NOW I AM BECOME DEATH.

fyi: this is a roleplay blog.

[marvolous]

❛ abraxas.

date: 6 september, 1944 (?)

location: slytherin common room

status: closed with @abraxasmlfoy​

❛ Shall we discuss our summers? ❜

By now, the student body is cooling down from the excitement that has kept the castle at a constant boiling point. The amazing events of the first night are still fresh, throbbing just below the surface of daily activity. Most injuries —— both to body and building —— have been fixed, yet a soreness remains. There are whispers of nightmares and lost innocence in the hallways, and a heavy book hitting the stone floor causes a hush to fall. The latest cruel trick is to make dust rain on unsuspecting peers. Outside of the drama of war, new classes and new students keep collective blood pressure rising. This is a time of great excitement, building stress, and a proliferation of associations of all varieties.

Tom dislikes most direct associations, but connections have to be maintained. Since day one, he has spoken to his inner circle, made good on promises to professors, and begun laying the groundwork for a successful year more generally. He has also practiced blood magic and heroically defended his house alongside some of the least heroic people worth knowing.  But, these developments are part of the past, committed to a journal, and no longer in the forefront of his mind. He is two days into a regular schedule and the force of responsibility weighs heavily. Between piling coursework to do, volumes to read, theories to test, plans to confirm, students to police, thoughts to organize, and fresh faces to catalogue, already is his time slipping away into the ravenous mouth of transience.

Nothing is free, least of all time.

He was with Abraxas now by what might have been happenstance. Over the course of the evening, faces had moved in and out of the recently-repaired common room in predictable cycles. Early studiers occupied tables and couches for a while, and a fire kindled later drove out some of the more warm-blooded of their house. After-dark debaters took their places in armchairs for several hours, giving way to late night whisperers clustered near the fireplace sometime later. But now, the room was deserted. Those who were present were largely on the periphery as Tom had claimed the heart —— the fireplace and its centrality —— for himself. It was made inviolable by his presence, rendered sacrosanct by his seniority; he guarded the flame with his back to the room. Though his eyes were on the book he held and his thoughts streamed uninterrupted from mind to quill to paper, he was aware of the world around him.

He remained silent and still as Abraxas approached and took a seat. He guessed based on the sound of his approach and the time of night, but a sideways glance confirmed. The makeshift sanctum, a temporary and public retreat, had no barriers to block him. In fact, Tom acknowledged a somewhat unsound appreciation for time alone with him. There existed between them a wholly different kind of barrier, one extremely porous and intangible; it drew them together and held them apart, and it was built almost entirely on fallacies and misunderstanding.

Most importantly, Abraxas had constructed it, and Tom spent his time trying to reach through it. 

He had dreams at times of his hand gripping a beating heart. The ownership changed from night to night, but he knew texture well even in dreams. His fantasy-fingers ran over tissue and pressed into the smooth membrane within, and he gathered from the resistance and the unusual coolness of the blood that it belong to the least dear one of all his friends. His recurring and macabre dream was not a product of bloodlust or dislike, but of a deeper desire. So the thought went: if he could force his way through skin and flesh and bone, then he might make something of the heart.

In this case, he reflected on the marrow of Abraxas’ being in a mode he understood best: violation; a profane act of grasping within a body; a melding of the space of persons into one closed circuit.

Tom had spent his entire life reaching and had become quite good at it.

He did not want to talk about summer experiences and soon-to-be youthful memories. He wanted instead for Abraxas to bend to his will —— to a sacrificial blade. The greater good demanded an understanding, after all. They could seal in blood a future befitting them both. Tom did not want his head, but only his heart —— and then, not his passion or his dedication, but something far more visceral. Like the law of nature in a world without society, he wanted an instinctual bow of dignity and an acknowledgment that the line of succession was never a promised thing.

How deeply illegitimacy colored his life. To be a usurper as well? Abraxas spoke so finely about so many things, and he spun from stories grand allusionary monologues, but he had yet to learn the most instrumental fact of their reality. Tom had decided to forsake the illusion of the world as they knew it; he was building a nascent realm of his own with new rules and new values. Abraxas’ bitter clinging was obsolete; not every shade of green suited him.

