His Glowing Reputation

Sheherazade: I hope that last chapter did not bore you with all the description of magic. I am going to fix it so that it’s not only a laundry list of explanations. And I’d like to tell you, Sheherazade that I’m planning meticulously another Voldemort fic that takes place surrounding Voldemort’s coup in DH. Bella, Narcissa, Lucius, and Draco play a large role and even your favourite Snape has a medium one! I will publish the start of it by next weekend and I hope you will give it a try. My new fic will be about 25% longer than this one and it has very graphic violence (and not just sex). It will be fun for me to write though.

There is, now I swear just one more chapter after this one here.

Chapter Fourteen: The Boy Voldemort's Pensieve

Several minutes later, after Tom Riddle had returned Celeste Lovegood to Ravenclaw tower, he entered the trophy room once again. There was no door to close that could have served to obstruct passer-bys’ view, so Riddle vigilantly examined the vicinity. He did not need to worry, as it was an unlikely event to be disturbed at this late hour as only the few prefects and teachers were allowed in the corridors now.

Turning his back, he faced all the awards Hogwarts students had been bestowed throughout the centuries. He stood at the exact place when Celeste had met him earlier this evening.

With the same cups caressed and stared into earlier, Riddle prodded his wand over the rims. The wand lightly tapped against three of the large, shining trophies as Riddle nonverbally casted “specialis revlio.” It was next to impossible that anyone else, besides Riddle would possess a logical reason to do this spell on the inside of an old trophy cup. Next, was removed other protective enchantments, he had placed over the object at a previous date.

The boy Voldemort bent over, and dipped his black-haired head towards the circular brim where nearly a dozen gossamer strands swirled, each immersed in a membrane of light, alive. He planned to delve in for one last indulgence, but then stopped, recalling how it was almost past the curfew alloted to a fifth year prefect, and besides, it really was not necessary. True, he had warped Celeste’s memory and distorted her sense of time, yet his time was clear, well aware he did not have much of it left. Riddle reasoned it prudent to go back to the Slytherin quarters and study before his usual bedtime in the midnight hour instead of watching another time and place he had already experienced.

So Riddle raised his head and gave the memories in his private pensieve one last swirl, the wand still in his hand. A random image appeared like a bubble in the circular cup, until it expanded like a flat balloon. Swaying in the light inside the container, was revealed a girl of eleven whose face was contorted into a stupid, disturbing expression. That had happened in Riddle’s third year, when some victims had become sexual for the first time, for Riddle had felt himself driven towards rape as he entered puberty. The first year’s memory had been damaged permanently from the negligent work with the obliviating spell. Whatever had commenced to require Tom Riddle to wipe the memory, it had been their only encounter. The poor little girl, was carted off to St. Mungo’s without anyone being the wiser. Riddle had learned to be more exact in future, so as not to spark an investigation. He had also fucked a few young wizards, despite the minimal sexual pleasure, there was the powerplay and dominance of it because, according to his view, men were the stronger, more important gender.

Yet tonight, tonight had it’s limits. The boy Voldemort could not celebrate and reflect on the past. From his inner pocket was retrieved a glass vial. There was the actual memory of what was done to Celeste Lovegood. Riddle pulled the stopper and extrapolated the truth of what he had done to Celeste, a truth she would never know, but still she would bare unexplained, emotional scars.

It emptied into the other memories inside the large trophy cup. The memory expanded like the other one had done prior, overlapping all the others inside the cup until it resembled a flat balloon, floating. It showed Celeste, spread-eagled in the dirt and darkness, whilst Riddle was conjuring the serpent to join the fire that had circled them before.

A copy of what Voldemort had done, settled in with all the other sexual acts, going under the surface, though of course he still remembered every one of them in the present. At once, all the other memories popped forward in miniature bubbles as if to welcome the new addition. Riddle observed for a moment, his chest puffing with pride. A dozen faces were shown, evincing varying degrees of agony and confusion. A few had a yoke chain wrapped around their necks'. The yoke chain was something not harnassed from the magical rape kit this evening.

