The Head Boy's Secretary

Chapter Seventeen: The Death Chart


The footstool incident was over. That punishment certainly was motivation to keep working hard. She dare not skive off again. Alice knew her place as subservient and resented Riddle now, truly.

There was a new chore of refilling the goblet. Riddle had become too lazy to do it.

When drunk dry he indicated for another. Lately he’d been having two drinks, instead of just the one. Alice could see Master Riddle was highly stressed.

The girl shuffled over in the flickering near-darkness, and took the decanter. It was a gloomy atmosphere, only a couple of candelabras shone meager light. Beside an inkpot, the Hand of Glory perched like a domesticated spider. It was trained to do his will. Alice felt like that hand was alive. It would stop at nothing to do the Head Boy’s bidding.

After re-filling, Alice lowered her head. Quietly a dribble of spittle fell into the cup.

Placing the goblet back, she said with evident pleasure, “Your wine, Master.”

But the Head Boy paid this ebullient mood no heed. He thought it natural that lowly creatures like Alice enjoy waiting on him. Irritably, Riddle flung his hand as if swatting a fly. Alice turned back and smiled triumphantly. Everyday it gave Alice the utmost satisfaction to spit in her master’s wine.


***


April arrived. Alice felt a lot older than fifteen years. Being with a morbid genius forced the experience of ten lifetimes at once.

Riddle ran a hand over stark white skulls as if live flesh. Alice felt goosebumps upon approaching him. It was the end of the day. Alice was itching to escape before he decided to hurt her again.

“I finished the accounts, Master. Cleaned the fireplace again and deciphered the runes. May I go?”

“No,” said Riddle. He did not look at her. He paid Alice no heed, still examining the net of interlocked skulls. He pressed his thumbs into their sockets. What on earth was he doing?

“The accounts go on my desk. I shall review them later,” he said aloofly. He was still watching the skulls.

Alice slid the portfolio of Hogwart’s Accounts there and waited for dismissal.

Riddle began to talk to himself in whispers. Or more bizarrely, he was consorting with the skulls as if they were alive. Alice watched and remembered how the suffering, screaming pain seemed to press into her. “How queer it all is…What’s this all about? Will I ever understand?”

Riddle did not hear her voice. He was either answering his own questions or it was the skulls that were asking them. The skulls were like a cleverly construed jigsaw puzzle, arranged like a ceramic art of hallowed glory, and yet hollow like normal skulls.

“Ah yes, than it is affirmative…. It must be the rightful truth.”

Riddle turned.

All at once she was hoisted in the air and whipping from the sidelines came thick strands of black vines. Devil’s Snare.

Once again, the Head Boy had his Secretary bound. Alice was again tied, feeling fear shackling her to the plant. The plant knew fear, and the more frightened one was the better. She was sealed with lies, the plant pressing into her flesh. Tears welled up in Alice’s eyes, but she dare not fight else the plant would attack.

The wand waved like he was a conductor waving a baton. It made the plant bind round from front to back. Alice was the juicy fly caught in a spider’s web, his web.

Alice gnashed her teeth in a rage and dared to ask questions. Perhaps they would distract from whatever sick agenda was planned?

“What are you d-doing? Oh! What have you done to me now?!”

Riddle came closer, and looked at Alice who was eye-level with him, suspended in the air. He swept a stray strand of light brown hair from Alice’s cheek. “My dear girl, I have done nothing to you. You have brought this all upon yourself.”

Alice grappled with this pronouncement in disbelief, quite confounded and in total denial.

Riddle tapped the conglomerate of hideous skulls. “This….is called a Skull Astrolabe. It is a Divination discipline devised long ago by Dark Arts practitioners.”

Alice tried to make sense of this. She had the perspicacity to see he was making a connection between the skulls and her own life, but did not ask this yet.

“Where did these skulls in particular come from?”

“From an ancient burial ground beneath the school. The legend of the Chamber of Secrets is true. Slytherin built a chamber and inside it there is a burial ground for his victims. Salazar Slytherin fed his pet snake called a basilisk a supply of Mudbloods. Hundreds of them! Probably students denied attendance back then when only the Purebloods could go! When I discovered the Mudblood’s skulls remained, I took them back for study and used them to create an Astrolabe.”

