CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

WARNING: slightly mature, torture, death, knives, someone kicks a rat

Their walk back to the complex had been a quiet one— the kind of tension that was welcome, and yet thoughtful. Tom had never answered her question, as it seemed that the realization that he had let another person in his circle had rattled him beyond comprehension, and while it did amuse Varya, it also worried her.

He was reticent and did not even speak up when they passed by a garden of flowers, and Varya made it whither out of irritation. Riddle did not scold her for her waste of magic, and she found that odd.

When they reached the living room, the boy only shut himself in his room, and the girl stood in the common area perplexed. Had she said something wrong? It seemed that for the first time in a while, the two were spending time together without arguing, and yet Riddle had once again secluded himself.

The balcony doors were still open, and she looked at the storm that approached. Varya made her way outside and gripped the balustrade, eyes trained on the rapacious lightning, the way in engulfed the horizon in a network of light. Thunder followed closely, a sound that vibrated through the air, a sign that the storm itself was close. The rain started pouring in, hitting the balcony's marble with plaintive drops, and the girl let the drizzle hit her flesh as she closed her eyes and felt the spring cascade on her skin.

A hand reached out to her, and lightning struck again a few blocks down. She was not sure if it was Tom's fingers on her arm or the boastful thunder that made her shudder, but when the witch turned around to meet chaotic pupils that darted to every corner of her face and drowned in the color of the Mediterranean Sea — she thought she might have a clue.

"Yes?" she inquired, voice amplified as she tried to speak over the sonorous dripping from the sky's granite. Tom moved his lips, but Varya did not really hear much, "Let us go inside; I cannot hear you."

Nevertheless, he grabbed her hand and pulled her right back, making them both stand in the rain as it poured over them. His shirt had started sticking to his skin, and his curls fell in damp strands over his face as he continued to look at her. His eyes carried some conflict, and he kept pressing his lips almost as if he was irritated by something.

Varya looked up at the sky and scrunched her nose as she felt the chill settle in her bones, and her own hair had slicked back and started sticking to her face. This was ridiculous; what was he doing?

"What is it?"

"You are not part of the Knights," Riddle's voice was final, and the girl hoisted an eyebrow.

"All right, fine, I never accepted it anyway," she scoffed at his ridiculousness. Was this what was bothering him?

"But you are part of this, just not as a follower. You are an essential variable, and it would be an insult to your intellect to place you in the same ranks as them. Petrov, you have power and knowledge that some of them could never dream of, and you need to start acting upon it," Riddle explained with a stoic stare, and Varya felt her breath hitch.

Tom rarely complimented her— he mostly called her stupid and useless, which contradicted the fact that the boy wanted her to fight alongside him in whatever war he was going to start. The witch had always known that he found her valuable, and yet it pleased her to hear it from his own mouth.

"Oh, a round of applause! Riddle finally admits that he does, after all, need me!"

She threw her head back in a hearty laugh, face scrunching in utter amusement, and Tom frowned at the way his heart sped up. He looked down at it, then placed a hand over his chest in confusion, trying to calm it down. His body was reacting to the girl, and as the rain continued to fall down over them, the boy felt cold. He did not like that.

So Tom reached out to Varya, and pulled her close until her body was against his, and then grabbed at her wet hair to make her look in his eyes. The girl stilled as she felt the way their damp clothes clung to each other, and the boy lowered his head until his lips were hovering over hers.

"I will never need anyone, Petrov," Riddle muttered, and he closed his eyes, breathing deeply as he tried to focus on the feeling in his chest. It was harsher now, and his skin burned where it touched hers. "The sooner you realize that dependency is toxic, the sooner you achieve greatness. Nobody needs you, and you do not need someone else, either. We are self-reliant beings, and opportunistic. The people we surround ourselves with are the best options at the time, and yet they can easily be replaced if necessary."

"That is cynical," the Eastern witch deadpanned, and her eyes analyzed the boy as he stood there, eyes closed in tranquility, with droplets falling down and trailing his jawline. She reached out, and let one slide on her finger, "There is nothing wrong with needing people, Riddle. It is not a weakness. As a matter of fact, few are brave enough to recognize that they are not all-powerful. Those with minds strong enough to accept that humans are collective beings will achieve greatness."

"And who do you need, Varya?"

