Tom Riddle's Ghost: at dark, something waits (2)

Summary: Tom Riddle's ghost wanders the castle, but there are mysteries to him. Later, Harry searches for a way to cast Tom out. What secrets does Hogwarts hold?

Possible warnings: dark ritual.

Previous Chapter

Chapter 2: in the dark, something waits.
(Tom PoV: prior the first chapter)

Tom waited. The silence wore on him; it seemed as though the stars from the heavens (and the entirety of the castle) weighed down on him, though he could see precious little. Oppressive, the silence.

Then there was the dark. Stone walls that had stood the test of time were barely discernible in the great distance, so that even the shape of things was lost to him. After a time, he returned to the antechamber, where embossments of Slytherin’s greatest triumphs were recorded for the stone to protect. There, he noticed the unthinkable—a spider’s web.

He peered at it closely, and he settled down to think, and to wait.

Water sounded somewhere deep in the darkness, a steady drip, drip that sometimes faded out.  He stayed there in the Chamber for a time, and then, after much contemplation, he decided it was true. No one—not even the Basilisk—drew breath there any longer. So he left.

The light fled his passing. He would have thought it strange, had he reflected on it longer. After so much time in a dazed fog, he had come to think of darkness as second nature.  Tom went to the dungeons, where the chill lingered. He shook with it, and he looked for the signs he would recognize— but even there, he had the sense that < i>something</i> was not quite right.

“Open.” he said to the Slytherin door, but it did not. He scowled at it.  Again, he settled where none might find him, and he thought long into the night. He was not recognized, and the door which ought only answer to him was set to bar him entry. The very notion sent a chill down his spine.

“Where are you?” he said in the language of snakes, but nothing answered. He tried one last time to reach the Basilisk.

Instead, he felt something, some phantom pain, some pull on his very being. It was as though his heart was drawn away, shoving at the barriers he’d placed to guard himself. For the first time in a very long time, Tom Riddle felt a trickle of fear.


He wondered if it was the sensation of coming in, and for an instant, he thought of possession.  But there could be no demon more clever and cunning than the Heir of Slytherin. Not possession then, but some sort of summoning.

…but who would dare to summon him?

He felt the hair on his neck stand up. Surely, Dumbledore had learned the truth of his involvement in the Chamber, and would soon compromise his position. He cursed the Mudblood girl for having the gall to die just before the hidden entrance of his greatest discovery.

…

But Dumbledore made no move other than the summons, if it was, in fact, Dumbledore. And so Tom was left to the dark.

For a while, he couldn’t sleep; the darkness that had been a cover seemed filled with unknown threats, and the murky silence he was left in seemed to drown out everything. Fear, and that sense-of-not-being-alone pressed on his mind. It stalked him like a relentless beast on the hunt.

He swore he could hear the phantom voice, see glimpses—inexplicably of classrooms filled with faces that he couldn’t place. Unfamiliar determination lingered there, but was it his? It seemed so different from his cool, driving desire.

Finally, he began to walk other halls, searching for a glimpse of these unfamiliar people. A glimpse through his own eyes rather than through the strange connection. For hours, he wandered, through what seemed a clouded reflection of the halls he had known.

Everything was gray. Until he realized—admitted, perhaps—that he himself was not as he remembered. Tom remembered a youthful body yet untried, still not fully grown, but with a talent for magic few could match.

This lack of wand proved it.

He was not possessed. He was some sort of wandering spirit.

With the realization came the memories. Green. Black. Grey. A woman’s scream, a high pitched voice. Echoes of conversations not directed at him.

Very well. He no longer had a body. So, Tom reasoned, he would have to get one.

X

The girl had seemed the best choice, at first. She responded to his presence most noticeably. Once, he caught her gaze in a bathroom mirror, but she looked away. Then she froze, standing stalk still.

“Tom?” she whispered, going white. So white that her freckles stood out like drops of blood against her pale, creamy skin. Her heart fluttered dangerously fast, and her lips were red, red, against her face.
“Yes.” Tom purred, giving her a charming smile.

She looked away. Then she took a calm, steadying breath, and didn’t see him any longer. “It isn’t real.” she said firmly.

He was denied his existence, and he suffered for it. His vision went out like smoke, and sounds echoed loudly through him, reverberating against his chest and wrenching his concentration. He was lost, wandering between the grounds he had loved as a child.

Time was strange. It was like looking through the eyes of a serpent, with no real concept of time or schedule.