But Tom’s wants went unspoken and scarcely acknowledged. Like fear and shame, they were acutely human feelings that sprung from an internal well that was both immature and still poorly checked. It was undeniable that he had only just begun the journey of total self-reliance. He did not see this Malfoy prince —— h i s, whose future was already so intricately if unwelcomely bound up in Tom’s own —— as a genuine obstacle, the annoyance of his courteous contempt chafed his pride nonetheless.

Without turning, he added, ❛ Or shall we talk about the cosmic qualities of souls and men? ❜  

[marvolous]

❛ evadne.

date: 4 september, 1944

location: library

status: closed with @reginaserpentes

The library has always been a refuge. More than merely a place to be, where comforts abound and silence protects, it has been made as a home within a home. The room as a whole commands respect, awe, and an awareness of self. There is no idle chatter or running feet; hands never fall so carelessly upon books and bricks here. Every person enters with purpose, or something similar enough —— an aim, if not direction. The library, a sanctuary bearing vast knowledge and thereby immeasurable power, is not a place of frivolous and superficial things.

Tom can and often does sit, unstirring and with heavy-lidded eyes, for hours on end. A first-year passionate affair with devouring all the information he could find bloomed into something far more regular and far more consuming. Behind a barrier of dusty books left unread for centuries, he does his true learning. Assignments are blown through in scarcely an hour’s time; it is theory and history than eats whole his waking hours. When not occupied with associates and their too-often draining company, he can be found here —— with some diligent searching —— in a secluded corner filled with dim light and the incessant scratching of a quill.

Sometimes they come to him. He knows their footsteps with a razor thin margin of error. Some, the heavy swagger or the irreverent strut, are easy to identify. Others blur together, made similar by pace and mood. He has learned to anticipate them and to prepare accordingly. They all expected a different face; in a matter of seconds, he tailors his very existence for them.

Evadne’s walk, in his presence if nowhere else, is usually accompanied by her voice.

The chair across from him was pulled out before he bothered to look up. His subsequent sigh was quiet, and his expression darkened then cleared before he met her eyes. She would speak first; already days into the term, but he had yet to breathe a single word to her. It rapidly became a game of sorts —— or, alternatively, a test of patience.

[marvolous]

❛ bellavie.

Classes had finished an hour and a half ago and yet here she was, still in class. That it was self – imposed - that she had asked Professor Merrythought if she could stay back to practice – didn’t do much to change her mood when she could see the Quidditch pitch out the window, bathed in sunlight. She could leave, she knew, and it is a sore temptation, but this is important. What use will she be to Declan, to their Resistance, what use as an auror if she hesitates on the offensive? She had learned, over the summer, that the world would not sit by idly and wait for her to be ready – and so she must ensure to be ready at the earliest opportunity.

Defence Against the Dark Arts was something of a mixed subject for Bellavie. She managed the titular part, the Defence well enough. Shielding spells and healing, even the immobilising spells she seemed to have an affinity for. They came naturally to her, fuelled by a protective instinct and several years of practice in corridors and empty classrooms when she couldn’t avoid certain snakes. Yet when it came time to move to the offensive, she hesitated. There was a reluctance in her to strike and it was reflected in her spell work - although technically correct, the magic surged forth with little punch to it.

And so here she was, spending a perfectly good afternoon cooped up inside, trying to teach herself to be more forceful on the attack. They would need it, she knew; this world no longer gave her the luxury to pretend otherwise. They would all of them need to fight, and if she only defended she would eventually be worn down through attrition. To defend, she had to be lucky every time, where as the attacker only had to be lucky once. It wasn’t something she could take to her friends; they all had enough to worry about. Besides, Declan would immediately take it upon himself to feel guilty about ‘making’ her fight, as though it were he, rather than the world, that had made it necessity.

You have to mean it, Chambers. Merrythought had told her, Mean it or you’re dead. Or someone else is. Oh, you’ve a knack for shields, child, I’ll give you that, but getting away from a vampire or dark wizard just means he’s going after someone else. It made a horrifying amount of sense and yet she couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling as she resolutely turned back to the practice dummy, wand raised. She is interrupted by the door swinging open, however, and lowers her wand with an evident relief as she turns towards the noise.

“If you’re looking for Professor Merrythought, I think she’s in her office,” She says with a polite smile. “At least, that’s where she was an hour ago.”