Tom Riddle's eyes had always been a tumultuous sea, an inferno of waves and conflict, and yet now, she saw calmness settle over them. There were few moments of peace that the boy allowed himself, and this was one of them.

"I need you to let me go back inside. We are literally standing in the rain, and as much as I appreciate your dramaticism, I do not want to go to Albania with a cold," the girl quipped nervously, trying to evade the question as pupils darted everywhere except the boy, but when Varya tried to free herself from his hold, he only pushed her back.

"What do you want?"

Her chest rose and fell in waves of anxiousness, and the witch bit her lip to hold herself from admitting that Tom was the one whom her heart yearned for. And yet, her mind had been in shambles for months, and Varya's resolve had crumbled to a fraction of what it had once been.

"I want you to kiss me."

Tom crashed his lips against hers, hands clinging for dear life as he explored the newfound sensation with intrigue, and wondered to what extent it would go to. He pushed her up against the table, and Varya's hands gripped his wet clothes and hair as he placed himself right between her legs. It was a different kind of feeling than their previous kiss— slower, exploratory, sensual.

A slow hand trailed up the girl's thighs, and then he parted her legs easily as he maneuvered her to sit right in front of him. Her dress was long, and it reached her knees, so Tom lifted it gradually without detaching his lips from hers. His hands went up to her neck, and he pulled her closer to press himself against her fully.

Varya whined in his mouth, then made to detach herself from him, realizing that her underwear was fully visible, "Tom, we are on the balcony—"

His mouth went directly to one of her breasts, and he bit down on her flesh as his hand pulled at the lace with need, and he let one digit trail the inner part of her upper thigh, making her back arch as she trembled underneath his touch. Then, he unzipped the back of her dress, exposing frail shoulders to the coldness of the rain, and Varya looked around in panic at the neighboring buildings, begging that nobody was watching them. She bit back a moan as the boy ripped the dress off of her upper body, and then trailed rough hands over the cups of her bra and gripped fiercely.

Tom's mind had been plagued with want for days, and as much as he had tried to shut his brain off, the girl had been driving him insane. It was as if she had opened Pandora's box on the day of their previous encounter, and had let a new desire surface. It drove him mad, to the point where he could not be around her for more than a few minutes and keep composure.

He was a boy, and as emotionless as he could be, his body still reacted to the touch of a woman.

His hand moved earthward, and he frowned when he felt leather where her hip was supposed to be. The boy glanced downward, and then a sinister smile covered his features. Before the girl could even realize, the tip of a blade was forcing her chin upwards, and her throat constricted at the odious effervescence in her abdomen— it thrilled her.

"Now, where did you get this from?" he mumbled on her ear, then breathed hotly against it, making the hair on skin cover in goosebumps. The rain had quiet down a little, and Tom could hear her breath hitch when he pressed the cold dagger against her soft thigh, trailing it up and down slowly.

"Avery," Varya said decisively, almost trying to rile him up, and it worked as his eyes grew darker, and he growled as he made a small incision near her hip. His fiendish eyes darted to it, and he watched as her dark blood blended with the drops of rain, a trail of melon-pink down her thigh, and despite the hiss of pain, her hips moved eagerly against his leg.

"Is that so?" he purred, then clicked his tongue as he let his head fall downward, trailing his lips over her shoulder. His velvety lips placed a soft kiss, and then his tongue swirled in the spot they had touched. Then, Tom used the dagger to cut the rest of her dress away.

The rain had stopped pouring, and he lifted his head to look up at the sky, allowing time for the girl to push her mouth underneath his jaw and bite down on it, before sucking eagerly as his hands gripped her sides and his eyes closed in pleasure. The dark pulsation of despair transfigured between the two, and her shadows laid soft touches against his body as she let her deepest desire slip through the cracks of senselessness and resolve, a welcoming to her obscurity to unravel.

Red flashes of need pulsed against his skin as she trailed down, and then with the hand of a woman that could tempt and destroy the minds of the crudest Roman rulers of times, she led his firm hand between her legs, which she had hyperextended as an invitation to immorality.

Her body was made of the breeze and the stars, and it felt as if he was touching the skin of some sort of phantom, the way it shone as the first rays of moonlight dipped on translucence, and his fingers glided over her middle in circular, slow motions, earning a spectrum of small whimpers. His finger continued circling her soft spot as he pressed slow kisses to her neck before biting down on it.

