THE ANATOMY OF LYDIA DIMITROV - THE WEATHERCASTER

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

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The first blast had destroyed the walls of the Lestrange Manor, having them crumble over every piece of furniture that adorned the common area. The tapestries of carmine had been shredded to pieces, bricks fallen in stacks over the leathered couches and bookshelves toppled over. Hours after the impact, the dust still navigated the air, unsettled by the bitter wind that pushed through the shattered side of the house.

Felixius Parkin woke up under the debris, head pounding and a metallic taste invading his mouth. His sense of direction had been affected by the undoubted turns of clocks that had had him unconscious, and he suspected the second attack had knocked him out. With dirt underneath and dirt above, he spat out, and when the gravity had the saliva fall back on his face, he knew which way was up.

A faint odor of something unnatural irked his nose, and in a moment of perplexion, he twisted in his tiny hole to glance around and search for the source. Horror dawned upon his face like a razor as he gazed at Della Beauchamp's decaying corpse, and his stomach churned as all will to escape left his body. Tears flowed like the Styx river down his sooty cheeks, forming ducts in the dirt, and Felixius could not even breathe. He had been stuck with her carcass in the same spot for hours. She had begun rotting right beside him.

Lucidity struck him like a poisonous arrow in the thin walls of his deformed heart, and Parkin remembered the last moments of clarity before the blast. There had been no time to drag Della's body away, and so he had thrown himself over it in an attempt to preserve it—foolish instinct, the dead felt no pain.

"Collect yourself," he mumbled weakly and tried to grasp the loose threads of his awareness and knot them into the sharp mind of the former Head-Boy everyone knew. Felix wiggled in the small cavity that had been formed by his probable protection spell before a second blast had surprised him and knocked him out. His hand reached out to search for his wand but to no avail.

He twisted in his spot again, mind tangled, vision unclear. Spots had started covering his view as claustrophobia gnawed at his fissured psyche. Still, the wizard tried to push the bile down his throat, to soothe the quiver in his hands, and glanced around the space. Only a small ray of light slipped through the cracks of bricks and concrete, and he used it to adjust his sight to his surroundings before spotting his weapon—right on the other side of Della's body.

Tears prickled his eyes, but Felix forced himself to crawl through the space and near her until his nose almost touched her jaundiced skin, as if sunflowers had settled underneath her epidermis, coloring her in morbid hues of decaying sunshine. The odor was that which the mind could not imagine; it was something so nauseating that turned the belly inside out and made the intestines tighten. The cold had slowed down the process of death, and putrefaction had yet to begin, but Parkin's mind seemed to almost play tricks on him. Della did not smell like midsummer gardens and factory soap anymore; there was something odious about it.

He reached out to grab his wand, trying not to touch Beauchamp, and grasped it in his hands with a sigh of relief. Like a reflex, Felix pushed himself back against the ground, shaking and breathing harshly as his palm covered his mouth. He let out a gut-wrenching scream, muffled by his own skin, and his body quaked with sobs as a slicing motion crushed his soul.

Regardless, he pointed the wand to the side, then demolished the pile of construction, carving out a little escape hole in it. The first breeze of fresh air was like blossoming lilies in his lungs, the taste of periwinkle on the tip of his tongue, and silky sheets on midnight grass; it felt rejuvenating, and he clung to the moment for a few seconds, trying not to think of what lay ahead.

A slight wailing noise sounded from outside, and Felix had no time to react as a strigoi stuck its face through the opening, famished fangs glistening with dripping red as it drove itself through. Its skin caught onto the sharp edges, and Parkin let out a tiny scream and backed up as the top part of the strigoi's face tore off completely, exposing a putrescent chunk of devoured flesh.

"Marbles!" shouted Felix before casting a spell at it, sending it back a few meters. It was stunned for a few seconds before it got back up and got ready to pounce again.

Right as it was about to dive back in, bandaged hands stabbed a wooden pike through its temple, and cherry wine hair drizzled from a wrecked bun as Elladora pushed the body to the ground. Crimson stained her white dressing, and a small whimper left her mouth as blisters tore and wounds reopened. She kneeled before the small opening and eyed Felix as he still held the wand pointed towards the outside.

"Preparing to strike me too? Fear not, my brain is still all there, although a little rattled from the explosion," her snarkiness appeared to be more of a defense mechanism than ill-meant at that moment. The witch stepped aside, allowing the boy to crawl through on his elbows.

Sunrise seemed more burning at that moment, as if sparks had adorned the sky, making it glimmer with radiance. Parkin pressed a sooty hand against his face and rubbed strenuously, trying to somehow control the ravaging emotions he felt inside, a carousel with fearful mounts ridden by the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. And no matter to which machinery the wizard clung to, to which rotating sensation that festered inside he reached out to, they all seemed degenerate and debauched, rusty engines barely propelling him forward.

Pestilence had covered his soul in scars from a plague called desire, tissue tainted with naivety and bubonic passion. War had cracked his heart from its hollow, squishing it until the idea of it beating another day hurt. Famine had starved his resolve, weakening his body and psyche, having them turn to a skeletal figure of the once-mighty Headboy. Lastly, Death had gripped its rotten fingers around the necks of those he cared for, a threat and a reality, something that dawdled behind them like a poisonous shadow.

Felix did not answer Elladora; instead, he turned teary eyes to the rumble of stones, where Della Beauchamp's corpse stood in its rigid state. He wondered what to do with her—a burial seemed proper, yet they had no priest, nor tombstone to mark her grave. In a moment of certainty, Parkin pulled out his wand and cast a spell at the bricks, having them blasted to the side and reveal the cadaver.

