Life and Limb

It was as if a whole new set of doors opened up in Marie’s world, but she wasn’t entirely sure she was happy about it. Kissing Tom hadn’t been on her list of things to do while at Hogwarts, but sure enough it happened and things weren’t quite the same after that. Whenever they were forced into the same room together – like in class or the Great Hall – Tom would catch Marie’s eye and wait for a reaction from her. She would glare at him, promising herself not to give him anything to feel so smug about, but that glare she gave him was enough. He knew: she was still angry with him.

A week passed, and then another. Soon the air was bitter cold with the onset of autumn, and Marie still tried to avoid Tom as part of her daily schedule. She had no other friends in Slytherin and Victoria and Siobhan were, for the most part, nonexistent. They acknowledged her only with a curt nod in the hall or in class.

Feeling more alone than ever, Marie tried to find solace in other places but to no avail. She wasn’t athletic and so the Quidditch team was a no. She had no interest in Exploding Snap or Wizard Chess, and so those were clubs of no use to her.

Marie soon decided that clubs and teams wouldn’t help her because nobody wanted to be near her. She blamed that on the fact that word had gotten out about her very controversial first year at Hogwarts. Everyone thought she was a cold-blooded murderer.

The only one who hung out with Marie on occasion was Nicolette Wray, the half vampire girl. Marie, at first, was less than thrilled about Nicolette’s company, but the more people began to avoid her, the more used to Nicolette she became.

They sat together now at dinner, with Nicolette tearing into a very raw piece of meat hungrily, sans fork and knife. Marie sat next to her poking at her mashed potatoes with her fork listlessly.

“You know,” Nicolette was saying as Marie tried to tune her out, “we should do something fun this weekend. It’s Halloween.”

Marie shrugged one shoulder. “I’ve never really been one for Halloween festivities.”

“What – your parents afraid you’ll be eaten by a werewolf?”

Marie’s lips turned upwards at the obvious joke. “No, nothing like that. Beauxbatons was just never really big on it.”

“Uptight French girls in a prissy all-girls’ school...yes, I can see why you may not have had much experience in parties,” Nicolette observed aloud. She didn’t notice the look of disgust Marie threw her.

Marie went back to ignoring Nicolette for the rest of the time they sat together. Across from her and a little bit to her left, Tom was sitting eating his cooked steak silently. Every once in a while he would look up at her and try to smile, but Marie pretended not to notice. Unfortunately for her, Nicolette did.

“Marie, I think Tom wants to tell you something,” Nicolette said. “He keeps looking at you.”

“Well you can tell that slimy bastard that no thank you, but I appreciate his effort,” Marie snapped.

“Wow. No need to get your panties in a twist,” Nicolette said with a little smile.

“My panties are not in a twist. Especially for Tom Riddle.”

“Mhmm.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing.”

Marie, not quite liking what Nicolette was implying, quickly downed the last of her pumpkin juice and stood up from the bench. A few Slytherin heads turned in her direction but they went promptly back to eating. Tom, however, continued to stare at her. She turned away quickly, not wanting their eyes to meet.

“Where’re you going?” Nicolette asked as Marie stepped out from the bench.

“I don’t know,” she lied before taking off like a shot to the nearest exit. She didn’t want to give Tom a chance to follow her.

She rounded the corner quickly and broke into a sprint down the hall. Her shoes clattered loudly against the stone floor but when Marie turned to look behind her, nobody was there. Good. That meant Tom was far behind her.

She turned ahead and ran through the castle, only stopping a few times to catch her breath if she needed to. She tried not to do this often, though. She didn’t want to give anyone a chance to catch up with her. And so she continued to run up staircases and through the labyrinthine hallways until she reached her destination: the library.

Of course Madam Pince would be at dinner right now, but Marie hadn’t counted on her locking up the library. Unfortunately, that was exactly what she had done. No matter how hard Marie tried to pull on the doors, they wouldn’t budge.

Frustrated, she whipped out her hand and pointed at the doorknobs. “Alohomora,” she whispered.