The blade was still in his hand, and the crimson had stopped pooling from the wound, so he placed it against her stomach, and dragged it in the shape of constellations right back at her neck and made midnight eyes gaze at him with lunar clarity. Their breaths stilled, each entranced by the other's devotion, and then he let the dagger fall to the side, and it clinked against white marble with a metallic tinkle.

The wind of the night was cold enough to buzz her skin, and yet it flushed rogue as Tom kneeled before her, then placed his lips against her in a spectacle of sparks and deprivation, moving slow, deliberately. She grabbed his hair, and her back arched as pleasure swam in her vision and pooled in the deepest parts of her broken mind, and she used it to momentarily mend everything together in a portrait that showed one thing— him.

Then, his tongue swirled, and the witch spluttered and bit down on her hand to stop the scream ripple through twilight's hours with mindless ecstasy and bliss, and her hips moved against his face in vibrance of need. She moved hips in circular motions against his mouth as he gripped her back and pulled her flush against his face, moaning against her warmth and sending vibrations through Varya's body.

The velvet darkness of nighttime covered them in a blanket of fogginess and hid them from the wandering eye, and yet neither cared nor minded the open scenery as the boy continued to press his tongue against hotness. One hand gripped her hip, and then his mouth pushed harder against her, lips and tongue and tongue and lips. He brought down a hand and trailed the upper part, then dragged it down against the outer edges of her galaxy before sliding it right in and pushing it hard until he felt flesh against his fingertip, and her scream resonated through the night, shattering the tranquility of the darkness.

His motions were swift, and yet she felt the slight tremble of a boy who was unsure in his movement, and Varya found it enthralling how he was trying to explore on his own, always eager for knowledge, regardless of the matter.

His fingers made her head spin like a planet rotating around its own axis with nebular pleasure, and when she closed her eyes, she saw Jupiter's moons orbiting aimlessly. Like the explosion of a supernova, she felt the tightness in her lower abdomen build up and tasted stardust on her tongue as Tom continued moving plum lips against her, then swirled his tongue on her bundle of nerves. His hand trailed up her body, and he scratched at the skin on her stomach, mixing the pain and pleasure in a swirl of heightened senses. She found herself indulging in mindless sabaism as he was the whole cosmos.

Then, Riddle came back up and kissed her eagerly, hand still palming her lower region, alternating between applying just the right pressure and sliding long digits with dexterity. She had never quite noticed how beautiful his hands were, how the veins glistened of emerald against pale skin, almost an admittance of the serpentinous lineage, and at that moment, he breathed of power and dominance as she squirmed underneath his hold. Tom moved his fingers in and out of her faster, and pulled on her hair harshly so she would meet his eyes and he could see the pleasure drip from her features.

His lips pulled up in a nonchalant smirk, and the boy tilted his head as he watched the way her face moved in absolute ecstasy, her lips red and swollen and eyes filled with urgency, and then he trailed his tongue against the outline of her breasts, and that sent the girl over the edge.

The explosion that started it all, the Big Bang, and her universe expanded exponentially, and everything around her swirled— he made something out of nothing, he broke her down in pieces and put her right back together. She let the sensation of her climax ripple through her body, and he watched it curiously, eyes dull and set alight at the same time.

Varya breathed harshly, and swallowed forcefully before she felt Tom wrap a hand around her naked waist and make her stand flush against him, "Now I owe you nothing."

"Excuse me?" her raspy voice managed, and her eyebrows mixed in confusion at the boy's words.

"I gave it back— what you did for me. Now I do not owe you anything, no dependency."

Then, he detached himself, grabbed his coat from the chair, and handed it to Varya. The girl scoffed but accepted it nonetheless. Tom indeed had no idea what intimacy was or how it worked, and he missed many social cues in such situations.

"That is not how it works," she muttered as the boy offered a hand for her to hop off the table, and then pulled her inside. Her wet hair dripped on the marble floor, and she winced as her bare legs touched its coldness. "It is not a trade-off, but something that happens naturally between two people because of sexual attraction."

"Sexual attraction?" Riddle mused as he sat by the fireplace, "Is that what I am feeling? It does explain many nuances of my body's reaction around you."

The way his eyes trailed her body made the girl flush, and she wrapped the coat around herself tighter before averting her gaze from his suave smirk. God, he was so oblivious sometimes for a macabre mastermind— the boy had no concept of human emotions. After all, his lectures only told him how to imitate, not how to recognize such sensations.

