Poison A Tom Marvolo Riddle Fanfiction completed

Chapter Nine - Agony

For the rest of the holidays Tom had tried to find as much   information on Horcruxes as he could possibly gather. He grew more and more convinced that a Horcrux was exactly what he needed. When they were back at Hogwarts he impatiently waited for the first chance to ask   Slughorn what he knew about Horcruxes and their creation. He didn't have   to wait for long. The third week after school had started, Slughorn   hosted a welcome party for his Slug Club. Tom made sure to be the last   guest to leave the party.

After his conversation with Slughorn Tom closed the office door behind him and started walking down the corridor.

"So you really asked him, didn't you?" Cassiopeia's voice echoed through the empty corridor.

Tom stopped in his tracks and turned around. Slowly, he moved towards where Cassiopeia was standing in the shadows of an alcove.

"I wouldn't know what you are talking about, would I?" He asked calmly, his face showing no sign of emotion.

"You  don't need to bother with the masquerade, there's no one here  but me."  She hissed. "I can't believe you really asked him. Ripping your  soul  in so many parts is going to destroy you. No one, not even you, is   going to stand that. There must be other means to gain immortality. You   can't do that."

Tom took a step forward. His face showed no  emotion and neither did  his voice. Nevertheless, she could sense the  subtle threat when he said,  "Don't make me regret that I told you."

She  looked into his eyes, searching for any sign of emotion. When she   found none, she suppressed a sigh and bit her lip. She left the alcove.   When she was right next to him, she whispered, "I won't get in your   way, don't worry. It's your choice; it always is."

Her footsteps  echoed through the corridor and slowly died away when  she rounded the  corner. Tom stared after her. For a second he wondered  if she might be  right. Then he shook his head and went back to his dorm.

When  Cassiopeia crawled into her bed that night, she felt  crestfallen. She  was convinced that she would lose Tom to his striving  for immortality  someday. She had spent hours on end in the library  trying to come up  with anything that would keep Tom from going through  with his plan of  creating Horcruxes. She had read countless books to  provide him with a  different way of immortality. She desperately wanted  to make him  abandon his Horcrux making. But she had come up with  nothing. There  seemed to be no other means than Horcruxes to gain true  immortality.  Cassiopeia silently sobbed and drew her blanket closer.

She had  vehemently cursed the day when she had shown Tom the  paragraph on  Horcruxes at least a million times knowing that without  having read  that paragraph Tom would be much further away from any  possibility of  making a Horcrux. Cassiopeia felt torn. She really wanted  Tom to get  what he craved so desperately. After all, that was why she  had shown  him the book in the first place. Nevertheless, she dreaded the   consequences that would doubtlessly come with splitting his soul. After   all the research they had done in the last weeks, Cassiopeia felt that   the soul was a very risky thing to temper with. She believed that the   soul was the true core of any living being. After all, it was the soul   that made the ghosts being ghosts and kept them attached to the world   after their death. However, somehow, Tom seemed to completely ignore   this. He denied the soul to be of any significance. He was convinced   that he was so powerful and strong that splitting his soul wouldn't have   any effect on him. With horror Cassiopeia remembered the night when  Tom  had told her about his idea of splitting his soul more than once in   order to gain absolute immortality. While he had talked about the   invincibility he would gain through the creation of various Horcruxes,   Cassiopeia had felt sick. It hadn't been the thought that Tom would have   to commit many more murders to create those Horcruxes, although deep   inside, she knew that she should honestly be concerned about her   worrisome lack of conscience in regard to Tom's disdain for life. But   she had been much more concerned about what all those splits would do to   Tom. Of course, he had been oblivious to her concern. After their   conversation, Cassiopeia had spent every minute of spare time in the   library, desperately searching for other ways of gaining immortality,   knowing that it was the only way out of this misery. But she had come up   with nothing. She was at a dead end.