath. "I think you've got your punishment for now. Serves you right for being so stupendously ignorant; can't believe you thought it was possible to get rid of me this easily."

An agonized hiss escaped him as he glared daggers at Riddle. The rusty smell in the room was enough to push Perseus to the end of his limits and on top of all that was Tom Riddle being the usual jerk.

"Here's some Blood Replenishing potion," he took out a phial from his robe pocket and placed it near him, "drink it and you'll survive."

Perseus eyed the phial as if it was poison, "why can't you let me die? I do NOT want to survive."

Tom's bitter laugh echoed through the room even though what had been said to him was not a hilarious joke by any means. "It took me real long to brew this potion, so I was expecting some gratitude on your part. But ah well, you wouldn't be Perseus if you started doing everything I expected you to."

"Get out," he hissed trying to suppress the pain that was coursing from his right leg up to his brain. Nagini's venom was intense as it had been laced with hatred and a desire to protect her master so he was suffering the worst of it, yet Tom seemed extremely lighthearted and amused.

"As for the question you asked," his grey eyes darkened and a fleck of red sparked through, "I can't let you die. At least not so easily." 

"Easily? You mean to say that all you have concocted in my life would result in an easy death... You monster!"

"You're nothing short of a monster yourself, Perce," he bent down to be on eye level with him, the annoying smirk did not leave his face for even a second, "you are a dark creature after all you've memorized from those books, just like Nagini. You were bit by an equal. And if I let you die like this, what fun would it be?"

His eyes sparked in amusement as he resumed but his voice had turned horribly threatening, "Perseus Burke, the youngest mind to hold in such volumes of the Dark Arts, died from blood loss by merely a Maledictus's bite... That doesn't fit your standards, right? You should die from something much much worse than that, letting you die now would be underestimating you. If I allowed it, that would be me completely disregarding your capabilities. But that's not going to happen. Because Lord Voldemort never refrains to acknowledge those who are capable enough."

Despite the pain, a slow bitter smile spread on his otherwise tensed features, "and how do you reckon I should die? Or as you just put it so yourself, what kind of death is fitting to my standards?" 

"By slowly descending into madness," the reply was immediate, "so that nothing would remain of the Perseus Burke everyone used to know. An object of common sympathy, a person to be pitied by some and scorned by most, that's all I want left of you before you finally die."

"Well then there's a good news in that for you, Tom," his blue eyes, which had never lost the threatening resilience in front of Tom, teared up from sadness, "you won't have to bother much about driving me to madness."

He raised an eyebrow suspiciously since he was clearly not expecting that reply. He had wanted to see him get angered, to claw on him, to curse him or better still to attempt to kill him. Yet he received none of those reactions, "what do you mean by that?"

"Because the day I used my power on you, my descent into madness had started. You've been saved the trouble to do anything to make me lose my sanity. By each passing day, I'm losing a piece of me; exactly as you desired."

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