Tom hummed to himself in appreciation, and then licked his lips as his train of thought finally arrived at the station. He might have been a sociopath, but even the sickest minds succumbed to the temptation of a beautiful woman, and her intellect and sinister character only made her more of an object of desire. Moreso, he enjoyed the feeling that flowed to his system as he dominated such a powerful witch, the way her magic seemed to reflect in eyes, skin, and lips as he induced such sensations in her.

"So you are attracted to me, then?" the boy hoisted an eyebrow at her, and Varya rolled her eyes, yet nodded at the obvious question. To her, there was more than desire and compatibility, she had feelings for the boy that had rooted themselves deep into her stem, and the change in his behavior only made them grow stronger as they absorbed every bit of vitality from her.

Tom's lips darted upwards at the notion— he knew he was a good-looking man and had had many girls trail after him and try to bewitch for his affection, yet Varya had always seemed as the ultimate conquest.

"Good."

There was something in his timbre as he said the one word that made her knees weak, and she pressed her lips in a thin line, trying to keep her face expressionless, then pivoted on her feet and stormed to her room.

Varya threw herself on the bed, then grabbed a pillow and screamed into it out of frustration.

***

The witch woke up at the crack of dawn with a loud rap on her door, and her face muscles moved lethargically to dissipate the tiredness from her features. She grabbed the silky duvet and threw it to the side, then swung bare feet to the carpeted floor. Groggy eyes flashed to the window, where the first rays of sunlight slipped through cracked curtains, and the early morningsong of birds sounded from nearby trees.

"Wake up, Petrov! We have business to attend to," yelled Tom from the other side of the door, and then her lock twisted at his spell, and he swung the door open.

Varya peered up at him through clumped eyelashes, and saw that he had already dressed in his usual attire— a formal shirt tucked in cotton pants, hoisted up by a leather belt, and his shoulders covered by a long, dark trenchcoat. His hair was stilled neatly, and sometimes she wondered how long it took the boy to present himself in such a compact format, the illusion of perfectness and aristocracy.

She rubbed at her eyes vigorously, and Tom growled in frustration as he looked at her unpacked suitcase. He made way to it, then grabbed a yellow knee-length dress and threw it on her bed, along with other necessities, then packed it swiftly with a spell.

"Be in the common area in ten minutes," he muttered before leaving the room in a hurry, and the girl frowned in confusion at his urgency. Their train was not until midday, and yet he seemed to be ready to dash out the door any second.

She changed quickly, then made her way to the living room where Tom had laid out multiple papers over the dining table. He stood over it, eyebrows knitted in concentration, hands grabbing at the woody edges, and he had an irresistible frown of intellectually creasing his forehead. When he heard her footsteps, marine eyes shot to her, and he straightened himself. With one swift finger motion, he urged her to come closer.

"What is all of this?" the girl asked as her eyes darted over the multitude of parchments and maps.

Tom cleared his throat, then waved his hand over the table, "This is how the Knights keep control of everything. Every piece of information that we have collected and bargained for favors— secrets, darling, are a better currency than money."

He placed a hand on her lower back, then guided her towards the table and in front of himself. Varya looked over the papers and, sure enough, all of them contained information on the Sacred Twenty-Eight, the Ministries, the foreign families, and everything in between. She gasped when she saw her name scribbled on one of them, and just as her hand reached out to it, Riddle pulled it from the table.

"Best not waste our time on this right now, Petrov. We have more important things to attend to first. Rosier has managed to find the hiding spot of one of the Carrow acolytes, and it seems that they are searching Paris for something— some sort of stone that Grindelwald so desires. Now, we are to intercept them by the abandoned factory by Barrière d'Enfer, and I trust you are still capable of handling that silver dagger of yours because magic is not an option."

"Why?" Varya asked, trying to block the image of how he had used that dagger on her from her mind, "And why do you want to find them, anyway?"

"To spite Grindelwald, to extract information of Lopheus' death," he explained, then started rolling up the papers eagerly, "We only have a few hours before our train, and we must be extremely cautious while proceeding, so we cannot leave any trace of magic behind. If Rosier is correct, it will only be Sylvia Carrow that will be present, and I trust you have your own balance to strike with her. She will have guards, and I will need you to deal with them silently while I chat with her."