"Shit," cursed Elladora from the side, eyes widening as she trailed them over the wizard. She watched him kneel by his past lover's form, then lift it up with such ease that her stomach churned. The grief that passed over his profile was almost unbearable, something so humanizing that Selwyn felt her lips snap shut, no other words bearable to say in such a moment.

The courtyard had been almost entirely destroyed, and the once pure snow was defiled with inky vermillion that had frozen with the ivory blanket. The sight of a post-war battleground was always nauseating, and only divinity might have blessed the hearts of those who had to witness such calamity of humankind. Bodies splintered and broken scattered amongst nature, their clothes destroyed by whatever weapon had slashed against skin, eyes void of any electrical impulses which might have once fostered a soul within. Nothing but fragmented vessels, like fine china smashed against the ground, so fragile in their existence.

Elladora tarried behind Felixius Parkin as he made his way to an unblemished spot by the first line of the woods, yet her eyes continued to trail the remains of a massacre. As dawn peeked from the horizon, illuminating the terrors of war, she wondered what some might make of the scene in the morning, when they stumbled out of their houses and saw dozens of males impaled on wooden beams, slain down by swords and arrows, their bodies so mangled they were barely recognizable. Her face scrunched with brutality—she held no pity for their souls, yet the sight of death was unraveling even for the poisoner. She had never found delight in butchering others, her ways more refined, subtle, and so the display of barbaric methods was enough to make her insides rumble.

"I need a shovel."

The words tumbled out so softly from Felix's mouth that Selwyn barely registered them. Her hair, now falling over her shoulders in fire-red waves, fluttered through the air as she twisted to shoot him a perturbed look.

There was something odd in his eyes—unbalanced emotions, the tears of a man that was ready to crumble at the slightest inconvenience. He fused over the details, tried to keep his mind occupied, if only so that it would not fully register the corpse of the women he loved. Tawny strands of hair clung to his dirt-smudged skin as he frantically moved around the yard, stumbling over bodies and pushing away limbs in his path until he reached a shed in the far back.

Felix burst the door open, then searched until he saw metal glinting in the light, and he picked up. The shovel was flung over his shoulder as he marched down the stoned path that led to the forest, chilling tears continuously pouring down his cheeks and drawing patterns on his face. Part of him knew that he could easily dig a grave with magic, but he wanted to feel the strain that Della's death left on his body. He wanted to push the utensil into the earth that she would rot in and know that at least this last gesture would be made in the way her family would have wanted.

Fuck. Her mother. How could they even tell her?

The snow was pushed to the side first, revealing frozen ground beneath, with roots intersecting over the soil. The boy was unsure how burial sites were made; he was merely going by instinct, so he dug in again, foot over the edge of the shovel, and pushed. His attempt was met with resistance from the icy surroundings, and Felix felt his blood pump faster with frustration as something clouded his mind. There seemed to be some sort of frenzy that settled in his movements, desperation to complete his task—paranoia, regret, anguish, torment.

"For Merlin's fucking sake!" he screamed at once, throwing the tool to the ground with wrath. His heart drummed until all he could see was the red of his blood pumping, and Felix twisted on his feet, his hand flying through the air and his fist colliding with the bark of a tree. The pain radiated up his arm, and a cry rang out. "Fuck! Fuck, it hurts!"

Selwyn watched the boy fall to his knees, a mess of snapped wires and tangled feelings, and drew in a sharp breath. Parkin sobbed into the ground, not daring to spare a glance to the cadaver by his side, and cradled his injured hand to his chest. His body was turned away from Elladora, forehead scraping against the bark as the wind tousled his locks, and all that could be heard was his soft sniffling as nature quieted down.

Suddenly, metal clashing against ice permeated the clearing, and Felix turned to see Elladora pushing the shovel deep in the soil, face scrunching from the way it must have hurt her injured hands. Although they had healed significantly, there were still blisters and sore areas, as well as skin that had been disfigured. Still, the wine witch continued digging, ignoring the throbbing in her palms or the bewildered stare on the back of her neck, and she did not stop. Not until the hole was deep enough to toss a body inside.

"Put her in," spoke Selwyn solemnly, eyes glancing anywhere but at Della Beauchamp. They had never been friends, too different in their personalities and upbringing, but they had grown up in the same walls. There were faint memories that knocked at her temples, blurry images of an overly tall second-year Ravenclaw girl running away from Icarus Lestrange's tantalizing words and Nicholas Avery's dark sneer. The muggle-born witch had had her life made insufferable by the purebloods in the first few years, and had only changed after growing into her lanky figure. That had been their relationship for most of their Hogwarts experience, no more and no less.

As she watched Felixius Parkin lower the body inside the terrible grave, she wondered why there were sudden empathy and understanding in a putrid soul. Had Elladora not despised mudbloods for as long as she could remember? Had she not slipped terrible potions in their pumpkin juice in ill-intended jests? Regardless, whenever she tried to look back onto her experience, the witch could not find a root for her hatred—there seemed to only be seeds planted by older relatives, doctrines scattered amongst bare ground that caught into the soil by burdened extensions. And like any other ancient oak with feeble foundations, her tree of prejudice seemed to wobble back and forth as her eyes teared up at the sight of Felix weeping for his loved one.

"Merlin," wheezed the boy, eyes puffy as he pushed himself upwards, glancing down at the corpse. Della almost looked angelic, save for the discolored skin and rigid structure. She seemed to be more at peace than Elladora had seen her in the past few months. What irony there was to that—a witch that only found tranquility in her grave, with soil tinting her honeyed locks and chest unmoving.