The window of the door allowed for a few minutes of unnoticed observation. Tom was here, using up daylight hours of an already expended afternoon, as a favor for Professor Merrythought. Classes had just begun, and yet he was not the only student eager to make something of the year. That Bellavie Chambers wanted –– needed? –– practice was mentioned first in passing; his rapport with the professor, established over the course of years, brought a great deal of useful information and opportunity to him. She knew that he had an affinity for her course and planned for a great future in it, and he knew that she was fond of the supposed miracle of peer-teaching. The conversation, a casual mid-morning talk between classes, moved where he wanted it to go. He easily manipulated her words, laid out hints where necessary, and smiled at the right times. Soon, he was agreeing to become somewhat of a tutor for the afternoon. The professor’s word of choice was target.

Prewett’s little girl had trouble with the attack. He was unsurprised and already making guesses about how the session might go. Some of them were confirmed as he stood at the door and watched her. He picked up on the tension in her arms, her back, even the way she stood; what he could perceive from so far away could spell her demise for someone within arm’s reach.

He could only assume that clawing for the courage to mirror aggression, or to be even assertive, was distracting at best. It was focusing attention elsewhere, specifically on something that should be a given. By his measure, it was the equivalent of baring one’s ribs to a readied knife.

That timidity, like fear, was palpable, he knew intimately.

When the door swung open, it was because he had seen enough and chosen his words. He leaned against the frame, scrutinizing her expression as she turned to face him. The practice dummy in the background seemed to be faring well, completely without need for a break. If it had sentience, had the ability to feel and think, he suspected boredom would be its chief emotion. Or, perhaps more likely, amusement.

“Oh, yes, I’m aware. She informed me earlier that a,” He pauses and casts a pointed look at the dummy. “Proper opponent might be more effective in your practice. I told her that it would be a pleasure to help a fellow student.”

Nothing about him in this moment easily fits the cruel coldness that Bellavie surely knows is within him. He almost smiles, and enthusiasm nearly brings light to his eyes. But, these close-tos and not-quites are left at the door. When he walks in, it is with resolution. Even the door shuts emphatically behind him. The classroom, one in which he is covetously comfortable, becomes his the further into it he goes. He walks past her and to the practice dummy, which he unceremoniously pushes aside.

“We’ll retire him,” he says. “You can be more forceful with me.”

[marvolous]

❛ fiora.

date: 4 september, 1944

location: the stairs

status: closed with @ficra

A persistent debate on the nature of the starry night exists. Two sides have sparred over the course of millennia, winning rounds by grace of the arbitrary minds of men; neither shows a sign of giving up just yet, even in the new modern era with its promise of answers. If anything, the uncertainty —— the smoke in the air and the darkness overhead —— of this century intensifies the clash. In one corner, romantics see answers in the array of twinkling lights; they see truth and answers and confirmation. In another corner, the veracity of the seeable cosmos is fiercely doubted by hungry cynics made ascetic by their habit of picking apart the known world. 

Tom has no interest in what the stars know, but he stares at the constellations nonetheless. Hogwarts offers a sky more beautiful and engaging than any he has ever seen, one that matches the storybook pages from Wool’s. A deep, rich, inky expanse with the brightest spots the eyes might ever behold… Better than London in every way, at least until the war came home. But, high in the astronomy tower with the sky laid out before him, Tom’s thoughts transcend such unfortunate realities.

The fear and doubt of the attack on the school fell away, along with everyday irritations and personal agitations that accumulated with each waking hour. His mind empties and expands; the space fills with a different kind of contemplation, one that makes of the sky a map of what could be, what might be, what should not yet will be. He does not love space, he wastes no time on astronomy itself, but nature brings him closer to his true self. The sky is timeless, and he aspires to be like it —— grand and everlasting, all-knowing and unknowable.

He might as easily become lost in a teacup of water, but the nighttime sky is more beautiful; he, too, is susceptible to the allure.

Tonight, a tiny Hufflepuff with wide eyes was also star-gazing. He knew her face if not her name —— his books and his mental catalogue were for people and things of note —— and with it was some awareness. She might be likened to sugar: sweet, of a common variety, completely unable to withstand a downpour. If his associates battered her around, did they take joy in it? Pleasant things like her, saccharine at length, were lovely even when broken. Wild things that they were becoming, the Knights had a taste for blood, not tears.

