Life and Limb

A week went by where Tom tried to act as normal as possible around Marie. She hadn’t brought up the kiss, which led Tom to believe that she didn’t remember it at all, but she did recall Jeremy plying her with Firewhiskey. One good Furnunculus Curse to the face and Jeremy swore he’d never look twice at Marie again (though he was aided in part by the fact that he would be spending some time in the hospital wing while the boils were cured from his face).

Hagrid appeared the day after the dance, apologizing profusely to Marie for missing their expected “date” together; he apparently got held up with some important work for Care of Magical Creatures. Marie waved it off as nothing and together the two of them agreed to hang out again sometime before the end of November, and definitely before Christmas break.

Aside from the excitement with Jeremy, everything went as uneventful as ever before. Classes were still slow, the meals were still delicious, and the teachers were still assigning more homework than the students could possibly handle without sacrificing a little bit of sanity.

Professor Beery, the Herbology teacher, had in particular given the Slytherins such a load that they all felt as though he were taking out some sort of personal vendetta against them. Their Head of House, Professor Slughorn, assured them that he would try to speak to Beery at some point to determine a fairer workload (especially compared with the Hufflepuffs, who had gotten no homework at all), but in the meantime, Tom Riddle had something else up his sleeve.

A small part of their Herbology homework was to find an ingredient used in the Elixir to Induce Euphoria, which they would be preparing in Slughorn’s class later the following week. Most of the Slytherin students, due to the already immense workload, decided on taking the easy route by going into the Potions storage and picking out shrivelfigs and mint sprigs for their Herbology assignment, but Tom was ever the overachiever. He wanted to at least stand out in Beery’s class amongst his slacker classmates, and he decided the best way to do that was to find –

“A Wiggentree?” Marie snorted during breakfast that Saturday. “Are you mental? You’d have to get past bowtruckles just to get a piece of wood, not to mention the only place to find a Wiggentree is in the Forbidden Forest.”

Tom took a large bite of the sausage he had stabbed with his fork. “Your point?” he asked once he had swallowed.

“It’s called the Forbidden Forest for a reason.”

“And it’s called a devil-may-care attitude for a reason as well.”

Marie rolled her eyes. “I don’t see why you’d want to risk so much for such a simple assignment. It’s just Herbology.”

“I like thinking outside the box.”

“I think you’re too far out of the box this time around, Tom. Seriously. Just poke around the Potions storeroom like everyone else.”

Tom’s lips twitched as he turned and stared hard at Marie. “So what ingredient are you getting, then?”

“I already got my castor beans yesterday,” Marie told him.

Tom snorted. “Castor beans. Very original.”

“I’m not trying to be original. I’m just trying to get by.”

“And mediocrity is fine by you?”

“It’s just homework, Tom. It doesn’t mean –”

But what exactly it didn’t mean, Marie didn’t get a chance to say, because it was at that moment that the owls began arriving with mail and packages. The Hall was soon engulfed in wings, feathers, and talons as the owls swooped and dived for their respective students, dropping their burdens on the table once they’d been found.

When the air started to clear, Marie saw it: an eagle owl, with an official-looking gold ribbon around its left leg, dive-bombing for the Slytherin table and making a beeline for her. It was clutching a large package in its talons that it soon let go of right above Marie’s head; she was lucky that her reflexes were quick enough to catch the package before it hit her in the head.

She knew almost immediately what it was: her Horcrux book from Flourish and Blotts.

“Mummy and Daddy send you sweets from home?” Tom asked condescendingly.

“Stuff your face,” Marie retorted as she stood from the table.

“Where are you going?” Tom called after her retreating back.

“To the bottom of the lake.”

“With your package?”

“Rather this package than yours, Riddle.”

Across the table from Tom, Avery laughed so hard he choked on his eggs.

Truth be told, Marie was actually going to the bathroom. She figured that it was the safest and only place Tom wouldn’t be able to invade her privacy whilst she read her book.

Luckily, because she had stolen an order form with the Hogwarts crest emblazoned on the letter, the people at Flourish and Blotts had assumed that it was the school ordering an extra book for the Restricted Section. There had been no problems with its delivery. And so, on that Saturday morning, Marie found herself in the second-floor girls’ bathroom, holding tight to a brand new copy of Secrets of the Darkest Art. Instead of merely sitting on the floor in front of the sinks, she went to the very back of the bathroom, closed and locked the wooden door, and put down the toilet seat cover so she could sit down as comfortably as possible and flip to the table of contents. Upon finding the chapter on Horcruxes, she turned to the page number carefully, as if something was about to leap out of the book and bite her.

A noise in the otherwise silent bathroom startled her so that she almost dropped the book, but it was only the door opening. Marie almost sighed in relief but then her breath hitched in her throat when she heard an unfamiliar male voice speak:

“Are you really thinking of doing it now? Shouldn’t we have more time to prepare?”

