Deal with the Devil

Chapter 4

He checked the time with a slight wave, the numbers wavering in the air in front of him before flickering away. It was more than an hour after curfew. He was just climbing the stairs to patrol the sixth floor, Dolohov with him for once. The younger boy had never paired with him, being a new prefect, but Tom had pulled a favor from the Head Boy. The time had come for Antonin to join at last, and this was the perfect mission given what he already knew.

As they reached the landing, he could hear hurried footsteps across the shining floor. The empty classroom ahead was the perfect study room for a Ravenclaw who preferred to be alone, since she had only to go down these steps and toward the spiral staircase to Ravenclaw Tower to get to her common room.

Tom held a hand aloft for Dolohov to pause, then stepped forward himself to intercept the rule breaker. "Well, this is a surprise," he said as a small figure came around a corner.

She stopped short, a silent gasp forced from her lungs, eyes wide as they glanced from him, to Dolohov, back to him. Her tongue darted across her lips, then she opened her mouth—

"You are aware it's nearly midnight? And curfew is, what, ten?" he asked, shoes clicking authoritatively against the floor as he approached her. Her shoulders were hunched in on herself, hair still disheveled from the nap she'd taken while studying.

"I—" she began, hushed voice sticking in her throat at first, "I fell asleep..."

"Fell asleep?" he repeated. Tom was beside her now, looming over her. While Tom knew he was quite tall (six feet and still growing yet), Elena Vablatsky was the size of a first year. If she came up to his shoulder, curled up as she was, he'd be surprised. "Did you hear that, Antonin?" Tom turned, voice lilting as he smiled at the other prefect. "She fell asleep. Studying, I'm sure."

Her face flushed at the unspoken implication, but this time Antonin spoke before she could.

"Who do you think will be coming around the bend next? My money's on McLaggen."

Tom barked a laugh. "He does like a challenge, and I'm sure this little wallflower was not an easy sha-"

"I would never!"

Both young men quieted, Tom's eyes glinting as they studied her. Her own were determined, her jaw set, shoulders pushed back for once. It was the most forceful he could ever recall her being.

"Interesting." He walked before her again and tipped his head as he looked over her features, the red—from embarrassment or anger or perhaps both—still flushing her pale skin, lips in a fierce line as her teeth pulled nearly the whole of the bottom into her mouth, eyes glaring under unfashionably limp bangs. "So there is something behind your shy façade." Her nostrils flared, eyes widening before glancing off to the side. "No, no. Don't hide now. I'd much rather have this discussion with you, and not this farce your family has created."

Her face drained almost comically, and he could nearly hear the hum of nervousness from her as she stilled a shaking hand by flattening it over the book covering her chest. "I've no idea—" she began after a moment of silence, her voice once more little above a whisper.

"Don't think you can lie, Elena. Antonin here has some connections to your, ah, father's family. Wouldn't you believe it, you and he were nearly family."

"We could have been cousins," Dolohov lamented. "You're such a lovely girl, too. I'm sure we'd have been close."

"That is," Tom continued, stepping ever-so-slightly closer to her, "unless you are not a Vablatsky by birth?" Her eyes shifted from his shoes, darting around before finally lifting to his face. When she noted his cold, too-knowing smile, she choked on a breath and turned abruptly away from him. His hand flew forward, grabbing one of her wrists where it had been swinging forward, and tugged her firmly back in place. "Ah-ah, Miss Vablatsky. You've been caught out after curfew. I'm doing my diligence as a prefect. One would almost think you wanted to get into even more trouble, the way you're behaving."

He could hear her teeth as they ground together, before she hissed, "You have no right to hold me against my will."

"Hold you against— Why, what a silly accusation. We're just having a little chat, so I can ascertain the, hm, severity of your infraction." He tipped her chin up with the tip of his wand, noting the way she refused to meet his gaze. "You've been keeping secrets, Elena. How am I to know you're not up to something, scurrying about at night like this?"

She squirmed away from his wand and he jerked her closer to him, so she could see almost nothing beyond his looming stature.

"Well?" he said after a moment of her silence.

"I have no secrets," she whispered.

Tom tsked and pulled his wand away. Before she could think to relax, he flourished it and she flew into the wall to their left, only her curved posture preventing her head from smacking back into the stones. The book fell from her arms and she was fixed in place. "Lies, Elena. Not very smart to lie to prefect who is only trying to help you. You are keeping secrets, and those secrets should be mine."

"What do you know?" she said at last, though she sounded both puzzled by his accusation and anxious.

"I know your daddy wanted to divorce your mother until about ten years ago." He was tapping his wand at his side as he stalked closer to her, Dolohov moving in to flank him. He had no doubt they looked intimidating to the girl. "That he complained about her inability to bear him children. That your mummy conceived you around the time she was on tour. And disappeared for somewhere about a year. When you would have been born." He was close enough now that his robes brushed against her stockinged leg. Tom crouched close to her ear and said in a whisper, "And I know about your gift."

Her lower lip trembled as she breathed in and out slowly, shakily. "No."

"No, what?" he asked, almost kindly.

"You're lying."

"Hm." His hand darted out and she flinched, though he was reaching into a pocket to pull out a folded, worn slip of parchment. He unfolded it, the crinkling paper loud in their intimate space. When it was finally unfurled, he began to speak the words on it, though he stared at her face instead of the tightly spaced letters. "To Fly from Death, He gathers shades round Himself to become his Knights and eat that which He Fears Most. And Fear shall be His signature and Death shall be His Name. A Dark Lord is born... It goes on like that, again and again."

He could see the panic behind her stillness even as she said, "That's not mine."

"Oh, Elena," he laughed, letting the parchment stroke her cheek. "Dear girl, I saw you write it myself. I must say, I'm flattered you capitalized the words in reference to me—"

Her eyes finally locked on his, her mouth agape. It seemed she didn't realize he was the dark lord of her little prophecy. He smiled and held the parchment up for Dolohov to take it from his hand, then stroked her cheek in a mockery of affection. "Yes, dear. I'm Lord Voldemort, your Dark Lord who flies from death. And you are going to tell me everything you know."