He noticed her as she was leaving, and only because he was departing as well. Catching sight of her as he approached the stairs, he decided to observe rather than interfere. An exchange would undoubtedly occur; she seemed the type to insist with a smile that he descend before her. If she bit her tongue from small-talk, her mere presence would still irritate him. Even as he stood in the shadows near the stairs and watched her, he was keenly aware that she was a disturbance. This night, one meant for sleeping off the first day of classes, was meant to be solitary. He would not have to pretend, would not have to wear his perfect mask or speak words others could fathom.

And here she was, a pebble splashed into an otherwise tranquil pool of water. 

Similarly, as from cool water in the morning, he was awake. He followed her down the stairs, stepping lightly and remaining in the shadows as they made their separate ways down the town. Soon, the tower’s precarious steps gave way to the wide, well lit, and totally empty grand staircase. It was at this point that his footsteps grew louder, and he waited for her to notice and acknowledge him. 

On the landing, when she paused, he stopped as well —— just to cast a glance her way.

[antigonick]

We are only midway through the central verse of our youth when we see ourselves begin to blacken. […] We had been seduced into thinking that we were immortal and suddenly the affair is over.

Anne Carson, excerpt of Mimnermos and The Motions of Hedonism (Mimnermos: The Brainsex Paintings)

[marvolous]

contacts meme | ft. send more

❛ I literally change my phone number 10 times a year and I don't ever save my contacts. ❜ — tom, probably

@abraxasmlfoy @ariadnegreengrass @camillabbott @ravencalla @ficra @declanprewett

[vntonin]

relationship moodboard: tom riddle + antonin dolohov

“ Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before. “

[batstobed-blog]

send me  🍸 for a moodboard of our muses send me  🍷 for an aesthetic of our muses send me  🍹 for a short fanfic/headcanon of our muses send me  ☕️ for a mini playlist of our muses

[asksforroleplayers]

Send me a color and I’ll write a drabble with our muses with that color as the theme.

[ficra-blog1]

Send 🔸 for what your character’s name & ringtone would be in my character’s contacts!

[marvolous]

❛ declan.

Tom Riddle. This is, possibly, the worst situation Declan has ever gotten himself into. 

He is presented, of course, with no gratitude. Riddle’s voice, commanding his assistance in finding his wand ( shit, comes the soft thought, because that makes two wandless wizards ), is smooth and unshaken - a string of royal British English that falls upon the corridor floor in eloquent ringlets, in perfect intonations; it’s barely human. Declan does not immediately comply with Riddle’s demand, but turns slightly to regard him. There is no light to decipher the expression either of them wear, but Declan is tense - not afraid, but heavily cautious. The fact that Riddle is wandless does not relax him, the fact that Declan himself is wandless does not reassure him.

“Riddle,” he manages. It is a useless thing to say out loud, possibly. Perhaps he will be scorned for it, or mocked - Slytherin House has always enjoyed such passivities, if only to further inflate those bloated arrogances of theirs. “Don’t bother,” Declan says after a pause, as spiteless and neutral as his own pride will allow. “We’ve already got one.” Moving aside, he gestures mildly to the aspen hilt of his own wand, protruding from in between two rocks. “Let’s focus on getting mine out first, then I’ll Accio yours.”

He regards Riddle evenly, and does his best not to shy away from his eyes. Slytherin House’s half-blood prince is a strange, potent creature - Declan has spent years trying to unveil him, to peel back his layers, to dissect that sucking gaze of his. Certainly, he sees how boys like Riddle can reign over empires - for some, there is a sick appeal to his pale cruelty, how it annihilates so bloodlessly, so quietly. Riddle is an excuse for destruction, a master to be used by.

It is a little fascinating; a lot sickening.

The urge to perpetuate hostility, to respond to rationality with obstructive pettiness, is a strong one, but the things that Tom does manage to feel often are. On his feet, pacing and staring into the dark corners in which his wand might have been flung, he weighs his words and assesses his options. Indeed, the simple thing to do is to free Declan’s wand and be allowed to solve the remaining issues. Clearing a way by magic is no large matter; skillful diversion would allow them to dislodge hunks of stone and escape without being crushed by some kind of stacked-cards effect. With the mediocrity of their peers as a measuring stick, Declan is almost certainly a capable partner. They would then part ways silently and keep the story to themselves. Unless, of course, Prewett recounted all of his life’s excitement to his gaggle of playmates as Tom suspected he might. 

