𝔪𝔢𝔱𝔞𝔪𝔬𝔯𝔭𝔥𝔬𝔰𝔦𝔰
quatorze. — care of magical creatures!

( i swear if they ever do more films on greek myths they best cast anastasia as persephone )

Tom's hands rested casually in his pockets as he strolled through the woods, Persephone not too far ahead of him, her almost blonde hair shining in the winter sun. The late November air had a terrible bitterness to it as many of the students began to complain about the temperature drop, Tom however did not. The coldness was inside him, in his bones, in his heart — in truth he had grown so used to it he no longer noticed it anymore.

His hands twitched restlessly in his pocket as he watched Persephone throw her head back in laughter at something Avery had said from beside her. He noted that despite the temperature drop she had decided to forgo wearing her cloak or any other winter pieces much like himself. Tom grimaced as his hand brushed against the case of cigarettes in his pocket, it was a dirty muggle habit that he had unfortunately developed in the summer just gone. Cravings were not something he was used to, Tom Riddle craved nothing but power and knowledge. He did not crave food, or love or friendship. Just unadulterated power — the kind that would grant him immortality, make him into a new god.

As Persephone and Avery slowed to a stop a few feet in front of him, Tom leaned against a tree and watched with disinterest as his Care of Magical Creatures class begun. He was a perfect student, he didn't even have to try, though he still put on an illusion for the teachers. But Care of Magical Creatures was uninteresting to him unless the topic was on that of snakes or any deadly creatures that could be of use to him.

His interest however was piqued when Professor Hargreaves led them deeper into the woods. Before them stood a unicorn, tied to a tree as it pawed nervously at the ground with golden hooves. It was a shining pure white that almost made him squint to look at. Looking at something so pure and untainted Tom was fascinated, he wondered what it's blood would look like covering its lily white coat. He had read that a unicorns blood was a shimmering silver-blue and that drinking it could keep anyone on the brink of death alive, but that they would live a half life, a cursed life for harming such a pure creature.

Tom had read about this of course in his frantic search for ways of making himself immortal. It was a search going quite uselessly though now he had gotten Persephone a pass to the restricted section he would have a second pair of eyes to look out for what he was searching for.

The truth was Tom Riddle had not always wanted to be immortal, not at all. The thought had not even crossed his mind until the summer of 1941. After avoiding the worst of the blitz, safe at Hogwarts for the year he was not prepared for the anarchy that was to come. The orphanage was in a poor area of London, one of the worse off areas badly hit by the blitz. Unassuming one day he was sent out by Mrs Cole to fetch a loaf of bread — Tom sneering in disgust at the thought of being an errand boy — rather reluctantly he left the orphanage, leaving his wand behind in his haste.

It was not until he was halfway back to the orphanage that the siren sounded. Sometimes at night he could still hear that god awful noise piercing through the air, Tom was not a boy who frightened easily or at all really. But in that moment as he dropped the loaf of bread onto the dirty ground he felt true terror in his bones. He wouldn't make it to the orphanage, to the bomb shelter. Ducking into an alleyway, he had thrown himself in a slightly covered doorway and cowered like the child he was.

The noise was horrendous, the muggle bombs so loud that his ears hadn't stopped ringing for weeks afterwards — the smell of smoke in the air clogging up his throat and stinging his eyes. But the worst part was the realisation, if he were to die right there alone and unaccomplished, he would simply be forgotten — the world moving on as though he had never existed. Perhaps his filthy muggle name would be mentioned in the papers lost in the long list of the dead. Nobody would remember the orphan boy from the slums of London, nobody would ever know of his greatness.

That day he made a vow to himself, if he made it out alive then he would find a way to defeat the ultimate source of power in the world; death.

Nobody would ever forget him after that.

And when he emerged from that hovel he had hidden himself in, his skin flaked with ash and dirt — Tom had felt triumphant. He had one the first battle against death, his feet moved steadily towards the orphanage as he took in the carnage along the way, staring blankly at the dead bodies of muggles laying unceremoniously in remains of rubble many dead others having lost limbs that laid a few feet from their withering bodies and would surly die soon and decided, no he would not be like them.

He came back to the present, hand still buried deep in his pockets as his blue eyes blinked the dust from them lazily. He found that the Professor had been letting the girls — unicorns spooking easily at the close proximity of men — pet the animal. It was obviously Persephone's turn as she pressed her forehead to the unicorns face, the animal obviously calmed by her presence as it lowered itself down the the ground, the girl sitting with the animals head in her lap, comfortingly stroking it.

Tom found her to be akin to a wolf in sheep's clothing, he could practically smell the untapped power thrumming under her skin, it was a drug to him — owning that power, controlling it. The power was intoxicating, and yet she acted like she did not feel it, as if she were just some ordinary witch when that couldn't be father from the truth.

As he watched her smile and laugh, her head thrown back hair tumbling delicately around her exposed throat he wondered what it would be like to kill her as well. He had no use of her dead of course, but he still wondered what it would feel like, what she would look like — the look of horror and realisation on her face — wide pleading eyes staring up at him glassily as the golden blood he had seen in potions slid down from the clean slice in her neck over her hands and clothes. It would be messy, it would be art.

The image of her and the unicorn lying dead on the ground was one that he found to be most beautiful in his mind, the embodiment of absolute innocence lying slaughtered on the forest floor. But once again he reminded himself that whilst Persephone looked as pure as the unicorn in her lap that she was subtly untying from the tree to set free, she was not. The darkness was inside of her, there was no running from it, no escape — just pure inevitability.

Soon her heart would be as black as his.

AUTHORS NOTE!
Ahhh so whole Tom POV chapter, hence why it was a little dark oops. Honestly I just really wanted to explore like my sort of headcanon on why Tom was so obsessed with immortality and where his fear of death actually stemmed from.

Also just the way Tom gives me major James Patrick March Vibes from ahs.

( this just gives me such like tom @ death vibes idk )

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Unedited
-summer