Death was an odious thing. It was quintessential, a symptom of a disease called existence, yet the coughed-up thorns and bloody petals still agitated the human mind. There was something selfish in grieving, almost self-pity for having to carry on without the comfort of another person—memories that played on a loop, harsh words muttered in heights of anger, regret that looped around throats like barbed wire. Elladora discerned Felix carried some sort of guilt for letting things end the way they had.

The witch grabbed the shovel again and slowly began covering the grave, watching smooth skin fade between heaps of soil until only the nose peeked above. Part of her wanted to halt for a few seconds, see if Della decided to sit up and twinkle with laughter, calling it all a terrible jest. But her clothes were stained with blood, and her skin was turning a different nuance.

On the side, Felix continued sobbing long after the last remains of Della Beauchamp were swallowed whole by the ground, and there seemed to be a finality to it. She was deep into the ground, no longer living. Selwyn could barely wrap her head around it. Della was dead. Gone. She would never trudge through the castle again, mousy face scrunched as her friends laughed a few decibels too loudly. She would not sit in the Great Hall, face alive as she recalled the magical lessons of that day.

With a sharp breath, Elladora dug out a root knife from her belt, then engraved the Headgirl's name into the bark. It was not a tombstone, far from it, but nobody deserved an unmarked grave. Felix watched her movements, light hair clinging to his drenched temples, and his winter coat seemed somewhat oversized. The puffy sleeves were torn in the edges from the blast, and underneath, his skin seemed almost translucent.

The silence that settled after was solemn, and all the boy could do was stare at the cherry-red witch as her locks blew in the slight wind, face stoic as she glanced anywhere but his trembling form. Disgust pooled into his guts like burning liquor, scorching his insides until the nausea was bliss compared to the empty ache. He was not entirely sure why his body was reacting as such in her presence. Perhaps, it was because Elladora Selwyn had been one of the girls that had made Della Beauchamp's life a living Hell in their first years, pulling on her pigtails and making swine noises to mock her slightly tall nose. And now here she was, burying her six feet underground.

Did it please the prisoner? Felix wanted to give Elladora Selwyn the benefit of the doubt, but her infamous teasing and hazing were known amongst the Hogwarts students, and he wondered what might have made her soul grow so rotten. She held high walls around her heart, capturing inside whatever was left of her being, and the boy was not sure what for. Perhaps, she worried that Riddle's darkness might destroy whatever purity was left in her, should she let someone in entirely. Instead, the witch fantasized about a love which she could never have—an ideal and nothing more.

If she felt the harshness of his gaze, Elladora said nothing. Tautness covered her face, the nuance of rose petals hiding her nose and cheeks as the lowering temperature began taking its toll on the surroundings. She watched the sunrise turn a fragaria tint, and felt her extremities grow frigid. As hues of melon transversed the clearing, shining down upon the bloodied garden, the witch turned to glance at the destroyed house.

She did not know where the other Knights were. Abraxas had barely managed to find her a place to hide, her wounds still too raw to stand a chance in battle, and had placed a Disillusionment Charm on the witch. Elladora had tried to fight against his decree, but to no avail, for he had sent her down to the basement and told her to lock herself in until all was clear. Not until the battle had faded into a low vibration, and a canon-like boom had made the building rattle to its bones, had the witch dared peek from the cellar.

"What now?" muttered Felix as he gathered the courage to speak, and when Elladora turned feline eyes to him, the boy almost felt his resolve scatter. Her fire scratched at his numbness, and he was not entirely sure he enjoyed the way it scorched him.

Selwyn shrugged, apathy on her face as she glanced down at her sleeve, pulling it up slightly to reveal a drawing they were all familiar with, "Now, we wait."

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An inkling—that was how Elladora had described it.

Some invisible string pulled her to a given location once the Dark Mark was activated by one of the Knights. It was like spiderwebs extending from her marrow and through her bones, urging her to push forward and find her companions. Mere instinct, a call of something far darker than the night that had encompassed the dreary Christmas day. Tom Riddle had designed the symbol as a means of tracking and calling, and the curse behind it was so ingenious that Felixius had a hard time comprehending how it actually functioned. Undoubtedly, some sort of darkly rooted magic. The fascination that it arose in him was sinister.

"Are you sure Avery meant to call you here out of all places?" Parkin muttered, eyes hollow and lilac patches adorning the skin underneath. He trailed his gaze over the building before him—a run-down pub that attracted the wrong sort with its dirty, unswept floors and cheap beer menu.

The rancid waft that passed his nostrils when he followed the witch inside was almost unbearable, sweat mixed in with the reeking sensation of drunken soldiers. Their rowdiness reverberated in the room like a battle song, large hands thumping against wooden tables and heavy voices singing somber tunes. A built-in bar sat on the other side of the pub, one blossoming lady picking up a tray of glasses filled with bitter alcohol that might drown out the traumatic images of bloodshed from the youth's memoir. Or at least scatter their awareness until it seemed more of a far-off dream than a reality.

"Undoubtedly so. The mark is never wrong," came the poisoner's arsenic voice as she walked a few steps ahead. Her sashay attracted the attention of a few unruly men from one of the nearby tables, who whistled at her passing figure, patting each other on the back. Still, the witch paid no mind to their obscene gestures, a gemstone in a stack of charcoal, and her hood barely let few strands of auburn peek through as she reached the bar.

