✧･ﾟ: 𝙳𝙴𝙰𝙳 𝙶𝙸𝚁𝙻𝚂 :･ﾟ✧

love interest ──── none, tom marvolo riddle
oc names ──── melissa* ling*, lillian jones
face claim ──── ming-na wen*, zoe love smith
universe ──── golden trio era / tom riddle's era
status ──── available

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( short + long summary ! )

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▬▬▬in which Melissa Ling uncovers a decades-old betrayal amongst the dusty files of her detective office.

THE YEAR IS 1997. Muggle detective Melissa Ling has been pulling all-nighters as often as she can during the past few weeks: strange reports of seemingly-healthy girls winding up dead in their beds have increased tenfold since September. There's no foul play, no history of violent exes or wronged friends. Most frustrating of all, there is not a single suspect to all of these murder cases. In fact, it appears very much like these victims simply decided to stop living. The only lead she has is that a similar string of inexplicable murders occurred nearly twenty years before. In her efforts to pin down the guilty party, she pulls out dusty files that have long since been forgotten, the victims' cases from the 1970s (and earlier) deemed unsolvable. Her only hope in preventing more girls from joining their forebearers is that the answer lies somewhere amongst these cases lost to obscurity.

LILLIAN JONES IS STILL ALIVE AND KICKING, THANK YOU VERY MUCH. Well, maybe not so much that first part, but her grudge against her killer has kept her from passing on. In her esteemed opinion, eternal peace is overrated; she'd much rather bring hellfire down on the man who is egotistical enough to call himself 'lord'― especially when he's also her psychopathic ex. Once upon a time, Tom Riddle had promised her that they'd take over the world together: the two orphans who'd pulled themselves up by their bootstraps to charm the pants off of the whole of Hogwarts. (Look where that had gotten her― six feet under while Riddle got fed with a silver spoon. Sure, there was a little hiccup because of that nasty business with the baby (she'd never let him live that down; he'd gotten so stupid because of magic), but he was still much better off than she was.)

Now, don't get her wrong: she's not out to bring down the so-called 'Lord Voldemort' because of any altruistic reasons (she'd never stoop that low.) She's set on revenge because, otherwise, death is downright boring. There's nothing to do except haunt people, and that got old within the first five years of her new status. So, when Tom Riddle falls back into his old habits (gah, that was one of the reasons why she couldn't stand him― he was so predictable!) Lillian recognizes his patterns right away. Deciding to 'stick it to the man' (she's learned a lot of new slang over the years), she guides Melissa Ling on her oh-so-noble quest of saving the female population of England.

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( inspiration gifs ! )

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( additional characters ! )

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CHRISTIAN PETER COULSON as
TOM MARVOLO RIDDLE

LUCKY BLUE SMITH as
ABRAXAS MALFOY

CATHERINE ZETA-JONES as
WALBURGA BLACK

JOHNNY DEPP as
ORION BLACK

ANDY SAMBERG as
LESTRANGE

ANDY SAMBERG as
MICHAEL BAIRD

EVERYONE ELSE as
DESCRIBED / ADDED AS NECESSARY

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( notable quotes ! )

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❝What did you do?! ❞

❝Relax, nobody died.❞

❝Well, that's a first. You
must be disappointed.❞
─ Lillian Jones & Tom Riddle

❝This Riddle guy is really messed up.
He took a gun and stabbed his closest ally
in her back right in front of her eyes.❞
─ Michael Baird to Melissa Ling

❝I am way too sleep-deprived to deal
with your negativity right now.❞
─ Michael Baird to Melissa Ling

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( description + epigraph ! )

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❝Somewhere in the haze, got a sense I'd been betrayed.❞

❝Dead girls tell no tales.❞

❝Some days I want to spit me out,
the whole mess of me, but mostly
I am good and quiet.❞

― Camille Rankine

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( aesthetics ! )

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( recommended songs ! )

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SOMEBODY THAT I USED TO KNOW
kimbra gotye
0:00 ━━━ • ━━ 4:04
⊴ Ⅱ ⊵

❛'Cause I'm in a field of dandelions
Wishing on every one that you'll be mine❜

RED
taylor swift
0:00 ━━━ • ━━ 3:40
⊴ Ⅱ ⊵

❛But moving on from him is impossible
When I still see it all in my head
In burning red❜

HATE ME
ellie goulding
0:00 ━━━ • ━━ 3:06
⊴ Ⅱ ⊵

❛Erase me, 'rase me, wish you never dated me
Lies, tell me lies, baby, tell me how you hate me❜