The Eastern witch felt the wrath bubble underneath her skin as she remembered the demented woman that had sunk her fingers in her flesh, the start of her misery. Yes, there was definitely a need for vengeance in her, and so she nodded to Riddle's plan, earning a satisfied smirk from the boy.

He called the Lestrange car for them, ordering the driver to take them to the two buildings that had once been a gate to one of Paris' walls, and now marked an area that had fallen to the Black Market. It was a peculiar part of the city, and the two students got off near a building that had seen better days.

The old shoe factory had fallen during the collapse of the economy that followed the first world war, a tragedy of the interbelic period, and was now prey to the vegetation that had started ripping at the concrete and bricks that it was made of. Some windows had been broken by storms or people who had lost their homes during the war-time, and Tom easily found an entrance.

He hoisted himself up to one of the frames, then tapped his wand against the shattered glass that had remained, and it disappeared completely. Tom stuck his hand out to help the girl, but Varya grabbed on the edge and pulled herself up, swinging her legs over the margin and landing in the darkness of the room.

A rat crawled between her legs, and she made no move at it, already used to their presence from the Scholomance chambers. It squeaked aggressively as she kicked it away, then scrambled between the broken shelves and into the fissured wall.

Tom let out a small chuckle behind her— Petrov had always been a refined young woman, and yet there was some sort of brutality in her that added to her character. She was not squeamish, nor easily disturbed, and he watched her walk the dusty floor, stepping in the small puddles of dirty water that had accumulated from last night's rain as it slipped through the cracks of the ceilings, and Varya paid no mind as her polished shoes covered in mud and dirt. Few girls of her lineage would walk inside a moldy chamber without as much as a scrunch of their nose.

Then, she stopped in her door frame as she saw the light of a wand reflect on the hallway wall, and the witch dragged Riddle behind a dingy couch as they listened to the approaching footsteps. By the vibrations, there were only three people in there with them, and Tom made a signal for her to take out her knife.

"What has he told you?" came an unfamiliar voice as it resonated through the corridor.

"That he wants it for the girl, and that we must bring it to him in a fortnight," Varya's skin crawled at Sylvia's familiar timbre, and all the girl could remember was how she had chanted the words "slaughter pig" in her ear, and her blood boiled with a burning hatred. "Scatter out, watch for the windows, and then meet me by the assembly line."

With that, two sets of footsteps headed West, and Carrow made her way to the nearby room. Tom gave Varya a signal, and the girl nodded. She slithered her way through the pieces of furniture until she reached the hallway, then followed the trail of one of the wizards.

Her hand felt heavy on her dagger, and the girl realized something— she had never killed someone, at least not intentionally. Varya did not know if she had the courage to slit someone's throat, so as she approached one of the men, she spun the blade in her hand and knocked its handle deep in his temple, knocking him out with a heavy thud.

A scream resonated through the room, and her head twisted toward its origin. At the end of the hallway, Tom had grabbed Sylvia by the throat and knocked her against an assembly line, sending the woman across the room.

One of the other Carrow men dashed through the room, wand already aimed at the Slytherin's back, and as he made to mutter the killing curse, he felt something cold against his neck.

"I would drop my wand if I were you," chimed Varya from behind as she pressed the dagger harder, drawing the tiniest drop of blood and making the man hiss in pain. He was middle-aged, perhaps in his forties, and yet short in stature and width. Most of all, he had the heat of a coward.

"Please," he spluttered, wand immediately crashing against the floor, and Varya chuckled bitterly.

"Do you not love it when a man begs a woman for his life?" Her eyes swayed to where Riddle had pulled some ropes out to tie Sylvia to a chair, and her wicked smile grew as she savored the taste of a new target. She slammed the man's head against a wall, sending him into blissful unconsciousness, "Goodnight."

Sylvia struggled against the restraints, and she tried to flick her hands to cast a curse at the two students, but found herself unable to. Panicked eyes flickered to the young boy dressed in the long, dark coat, "What have you done to my magic?"

Tom ridiculed her with derisive eyes, and then his lips turned in a roguish grin, "Courtesy of my friend, she doused the ropes in one of her brilliant potions— she enjoys experimenting, you see, and is quite devious. Now," he lowered himself until they stood eye to eye, "Why do you not start chirping away what you did to Evergreen?"