Elladora's eyes trailed the lady tending the drinks, who gave her a once over followed by a scrunch of her nose. The poisoner was not the sort that stumbled into gray bars such as that one. Not unless she had been polished by Madames of the brothels, turned into nightly jewels on paper crowns of those who wished to rise from the dirt of their station and feel like kings for a night.

"In for business?" she cut straight to the point, placing a new set of drinks on the countertop.

Selwyn's eyebrows rose in surprise, "Excuse me?"

A barely audible scoff passed the keeper's mouth, and she shook her head in disapproval, perhaps believing that the girl was trying to seem naive, luster. Felix cleared his throat from behind, attracting her attention, "We are looking for a few friends. They—they told us we ought to meet them here tonight, for Christmas, of course."

"Young boy, I have been in this business long enough to know a delinquent running from a crime when I see one," the lady continued, her mid-aged face moving into a sneer as he took in his dirt-ridden clothes and empty eyes, "Of course, silence has a fair price."

"Does it, now?" inquired Elladora through gritted teeth, her fiery eyes quickly skimming the salon.

Four tables scattered across the estate, all occupied by drunken fools who either had their eyes on her figure, or their face flushed against the table, too unconscious of caring. She could take them out, she reckoned. Dark creatures might have been a challenge, but overly confident muggle soldiers were no match for a skilled poisoner. One drop of her brews in their drinks with nifty hands, and they would be off to a faraway land before they even registered what was happening.

She was not sure if she would do better to kill them or torture them. They struck her as cowards, if anything, and no weapon was more damaging to a man's pride than having him piss his pants as death loomed over his head.

The girl had slipped enough poison in teacups at gatherings on Riddle's behalf to know the ins and outs of such proceedings. There were three categories of victims. The first ones were the brave, tight-lipped self-claimed heroes. Those required the most painful potions, with blisters and nerve-frying acidity, that which would make the most faithful man scream the answers her heart yearned for. The second ones were the bargainers, those who thought they could buy their freedom by whispering half-truths through gritted teeth, and Elladora found they were very much responsive to sedative and delirious brews. Lastly, and perhaps the most entertaining, were the God-fearing fanatics. Holding death over their hysterical eyes was entirely pleasing, and they opened their mouths and confessed sins as if she were patriarchy itself.

What an odd thing it was, death. It gave and took without remorse, and Elladora understood why Tom Riddle wanted to defy it. He saw himself as a demigod, some righteous cure for a malady that tormented the wizarding society, a plague that plucked out those of weaker character and made them face that which could never touch him. In a way, to be more potent than death was to outlive existence and time, to bypass the final consequence of life.

Before her hand could reach her infamous pouch, Felix slammed a couple of gold coins on the bar, watching them clink with a passive face. Selwyn quirked an eyebrow, then immediately settled her expression. It was easy to forget that Parkin was a pureblood himself, although his power was that of lesser families. Still, he had the wealth to afford buying people off, and yet he never cared to show or abuse it.

Her frown deepened. There was something unsettling in that. Felix shot her an incredulous look as he picked up a key from the keeper, then gestured to the stairs.

As she walked ahead, the boy could not help but feel repulsion hit him in a shocking wave yet again. Had he been told two years ago that he would end up with bloody Elladora Selwyn in a rusty pub on the outer edges of London on a Christmas Day, right after burying the one woman he had loved, he would have either laughed so hard his stomach hurt or burst into acidic tears.

Her long, thick skirts were muddied at the bottom, and Parkin almost let a snort out at how much it humanized her. He had always seen the girl as some sort of personification of calamity, a wretched siren that schmoozed and batted dark eyelashes until men willingly dug their hearts out for her.

She was made of porcelain, hair braided from burning flames, as if Prometheus had stolen fire from the gods only to craft Elladora Selwyn from it. The witch was unnatural; there was something so entirely wrong about the way she moved like tall grass in a meadow, with windy steps that simply twisted Felixius Parkin's insides.

Some part of him wanted Elladora Selwyn to be a villain, he supposed. Not because it made him a hero, but because it made him less of a monster by comparison.

"Where are they, then?" queried Felixius again, doubt striking against his vocal cords.

Elladora shot him an irritated look. He had been complaining for the past few hours. And if his mouth was not moving to question every rationale of hers, it was to sob out silent cries for Della Beauchamp. She had empathized for some time, but six hours in, and his bloody fucking sniffles were like scratches against a chalkboard to her ears.

A thudding sound was heard from the end of the hallway, and right on cue, the door burst open, and out stumbled Nicholas Avery, his broad shoulders slamming against the opposite wall as he tried to support an obviously piss-drunk Lev.

His eyes lit up when he saw the poisoner, "There you are. Brilliant—give this one something to numb him out, will you? I am not quite sure what is wrong with him, but I fear he has gone mental. Tried to use his own fucking shadows to suffocate himself before we poured wine down his throat to mellow him out."

Elladora frowned, but followed them nonetheless, her hands already skimming through her small pouch to find something that might have somnolence settle in Lev's bones. She did not care much to ask, but she did it anyway, "What happened?"

"Indra is dead."

That stopped her in her steps for a few moments. Caramel eyes snapped to Avery, who had solemnity dancing across his eyelashes, and then to Felix, whose face had gone paperwhite. A few ticks of shock before she pushed away any thoughts she might have held on the event, too tired to grieve for someone she barely knew, too shattered to give parts of her mental strength to others.

"How did it happen?" was what Parkin muttered from the corner, still somewhat dazed. He was not sure how to move, how to breathe, or what he should make of the situation. All thoughts were dead-ends, with nothing of importance hanging from the threads, and his soul simply could not hold another death for fear of rupturing completely.

