Tom Riddle and the Pure-Blood Prince

The Opal Necklace

Chapter Eighteen: The Opal Necklace

Eileen was still in a deep sleep, when she was awakened by someone touching her, whilst calling her name. Opening her eyes, a burst of air overtook her lungs: Tom Riddle was standing at the edge of her four-poster bed!

He had not taken long to find the prodigious structure, that was her home on Stonewall Estate. For he had apparated to the end of High Street, which separated the two villages of Great and Little Hangleton. Next he found the sign that said, "Stonewall Estate." It was concealed between two gnarled trees for only magic-folk to see.

"TOM!"

He put his index finger to his lips, "Quiet, Eileen. Or you'll wake the house." Riddle did not look angry but continued to stare at her, in the most peculiar fashion.

She looked up, her face shining in the dim candlelight, "I was just dreaming about you."

He nodded slowly, as his dark eyes took in the sidelines, looking at the sleek, ebony furniture and ornamental paintings and other luxuries adorning the bedchamber. "What a garish place for you to grow up in, Eileen."

Eileen just shrugged her shoulders relaxed, now sitting up on the bed. Holding his hand out, for her to take Riddle complimented, "I must say... you look simply gorgeous tonight."

Eileen grinned, while biting her lip trying to suppress the intense pleasure knowing Tom approved of her appearance. She thought how his satisfaction was better than the actual Elixir of Youth that made her that way in the first place. A second later, she rose and placed her hand in his, and it wasn't entirely cold, rather warm.

Riddle took his wand from his robes and performed on Eileen the invisibility spell. As it occurred, she experienced the compression and separation that happens congruently, but she took it in stride, recalling that Christmas Eve so long ago when he had used the same spell.

A moment later, he finished it on himself and pocketed his wand and then snatched up the now extinguished old-fashioned lamp.

Eileen walked forward with him to bar open the heavily padlocked door. She was unsure if they were still holding hands, and so could only hope.

They set out passing the twisted balcony after crossing a wide corridor. Somewhere in the house, the lilt of a piano was playing the mournful song, "Moonlight Sonata". Marie Prince always played piano when frustrated with her only daughter. Eileen knew her frustration this time concerned her refusal to see the suitor she had arranged to meet earlier that evening. To Eileen there was nothing beautiful about the song, just resentment.

Almost as if Riddle had understood what she had just been thinking he said, "We'll have our own celebration tonight. We're going to have a lot of fun."

As Eileen continued with Riddle down the staircase and then going towards one of the back doors, she felt a shift in Tom's powerful presence. His voice had just been unnaturally high in pitch, as if he were happy. Yet the impression she got, just wasn't matching up with the way his presence normally was.

They crossed the threshold, of the last room that led to an entrance to outdoors. A clock finished it's chiming of the midnight hour. As soon as the door closed shut behind them, Riddle undid the invisibility spells with an eager swiftness and proceeded to re-light the lamp magically.

Eileen became startled, as he took her hand again. It was from the rush Riddle was in, to get to some uncalled for destination that made her frightened.

His voice rang false again as did his demeanor, despite the quick, excited passion, "You know, I've grown fond of snakes. But I no longer have the basilisk to exercise control over. Possession is really a holistic process of body, mind and spirit..."

As he spoke they headed to a cliff, where below was a gully. A murky pond eroded the bottom.

"Is that what we're going to do?," Eileen asked in a wavering voice, conveying her apprehensions.

Riddle's demeanor instantly hardened, "Yes. I told you I would utilize possession on you." He released the grip on her hand and pushed her back a few feet. Eileen suddenly felt very small inside and vulnerable on the cliff's edge. Something was terribly wrong.

She dared to shoot a glance at his face, and saw that his blue-gray eyes were positively blazing. Riddle's eyes had lost all their natural color. It was replaced with a dark void.

His fists clenched, and the knuckles cracked.

"Not a soul...Yes, not a single soul, will know that Lord Voldemort is the one who shall rid the world of you. And....your stupid pure-blood family isn't here to help."

Eileen shuddered at the words softly whispered, but in such a forced way. Tom was struggling to keep his pent-up anger down. Yet it's wrath was impending to breech the surface.

"Tom! Please, tell me what's wrong...I don't want there to be secrets between us anymore," Eileen half-whined and half-stubbornly voiced her sentiments.

She sensed that if she tried to keep herself under control, maybe she could stop his severe emotions from being unleashed.

Riddle knelt down, and centered in on her face. Speaking lucidly: "Ah...but there is no doubt that you thought you could keep secrets, Eileen."