Silently, Riddle promised himself that when he got an award as would surely happen, he’d fill it with all the memories. He thought how his victims were afterall, Lord Voldemort’s trophies. It would fit perfectly to rest exclusively in his domain because Riddle believed his future trophies to be the most remarkable and special of all the other trophies in the school.

Abruptly, he hissed the incantation to put an impenetrable, unseen wall on top of the contents of the three shining cups. This was one of the protective enchantments removed earlier, that was in place so this unconventional pensieve wouldn’t spill.

The next protection was a bedazzling hex, which made objects invisible. Riddle always reapplied the hex when he visited the trophy room to ensure the invisibility would not wear off. The memories disappeared from the detection of the senses. Even though there was still a magical trace, nobody would expect anything less than magic to be sensed from Hogwart’s awards.

Someone else could be heard, their footsteps shuffling outside the trophy room, slowly approaching. Riddle resisted the urge to jump, but turned around. He reached for his wand instinctively to place a disillushionment charm over himself. But before he could do so, a balding, thin man in ceremonial, academic black robes was standing in the doorway. It was the Headmaster, Armando Dippet.

Fleeting shock came across handsome Tom Riddle’s face to see his Headmaster out of the study at such a late hour and in the trophy room, which was quite a distance from the stone gargoyles. It was a scary coincidence, considering.

“Good evening Professor Dippet” acknowledged Riddle politely as he began to use the strongest Occlumency just in case Dippet was a Legilimens, but the reality was that he was not.

“But what are you doing in the trophy room?..Yes you are a prefect, though curfew is up in ten minutes. You know the rule: ten o’clock on weekdays.”

“Yes, Headmaster. I have been aspiring to get the highest honor at Hogwarts sometime within the next few years. It would complement my…record, sir” Riddle explained with flawless decorum in defense of himself, his silver prefect’s badge gleaming in the ambience.

Yet he wished he had not brought up his record. It would surely remind Dippet of the episode of harsh castigation that occurred just last night. The main reason he had been caned was to prevent others learning that Tom Riddle, "the Golden Boy" of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry had got detention and that it would have been forced onto his record.

Dippet observed Tom standing in front of him, the beady eyes becoming mildly shrewd, but into a shrewdness that was understanding.

“And I promise you shall,” addressed the old man in a friendly tone. “You are a fine young man…and even after yesterday’s embarrassing er-… I have faith in your honesty and integrity, my boy.”

And now Riddle was acutely aware and even painfully cognizant of yesterday evening. Using a slighter form of Legilimency, Riddle saw that Dippet had briefly pictured, when he was bent over the table, as Dumbledore had applied seven strokes. The price he payed for his glowing reputation to be preserved was suddenly palpabe physically. There was an odd tingling across the welts.

Riddle could not leave until Professor Dippet allowed him to, as he was directly in front of the only exit and for the reason that also, it would show enormous disrespect to depart without his superior’s dismissal.

“Well…Good night, Riddle. And get to where you belong, in the Slytherin’s quarters. If you’re caught out of bed out of hours, I don’t want to hear that you were put in detention....Because then I shall have to intervene," he added warningly.

The Headmaster meant that if Tom Riddle was given another detention, it would mean another alternative arrangement in the Headmaster's office, in which he would have to endure the rattan cane again or something similar.

But Professor Dippet hardly moved an inch to let his best pupil pass.

Riddle shook his head fervently. “I…Yes, sir” he mumbled, almost sounding guilty.

Never in his life had he been at such a loss for words, he had always been such a silver tongue. He felt belittled in that moment, despite being several inches taller than Armando Dippet. He could not deal with the way Dippet could talk down to him. As he past the old man and headed for the corridor to the dungeons, young Voldemort wished he could curse Dippet into oblivion.