The Head Boy's Secretary

Chapter Thirteen: Shadows of Death


From here on out Alice wore a crucifix. The strange black markings with odd symbols scared her. She did not trust Mr. Riddle’s ritual. Something seemed wrong. Alice believed the cross would protect like in the beloved novel Dracula, of which she had a predilection to re-read. Of course she knew Tom Riddle wasn’t a Vampire – but Alice truly believed in the Holy Ghost’s salvation.

To her the Crucifix wrung round the neck was an amulet because she believed it could protect her as if it held magic. But it was truly ineffective against what was happening, a mere product of a fraudulent lie that was first espoused by her faith. Religion would not save anybody lost in darkness. Alice could not be saved from the terrible inevitability of death. It was a shadow that forever stalked the living, except perhaps Tom Riddle who tried so desperately to cast off that shameful burden he wore and shared with all whom have borne it since time began.

Gruesome and ugly objects were placed around Riddle’s lair and the silence pressed into her as she waited alone.

Alice tried to work the Hogwarts account books and not think of this. They stared at her in suffering, struggling and screaming. They burnt a hole into her mind and at the root of her very consciousness. In imagination she saw a sea of different faces on the skulls: some livid, others sorrowful and all looked to be in un-ending agony that would not be assuaged for the eternal sleep of death.

Alice shook in her seat and scratched her pelvis now that she was finally alone today. The marks had itched and burned all day and of course she couldn’t cross her legs. The Head Boy had mangled her body when he tore at her flesh. Alice wondered why he hated her. For she had finally drawn her own astute conclusion that her master was infinitely cunning and dangerous and what was worse held something against her.

Alice ruminated, ‘Why can’t he simply pity me for my bleak family history, and leave me be as I remain the ever dutiful Secretary? And he can go bully those boys!’

Speaking of the boys, Alice had seen them in the corridors outside today. And now she was waiting for him to arrive, and she wondered what went on in that group precisely. She had been unable to break the code in the messages.

Intensely she stared at the net of interlocked skulls that was like a jigsaw puzzle beside the inhospitable, freezing hearth. He’d never lit a fire! Alice wondered what would happen if she did….

Heat would be counter-productive to some of the experiments that went on in this abode. This evening she was finally going to witness something.

For now food was a comfort. The cherry tarts were delicious. Over the desk she folded her hands daintily and smoothed the wrinkles in her ruffled skirt. She sat up straight and tried to look proper and think of good manners and cleanliness.

She’d been thinking of cleanliness more and more since the incident with the Head Boy practically raping her in that dirty, degrading way. As a girl Alice had loved dirt and would come home after making mud pies with her little frock in ruins. Mother would draw a bath but before that happened daddy would take swift action with a bare-bottomed spanking and then he'd lecture Alice on the way girls should behave. Mum and dad had grown up in the Victorian era and believed that even little girls should be presentable and clean at all times. Playing in the mud was not allowed!

Alice sat prim and proper and tried to imagine how proud father would be if alive. She’d become a young lady who routinely cleaned a man’s turf in exchange for a small income. She was almost grown, and in a few days was her fifteenth birthday.

The room was clean thanks to Alice, but had become starker and scarier. Those skulls would not go away. Even though alone, there was a presence in the study. One day she would learn just what this presence was…..

That evening Alice was forced to work in near total darkness. All she had was a single candle and her wand to light a path through the study. She felt like it was spiritual retreat.

First Alice finished the paperwork duties by candlelight and then was ordered about. She was told to get on her knees and scrub the floor once again.

With a pail of water and a rag Alice came loping along around Riddle's desk. At once her knuckles started scrubbing the floor down hard.

She looked up, and saw him deep in thought, bent over his work. At his side was a peculiar black hand with a tiny, lit flame. It was a Hand of Glory and would only give light to its holder.

Whilst Alice was immersed in black velvety dark, Tom Riddle could see everything as the Hand magically amplified it's light single flame, filling the entire room for him, giving him the vision to see everything. It was spooky how Voldemort could see her, but Alice could not see him.

He targeted his Secretary and unbeknownst to her pointed his wand at her. Alice walked by with a fresh bucket when he accosted her. "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death...."

Alice's heart pounded and she froze with bucket in hand, nearly dropping it. But she finished the verse for him, "I will fear no evil:....for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me."

Alice sunk to the ground again and thought of this quote and how synonymous it was with her relation to the Head Boy. He seemed always with her. Perhaps the wand could fit the quote as the 'staff' and even the 'rod' was like the cane used for correction. Maybe his authority was a comfort, just as the Bible was a comfort. Could he not be a kinder master? She hoped so, but wasn't so sure she could believe it anymore.

"One would never know you had ecclesiastical leanings, Master Riddle."


*

It was true that few mortals would ever learn of what Tom Riddle did, but Alice came close to realizing the full extent of it.

Riddle stopped using his Hand of Glory and the usual lighting returned to the room.

Alice observed with a newfound morbid fascination as something was set up at the desk. She was astounded to see him take off that black-stoned ring. She silently recalled when the boys had kissed it as he drank from a silver chalice.

The ring was put into a vice set against the desk. Riddle whipped his wand out and tapped against the ring, whispering spells in a language, a violent hiss of chanting. The hiss droned with an un-earthly buzz.

Alice was growing frightened of this unknown procedure. A vapory smell was with them, and it pressed unpleasantly against her nostrils. Alice wondered if this mad experiment might blow them up, and thus kill the both of them!

The ring looked like it might break free of the vice at any second and cause a combustion or explosion. Just in the nick of time, he excised it and put it on once again. At once there came a change to the Head Boy's physical appearance.

Alice could not see, his back was turned. "I'm sorry...But isn't this dangerous? Won't you die if something goes wrong?"

And then his presence came over all at once, it was like the wind. The hairs on the back of Alice's neck prickled at the sight. He stood tall as ever, with flaring livid nostrils, a waxen complexion and a momentary red gleam in his eyes.

"Do I look DEAD to you?!"

He did not smile, he was as grim as could be.

"N-o-o-o-o," said a very shaken Alice.

And just as it came, his features returned to normal. He had just let Alice see his true self for the first time. Unlike the other times such as during the sacrament when she was blindfolded and could not see his bestial expression when he raised the dagger to excise her clitoris.

At the end of the night Alice worked up her courage to ask the Head Boy to a social gala Hogwarts was holding.

"So why not take me? I mean, as colleagues and friends only of course, Master."

But Tom Riddle was not as good as his word when it came to dances or any other entertainments. As it turned out he wouldn't be there, but Alice would finally have the opportunity to meet Alphard Black.