Eileen opened her mouth to respond, but she stopped at his outburst, "I'm aware you witnessed Myrtle's death. Instead of keeping quiet, you accused the Heir of Slytherin to Dippit!.... I never expected you'd try to apprehend me, but I know that you went ahead and did just that! Thought of a clever loop-hole around the vows, didn't you?"

"No! That's not how it happened! I can swear to it."

He continued in a near crazed rush, "Right...well I don't give a d**** if you break your vows. The point is that Eileen Prince could never have the influence to expel me. When I saw the truth in Dippit's mind, I could also see his blind trust...When are you going to learn that yourself?"

Riddle had started prowling, and circling like he had caught his prey. He seemed to be waiting for an answer, as he was hesitating to go further, with what he was thinking to do.

"I have faith in you, my lord...But if I was really powerless to get you expelled why are you angry that I tried?," Eileen asked, genuinely confused.

"Well, that's an interesting question....You see, telling Dippit and then directly deceiving me about your acts later, demonstrates a shortage of loyalty, Eileen. I'm disappointed. I thought that Elixir would inculcate you into my most basic tenets, but apparently it did not."

There was a silence for several seconds as Riddle continued to appraise her. He had an ugly smirk. Behind him, the horizon was framed with a mass of clouds building up, ebbing the silvery rays of moonlight.

"I'll just have to kill...again. You were so much more likable as a shy imbecile!"

At these words, there sprang from his wand a bombardment of random hexes and jinxes from his long, yew wand.

Eileen saw Riddle momentarily distracted by the jets of light from the jinxes, and so tried to edge away from him. Riddle shot forward, towering over her and knocked her backwards.

"HAVING FUN?"

The young Voldemort began to laugh. He was somewhat losing control over his usually stable emotions, as he was in a strange, yet mild rage.

"Having fun?," he now repeated in a whisper. He then held his wand to the base of her throat, like he did with Mary Riddle, but this time as an ominous threat.

His temperament sounding oddly hyper as he commenced, "You know, I'm the most powerful wizard of all time. I'm going to be known by the whole wizarding world as ineffable, as by title. Consider it a privilege that I actually want to dispose of you myself. Ready to be subjugated to death?"

Eileen reacted with a spontaneous scream, that was an instinctual response.

Riddle was only incensed by the scream, even more aroused. So much, that he stepped, if possible even closer to where she lay, huddled on the ground in the fetal position. Riddle kicked her, towards the precipice, just a few inches from falling.

Eileen was on her back, staring unblinkingly at Tom Riddle in utter shock.

A gloomy grayness in the distance shrouded the stars, blocking out the last of the feeble light.

Riddle was enveloped in a glacial fury, encompassing every inch of his insides. It concerned the fact that he could no longer believe that this was as easy a follower to handle as he had once thought.

A coldness swept over the vicinity. A subtle fluctuation, but distinct.

The tip of that infamous wand, pointed between Eileen's eyes.

" Alone on the hard floor of the earth... I shall destroy that antiquated beauty... Eileen Prince, forgotten by her family...," was recited in a hollow voice, punctuated by harshness.

A tidal wave of oppression consumed Eileen from these words. In one terrifying second, she succumbed how foolish she was to be taken in by everything since the beginning! And in just one more terrifying second, she would be finished by the blinding light of the killing curse. The truth of the night's tribulations, was being told to her in that predatory privation of a human-being, looming right beside her.

But her horrific feelings concerning the truth were pushed aside, as a malevolent smile, came upon her captive's face.

He was being reminded of something that hit him with a gleam of inspiration. It was the idea of overcoming his death, to start experimentation. It cleared sixteen-year-old Tom Riddle's cold anger and brought back to him the sense of anticipation he had held earlier.

Because Eileen was unnerved by this change, she jolted out of the terror that her life was over.

Riddle's eyes, still evincing a dark void narrowed as he watched her again, and he sneered, when he saw her confidence that he would kill her was diminished. The minutes before had just been a fantasy. He would've liked to dispose of her, but there was still too many usurpations to take advantage of. He had known all throughout that it was just him setting his appetite for murder free, channeled by his anger that caused him to play with her.
Eileen stood up, as her senses returned.

Riddle was moving down the eroded cliff. He didn't wait for Eileen to follow.

A few moments later, they were standing together, their two reflections dimly cast over the murky pond.

Eileen belligerently voiced her opinion, "I can't believe you'd kill that girl for revenge...Because I know you'll kill for revenge, I really thought I wouldn't survive to see the next day."

It was anger that made her remember this detail and caused her to finally communicate what she thought. Eileen had forgotten that he would possess her body, all thought of it driven out of her mind by the threat against her life.