"We do not know," came a voice from behind, and Felix turned to watch Maxwell push through. His light hair was ruffled, and in his viridescent eyes, there was a swirl of smoke, something unmistakably dark. His eyebrows were clustered in a frown as he draped his gaze over Lev, hands crossed over his chest in a defensive posture, but the worry in his features could not be taken as any other emotion.

That settled it, and the topic was dropped. Perhaps, they all thought that compartmentalizing their losses would make the emptiness they now felt inside somewhat bearable. As if they could push away the sinking sensation if only they did not ponder the cause behind it. Felix was unsure how to express what he felt. There was numbness. That he was sure of. The pain had reached an all-time high, and yet all he felt was hollowness.

"Are the others coming?" muttered Elladora after pushing a vial of liquid down Myung's throat and watching his jaw slack. She turned to watch Maxwell approach her, tightness in his face.

"You are the only one here so far," he admitted, then sighed, pushing against his face with two frustrated hands, "I simply—I am not sure where we go from here. Riddle has not given any sign of his location yet, which means he is either plotting or—"

His words died in his throat. Admitting his thoughts felt close to heresy.

"He might be a tyrant, but he would never betray us," rebutted Avery, pushing up the sleeves of his emerald sweater. He took a seat on a chair across the room, feeling the leather stretch underneath. The material was cold against his skin, but Nicholas did not mind.

"And why is that?" inquired Felix.

Nicholas shrugged, "Call it intuition, call it blind fate. There are few things I am certain of in the world, but one of them is that Tom Riddle is meant to rule with us by his side. He is cruel, vindictive, but no genius was ever entirely sane. We put our trust in him, but he also put his trust in us. Mutualism."

The conversation sizzled, and lethargy followed. Felix watched the three Knights sit in the dim light of the fireplace, faces tired, grim, and he wondered if the reason they were holding themselves so well was that this was what they had prepared for their whole life. From the beginning, Tom's lackeys had known there would be war, and they had had time to barricade their minds and learn ways to cope. There was something inhumane in them, a flicker of darkness that was not found in the ordinary and that, along the years, Parkin had mistakingly described as entitlement and prejudice. It seemed obvious, now, that there was more to it than met the eye.

He saw it in the faint smokiness that shadowed Maxwell's eyes, turning him a somber boy with a mind that expanded beyond the lucidity of most. The young archivist strolled along the bookshelves on the west wall of the common area, hands clasped behind his back and clothes with no crease in them. There was a haze in his movements, a well-learned behavior that had him slither through perception when he wished to steal books from the library's restricted section.

He saw it in Nicholas Avery, the scars along his forearms that undoubtedly came from battle, and the edginess that clung to his side profile, roughing him up until he appeared to be made of sharp blades. Even with the slight tremor in his right hand, there was still danger that wrapped his body like protective armor, making the dullness of dark eyes stand out even more.

And lastly, he saw it in Elladora Selwyn—the fight beyond a cherry-picked facade, the need to be more than a trophy wife of some brainless Ministry swine, to craft her own fate from the clay that her parents had given her. She tore off her stained bandages, revealing odious hands that were the only blemish on her otherwise pristine appearance, and watched them with intent. Not disgust, but intent. And Felix knew that part of her loved seeing them scarred. She relished in tracing the deformed skin, the blisters, and the reddened areas that had not completely healed because they were proof of her involvement in the battle.

Had Felix been the foolish one all along? Had he been mistaken in thinking that maybe he could go back to his mundane life after Varya won the war? It certainly felt so at that moment while watching the spark of rebellion that passed between the three Knights.

And he was not sure what the future held. He was not sure if they would survive, or if they would die. But one thing was certain—the Knights of Walpurgis had only just begun.

•─────⋅☾ ☽⋅─────•

Tom felt the shackles tighten around his wrists, digging into his skin painfully as he tried to move around the small room they had stuffed him in. It was a darkened place—the walls were made of stones, stacked upon one another and only allowing small, barred windows where they met the ceiling. Even at his impressive height, the wizard could barely reach them, much less use them to escape.

There was something saline in the atmosphere, a scent that tickled his nose and irritated the boy as he sat down on the cold floor. Still, it was a clue—they had to be somewhere by London, and the odor indicated they were past Teddington, where the river Thames became salty as the tides fused in with the sea. He could not hear the water running, which meant he was being kept on a lower level, somewhere isolated from the rest of the estate. Riddle craned his neck to get a better look at his surroundings, trying to move away from the bed they had stuffed in the corner, but his ankles had also been tied to the post.

By the restraints and slightly deplorable conditions they were keeping him in, Tom knew that the Acolytes had given up on their intentions to simply have him join them. They wanted his power, the magic and ingenuity that coursed through his veins, but the boy supposed there were multiple ways to get hold of it, and most of them not entirely Christian. After all, he had done the same thing to Varya when she had opposed his offers.

A knock of dread passed through him, making aquamarine eyes snap open and his chest rise with wrath. Varya. What had they done to her? Tom felt his spine grow rigid, his lungs go cold, and panic nested somewhere deep in his corrupt being, turning the soil of an early grave that his feelings would lead him into.

The wizard closed his eyes and tried to push away the numbness in his fingers, the way his heart accelerated at the thought of any danger surrounding the girl. He had tried to run after Aleksander, to crush his skull until the bones were nothing but fine dust, but Dalibor had stopped him. Nine men. Nine men had assaulted Riddle at once, using spell after spell to weaken him until they could wrap ropes around his arms that would cancel out his power. It was strenuous, and half-way through the battle, Tom realized something. He had to give up.