Nothing happened. Marie kicked the wooden doors. There was probably a more advanced spell she had to know in order to get in. Curse her being away for so long; Beauxbatons hadn’t given her the same education as Hogwarts would have, and so she was a little behind when it came to Charms.

Marie tried again, but still the door remained shut.

“Now I know you’re not trying to get in there to study.”

Marie screamed slightly at the sound of Tom’s voice directly behind her. She whirled around on her heel and found her face nearly bumping into his chest. How had he snuck up on her like that? She had been so sure that she wasn’t being followed, and yet here he was like always, butting his head into things that she didn’t want him to be involved in. After all, this was his entire fault.

“Go away, Tom,” Marie snapped, turning her back on him and focusing her stare on the doorknob as if it would open at will.

“I believe the Exploding Charm will work on the door, if that’s what you wanted to know,” Tom said as he leaned closer to Marie. He had his face right next to hers and she could feel his breath on her neck.

Thoroughly uncomfortable, Marie sidestepped away from Tom. “That’s not what I was wondering, but thank you anyway.”

Tom smirked at her. “What exactly are you looking for in the library, anyway?”

“Nothing of interest to you,” Marie told him before turning around again and storming off in the opposite direction.

“So now you’re heading off to the Hufflepuff Tower, why?” Tom asked her patronizingly.

Marie, realizing exactly where she was storming off to, realized he was right. How infuriating. She stopped walking and crossed her arms over her chest, annoyed at him and at herself. She waited, hearing Tom’s footsteps as he approached her once again.

“What’re you doing following me, Riddle?” Marie asked.

“So now we’re on a last name basis? Come now, Marie, I thought we’re friends.” Something dangerous flashed in his eyes but only a coy smile covered his face.

“I thought we could be, until I found out you framed me for murdering another student,” Marie hissed through her teeth. She jabbed a finger into his chest. “Who do you think you are, thinking you can just walk up to me and expect to be friends? Expect for me to forgive you, or to forget what you did to me? How you ruined my life?”

“Now’s not the time to play the self-pity card,” Tom snickered.

“Self-pity card? You think I’m looking for your sympathy?”

“Not looking. Begging.”

Marie shoved him but he didn’t so much as budge. “You’re a complete and utter ass, you know that?”

“So I’ve been told.”

“Really. And it never occurred to you to be a better person to others, did it?”

“I’ve always been taught never to change who you are based on what other people want from you or expect you to be,” Tom said with a knowing smile.

“Well, I think you could be an exception to the rule.”

“Imagine that.”

Marie took a deep breath, trying to calm herself. She brushed a wayward lock of blonde hair from her face. “Why were you following me? Answer me for real this time.”

“You’re interesting to follow. First Dumbledore’s office, now the library...I haven’t been here in quite some time.”

“Not since you wanted to learn how to make a Horcrux, huh?”

Without warning, Tom grabbed her shoulders and wheeled her around so fast her vision was blurred. He backed her up and slammed her hard against the wall behind her. Marie’s head cracked against the stone and her eyes teared in pain. Before she had a chance to cry out, Tom’s hands moved from her shoulders to the collar of her robes where he gripped tightly and held her in place.

“Don’t you ever say that word again,” he snarled in her face. “Do you understand me?”

He shook her hard and her head came close to hitting the wall again.

“I-I...I’m sorry!” Marie choked out, on the verge of tears. “I didn’t mean to...”

“You’d better think damn well next time before you say anything about that. Do you understand?” He shook her again. “Do you realize how much trouble you could land both of us in?”

“I’m sorry!”

“You better damn well be.” And he released her.

Marie took a deep breath and gasped for air. Her head throbbed a bit and her vision was a little wonky. Tom stood in front of her, practically breathing fire.

“And here I thought you were the smart one, Fugazi,” he murmured. “Talking about those things in the middle of a hallway...”

“Nobody’s here with us,” Marie managed to say breathlessly.