He approaches slowly, intent on maintaining both eye contact and the upper hand in whatever way possible. This is a rare opportunity for them both; their games rarely bring them into such direct contact, and undoubtedly for more reasons that Tom’s distaste for basic schoolyard posturing. His notebooks overflow with observations of Declan —— entries running the gamut from empirical to speculative —— in everyday life, but to engage with him in something as unique as this, and collaboratively at that… He smiles, just slightly, as he draws near and kneels to look at where the wand is wedged and stuck.

“You should give it a lift,” he says, smirking as he pats a hand against the mass of rock. “Of course, should ever-effective brute strength fail, we could try wandless.” His tone has a hint of playfulness, straddling mocking and challenging. 

[marvolous]

date: 1 september, 1944.

location: sub-level of dungeons.

status: closed with @electralestrange, @caiusmulciber, & @adrianott

The worst may be yet to come. It was a possibility he humored throughout the evening, skeptical and anxious as he perpetually was. Now, mayhem rushes to overcome them. The darkest corner of the dungeons explodes. For a moment, this is acceptable. An explosion makes sense; the crumbling stone makes sense; children crushed and bleeding from flying wreckage makes sense. Then, the water. It can be heard before it is felt, rushing in along with the monster itself. This is not the inevitable, but the impossible.

A quick count: one, two, three floors underground. Tom makes a habit of avoiding thoughts of personal death. Yet, if a choice had to be made, to drown in the darkness with dozens of his peers under the weight of black water and rubble and a dying squid is inconceivable. He spends a moment frozen, consumed with terror, and then promptly refuses to give up so easily. In quick, mindless steps, prefects take to the stairs with screaming students, dragging those who cannot walk and silencing those who cannot keep their pain to themselves.

He singles out those whom he believes death might most fear to face it alongside him, calling out their names with a force that cuts through the clamour. For a brief moment, even the shrillest of screeching in the crowd of frightened, fleeing Slytherin pauses to look at the four who stay.

In their minds, such innocent children, these are four saviors preparing for sacrifice —— truly selfless figures of a time needing valiance. How mistaken they are. In fact, Tom’s idea is simple: this stupid creature of chaos would lose; it was no more monster than they, and it could not withstand the sheer force of their combined resolve.

But first, a plan of attack. 

Their options were simple: be rendered unconscious by their flailing leviathan, drown in the rising water, or halt both forces in time to escape.

❛ Caius, Adrian: focus on the walls, the ceiling, the water; if we’re overcome, we die here.” 

His concentration was already split, shouting instructions as he silently cast spell after spell in the direction of the gushing water. ❛ Electra —— this thing has to be stopped at all costs. Send it away. ❜ Then, more forcefully, ❛ Destroy it. ❜

[marvolous]

❛ charles.

Tom’s voice begged to draw Charles’ attention. It was soft and quiet, yet there was a sense of confidence that hung upon every word; it made a switch flip in Charles’ brain, and he had to force himself to keep his gaze elsewhere. It was a primal instinct to sense when one was being hunted, and though he would never admit it, that was how Charles always felt around Tom Riddle. He always felt as though he was being stalked, being tracked by a snake gliding silently through the grass, and it was his pride that kept him from acknowledging Tom’s response with a tentative glance. 

Drawing a breath in through his nose, Charles released it as slowly as he could manage. A few first years chased their loose hats over the cobblestones, and Charles watched them until they were out of sight, at which point he chanced a glance in Tom’s direction. 

“I suppose I am interested to know, though, what you plan on doing in your final year here.”

How tense he was. Tom, having his own form of rigidity most of the time, had a keen awareness of it in others. There was an evident difference between Charles’ tension, which was provoked as though he were being strung up and pulled taut, and an innate demeanor. Undoubtedly, there were situations where Charles could be quite relaxed and comfortable. He shoulders and hands loosened, his breathing easy, a pleasant smile ——

Tom had a way of taking ease, even as he remained a perfect picture of tranquility.

He reached now and patted Charles’ arm. “Yes, I’m sure you are.”

In a rare instance, there was nothing cruel about his smile. It was as close to genuine as he ever was, and it only disappeared once he had turned his back to Charles and walked away.

[marvolous]

❛ declan.