“Time? Are you daft, Lestrange? We’ve had more than enough time to think about this. Surely we can act on it, too.” This sounded a lot like Avery. Marie’s grip tightened on her book.

She nearly dropped it again at a third voice: “Lestrange, if you’re having second thoughts, by all means, go clean your soiled underwear and let Avery and I get on with it.”

Tom. What the hell was he doing in the girls’ lavatory? Marie tried to control her loud breathing in case she was discovered.

Tom continued to speak. “Avery, you stand outside and direct any girls away from here. You’re a Prefect; they’ll listen to you. Lestrange, help me check the bathroom’s empty.”

Marie froze but her heart fluttered in a panic. She was about to be discovered. Perhaps she could play dumb, pretend she hadn’t heard anything the boys had said? It sounded like they were up to something bad and she wanted no part of it. And then there was the issue of hiding the book somewhere...

Thinking quickly, Marie ducked down and slid the heavy book just behind the toilet, easily concealed from view from anyone who wasn’t purposely looking for it. She decided she would just have to come back for the book at a later time –

Without warning, someone banged on her stall door, intending to open it, but because it was locked the door didn’t yield.

“Oi!” The other boy – Lestrange – called out. “Is someone in there?”

Marie didn’t know whether to stay silent or respond, but she finally decided that it was already obvious there was someone in the stall. She chose to feign surprise. “Aren’t you a boy? What’re you doing here?”

She heard Lestrange curse under his breath. “Riddle, there’s someone in here.”

“So open the door, you imbecile.”

Marie heard Lestrange mutter something under his breath that sounded a lot like “prat.” The next thing out of his mouth was, “Alohomora.”

The lock to her stall clicked and Lestrange kicked the door open with unnecessary gusto. Marie shrieked as the door collided with the wall and nearly bounced back to hit the face of the boy standing before her. Lestrange was tall and muscular, with dark blonde hair and a face that seemed clouded by shadows but was still handsome, in an intimidating way.

“Merlin’s beard, Maurus! D’you want to bring the whole bloody castle down?” Tom shouted from the other end of the bathroom. She heard his footsteps approaching and she shut her eyes, as though that would conceal her from Tom. “What’re you on about over here?”

He appeared next to Maurus Lestrange and, upon seeing Marie sitting there, the color drained from his face. It wasn’t fear that he conveyed though: it was anger. He looked furious, with his lips tight together and his grey eyes flashing. If looks could kill, Marie would most definitely be dead by now.

“Fugazi.” He reverted to her surname, the syllables spitting out of his mouth like venom. “What in the name of Gellert Grindelwald’s dead mother are you doing in here?”

“It’s the girls’ lavatory, isn’t it? I should be the one asking you what you’re doing here, unless there’s something you haven’t been telling me, Riddle.”

“Don’t play cute with me. You need to get out. Now.”

“What if I’ve to pee?”

Tom apparently didn’t care whether or not Marie was being serious because he lunged straight into the stall and grabbed her by both arms, hauling her to her feet.

“Tom, let me go!” Marie shouted, her voice echoing in the restroom.

Tom, of course, paid her no heed. He swapped his grip from her forearms to just her right wrist and insisted on tugging her after him as he swept past Maurus Lestrange and towards the exit. Maurus stared after Marie with little but a blank expression, but she could’ve sworn she saw a sadistic grin tugging at the corners of his lips and a flash of mischief in his eyes.

“You’re hurting me!” Marie snapped as Tom yanked on her to keep her moving.

“See if I care,” Tom retorted, equally as nastily. He kicked open the bathroom door, nearly smacking it into Avery as he did so. He didn’t even blink as they strode past Avery, Marie in tow. More importantly, Avery didn’t seem at all curious about the odd events unfolding before him. It was as if he were used to seeing Tom dragging unwilling girls after him, though that could very well be the case for all Marie knew. Tom seemed like the type –

“ – bloody well go and ruin everything, don’t you, Fugazi?” Tom was saying as he continued roping Marie down the flight of stairs to the first floor. “You just don’t know when to leave well enough alone.”

“I wasn’t spying on you, Riddle. In case you’re unaware of such facilities, that happens to be the girls’ lavatory, which is where females of the human species go to relieve themselves periodically during the day. It’s not uncommon for you to find a girl sitting on the toilet. What is uncommon is hearing three boys talking amongst themselves inside.”

She took this moment to try and wrestle out of Tom’s grip, but he was much quicker and stronger. Within seconds he had released her wrist but now had his right forearm barring her chest as he backed her up into a wall so quickly that she tripped and fell into the stone. Tom pinned her there effortlessly.

“Why is it,” Marie hissed, “that whenever we’re having a disagreement, you always end up overpowering me and shoving me into hard places? Is there something you’re trying to convey, Riddle?”