Alice was not at all shocked to hear he had disturbed the dead. What was more, the Fourth year Ravenclaw was familiar with the legend. So Tom Riddle was the Heir of Slytherin? It seemed possible if not likely. It was all coming together now.

Riddle admired his skill, “You see, I ascertained they were Mudbloods by the physiognomy of them. They are distinctly inferior….”

Alice rolled her eyes. She did not want to hear the Head Boy spout anymore of his magical Eugenics theories. It was full of hatred and bigotry.

Something snapped. Perhaps it was snide comments against Muggleborns and his glorifying Salazar Slytherin. “All that thinking that goes on in your head doesn’t make you that smart. I-I am wiser than you! And-and you’re a cynical bastard for hating Muggleborns. What have they done to you?”

“Nothing! You’re a naïve, insignificant, little girl. Despite that, I know your fate. It was told to me right here by the skull’s magic. I hold the answer to all your sordid sufferings, and inane struggling…I can tell you why your ‘God’ created you….”

He paused, watching Alice closely. He knew this would be too hard to pass up. He folded his hands slowly, and watched. Riddle was looking as arrogant and puffed up as a popinjay.

“The answer to your future lies here. I am holding it in my hands. The answer lies within mere remnants of other men’s ignominious deaths….Here lies the answer to the secrets of life…”

Alice felt like she was being lied to. Tom Riddle knew this wasn’t wholly accurate. It was an exaggeration.

“So, shall I tell you the end? Or at least, how it all ends for you, my dear?”

“Yes! Please do!” she gasped. Alice tried to keep calm, still bound by the Devil’s Snare. Yet it was aching and tiring on the limbs to be suspended. Curioser than ever, Alice believed curiosity a sin, but she couldn’t resist. It was too tempting to possess knowledge of the future.

“You will lead a meager, mitigated life. Not much pleasure or enjoyments, I’m afraid. There will be few of the animalistic pleasures, that the lesser witches and wizards like you view as necessity. You will die young and your magic will deteriorate greatly.”

Alice cried, full of self-pity and grief. She wished she could bury her face in her hands, but given that her wrists were clamped it was not a choice.

Alice hiccuped and gathered her thoughts and forced to view these revelations objectively. “H-how does it work?”

“The Astrolabe creates a Death Chart. I have just read yours. The skulls function as Astrolabes. Therefore the magical science of Astronomy fixated at the time of your birth is combined with the skulls physiology to create a Death Chart.”

Alice looked revolted. She stared at the skull emblem pinned on his robes. It was there every day and she saw that Riddle was obsessed with death. Was death the very thing he feared most?

“The Death Chart,” Alice whispered mysteriously. “It sounds like an un-life chart.” And Alice thought it was like ‘Alice in Wonderland’ when they celebrate 'un-birthdays' at the mad tea party.

Alice cried out in despair again, “Oh! What - in your madness have you done to me?”

Because of course, Alice knew more than she had confessed to Riddle thus far.

“I have done nothing to you and certainly I am NOT mad. This is your own doing, as you are subject to fate. You were dealt a bad hand.”

Alice cried more. She hated the way he said those hurtful words, he didn't care that her future looked bleak. If she’d not been bound she would have kicked and screamed.

Riddle returned to the skulls consorting with them again. It reminded Alice of those that conversed with the likes of evil spirits. It was low work of the very dynamics of death itself, given it could pinpoint her own death. But Alice wasn’t sure she could believe it.

And finally she revealed it. “I was cursed! You cursed me. I know it.”

Riddle turned round abruptly, startled. But the discomfort returned to calm and then a mixture of amusement with derision. “Now we get to it! I did indeed curse your mind, your body and perhaps infiltrated your soul.”

“WHY?!”

“Daughter of Eve, this was to absolve you of your mother’s sins. Evelyn was an immoral woman.”

“You lied, Master! It is the curse that will shorten my life. It wasn’t my fate. You intervened. I was meant to live longer.”

“The purpose of the Clitordectomy Curse is to deny the female pleasure. The Witch is denied pleasure, and it saps her magical powers. And yes, it will curtail your longevity.”