Not because he was weak, but because by letting them capture him, he would be able to track their hiding and destroy it, effectively annihilating the safety net they had used to operate in England. The longer he let the Acolytes grow roots near Scotland, the easier it would be for them to eventually gather their forces and control the creatures into a bloodied massacre at Hogwarts. And the wizard could not allow that—that wretched school was his for the taking, and he would not have anyone else destroy it.

The surroundings were cold. They numbed almost everything inside as he tapped into the stillness of the chamber, focusing his psyche on clearing his head of any useless thoughts. Tom leaned against the wall, head slightly bent backward, and closed his eyes. The sharp breath he drew in burned his lungs, creating an uncomfortable sensation in his chest, as if the iciness of the air ignited against the open wounds butterflies had left inside. He placed a hand against his sternum, pressing harshly until he felt pain, if only to stop the anxious feeling that spread inside, leaving him void.

The wizard coughed achingly, and he felt something liquid taint his lips, rosebud serum that reminded him of everything he despised about his existence. Riddle wiped the blood away from his mouth, but the trail of redness persisted as he smudged it against sculpted cheekbones. He was sure he had at least one cracked rib, but there was no pain associated with the wound. Tom rarely felt any sort of torture, any effects of poison or battle.

There were many advantages of being so rotten inside that only the purest of emotions, the most intense waves and clashes of sensations ever phased him.

So, how grand was his worry for Varya that it made his skin crawl with fear?

A door sounded across the chamber, and weary eyes snapped towards Ophelia as she made her way through the small cellar room, daunting smirk on her face. There was something entirely irksome about the witch, the flow of her movements, the certainty. Riddle had never thought of himself as someone who could be outsmarted, yet Evergreen had managed to undermine him for months.

"Enjoying your stay?" she quipped, dragging a chair to sit in front of him as her curls toppled over her shoulders. Gone were the long dresses and high heels, now replaced by something Tom could only associate with military wear. A puffy bomber covered her upper body, and instead of a long skirt, her legs were draped in rigid pants. Coal lined her water ducts, a striking difference to her usual blossoming cheeks and curled eyelashes.

She was careless, perhaps, for coming in so easily and not staying behind the bars by the door. Tom could have easily outpowered her, magic or not, for inside the chamber and beyond the barrier they had used to drain him of his powers, Ophelia was just as easily vulnerable as him. But he would not attack her, not right now, and the witch knew that—he was too shrewd for it, too in need of control. The wizard rarely launched attacks without a plan, and he needed time to come up with one after understanding the clues of his surroundings.

"Is this how you treat all of your saviors?" snarked Tom, "Or did I get the short stick?"

Ophelia laughed, throwing her head back as if he had made an incredible jest before shooting him an amused glance, "Well, first of all, Dalibor knows you cannot simply be won over by stuffed pillows and an extensive banquet. He needs to show you that he can be a partner, and that means ruffling your feathers a little."

"Is that what this is? A power display?"

"And an entirely enjoyable scenario for me."

"Why is that?"

"Because you are no savior of mine, Tom Riddle," scoffed Evergreen, shaking her head in disbelief as grey eyes settled on the wizard with apathy, "They might fall in line to your whims, but I have been around you for months, and I know the truth. You are weak."

For a second, Riddle felt Hell's wrath sizzle underneath his skin, a terrible need to use his manacles and place the string that connected them around the mentalist's neck, and then pull until it split her throat open, eventually decapitating her. Then, he saw a flicker of doubt in her eyes, something that stirred his curiosity. Ophelia was playing a game, trying to rile him up, and he wondered why.

"So you say, but it took nine men of yours to even have a shot at capturing me, as well as endless of those pitiful monsters your leader has under his command," Riddle crossed his legs, leaning back calmly.

"Strength is temporary, Riddle. What matters is your conviction, your principles. And they have turned feeble, all because you are so vehement on protecting someone that will be the end of you. That makes me doubt you, and it should make you doubt yourself too."

"This is about Petrov, then?" Tom's unimpressed voice was striking.

"Is that not how things are nowadays?" Ophelia bit, eyebrows furrowing in discontent as she glanced around the chamber. "You are stirring away from the dark path to please a witch that would discard of you the moment you became too much."

Tom sighed, leaning in to stare at Evergreen pointedly, "Varya claims she loves me. Even when she hates me."

"And when she realizes you cannot return her emotions the way she expects you to?"

The boy stilled at that. He had been tossing the thought around his mind for a while, the predisposition of his existence and the insincerity of his emotions. He had, at multiple points, confessed to her that some inexplicable feelings clung to his skeletal form whenever she neared him.

Tom drew in a sharp breath—the image was so evident in his head. Varya's head on the pillow near his, raven locks fanned over ivory silkiness, her chest rising and falling as plum lips parted to call out his name. Onyx eyes, deep enough to imitate the afterlife that awaited them both, scourging Riddle as he pressed soft fingers on her waist. She rarely smiled at the boy; there were not many moments where he had made her happy, but when she did, galaxies collided, and worlds bowed to her obscurity.

He had seen the darkness in the witch since the moment he had laid eyes on her in the Great Hall. Her cheeks had been flushed from the Sorting, nails digging in her palms to prevent herself from lashing against the whispers of insults thrown her way. Varya had stared into nothingness, her face contorted into complete determination; ambition to prove that she was more than they made her be, more than a traitor. Tom suspected it was one of the reasons for which she had stubbornly clung to the idea of him. If she fixed the dark wizard, she would cease being a thorn in society's side. Instead, the witch would become a savior—the one that had stopped Lord Voldemort from rising.