“Why don’t you tell me? You’re the one who couldn’t keep her hands off of me after the dance.” Marie blanched and Tom smirked at her reaction. “That’s what I thought. So before you question my actions, you’d better think about some of your own.”

Marie struggled against his grip. Tom didn’t show any signs of loosening up. She snapped at him, “Just tell me what you lot were doing in there. You were all planning something. I heard you.”

Stupid idea, Marie scolded herself. Why’d you go and tell him that you overheard? Now he’ll think you know too much. What if he hurts you?

But the storm in Tom’s eyes seemed to be receding with each passing second. Either he was trying very hard to control himself, or he wasn’t as angry as he had been earlier. His hold on Marie began to loosen until finally he dropped his arm completely. Marie straightened herself up against the wall but didn’t move anywhere else. She was hoping for an answer. Seconds ticked by in silence and all Tom did was open his mouth as though to say something, and then close it again.

Finally, he spoke. “Listen to me, and listen to me good, Fugazi.” His voice dropped and became low and dangerous. “I don’t give a damn if you find some sort of sick pleasure in poking into other peoples’ lives. I really don’t. But if you ever try following me, or spying on me, or sticking your nose in my life where it doesn’t belong, you may find you’ve bitten off more than you can chew.”

“Is that a threat?” Marie tried to sound high and mighty but was worried that she’d failed; her voice trembled a bit.

Tom didn’t even blink an eye. “That’s a promise, Fugazi. A promise I damn well intend to keep if you ever turn up where I don’t want you.”

“You don’t run the school, Riddle, as much as you may wish you do. I guess you’ll just have to live with the fact that you can’t control me or where I go or what I do. Hurts, doesn’t it?”

Tom put both of his arms up on either side of her head and leaned against the wall, pinning Marie in between his hands. He smirked and leaned down towards her, his face dangerously close. “It’s your funeral. Do what you will with it.” His breath brushed over her face gently as he spoke. “But I’d like to think you’re smarter than you look, Fugazi, so I’ll pretend that I didn’t hear your oh-so-stupid response and walk away believing that you’ll take my warning into account.”

Marie’s heart pounded wildly in her chest; she felt as though it were about to burst through her ribcage at any moment. Whether that was the panic she felt at being verbally threatened or the sudden urge to grab Tom by the neck and kiss him, she didn’t know. Each feeling was overwhelmingly strong. Marie found herself locking eyes with Tom and to her dismay she couldn’t look away. In fact, the longer she kept his gaze on hers, the calmer Tom seemed to become. The tension left his face and the angry lines across his forehead vanished; the snarl was gone from his lips soon after.

“Please.” His voice was softer now. “I don’t want to have to hurt you to make my point clear.”

“What were you doing in the girls’ lavatory?” Marie demanded again recklessly.

Tom was better at controlling his anger this time around. Instead, he only curled his hands into fists. “If you must know, Lestrange was on his period and he didn’t want anyone else peeping in on him when he was dealing with a most effeminate and personal problem. Will that be all, Your Highness?”

“That was funny, Tom. I’m going to find out what you’re doing one way or another, but that was funny.”

“I hope, for your own sake, that you never find out.”

“Let me guess. ‘You’ll have to kill me.’”

“Something along those lines.”

“You don’t scare me, Tom.”

“How unfortunate for me.”

Marie gnashed her teeth together in frustration.

Tom smirked down at her, his mouth twisting into a devious little half smile that both panicked and delighted her. “Admit it, Fugazi. You’ll never figure me out.”



“Hey,” Maurus greeted none too warmly. “Where’ve you been?”

Tom barely looked up at him as he waltzed back into the girls’ bathroom, with Avery still standing guard outside. “Getting rid of one particularly nasty leech.”

Maurus sniggered. “Tom Riddle having more female troubles?”

“No more than usual. What say we get searching, yes?”

“One minute. I thought you’d like to see this.” Maurus held out Marie’s copy of Secrets of the Darkest Art. “That girl in here hid it behind the toilet. Seems like it’s worth a look into, doesn’t it?”

“Let me see that.” Tom snatched the book from Maurus none too excitedly, attempting to keep the anxious trembling of his fingers down to a minimum. He recognized the black and purple cover almost immediately: the Restricted Section in the library had a copy just like this one, but Tom was never permitted by a teacher to look into it. He had been planning on asking for Professor Slughorn’s signature on a permission slip, but if this really was another copy...

Why did Marie have this? A little voice in the back of Tom’s head probed the question as Tom flipped to the table of contents. What on Earth would goody-goody Fugazi need with a book like this?

Does it matter? a second voice asked. You have it now. You know what to do with it.

“I’ll keep this safe, Lestrange, thank you.” Tom reached down for his school bag that he had tucked under one of the sinks and slipped it inside. He made a mental note to check out chapter seven before turning to Lestrange and saying, “Now then, on to business. Where is this Chamber of Secrets you’ve told me was in here?”