Alice was reminded of Glinda from the Wizard of Oz who told the villain, ‘Begone! You have no power here!’ And so she said, “You have no power over life and death! Certainly not that of my own.”

“Power is thine very essence. And if I seek to control yours, so be it. One day, on mere whim, if so be it...I will have the power over who lives and dies! Do you understand? It shall be I that chooses who will die! Do you understand me now?!"

Alice could not answer. All that could be seen was that he looked particularly proud now.

“The skulls hold a power over your bodily vessel. Because you are subject to fate, long since predetermined in the stars…. Has not your Astronomy lessons shown this to you?”

Alice considered for a moment.

“You may never know the universe’s secrets,” and Riddle’s dark eyes gleamed with ferocious intelligence. “Just try and contemplate infinity! It is impossible.”

The workings of his mind provided Alice no comfort. In the throes of passion, Alice writhed to break free. “LIES!” she screeched viciously and yet Alice deep down knew this man was evil, and was telling the truth, but twisting it so that it would be more painful.

The formerly sentient cords instantly awakened. Like a noose they tightened over her throat.

Riddle did not hesitate at rescuing. He released the Devil’s Snare and there was a look of sympathy. But Alice did not believe it. It was an act.

Too soon he saw the awareness that this person knew his sympathy wasn't genuine. So he laughed, chuckling mirthlessly. "LIES! Truth, Miss Alice. I am telling you the truth."

Alice huddled on the ground, frowning up, crinkling her brow with deep thought. She massaged her arms where Devil’s Snare had gripped like a vice. She went to the desk and gathered her school stuff.

"How I pity fools who prescribe to religion. Finally you have reached the doubting of your faith. The point of no return....You will soon see MY way of doing things as the truth. Magic is something we can control. Magic is authentic power. Religion was imposed on you, dear Alice! It is merely an outside source, and a lie. But my magic is an endless supply of inner power that none may surpass!"

“I have come to doubt things," admitted Alice. "You've grown on me!" She screamed bitterly. "We really know no more than before you used the skulls,” said Alice sulkily. “And you are a liar, Master Riddle!”

“Death Charts do not breed lies, girl! Nebulous ambiguities. That is how magic and in particular Astronomy operates. No I cannot prove it right. Nor can I prove it wrong. Witches and Wizards must choose what they believe. That is all there is, and I am not saying I believe the Astrolabe practice.”

“But if it is neither right nor wrong - On such a premise you can think anything possible!”

“I see you are opening your mind a wee bit! Yes, that is the nature of Divination. Even in the Dark Arts. I do not testify Divination a viable subject, but neither shall I say it is false. There is nothing to believe, and ironically this choice has always vested me with the most power! The fate of the world…The world is at my feet!

“And so, Alice you are left with more questions than answers regarding your fate. One can never understand the unknown, that is why it is feared and rightly so.”


***


Another day not far in the future turned out unusually creepy.

Alice worked by candlelight as usual, but Riddle had full reign over light with the Hand of Glory.

It started with a cold draft in the room, picking up like wind. The pages of Alice’s books turned of their own volition. It was freezing as if dementors were nigh.

“ARRGH! ARRGH!”

Screams. Riddle was actually screaming like in agony. Alice near jumped out of her skin, but at the sight of him she dare not offer aid.

He was standing between dark and light, great hunks of light falling away off his robes. It was like a serpent shedding it's skin.

The wind whipped some more. In lurid, scorching light that near blinded the eyes, Alice thought it like the sun. In the light she saw a grotesque grin. He was happy in suffering.

What was it doing for him? She did not know it was a step to immortality, involving horcruxes.

Eclipsed by two suns of light, Riddle stood like a shadow between them. The asymmetrical pieces of light broke off and split. It was a part of his soul.

From Alice’s perspective this was evidence of demonic activity. His soul was doomed, she thought. She did not know how close she was to getting it right.

It was a supernatural scene. The screams reverberating off the walls, and they echoed for a long moment, yet Riddle was no longer screaming. But he stood oddly motionless, suspended in time like a moon eclipsing two suns of light.


NOTE: In the next chapter, I show the canon event of Tom Riddle getting the info off the Grey Lady. Then we will be back to smut, I promise.