Carrow continued to trash viciously, and yet her eyes were lunatic in the somber light of the room, "You little, foolish boy. How dare you stand against the Alliance? When we come for your filthy blood and spill it all over—"

Varya stabbed her hand with her dagger, making her scream echo in the empty building, and then she twisted it as her blood flew and drained to the floor. Tom's eyes shot up to the girl in surprise, and a question mark seemed to dance in his pupils as he analyzed the utter coldness in her expression.

The woman's wailing turned to maddened laughter as she gazed at the witch, and her breath seemed to accelerate, "And look whom we have here, if it is not the escapist. We know where you are hiding, and it is only a matter of time before we reach you. When we do, oh— well, you will see that there is much more we can do to your scrambled brain than the torture. Your emotions will fade into nothingness, and you will become less human and more machinery with each passing day."

Then, she turned her eyes toward Riddle, whose face had glazed over with absolute fury, "I did not kill that boy of yours, no, no. But rest assured that he was discarded for his constant meddling in our affairs, and should you not comply with our rules, you will perhaps be our next target."

"Is that so?" His timbre was of winter frost, and the decadence whirled in a blizzard of madness as his sociopathic calmness took over. Tom got up, then took off his coat gradually, before shuffling his sleeves upward. He circled toward Varya, "Knife?"

Her delicate fingers extended the blade to him in curiosity, and when he grabbed it, the girl found that it made her heart skip a bit— her murder weapon fit in his hands so well. The boy grabbed Sylvia's forearm, then put the knife's tip on her skin.

"Who killed Lopheus?"

"As if I would tell you," the woman spat out, and then Tom engraved the first letter in her epidermis, dragging his knife to carve her out as you would on wood.

Varya tried to peek at it, intrigued, and yet the blood dripped too fast for her to recognize what the boy was doing. Her skin covered in spots as Sylvia's screams bounced against her timpani, and Tom continued to write on her skin with sadism in his eyes.

"What did you come to look for?"

Sylvia gasped as tears of pain and torment trailed down her face, and yet Varya's heart stoned over at the sight— the young girl had endured years of torture at their hand, and found no remorse in returning the favor after so many years. Her agonizing wails seemed to perforate the sound barrier, and they drummed against Varya's ears as the girl tried to block out the sound of the woman's mortality.

"Fuck off."

Tom tsk-ed in an unpleasant tone, and then the silver dagger was back to engraving. Varya looked at him, breath stuck in her lungs, and admired the way his white shirt had stained with reddish liquid, murky and yet enthralling, and how the substance had fallen in drops on his shiny shoes. His features were pulled in tranquility and concentration, and yet a subtle hint of pleasure glimmered in azure eyes— the slightest indication of the utter instability in the boy. Riddle enjoyed causing injury to the acolyte and seemed to find amusement in her bellowing.

"I will drain your bodies of every sign of vitality; I will make sure that your friends find your corpses dangling from their balconies, you evil little roaches," Sylvia shrieked, and then her legs kicked around in utter madness, and her eyes swelled to the size of cups as Tom brought the dagger down on her fingers, cutting off her thumb. She roared with absolute agony, and her vocal cords mixed together in a tight cascade of wrath and murder.

Tom picked the severed digit off of the ground, then placed it on her lap, letting the blood stain her skirt, "You do not want to threaten me, Carrow. There is little that your powerless self can do against me. It is pitiful, really, how Grindelwald put his trust in you so much when your magic can be bested by some of the seventh years at Hogwarts."

Sylvia quieted down now, head leaner over as she panted in pain and gasped for air. Then, her body shook with laughter, and she looked over at the boy, "What a damned little prince you are, no? Boy, you are foolish for believing that you can outrun this."

"Truthfully, I have faced worse than your little brigade of self-proclaimed powerful wizards, and I stand beside men and women much more excellent than you. Now, it is best you simply tell me what Grindelwald is planning, as my patience is wearing thin."

"I would never betray the Alliance, child. Send me to my grave and my lips will still be sealed. And you," she flicked weary eyes to Varya, who was standing stoically by the side, "He will get you. You have no idea what is coming; you have no clue what he has prepared for you."

"I am not scared of Grindelwald," Varya said decisively, but the woman shook her head slowly.

