The Secret of Tom Riddle's Diary

Chapter Twenty-Three - Descent into Darkness

As Victoria went through her Fourth Year, she told herself that she had made her own decisions all along the way.  But that should have been the clue that she was nearly lost.  But in reality by saying it was her own decisions she had given assent to every decision that had been made for her.  It had been Tom’s decision to spare her and give her the diary.  She felt it was now her decision.  It had been Tom’s manipulation that led her to give Harry Potter for Ginny Weasley.  She now told herself that both Harry Potter and Ginny Weasley had been necessary sacrifices.  She had decided to be a Slytherin – not as if Tom had practically demanded it of her.  She had decided to bond with the basilisk – though that had been Tom’s plan for her all along.  She had decided to learn the Dark Arts.  She had decided to learn about the Invictus Python – thus putting it into her head to be her Animagus form.  She had decided to take his mark.

But her mind especially when it was in the snake’s form was so in communion with the Dark Lord.  In that form she followed behind Draco into the Room of Requirement.  Without Draco’s knowledge she spied on him and reported his successes and failures.  Without Snape’s knowledge she followed him to just outside of Dumbledore’s office.  She couldn’t get too close because of the Phoenix, but everything that Snape told Dumbledore and visa versa went straight back to the Dark Lord.

Her friends said little in regard to what was happening.  She was making decisions for each of them the same as the Dark Lord had for her. 
It was her decision to drag her three best friends with her into that darkness.  On the first Hogsmeade weekend she had brought her friends into the basement of an abandoned building.  She continued to share the beauty secrets of her book with her friends.  But for each friend she chose a path to darkness. 

Quickly for Adriana that path was beauty.  She was willing to learn more much more quickly than her friends.  She was willing to sneak back into Hogsmeade and back to that forbidden basement.  Along with Victoria she killed a virgin and with her bathed in its blood.  By the middle of the year, she and Victoria’s beauty had become beyond that of Daphne Greengrass or Cho Chang. 

For Taylor that path was to teach her the Dark Arts – and Victoria knew those arts.  Taylor’s anger made it easy to show her how using the Cruciatus in the Room of Requirement was a good release, even if that spell was used on rats.  Deeper and deeper Taylor went learning how to control others through the use of the Imperius.  Or soon, joining Victoria and Adriana as they bathed in the blood of virgins.

Astoria fell deeper and deeper into Victoria’s spell.  Often they would run into the library and research politics.  Together they worked out how to bring the Wizarding World of Britain under the control of the Four Ice Queens.  At first Astoria would think nothing of it when they discussed who needed to die and who needed to be kept alive.  And as Victoria whispered in her ear, Astoria began to see herself as a puppet master in the Wizengamot.  By the end of the school year she had joined the other three Ice Queens in the forbidden beauty treatments they took once a month.

What Victoria was doing didn’t go completely unnoticed at Hogwarts.  Dumbledore tried to reach out to her, but Victoria had become clever and powerful enough to escape the subtle places he tried to corner her in.  Hermione tried to reach out to Victoria.  But no one saw the true danger coming. 

High up on Astronomy Tower at supper time near the end of the school year a small group assembled.  Draco had let them in and Victoria had watched it all in her snake form: Fenrir Greyback, Amycus and Alecto Carrow, Thorfinn Rowle, a man Victoria only knew as Yaxley, and the General of this battle, Bellatrix Lestrange.  Victoria watched in her form, with her own instructions.

“Where is Dumbledore?” Bellatrix said.

“Just downstairs from here,” Draco muttered.  “He has an office below.”