SHATTER ME
lindsey stirling
0:00 ━━━ • ━━ 4:40
⊴ Ⅱ ⊵

❛I'm scared of changing, the days stay the same
The world is spinning, but only in gray❜

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( notes ! )

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― This is (obviously) a murder mystery. The main POV of the book is from Melissa's perspective. She's a muggle who works in a completely normal detective office. Her partner, Michael, is based heavily off of Jake Peralta and his more laid-back approach to, in this case, detective work. Melissa is more like Wen's character on AOS. (You can change Melissa'sface claim but I'd appreciate it if it stayed a POC actor, both for diversity'ssake and it would be easier for Lillian to see eye-to-eye with them, as isexplained further below.)
       ― Lillian is Slytherin down to her very core. She pretty much loathes the Gryffindors' do-gooder nature and will more often than not choose selfishness over self­lessness. She's ambitious, resourceful and doggedly determined- which is how she wound up as a ghost rather than in a peaceful afterlife. She's very petty and will never let something go, especially when she knows that she's 100% right. This stubbornness causesher to argue a lot with Tom, which will eventually be a leading cause to herdownfall.

― Because Melissa is a Muggle, she doesn't believe in magic or anything to do with Hogwarts. She can't see dementors or ghosts (I don't know if Muggles can see ghosts in canon, but here, they can't.) Her job is basically her life and she has no interest in dating or romance, especially once Voldemort's followers begin to make their presence more known. I wanted to explore how a Muggle would react to the rise of Voldemort since we really only get to see that with the Dursleys.

― Half of the plot will take place in 1997 while the other half (in flashbacks) will occur during the years Riddle's at Hogwarts. This is where Voldemort's second student victim, Lillian, comes in.
      ― They grow up in the same orphanage and Tom recognizes Lillian's abilities are like his, but they're also distinctly different (lesser, in his opinion.) She can't talk to snakes like he can, but she can hover in the air by her own willpower for a few seconds at a time. (Like how Voldemort and Snape can fly, but in the uncontrolled form.) Since they're stuck in the same shitty situation, they decide to team up since it would be inefficient to constantly fight each other. (They're both very practical.)

― At Hogwarts, they're both Sorted into Slytherin. They also quickly learn that they can charm (through conversation) anyone to get what they want. Tom is more silver-tongued whereas Lillian is sassier/more spitfire brilliance. Another difference is that Tom relies a lot more on magic than she does, which is an important distinction. They make quite the pair and, when they get older, many of the professors mistake them for a couple.

― Tom eventually adopts his blood purity views and Lillian cottons on rather quickly, mostly because people have judged her all of her life for her skin color, so being able to be on top is very appealing to her. She agrees to help him rise to power in exchange for being his right-hand woman. Eventually during this time, she also develops feelings for him. While canon-Tom can't feel love, I'm going to bend it a little here for plot reasons.

― I'm not too sure what would cause their falling out, but it's definitely because Lillian kept important information from him. Maybe he could kill her in their sixth year because she got the answer from Slughorn about the Horcruxes and wouldn't tell him, but I did imagine that Tom would kill her after they graduated from Hogwarts. The important thing is that he uses the Killing Curse because of his dependence on magic.

― During the Melissa's 'present-day,' Lillian explores London/England because her spirit isn't tied down anywhere. That's how she finds out that Lord Voldemort is back and her bitterness about his betrayal is enough to spur her into action. Maybe she overhears Melissa at the scene of one of his murders and she decides to follow her back to the detective office. (They're both very badass, so Lillian would like that about her.)
      ― Of course, that's also where Lillian's file is from her murder years before. (That's why I think Tom should kill her outside of Hogwarts- they'd be very hush-hush about it.) If Lillian focuses her energy enough, she can affect some things in the living world, so she makes sure that Melissa can see her file.

― From there, it's kind of like a buddy-cop movie but with a darker twist as Lillian helps Melissa solve the cases from the shadows. Maybe Melissa eventually does get roped into the magical world as she gets closer to the truth, but I don't have a very clear idea of how the story would end. Voldemort would obviously die like in canon (the books, not the movies), but I don't know how that would affect Melissa's search/career, so that can be something you decide!

― Feel free to use any of the graphics provided when creating the book, but make sure you credit me as the creator in addition to the plot. Also, you don't have to use all the quotes provided in the 'description + epigraph' section but I wanted to make sure I got the right vibe across.