It was as if he had stared into a lightless mirror, watching a dysmorphic shape of himself try and reach out. There was sacrilege beyond her scorpion eyes, there was poison underneath translucent skin, and it was potential he had not wished to waste. Tom had thought, at the time, that everything he was doing was a favor, a way to push her and unleash the power within, for what other great gift was there except that?

His whole life, he had needed control. Riddle supposed Maslow's hierarchy of need did not apply to his existence, for he could starve and die of thirst before he would allow anyone to reduce him to the nothingness he had been born in.

A shiver almost passed through him at the thought. He had been born into misery, into a life that was gloomier than the stormy skies of autumn. Tom sometimes relished thinking that he had been thrown into Hell the moment he had opened his eyes. The boy had crawled himself out of the depths in which others had died, stepping on corpses and pilling up mountains of bones in order to build himself stairs and ascend.

If that was what the gods had given him; if that was the cruelty of the divinity and the worshipped, then why would it be nefarious of him to use their tarnished creation, destroy it, and rebuild a world to his own vision?

If a man was the image of the gods, and the man was vicious, then what did that say of the creators? Were they not just as cruel?

Still, love was something untangible to the young man. The word itself made his insides shrivel until his skin clung to a skeleton that resembled his younger self—the young orphan that had stood in a matchbox-like room, watching raindrops trail cold panels and other children play outside. The four letters, strung together in despair, had been a curse to his life, something he had been deprived of in all instances, and while Tom had instigated admiration in others, he had never been loved. He ruled with horror, with an iron fist, because humans were fear plagued beings who only truly listened in the presence of terror.

And then Varya had loved him soundly. It terrified Riddle because it made him a better man, even as an ideal. If she cared for him, then Tom was not a complete monster, but someone that was worthy of affection, and he was not sure how to comprehend that without shifting his whole image of himself.

He still could not understand why she did it; he was in no way worthy of it, and Varya surely did not understand his intentions of raising the girl from the grave others had dug. Part of it was undoubtedly because he had been the only constant in her life when everything had crumbled around her. After all, he had held her and kissed her after she had lost everything.

Was that what love was? A circumstantial emotion; a knot that strung two pieces of fabric and held them together instead of allowing them to get carried away by the current of trauma?

Two years ago, Tom might have found this attachment pleasing, but somehow things had shifted. Back then, he had vaguely cared for the witch, but his desires for power had plagued everything.

Now, however, with that string of affection tightly wrapped around his neck, he supposed he wanted Varya to be free of pain, from himself and from others. And the wizard could not let her cling to him; he had to help her tear down the chains that had been placed on her since she had been born, to seek vengeance to those who had hurt her.

Riddle was not sure what Varya needed in order to heal; he only knew it was not him. He was a bandaid to a wound that needed sutures. But he would try, one way or another, to find it in himself and help her. Even if it was a selfish need—a desire to make him feel good about himself.

Perhaps, maybe, possibly, there would be a future for them after. Once Varya was not shattered anymore.

Because as long as they were two broken pieces, they would never fit. Their sharp edges would only continue scratching each other, tearing each other down, and neither could prosper in such circumstances. It would end up in mutual destruction, in loss.

And Tom wanted to win.

If healing Varya allowed him that, then he would do it. After all, part of altruism was self-reward, and it was an entirely humane concept.

"Evergreen," mumbled Riddle, settling azure eyes on the witch, "Emotions are determined by synapses in our brain. They are an amalgam of factors, of pathways that lead from neuropsychological triggers to genetics and back. How do you expect my feelings to be on par with Varya's when they are determined by our own systems, which are not identical?"

The mentalist smirked, "Interesting way of calling yourself an emotionless sociopath."

Perhaps, but that was not the meaning of Riddle's words, at least not entirely. He knew that although he would never be able to meet Varya's level of affection, she was still the only person he valued, the only one he would burn the world down for. To his most heightened capabilities, to the extent to which his neuropsychology allowed him to, Tom would care for Varya. And although it might not be love as poets defined it, it was a piece of himself. And just like a Horcrux, it was eternity.

"You would do well to know your place, Evergreen. I will not be destroyed by anyone; I will reform the wizarding society to my own plans. Immortality is only the stepping stone to my reign."

Ophelia scoffed, then pushed herself up, dusting her pants off. Her coal-stricken eyes settled on Riddle, some turmoil evident in the granite depths, and she pursed her lips before taking in a deep breath and speaking, "You know what is even more terrifying than a man that can outrun death, Riddle?"

Tom rose and intrigued eyebrow, pulling at his manacles to shift in his position, "What?"

The witch turned around, her boots clicking against the stone floor as she reached the door. Ophelia opened it, fumbling with her keys in order to find the one that would lock Riddle inside. Before she left, she shot him one last look.

"A woman that does not fear it at all."

•─────⋅☾ ☽⋅─────•

Tom spent hours staring at the cracks in the corner of one of his walls, eyes blinking lethargically as the manacles dug in more profoundly in his skin every time he tried to pull on them. His wrists had swollen and turned a purplish hue, yet he did not feel any pain. He never felt much of anything, anyhow.

Plans of escape whirred around his mind, and he wished he could only move his hands to touch the Death Mark, to summon the Knights and have them turn the hiding spot into a slaughterhouse. How wonderful it would have been to paint the dull walls in shades of red with the blood of those who had dared think themselves worthy of his time.

