The Farland Files

The Art of Revenge

A/N: We! Get! To! End! Terry! (Or, well, his relationship with Lena at least. Tom can do the rest later ^-^)

~~~

It took two months for her to realize that Tom had been right about Terry Boot.

Two months for the nightmares and red flags to crack the golden necklace in half, making her realize that the bad things were louder when she wasn't being influenced by whatever magic was on that pendant.

And then Lena started to notice that his sunshine had been almost completely diminished.

He was now teaching older Slytherins how to run pyramid schemes in the common room, laughing at Theo's dark jokes about killing other annoying students, standing his ground against anyone who tried to get in his face, and often dragging her to abandoned classrooms so they could make out rather than study.

Not that any of that was too bad- even if the kissing was sort of meaningless to her - but he wasn't the same boy who had made her feel like she was doing something right.

Now his touch was laced with something uncomfortable, numbing against her skin in a way that she didn't like- but she didn't want to prove Riddle right. Not when they hadn't talked for longer than she liked, as Terry always told her that he thought the locket ruined her focus when she wanted to put it back on, to have Tom with her.

The other thing was that no one seemed to notice anything was wrong about Terry and she felt almost as if the boy was all she had anymore with how distant the others were being.

No one had said anything but Theo and he'd only claimed that Terry reminded him of his father, leaving it at that.

Lena was darkness and shadows and blood. The other Slytherins already had a bit of that sharpness and hidden ruthlessness, hence being resistant to her corrupting presence, but she'd seen the same thing happen still with Ginny and the rest of the house even if they kept the better parts of themselves safe from her corruption.

However, Terry had been exposed.

Without a shield or defense, the sunshine boy had been turned into a slimy shadow of his past self. Taken in by her possessive nature and left to foster an obsession of his own that reminded her of the diary... but worse, venom slicking his skin to make her numb to it.

She didn't feel regretful.

There wasn't much left of the boy she'd known to be regretful for.

"Terry." Taking his wrist so he stilled in where he was trying to slip it up her shirt, she pushed him back slightly. "I think that we should break up."

"Lena, I know that you're stressed with the end of the year exams next week, but really- this is silly. Let me take away some of that-"

She shook her head. "No, I think I'm fine without."

When she stopped him again, sighing and about to try to talk it out, his face twisted into something dark. "No!" Her hand was shoved away, breath coming shortly as she was pushed up against the wall of the empty classroom harshly. "You can't break up with me! Not with everything I've done for you! I think I've been patient in waiting for you to catch up, but now-" His hand moved to try to fumble with her jeans.

"Stop." The word, even without it being magic, had enough power in it to make the boy freeze. Ripping his hands off her and backing away, feeling her hands shake just slightly, she licked her lips and rubbed at her face. Taking out her wand, she pointed it at the boy. "You will remember this: you got tired of me and decided to break up, as I'm too taken with some boy named 'Tom' for your tastes. When you leave, you'll decide to go around the school and tell this to everyone who'll listen, as well as telling the truth about what you really think about the Slytherins. Mutatio Memoriae."