Riddle's eyebrows scrunched, and he swallowed hard, feeling the anger that was still coursing through him. His eyes flashed, feeling very surprised that Eileen had retaliated against him and admitted what he already knew she thought about seeing Myrtle die.

Gazing dully into the water, he turned around abruptly as Eileen continued, "Well..." She stalled becoming nervous again, realizing how unwise it had been to blurt out what she had just said. Still, she bravely looked in his eyes. "I had to do something for my own mind's sake, after all I saw her die!"

Bitterly young Voldemort rallied almost immediately, crafting the argument to suit his ends, "You're going to join my mind in the act of possession...So, forget your pitiful guilt and worries..."

He paused and then added sarcastically, "I don't murder for revenge, I suppose I find killing easy as I've been practicing."

Voldemort then reminisced only to himself about the murders he had just committed that night, and silently recalled the two pieces of jewelry he had taken.

The build-up of clouds was now covering the whole sky and there was a strong scent of forthcoming rain.

Riddle rummaged through the pocket of the inside of his black robes and pulled out the glittering green and silver chain that was Mary Riddle's.

"First, I have a gift for you, Eileen...."

He took a step closer and placed the large necklace over her head, where it rested on her chest, draped over her heart.

Eileen beamed and blushed with absolute happiness. She believed that Tom truly thought of her now as special, even if he had what Eileen considered to be violent tendencies.

Riddle felt no such desire to make her special. Rather it was a convenient way to project the stain of his crimes onto her. This was to absolve his stress over being a half-blood, having a muggle father who didn't want him, the dilapidated Gaunt house, etc. She could wear the stains and nothing more. Nor was there any reason to curse the necklace, for it was already worthless to him and now symbolically, so was Eileen Prince.

"If only she knew...what she's wearing right now came from one of my victims," Riddle thought, considering it all a game, his own little secret.

He would wear the distinguished Peverell Coat of Arms ring later. To Riddle, it was a wonderful reminder of how he killed the father he hated and Tom Riddle's Senior's family. The ring would also serve as a statement that the true heir; Lord Voldemort now had the ring in his possession.

"Isn't it magnificent? The stones are opals." Riddle said kindly.

"Thank-you, My Lord. It's beautiful. I'll wear it all the time....Where did you get it?" she added in wonder, fingering each of the opals. The opals glittered green like a dark mark, luminescent in the heavy darkness surrounding them.

Riddle remained inscrutable, as he answered calmly, "It's not necessary how I obtained it. Just enjoy it.... I was dubious about killing you, but understand that I know people who can make others disappear... do you know what I mean?"

Eileen stopped touching the opal necklace and shook her head in answer.

"I'm giving fair warning to stop this recalcitrance to my orders.... I can find ways to disparage your entire life, including your family. But this is completely futile to help you, Eileen because you're not going to remember anything in the morning."

Eileen reacted in horror and was very frightened by those last words. The way he had said she wouldn't remember anything with odd cheerfulness, made it sound daunting. It had already been daunting enough to know that they were going to play around with possession on top of everything else.

"I'm not letting you off easy considering all your violations of my laws. Frankly, I'm telling you there is no need to hand out the perfunctory cruciatus curse. Possession. Possession can be quite painful for the host," Riddle spoke deprecatingly, thinking this was really just to serve him and an experiment for his goal of immortality.

Drops of rain began to spatter the landscape around them, stirring up the pond and landing on them as well. But Eileen hardly felt them, too frightened by the prospect of possession, her stomach twisting into a tight knot.

Riddle started to provocatively stare at her in all the wrong places and that was what made Eileen shudder.

Then he started to lean closer as he whispered in her ear, with a tenderness that was in actuality false, "I want you to go as far as you can, don't stop, darling."

Riddle said these words because he knew the magical act of possession is excruciatingly difficult for the host's first time when a spirit enters and that it will shorten the host's life, just from one time by several months. Yet Voldemort was determined to make it work.

He continued whispering, "I think I've pursuaded or solicited. You want to do it, don't you Eileen?"

Eileen was breathing hard from anticipation, but she managed to say, "Yes."

Meanwhile, Riddle had his wand out, lowered at his waist, holding it. First he just made himself invisible. Then concentrated on a song-like incantation that would make his spirit leave his own body. He said the spells aloud because he was still a novice at possession, and he wanted to be sure he would succeed for it would satisfy Voldemort and increase his sense of superiority and worthiness.

Once he finally left his own, young body he felt a tremendous freedom and in a matter of seconds he was possessing Eileen.