“Doesn’t mean nobody’s listening. The paintings, you dunce. Remember?” Tom motioned to a portrait of a king further down the hall. “Who’s to say he didn’t hear you?”

Marie, to be honest, had forgotten about the paintings. She rubbed the back of her head angrily. “Well that doesn’t give you the excuse to slam me up against a wall like that. You could’ve really hurt me.”

“But I didn’t. Did I?” His voice changed drastically when he asked her. He went from arrogant and lofty to worried and anxious at the drop of a hat.

“If I have a concussion, I’ll let you know.” Marie, still massaging the back of her head, turned away from him in case he snapped again and started to walk back to the Great Hall.

Predictably, she heard Tom’s footsteps following her.

Marie whirled around. “Tom, what do you want now? Haven’t you done enough damage?”

And it happened again. Tom leaned down towards her, but this time when Marie caught on and tried to move away from him, he grabbed her by the back of her neck and pulled her into him. His lips caught hers and he wrapped his other arm around her waist, smashing them together. Marie tried to push herself away but before she could, he thrust her away from him.

“Now I’ve done enough damage,” Tom corrected with an impish smile.

“Tom!” Marie shoved him again. “Why the hell do you keep doing that?”

“Doing what?”

Marie threw her hands up in the air. “You’re ridiculous! I give up. If you want to fuck around and not show your true feelings for anyone or anything, fine. Have fun by yourself.”

“Trust me, sweetheart,” Tom called after her as she walked away, “you won’t be able to get me off your mind no matter how hard you try.”

“Oh really?” Marie asked challengingly, calling to him over her shoulder. “And why’s that?”

“Because that’s just who I am.”

Tom’s laughter echoed down the hallway after her.



The following day Marie decided to have another go at the library. She ate a quick breakfast (again ignoring the stares that Tom gave her) before darting out of the Great Hall. When she discovered that the library was open, she unfortunately found that Madam Pince was hovering too closely to the Restricted Section for Marie to get a good spot to sneak in.

Cursing herself under her breath, Marie was close to giving up on her endeavor altogether when she recognized a Slytherin seventh year with brown hair and an abnormally large nose sorting books onto one of the shelves near her.

“Psst!” Marie hissed.

The seventh year girl looked at her oddly. “What?”

“Where are those books from?” Marie pointed to the huge stack of books the girl was sifting through.

The girl shrugged one shoulder. “I dunno. Pince just told me to put them back.”

“Are they from the Restricted Section?” Marie asked.

The girl snorted derisively. “No. Pince wouldn’t let a student put away any books from the Restricted Section. Are you daft?”

The girl walked away then, carrying the large stack of books with both hands. Marie’s face burned embarrassedly. Of course that would be the case, wouldn’t it? So how was she supposed to find out more about –

And then an idea came to Marie. Quietly as so not to attract Madam Pince’s attention, Marie hurried across the library to the librarian’s little office. She looked carefully over her shoulder to make sure Madam Pince wasn’t looking before slipping inside and closing the door slightly. Once Marie was certain that the librarian hadn’t seen her, she walked over to the smallish wooden desk that was covered in inkwells, quills, parchment, and stacks of old dusty books.

“Please be in here,” Marie muttered to herself as she opened the top drawer of the desk. Nothing was in there except more pieces of blank parchment.

She shut the drawer quietly and opened the next one.

Bingo. It was an order form from Flourish and Blotts for extra library books. This one was totally blank. Marie tucked it away in the sleeve of her robes and made sure nothing was out of its rightful place before slipping out of the office and high-tailing it out of the library before anyone suspected anything.

Marie had it all figured out. She would order a book on Horcruxes from Flourish and Blotts and have it delivered to her personally by owl. Normally she would try and just get a pass to go into the Restricted Section, but by now Dumbledore probably figured out what she would be looking for and would have probably advised the other professors against signing off for her. She would have to wait a few weeks or so for the book order to come in, but it would be worth it in the end. In the meantime, she would try and piece together whatever else was missing from her fractured past.

And that, unfortunately, meant finding out more about Tom Marvolo Riddle.