He moves through the acrid dust, alone, eyes watering and blood singing in his ears, finding he cannot stop reimagining the moment of impact - the screams, the scrape of glass on brick, a sound so thunderous it became a swallowing silence. It is nothing he has ever known, this form of destruction. When the bomb (and he knows the word, the mechanics of it, but oh, what a foreigner he is to her deathly throes) struck, he had felt the heat of impact, a rumbling ghost of debris and fire licking at his turned back as he lunged to cover a first year with his body. His very bones had quivered - and even now, he can still feel them rattle with every step; knees knocking, arms heavy and uncooperative. Having been forced to take a detour to combat the overwhelming crowds, Declan navigates the empty corridor with a hollowness, urgency sunk to the back of his mind.

It shouldn’t have taken him so off guard. He knows what bombs are, knows the evacuation drills, he keeps active tabs on the latest ones to have dropped in muggle cities. He has been preaching it to his Resistance for months, years: we are at war. Wasn’t this precisely what he’d forewarned them of? War. And yet, here he is: numb. Shocked stupid by its potency, the abrupt chaos it brings in its wake, like thunder chasing lightning. 

So consumed in his thoughts, Declan fails to see the figure approaching him until they are less than fifteen, ten feet away. He blinks once, twice, and opens his mouth to call out to them. Are they lost? Have they been hurt?

And suddenly, the world shakes. 

He isn’t sure what happens next - there is a great shudder from above, then a groan, and some guttural, animalistic instinct in Declan drives him to race towards the figure and pull them out of the way, mere moments before the low corridor ceiling collapses, an upheaval of smoke and stone. What little light the sparse corridor torches offer dies, and all falls into blackness, stillness. A delayed reaction, a final cry.

They’re trapped.

With effort, Declan untangles himself from the body on the floor - the both of them had fallen - and struggles to his feet, assessing the situation with quiet alarm. His wand has been wedged firmly between two rocks, he finds after a minute of foraging, unmoving and irretrievable. Declan curses viciously beneath his breath, but otherwise demands calm from himself. This is no time for fear, for uncertainty. Steeling himself, he casts a glance over his shoulder at the shadowed figure, squinting through the dark. “Are you alright?”

He had meant to escape the dungeons —— growing ever more crowded and loud with the arrival of more students —— under the pretext of locating a handful of missing house members. Above ground, the castle was dead; quiet filled every shadowed corner, though the groaning of the walls and ceilings persisted and was punctuated by the occasional fall of rubble. No one knew the extent of the damage, but years of drills prioritized security over knowledge. Safety would make itself known; they were supposed to trust the adults.

Tom had no faith in their abilities, no confidence in any pronunciations of all-clear, and no patience to remain blind and corralled. He was listening for any indication of what might come next when the ceiling began to cave. His wand was being drawn when the collision happened; everything fell apart in quick succession.

The wand flew from his hand. This, he was aware of as if he’d lost a piece of himself. He was knocked to the ground, weighed down by someone else. Hunks of ancient stone fell to rubble. The hallway darkened as exits were presumably sealed; dust clouded the air. The breath was knocked from him, and he lay on his back for a few infinite moments.

What had happened? Where was his wand? Was that Prewett who had barreled into him?

The voice confirms. His immediate thought is that he would have let Declan be buried by the weight of the ceiling and called it what it was —— an accident. Instead, they are both trapped by the folly of heroism. He sits up and begins looking for his wand, willing composure as its apparent disappearance stokes an already-present anger.

“My wand —— ” he responds coldly. “Help me find it.”

[marvolous]

date: 1 september, 1944.

location: sub-level of dungeons.

status: open.

Ordinarily, the lowest level of the dungeons is a good place to be. Damp, cold, and filled with crawling creatures, but redeemed by the darkness and the quiet —— conducive to the kinds of shadowy thinking best done alone. But, now it had transformed, ruined by the very people who ought to appreciate it the most. This was the difference between Tom and his knights and the rest of the snake pit. The mark of the snake was no guarantee. Their house was huddled along the walls of the hall; its collective voice was of distress. The prefects make a good show of meandering and assuring, and yet: there were tears.

The dungeons were musty and at times cloying, but there was the new stench of fear.

Tom stalked up and down the length of the hall, glaring at first-years who tried to get up and offering vague answers to the questions others tossed his way. Mostly, to keep moving was to avoid the agitation of being confined. They were not to leave, not until a professor arrived with an all-clear. More than the threat of falling bombs and crumbling walls, it was the close quarters that made his skin crawl.