"It is not him you should worry about," she croaked, "You will die, you will die, you will die. You will be slaughtered as you should have always been, and he will make sure that your soul burns in Hell you foul roach—"

Blood splattered across Varya's face, and her eyes closed instinctively to shield themselves from the red liquid. A blind hand scrubbed at her skin as she tried to wipe it away. When her eyes opened again, she gasped at the horrifying wrath that etched Tom Riddle's features, and the way his hand gripped the silver dagger harshly as he drove it further in the side of Sylvia's neck.

Then, he took it out and stabbed the woman's chest repeatedly, entirely engulfed by a flame of madness and loathing, and droplets of blood covered his porcelain features as he continued to drive the knife in and out of her body. Sylvia was dead, her eyes glossed over by the Grim Reaper's veil, and yet the boy sliced her skin one last time before stepping away.

Varya watched him butcher the woman in absolute horror, the way his face mixed into something demonic, almost as if Satan himself had spilled through his bloodstream or whispered words of anguish in his ears. At last, that was the proper sociopathic behavior of Tom Riddle, the instability of a broken mind behind the charade of composure, and there was something so macabre at the pleasure that danced in his eyes.

Tom looked at the imagery before him as if he was a painter and her corpse was a prized work of art, a figment of imagination and tenacity, and his blade had been the brush that had portrayed an episode of proportions— the mortality of those who spoke against him and what he stood for. His head turned to Varya, who was still frozen in terror, and her hands shook by her sides as she watched him pick up his coat and cover himself in it, hiding the bloody mess behind black material.

He pulled out a dainty, white handkerchief, and patted it gently against his face before he scrubbed his strong hands with it. Then, Tom placed it in his pocket, and breathed out as he let his mask of composure fall back into place. It was mesmerizing— the way he seemed to fall back in absolute normalcy, almost as if he had mastered the art of feigning humanity.

She had never seen him break quite like this, and had thought that most of his macabre tendencies revolved around torture and, perhaps, the revenge against his muggle father. Nevertheless, that had been personal, and the murder of Sylvia Carrow was anything but that— he had done it just because he could. Tom Riddle was, in fact, a killer.

His hands, the same ones that had touched her so sensually on the previous night, now reeked of blood, of murder. Tom Riddle was an absolute catastrophe, and only divinity could save those who stood against him.

There was something sinister that hung in the air, and Varya dared not look at him for fear of seeing he might have grown horns and a red tail. Nevertheless, Riddle circled her until he was right behind her, then leaned in, "Have I scared you?".

His voice carried no remorse, nor concern for her, and it sounded almost like ridicule, as if he was amused at the way her body no longer moved and her fingers tingled with terror, "No." Her lie fell in a tremble between her parted lips, and she felt him slide the bloodied knife back in her leather belt.

"Good, good. I could not afford doing such a thing, little witch," he mumbled against her ear, then trailed his lips down her beck before pressing a soft kiss to her jaw. It should have made her heart shudder with affection, and yet she knew the boy was not doing it out of some sort of emotion. It was a statement— she belonged to him, not to Grindelwald.

His lips turned upwards in a wicked smile, and he slid a warm hand up her body, his mind pulsating with macabre desire. A partner. A sinful body with a murder machine nested in her soul, the kind of company he could keep around and rule with.

Then, Tom Riddle was back to his ever-charming facade, and he hoisted his eyebrows at the knocked-out man by the wall. With a swift motion, he grabbed his wand, then altered his memories. When he woke up, he would find that he had murdered his accomplices out of fury— they were traitors, he would argue, and yet nobody would believe him before they hung him.

The wizard's face muscles twitched as he remembered that he had been supposed to interrogate the woman longer and figure out what had happened to Evergreen, and yet he did not regret the killing— it had made his toes curl with ecstasy, the kind of excitement only one other thing brought him.

His eyes darted to Varya, "We have a train to catch."

His footsteps faded away as he exited the room, and yet Varya stood behind for a few more seconds. Her breath came out in frustrated heaps, and she shook her head to regain some of her clarity.

She made her way to where Sylvia Carrow had been butchered, and dragged her arm out, trailing her fingers over the engravings before making them fade to a scar. Better not leave any traces behind.

Then, the witch turned around and followed the boy, yet her mind was swirling as she repeated the words from the woman's arms on a loop, her stomach twisting with dread.

Lord Voldemort.