Was Tom to take pitiful strays now? Is that what the Acolytes thought? As far as he could tell, Ophelia Evergreen and Aleksander Dolohov were the only ones even worthy of his presence, with exceptional skills and a destructive mindset. Yet everyone else was weak, repulsive. There was nothing to their magic that was spectacular nor unseen before, and they were loyal to Dalibor before him.

He supposed it a trap of sorts—a lull with illusions of grandeur and power, a promise of battlefields with murky soil, colored with sanguine, only if Tom decided to join them. But he knew how greedy monsters worked; he was one of them. They would discard him the moment he helped them take over what was rightfully his.

A door slammed somewhere in the hallway, and through the small windows at the highest points of the wall, Tom could hear chains being shuffled and someone putting up a struggle as they were shoved inside a cell.

"I will burn you all!" yelled out the feminine voice, the accent strong and wrath indescribable. Still, the only answer she received was the slamming of a metal door. The person, whoever it was, was not part of the Knights nor Virtues, yet her voice was irking and familiar, so much so that Tom found himself frowning.

"Who is there?" he called out, voice groggy for not speaking for countless hours, and he cleared his throat before shuffling closer to the window.

Silence settled over them for a few beats before the voice answered again, "Lydia Dimitrov."

The name, of course, sparked a flame of recognition in Tom's mind. She had been the weathercaster of Scholomance, the one who had trained for years to no end to one day become master of the Transylvanian dragon, only to use it and burn the school down in a twist of irony.

"Who are you?" continued the witch.

"Tom Riddle."

He let his name carry the weight and gravity that it had acquired and smirked at the small breath of fright that could be heard from the other side of the wall.

"Is Varya well?" questioned Lydia, worry tracing her tone as she dragged herself across the room, leg chains colliding with furniture pieces, "I barely saw any other prisoners, except for a girl and a boy down the corridor."

"Petrov was not captured as far as I am aware." But she might be dead. "What did the prisoners look like?"

"I only caught sight of the girl. She had a red cape around herself, whereas the boy was knocked on the floor next to her. Both pretty shabby."

Scarlet Norberg and Icarus Lestrange.

Tom felt his pulse quicken. He had been wasting time trying to think of how he could get rid of the manacles to use the Dark Mark and summon reinforcement, but they had been inside the castle all along. And while Icarus and Scarlet were no army, they were enough to take on dozens of soldiers together, through combat and magic. His mind swirled, his intentions cascaded as equations and calculations almost drew themselves in front of his eyes.

The tiredness was long gone from his bones, and instead, there was only the awareness of confined space, and how much he needed to get out. All he had to do was try and break free from the cell, but the chains and barrier of magic prevented him from blasting the room to pieces. He had to be smart about it—the place would be crawling with Acolytes, and he had no idea where he was.

Saline scent, past Teddington, along the river Thames, somewhere below the ground. Like a ball of yarn, his thoughts unwrapped and began twisting in layers of a plan, and with dread, Tom realized there was one way of getting out.

He glanced down at the ring on his finger.

"Dimitrov, do you remember the path they brought you down through?" questioned Riddle, already pushing the manacles further down his wrists to gain more mobility. The flesh underneath was scrapped, bloodied, yet the wizard did not even wince at the way it caught between his shackles, tearing down the skin. The carmine liquid trailed down his skin, and he barely allowed a moment of recognition for it, the pulse of panic at the admittance of mortality. He had to get out. He had to find Varya. And then he had to kill Dalibor.

"Yes," the witch answered weakly before sniffling. Then, her tone changed, "What are you planning? We cannot get out of this room; we are bound to its confinements."

That was true. Tom knew it, and he pushed away the irritation at the condescending tone, not letting his wrath shift his focus from the matter at hand.

But Riddle had been working on his own task as of late, and as he stared at the Resurrection Stone, he wondered if it had been fate or his own intelligence that had aligned it all so perfectly. After sensing Varya's trouble in regards to his Horcrux, he had been testing out the Resurrection Stone as a method to communicate with any shadow soul, beyond purgatory, to Hell, and to Heaven. Every night, the boy had been sneaking out, finding random human scumbags in the streets of London. Thieves, rapists, war criminals—he had murdered them all as experiments, then called upon their spirits using the Stone.

Slowly, he had prepared himself for one final task. One that might have at least ameliorated the distance that had broken the two groups. Malfoy was right. As long as they were divided, they stood no chance. They would never defeat Dalibor. And Tom wanted to win. He had to win.

He knew that the Stone could not be used to bring back the dead, but it would be enough to temporarily call upon a spirit, and perhaps, with the necromancy he had been studying, give it enough of a physical form to have it slither through the chambers and steal the key that Ophelia had used. First, he had to ask the spirit to ripple through the magic barrier and deactivate it, though. So, he twisted the Hallow three times in his hand, trying to focus all of his attention on the power that pulsed from it.

Tom held his breath as he waited.

"Well, Riddle—you decided to be a pestering little asshole even in my death, did you not?"

Sunken eyes snapped to the figure in front of him, catching sight of the blonde hair that fell in the softest waves, framing the face of a once-golden girl.

"Welcome back, Trouche."

•─────⋅☾ ☽⋅─────•

9.5k words of nonsense. this chapter was so hard to reread for no reason other than me deciding to sprinkle a metaphor in every sentence.

Just to make it clear. Ivy is only back as a spirit, not an actual person.

You all gave Tom shit for his necromancy yet look at him using it to make things right smh smh.

Read House of Salt and Sorrows by Erin A. Craig and The Cruel Prince by Holly Black.

Also thank you to everyone that had been doing drawings and edits of my characters lately! Absolutely incredible. As always pls remember to vote and comment <3 it means a lot thank u