The Last Drop |Tom Riddle|

Chapter Twenty: Can't Take It Back

Tom was enraged, to say the least.

Ministry officials guarding the evening's celebration swarmed against the armed intruder and while Eleanor was rushed away, Tom was storming to Colin who stood back, an animal like instinct fueling every step and eyes burning into the man's skull. Before Ludwick could even recognize his pending predator, Tom had grabbed him by his throat, nearly on the verge of snapping every string he felt beneath it, and apparated away.

Upon landing in a clearing nearly in the dark without the full moon's light, he was not breathless as the man before him choking on the ground.

Tom's chest rose and fell with aggression, wand withdrawn as he approached Colin still gasping for air, pressing the wand at his neck.

"You did this!"

Colin's eyes were dark, a single fleck of white from the moon in them, wide with panic as he scrambled to stand on his own two feet.

"I did not!" he shouted back hoarsely.

Tom nearly laughed. "Don't you dare take another step or I will not hesitate to end your life."

Colin smirked. "Would you really? How would your precious fiance feel?"

Everything spinning in Tom's dark and torn soul ready to unleash had to be tugged back by a strong leash at the mention of Eleanor. He had no right to speak her name and had she not been on his mind, perhaps he would have just killed him already. Instead, Tom withdrew his fist and plunged it into Colin's face without so much as a flinch despite bones rattling in his hand.

"Eleanor does not dictate who I am allowed to kill, especially when it is someone who has set up for her own life to be taken!" Tom shouted.

It was hard to control such darkness, the power of the horcruxes that had him tip toeing on the edge of eternal power wanting to play. Itching at the ends of his fingers, Tom clenched his fists and refrained, aiming his wand once more.

"This was not my doing, Riddle! I never wanted Eleanor out of the picture! I have no control of what the others do."

Colin fired a spell and Tom laughed in the face of the beaming light that whooshed by, deflecting it with ease and firing back a spell that knocked the weak man off his feet once more.

"But I'm sure you didn't intend on stopping it though, did you? You knew this was going to happen! You knew that this silly mudblood organization was planning to murder the one person they know could end them all! You failed to bring her on your side of things, Colin, and I will make it known to her that her blood is on your hands for this!"

Merlin, Tom wanted to murder him. He wanted his blood on the grass upon which they stood but no, he did not deserve a merciless death. He deserved worse for allowing such a thing to happen to her and he would see to that no matter what she said.

Colin sat up on his knees, breathless and bleeding from lip.

"Eleanor will be walking to her own death the further she pushes against them. This is only the beginning if she can't let me take on this investigation!"

"And you, my friend, this is only the warning of what your life is about to become and I would rather let every mudblood die if it means she is safe."

Tom Riddle saw red in ways he never seen before, the act of taking a life never being so engrained in his nerves as much as it was now. He couldn't care for the repercussions, not that he ever did and if anything, his slow and painful death could be pinned on the man who tried to kill Eleanor.

But the moment he raised his wand, another figure apparated at his side to stop his movements and before Tom could unleash his feral rage upon them, he saw Abraxas and Cygnus.