He had paused to lean against a dark doorway near the end of the hall when he perceived someone approaching. ❛ If it isn’t an emergency, feel free to keep it to yourself. ❜

[marvolous]

❛ charles.

Amiable?

A scoff lingered at the top of Charles’ throat, but he bit it back. His expression was less easy to control, however; his brows moved together of their own accord, and his nose wrinkled, his mouth twisting beneath it. It was a look of utter confusion, and, he thought, for good reason. Of all the encounters he’d had with Tom Riddle, ‘amiable’ wasn’t a word he’d use to describe any of them. The half-blood Slytherin was cold at best, and his now well-known ideologies made Charles’ blood boil. Civility had its place, but where Tom Riddle was concerned, Charles found it difficult to keep himself in check. 

“When I ask questions,” he said slowly, fixing his eyes on a few new arrivals and refusing to meet Tom’s gaze, “it’s usually because I want to know the answer. And, with all due respect -” (there wasn’t any) “- I’ve never known you to be amiable. There’s no sense in changing that on my account.”

Tom watched him carefully, taking note of every aspect of his countenance. He had cultivated a double-edged reputation over the years and, contrary to Charles’ experience, the general assumption was that he was amiable, pleasant, charming. It was the result of constant posturing and an evolving routine of acting, but the show had been and continued to be a successful distraction from the real drama. There were those who  —— by no skill or perception of their own, of course —— knew better. The key to his pretending, to its longevity and believability, was that he did not pretend for everyone. Of course Charles had seen through the cracks.

That Charles was in on the secret was inconsequential; he was no threat.

With a smirk, “Good to know.”

[marvolous]

❛ druella.

        Tom Riddle held a strange position in Druella’s life. He and Corvus were friends, at least she was fairly sure they were, yet at the same time, Corvus preferred she keep her distance. He is handsome, Cor. Perhaps he will entertain if I brought him to our next soirée? Her brother had the strangest look on his face when he’d said, Perhaps not. She hadn’t asked again, and Corvus hadn’t offered an explanation, but there were several of his friends that she knew she was best off staying away from. Mulciber. Nott. Riddle.

        To have his hands on her shoulders was thus a strange experience, a touch of the explicitly forbidden. She frowned at the thought but did not pull away, eager to be guided as always. He turned her away from her search with a practiced ease suggesting he valued control, and that experience made her feel better – he was Head Boy, after all, was he not? She would be in good hands. Corvus worried a lot, and the more she thought about it, the more she figured it would be best to put her trust in Tom Riddle rather than being alone any longer.

        Still, she worried. Her hands shook, and she felt the beginning of a bruise against the skin over her ribs, her delicacy blooming at the slightest knock. ❝ I don’t want to be safe without Cor, ❞ she said, not stubborn as someone normally would be when discussing her brother. She didn’t have fight in her on a normal day, let alone when her heart beat over-fast with fear. ❝ He knows the drills though. And – if he’s not there, then you lot will find him, won’t you? ❞

        Druella struggled to turn toward him and gauge his expression, but gave up after a moment, resigned to his pushing and the flow of the crowd. He was herding her toward the other members of her house, and her relief at seeing familiar faces eased her tears at last. ❝ We aren’t supposed to have these things, here. Papa said the explosions were a Muggle problem. ❞ There was an implication in her voice, a question: Papa cannot be wrong, can he?

       ❛ Nothing is assured, Druella. ❜

       It appeared that most of their house was already out of the Great Hall. The few that lagged behind, visible more by their faces in the weak light than by their colors, were in a similar situation —— caught by the confusion or otherwise slowed down by the crisscrossing of bodies. He could have hustled through to catch up, dragging her along like a rag doll, but he sensed that this was to be no sustained raid, nor that the structures of the castle might fail them so quickly.

       ❛ And who’s to say this was the work of Muggles? ❜ It did not make sense for such a far out and unsuspecting location to be targeted. Perhaps Hogwarts, with its reputation for manufacturing goodness and providing sanctuary, had accrued more than praise. ❛ Don’t you read the news? We’re all at war and nothing is safe. ❜

       His tone, which had been somewhat wry, flattened as he added, ❛ It appears we’ve been left behind. ❜ He let her go but offered his hand, thinking perhaps she might float away if untethered. ❛ Let’s get to the dungeons first, then be concerned with Corvus’ whereabouts… ❜

       Undoubtedly, several students would be missing tonight. If ever there was a time for mischief, this was it.