She felt a great whoosh of something come inside every inch of her, and the power it had over her was so overwhelming, it was inundating.

Voldemort felt his way inside, eagerly exploring this novel experience. It seemed to Eileen that his spirit was everywhere. Not just within, but outside her too.

Riddle felt a surge of menacing anger. The fact that this soul was untarnished and whole was revolting. He quickly dismissed it, as it hardly mattered. He did not pause to ponder the purity of Eileen's soul in comparison to his recently ripped one.

He was going to gain more control now. Starting with a chant, a rhapsodizing inside his own mind. Eileen could hear it as well because they had a mental link from possession. It was an eerie enchantment with a vibrating rhythm that lasted several moments.

As the powerful spells progressed, Eileen felt an awful grip on all of her vital organs. Something had an insurmountable grasp over her heart, and her brain. It was quickly spreading until it was constraining not just her body, but her spirit.

Riddle was metaphorically cutting up Eileen's spirit, dissecting it, if you will. He wanted to see how everything worked in possession. As he explored deeper, Eileen began to sway. The host's skin was growing sallow, and sickly.

The strain was only more physically demanding when she felt her host use her mouth, "Use your wand..."

Eileen did not feel at all like herself, but she moved rigidly and robot-like, fumbling through her robes. At lest, the parasitic soul was being patient.

Once she had her wand in her shaking hand, it immediately spoke through her own vocal cords again, "Rip some skin open. Shed like a snake, my pet."

Eileen almost gained awareness at the riveting order to shed skin. But as she felt the awesome power of the soul inhabiting her body, she couldn't resist doing what Tom Riddle's soul was asking.

She concentrated with all her might, on a spell that would rip her skin open. She didn't know any, but because of the desire to obey so badly, Eileen instinctively utilized a spell. She felt a surge of relief, as abrasions appeared on each of her arms, aiming with the wand at each arm. Then a vague awareness of blood spurting on the skin. It alleviated the intense experience of possession to be complying with this foreign soul that was engrossing her existence. Finally remembering, it was Tom Riddle now inside her, she felt her own self-esteem increase because she identified with his authority.

Riddle continued to inhabit her insides, consuming every inch of them. Eileen already weakened, felt her soul splitting from her psyche. The spirit inside her was rapidly running through every one of her thoughts, emotions, sensations and memories.

Yet it disturbed her greatly. She felt no connection to any of the events playing in her mind, instead there was dissociation. Everything was being colasced with Lord Voldemort's soul sharing her body. But it seemed like he was dominating her completely. For everything she knew about herself, she could not understand in these moments.

Riddle was doing this, principally as a source of gratification. He was thinking of his belief that he was entitled to possess her. Eileen Prince was just a thing in his mind, a thing that he owned. As he continued to feel this, the fantasy over took into reality.

He had a wild urge to probe further into this soul, he wanted to push her to breaking point. Voldemort forced himself to depart, and Eileen felt the change immediately. Freezing from the encounter, shivering like it was winter, not summer. But then shock over took her as in a matter of seconds, the spirit forced itself back inside her.

Riddle continued this process, enjoying it immensely. It was pleasurable because of the control he had over this thing he owned. He felt more joy as there was a difference in the body. It seemed that the constant leaving and returning of his spirit was slowly killing her.

Riddle felt a manic happiness, his own feelings of unworthiness that drove him to possess her body being assuaged. "I am the master of life and death," he thought, as he was in an elevated mood. Eileen continued to deteriorate, her head becoming cloudy and a wooziness overtaking her.

Finally, the limp, slim frame of Eileen Prince collapsed, exhausted. Riddle withdrew from her, his fun time of teetering on the edge of life and death over. He went into the invisible body that was his, where it was still standing.

Making himself visible, he then knelt in front of Eileen, his puppet, his eyes glowing with satisfaction.

The young Voldemort was still desensitized in his regard for Eileen Prince's plight from the result of possession. Riddle felt no attachment to her whatsoever, even if he'd just possessed her body and felt her soul.

Instead, he took a taste of her blood off her arms. He savored her rich, pure-blood forgetting for once that he was half-blood.

He wavered and doted over the beauty she had become for a long time.

Not until it was nearly daybreak, did Tom Riddle perform the complex charm to modify her memory of the night's events. She would not even remember that he had threatened to kill her earlier. She was not going to be able to recall any of it, just a web of confusion. The new memory he placed inside her simply resembled something any old girl would daydream about doing with her boyfriend on a moonlit evening, alone together.

Riddle felt his own fatigue and weariness, but pressed on. He took a piece of garbage, that was streaming down from the murky pond, and muttered, "portus." The garbage, which was a crumpled shopping bag glowed blue and shook, becoming activated.