Until he found the Boy. The Boy couldn’t < i>see</i> him, but he felt him. He rubbed at a scar on his forehead, and Tom had that sense of sharing again. The fear and revulsion mingled with Tom’s curiosity, with Tom’s Need for power.

“Who’s there? I’m warning you.”

Tom watched, and went closer.

The Boy stepped back and drew his wand with one fluid motion.

“Harry? Hurry up—it’s almost curfew.” A girl with a bossy tone reached for the Boy. For Harry.

Harry shook his head and rubbed at his forehead, where Tom noted a lightning shaped scar. The boy was distracted, and he said nothing. Green eyes glossed over.

“Harry. Can you hear me, Harry?” Tom said slowly, focusing on the name while reaching for a source of power familiar to him, even from before Hogwarts. Tom would speak, and Harry would answer.

Harry’s eyes went out of focus, but he didn’t respond.

Very well. Tom clenched down on the unfamiliar feeling of angry disappointment. He would wait, and he would study the boy. Once he found an opening…. Harry would be his.

(HARRY POV)

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When Harry awoke, the world was spinning. He wondered if everything sounded as though it echoed, when you were listening from the back of your own mind. His eyes were opening, but who was looking out?

“Harry?” It was a girl... “Harry! Was it Tom?” her voice was soft, insistent, and terrified.

“What…?” Harry nearly banged his head into Ginny when he realized it was he who controlled his vocal cords, and not Tom Marvolo Riddle. Or at least, he didn’t think so. “What?”

She stared at him anxiously, unable to speak any longer.

The full impact of her words registered finally, and Harry hastily added, “No! No, of course not. It wasn’t that.”

Some of the anxiety fell away from her as though it were a physical thing. She took a shuddering breath, and her soft brown eyes focused. “Harry? Try not to move. I’ll…I’ll go get Madam Pomfrey. Do you remember what happened?”

Harry did remember. There was blood first, but that wasn’t nearly so terrible as facing the ghost alone in the dark. He remembered the high, mocking laughter, the cold, those eyes, and the feeling of being watched. “Someone was…”

“Harry, your nose is bleeding.” Ginny interrupted. “And I think…your eyes…I don’t think you should move.”

Harry’s eyes darted around the bathroom, some of his senses coming back to him. Dread, fear, and anger battled for dominance. “I can walk.” He said stubbornly. He didn’t want to be left alone in the bathroom. “What time is it?”

Ginny stared at him, uncomprehending.

“I’ll go to the infirmary on my own. It’ll…it’ll look worse if we’re together. I’ll…I’ll go on my own, Ginny. Go back to the girls’ dormitory.” At Ginny’s anguished look, Harry took a slow, deep breath. “I’d tell you if it was Tom. It isn’t. I just…I just had a bad dream.”

Ginny helped him to his feet, and her red hair tickled his cheek when she leaned in. She was so warm, so alive. Her small hands were strong for her size, and she clutched at him even when he was leaning away.

“I’ll just be going.” he muttered.

“Harry,” Ginny said quietly, “please…”

Harry shook his head. “Don’t worry about it. Go back to sleep.” Despite a now raging headache, he took steps in the right direction.

Her hands sagged, falling to her side like collapsed birds. “I…”

He shrugged away impatiently. “Thanks Ginny. I’m fine now.”

So Ginny Weasley left.

He ducked back into the hall, heading for the library as soon as Ginny was gone. In the abandoned corridors, he wiped off the worst of the blood, and straightened his robes over his pajamas. He trudged the well-worn path unthinkingly, and at last, he arrived.

In the library, Harry trembled, trying to walk calmly so as not to let the librarian notice his state of dress (particularly that he was in stocking feet rather than shoes).It’d be worst, he supposed, if she noticed the blood, though.

But the library was empty. Mrs. Pince was still in bed, and it seemed as though the whole of Hogwarts was asleep except for him and Ginny. He didn’t bother wondering how the doors had opened, or why the candles were lit.

“…there must be thousands of books here,” Harry muttered to himself. “Without Hermione, where am I even supposed to start?”

Harry thought back to the first year. It had taken them weeks…or was it months…? To find mention of Flamel, without knowing more than a name. And in the end, it was coincidence that gave them the answer they sought. With a homicidal ghost following his every movement, Harry doubted he had even weeks to solve the problem. But the library was always the first defense. It just seemed like the best place to start.

Harry sighed, and went to find a book…hopefully one on ghosts, possession, and exorcism…

…if he could get it before the library opened properly, that would be even better.

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tbc...

...tbc...