OF SERPENT AND ANGEL ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎➝ tom riddle ¹ | ✓ |

FORTY-EIGHT

It had been years since Eliza had graduated from Hogwarts, that was the only thing she knew for certain. Her ribs had started to protrude from her skin, her face was almost blurry. There was no colour left on her lips. Her eyes were dull and faded. Because of the Horcrux that Tom had made for her, she did not need to eat and thus it was easy for her to reject his merciful offers of a warm meal unless he forced her to.

Her brain could no longer function. Really, the only reason why she was not completely mad was pure determination. She had attempted multiple times to enter Tom's quarters, she had always failed, but she always took the chance to try whenever she was left alone.

Often, her vision would be plagued by black spots for many days before they faded. Tom informed her that it was due to a lack of oxygen. Her hands barely ever stopped quivering. Her nights were haunted by involuntary visits of all manner of creature and therefore she had given up on sleeping. But it did not make any difference, because she was just as terrified when she was awake.

Eliza stood once more in front of Tom's bedroom door. He had left somewhere over an hour ago. "I'll need Nagini with me, so you will be alone. Make sure you don't get up to anything while we're gone." This is what he had said before leaving. But Eliza had already attempted to get inside on numerous occasions, and he had never given her even a slight indication that he knew about it.

The door was a dark green colour, almost black. It looked so completely harmless. Her fingers wrapped around the handle as she twisted it, expecting it to stop halfway to damp her hope and make it clear that it was locked and that she could not get through except by kicking the entire door off its hinges, if even then.

And this time, the door opened. Her breath left her body in a soft exhale. She couldn't believe it. Had he forgotten to lock it?

Slowly, extremely slowly, Eliza pushed the door open.

She didn't know what she had been expecting, perhaps piles of gold or alternatively bones, bookshelves full of the deepest secrets of the Dark Arts, potion ingredients for his wicked poisons, caged animals. Tom Riddle's room could have looked almost like anything at all, but she was shocked as she saw its plainness. It was almost empty.

There was a frail bed with an uncomfortably thin mattress, a small wooden desk and chair, and a tall but unstable looking wardrobe. This was all.

It almost felt sad and for a moment she thought remorsefully of Tom as she imagined how empty he must have been inside too, how bare his life had always been apart from suffering. The atmosphere was morbid and heartbreaking. There was a lack of ... everything.

Eliza stepped inside, studying the plain walls of faded and chipping paint. For a moment, she only stood still, amazed that she had gotten inside and confused at the lack of treasure in his quarters. And then she realised she was wasting time.

She moved to the bed first. Its metallic frame was rusting. The fabric was rough under her fingers, much rougher than the sheets of her own bed. It didn't look like anybody had ever slept in it.

Running her palms along the thin mattress, she looked for any lumps or crevices in it, in the pillow, in the duvet. She didn't know why Tom would have hidden her wand in his bed, but she had to look everywhere.

When she saw nor felt anything out of normal, she ensured the bed looked the same as it had before and walked to the desk.

The surface was bare. Underneath, there was a single drawer which she pulled open. It was empty aside from a single postcard. Picking it up, Eliza studied the faded picture. It showed a picture and a dark cliff. Though her curiosity fought against it, Eliza placed the postcard back and shoved the drawer shut. This was not what she was looking for.

On the window-sill, there were broken eggs shells, placed out in a line. They were blue and dotted. Beside it were what Eliza could only hope weren't bones. Not human ones; they were much too small. They looked to belong to some sort of caprinae.

Finally, she moved to the wardrobe. She had to rattle the door for a while before she was able to pull it open. The hinges were unstable and uneven.

There were two sets of black robes hanging from miserable metal hangers. And his Hogwarts robes. Why would he still have his school uniform? But even stranger were the tattered grey clothes that must have belonged to a small boy.

On top was a shelf. Eliza could see a box there and she pulled it down. It was made of cardboard and covered in dust. She opened it to see apparently random items: a harmonica, a silver thimble, a red yo-yo, dead snakeskin, a pair of broken glasses, a set of pearl earrings, a rusty pin with something written in a foreign language – German, for what she knew.

Desperately, she moved the things around in the box. Her telescope – her Horcrux – it must have been there but she could not find it.

She didn't know how long she had been there for, but she knew each second that passed was spent teetering on a line between safety and the worst punishment she ever could have felt.

Finally resigning to the fact that Tom kept her telescope somewhere else. She placed the box aside and reached her hands up to run along the shelf. There could be something else.

She stood on her toes, arm bent in a painful angle as she attempted to ensure there was nothing else there. The wardrobe was much deeper than she thought it would be and the corner of the shelf pressed into her flesh as she reached up as far as she could.

Her fingers brushed against something. An exhilarated breath left past her lips but she could not get it out, it was too far back.

Running back to the desk, she pulled the chair to the wardrobe and stood up on top of it to reach the shelf. It was another box and as soon as it had been dragged out of the dark wardrobe, Eliza recognised it.

This box contained her wand. And all she needed now was a drop of Tom Riddle's blood to open it. Hope, for the first time in months, truly fluttered within her. Soon, she would finally be free. 

So anyway, there are going to be exactly 50 chapters to this book and it satisfies me :)

Tell me how you think it'll end!!