[Editing] Expecto Patronum: Harry Potter One-shots

8 - Marked [Tom Riddle/Lord Voldemort]

[Final Part]

IT WAS NEARLY INCONCEIVABLE, thought Voldemort. At the very least, it was unusual for his advances to be delayed like they were. The dark wizard couldn't understand why the young witch hadn't reacted instantly to affirm her loyalty to him by agreeing to be his wife. It simply didn't compute. Thinking back to his schooling days at Hogwarts, he couldn't think of a single witch who wouldn't have melted to his feet with merely an interested glance. What had happened since then? He found this question probing his mind as often as he breathed. Of course, the witch had inevitably accepted his proposal; spoken her wedding vows, made no clear resistance when they apparated away to the Riddle House.

The first hint that she wasn't too thrilled with the idea was when she fainted at the sight of him.

It wasn't truly him that she had seen. It wasn't his accustomed face; the scaled, hideous being that resembled more serpent than a man with his slitted nostrils and cold steady gaze. It was the face of the boy he was destined never to become - the boy with the irresistible dark locks, cherubic lips and eyes smoldering like a devil's. The boy that, had he not made his first Horcrux, would have grown into an even more devastating man; shaggier hair, paler skin and a smile that would cause a ghoul to break out into goosebumps for its persuasion. It was a face hidden behind the guise of Lord Voldemort. It was the face concealed behind the mask he had created simply to make people fear him and cower at the very mention of his name. He had peeled off his mask and shown his new wife what he truly looked like. He had been expecting a far different reaction than her immediate fainting.

The bedsheets were black cotton and the bed was large, yet that didn't stop the girl from restlessly lying with the blanket nearly thrown off of the bed. It didn't seem like a comfortable position to lie in; the way her spine stretched out her arms and legs as if trying fruitlessly to claim every bit of space available. The girl didn't snore loudly, but soft grunts came from her every few minutes and her eyes flitted beneath the lids. She was obviously dreaming.

The Dark Lord didn't do or say anything but stand still, looking intensely at her, for the best part of an hour. It was strange how the eyes were like sponges being dabbed in water, the longer submerged, the more details they seemed to soak up. It distracted him to see how vulnerable she looked asleep, compared to the dauntless way she had prowled into the meetings like a jaguar prepared to pounce. There was nothing guarded now about the way her eyes closed or the smooth, unwrinkled brow. The soft wobble of her parted lips as she breathed, soft as a whisper, or the way her fingers were clenched around a pillow as if it was a teddybear.

A roguish smile spread over his lips as he padded to the bed and perched beside her. Here his new wife was, vulnerable and readable as a book on a shelf, and here he could invade her mind and dissect her secrets. This was an incentive - emotional blackmail worked wonders, he found - when he started to focus his magic on her mind and tug on her mental barriers, feeling them unravel like yarn from a ball. He was just about to break through the boundaries of her mind when it clenched unexpectedly.

"No." She muttered groggily.

He froze, thinking that she had woken up, but then he realized suddenly that she was simply being drawn out from the dream. It was odd to see her lips twitch into a grimace.

"No, it's not him." She whimpered in her sleep, "Oh, Ced. No."

Then she started crying. It amazed the dark sorcerer to see how quickly the tears leaked from her closed eyelids and caught on her dark eyelashes before grazing down her cheeks. Her chest heaved, but only lightly, as she sobbed with barely a noise betraying her sorrow. Her magic unclenched on the mental barrier, but the Dark Lord didn't think he even wanted it anymore. He didn't feel guilty - he would never lower himself to such a lowly emotion - but it felt probing and wrong to see her exposed like this. He dropped the pillow beside the girl and waited for her to reach out for it frantically in her sleep, but her fingers were kneaded too deeply in the linen. Spitting a curse, Voldemort grabbed it forcefully and pried her fingernails from the bedsheets, shoving the pillow in her open palm. The girl paused in her sob and, with a deep sigh, closed her fingers. She sighed contentedly and gripped tighter - which only left one problem.