Next, slipping it into the palm of Eileen's hand, he watched her disappear. He projected the portkey to have her reappear on her gravelly driveway. Where perhaps her parent's would find her, if she didn't drown in the mud first, Riddle thought. As it was now raining. Hard, thick raindrops were pounding the ground puddles everywhere.

It was nearly daybreak now, a pale golden tinge obstructing the glow in the wee hours of the morning. Riddle, feeling much better than usual, set his mind determinedly on his final destination: a street in London just a couple of blocks from the orphanage. Within a few seconds he was disapparated. He would walk the few blocks to his orphanage, as if nothing had happened. Perhaps casually buy the muggle newspaper, he loved reading. Keeping up on the events of World War II and Hitler's schemes going into operation. He had to be admit Adolf Hitler wasn't too bad for a muggle.

******************************************

Images swam into view as Eileen Prince awakened, becoming conscious several hours later. Her eyelids opened from late morning light streaming through. She rolled over and heard a crinkling sound of something brushing against her waist that wasn't bedcovers. It was a shopping bag.

The shopping bag brought back more images, but also a torn sensation. She did not know if she was to be happy or frightened. Despite the wondrous images of Tom and Eileen strolling the property of Stonewall Estate on a placid, calm night. Or the moment he presented her the opal necklace and kissed her, it did not match up.

The necklace! Eileen's hands flew to her throat, writhing around on top of the bed.

"TOM! TOM! I can't breathe...where are you? I don't feel well...," she yelled. It seemed like her confusion, was going to make her drown.

Eileen still holding the glittering green opal necklace, began to pant as she looked down. Her beautiful gold dressrobes were torn, and there were small cuts on her arms.

"What's going on?! What happened to me?!"

The memory of their outing together last night, just wasn't matching up with these horrible feelings inside her.

It was like she was hung-over from drinking too much. She felt tired, and there seemed to be some kind of web, no a wall in her head that prevented knowing everything about last night. But there was no time to contemplate it now. She was much too fatigued.

Not feeling the least bit peaceful, she continued to clutch the necklace. She was so sore, every inch inside, yet it was baffling as to why that could be. Tom bought me this opal necklace and that is why there is a shopping bag in my hand, Eileen reasoned. They had talked for a while and finally had fallen asleep together and he had told her good night.

Eileen listened to rain battering the rooftop above and suddenly there were voices mixing with it. Eileen's mother and father, Marie and Graham Prince were banging on the door. Finally they found a way around the charms Eileen had placed on the locks.

Her mother came first, still in a high-collared fur cloak, despite the hot July weather. The husband behind, in his green healer robes with the St. Mungo's insignia of a wand crossed with a bone.

"What's wrong?! What is the matter?," her mother screamed. The lines on her forehead creasing even more, showed she was frightened.

Her father's jaw set, and his eyes looked more alert than ever. Graham was getting the horrible idea that Eileen was like some of his patients in the spell damage ward.

"What is the matter, Eileen? You look fine," Graham lied, as Eileen looked terrible.

"It's...It's this necklace," she murmered lamely.

"There can't be anything wrong with it. You own plenty of jewelry," the mother scoffed. But Eileen's father, gently picked up the necklace, examining it.

Her mother questioned further, "I distinctly heard the name Tom, Eileen. The suitor I wanted you to meet last night is Clarence Malfoy."

Setting the necklace beside Eileen, he looked his daughter in the eye as he asked, "But who is Tom?"

"Just somebody, I know...that I was dreaming about," she murmured casually. She was loyal to Riddle and there was no way she was going to tell her family about him. Yet she couldn't believe how normally she was speaking, despite everything that had happened.

Her father looked relieved to see her speaking in normally constructed sentences. For a second, Graham had been reminded of the people's whose minds had been addled at St. Mungo's.

Her mother scrutinized her apperance, with a prim look, "Wash up, Eileen! I don't need my one and only pure-blood daughter looking like garbage."

Eileen just frowned. She was very used to her mother's remarks and knew her mother said these things in a mean way, to get het to do things. Marie Prince scurried out of the room, as Graham Prince followed.

Eileen took her wand out, and aimed it at the door to lock and close it. It was a simple spell to slam a door shut, yet it just wasn't working. Not until the fourth try, did the door slowly shut from the force of her spell.

She began to cry, hot tears falling onto her, and sliding down near that necklace. She bit her lip, worrying why magic had suddenly become so difficult. Throwing the blue-grey bedcovers over her head, she fell asleep, still crying and part of her dwelling on thoughts of Tom Riddle.