"You didn't really think you could run from me, did you?" Tom said, panting. His wand was drawn, pointed at her chest. Her heart thumped erratically under the pressure.
There was a ravenous look on Amoret's face as she stared up at him, brutally sharp over her soft features. "Is this how you killed them, too?" Blood trickled down her chin. "Get it over with, then."
He looked more resigned than murderous. "If I wanted you dead, I would have killed you in the lavatory before you woke. I certainly wouldn't have announced myself in the woods or allowed you to put your wand to my neck—not when you're looking at me like that." He seemed to consider her for a moment. "What a mess it might have been, Banks, if you didn't give me a chance to explain myself."
"I don't care. You say I can't kill you because it might hurt me, but you—"
"Don't you understand?" he snapped. "When you took my diary you hadn't yet realized what it was. What it contained. I don't know what intention you had, I don't know what spell you meant to cast, perhaps even a curse—"
"I didn't," Amoret said, and her voice was muffled with blood. "I saw you look at it and there was fear in your eyes. I knew it was important and that's all I knew."
"It doesn't matter. You sought to take it from me without understanding its power."
"Sacrificial magic is unstable? I would have never guessed."
"Clearly."
"Then maybe you should have thought about that before murdering innocent people."
"Maybe you should have stayed in bed."
"Maybe I should reap the consequences and just kill you anyway."
He almost smiled. "If only it were that easy."
She pushed herself up from the muck, Tom's wand now directly between her eyes. Without a second thought, she smacked it to the side. "Don't."
"How brave, Amoret. How daring. Perhaps you were missorted."
She spat the pooling blood from between her teeth and it landed on the heart of his white shirt.
His expression twisted to disdain. Amoret ignored him, limping further up the hill.
She could hear him follow, but there was no chase anymore. They walked in tandem: a steady, brewing hum accompanying each step. The thrill was out of her system. Her body settled from the haze, and she became aware of every thorn-crafted gash, the grass burn along her wrists, the swell that would soon form in her cheek where her gums ached. Amoret looked like she'd just crawled out of her own grave.
"I told you," Tom went on, "you created something beyond what I ever imagined. Dark magic is not forgiving. We are bound together, much as you might resist it."
She laughed dryly. "This was not my doing."
"Then let it be ours and leave it at that," he said, and there was the tense, tight-throated voice he used in prefect meetings occasionally.
She could sound it out well enough: things weren't going his way.
"You can't kill me and I can't kill you," he continued, "I don't particularly care to."
"Then you can bid me your best wishes when the dementors have you."
"You've built a bridge between us, Amoret, and tearing it down will only bring you with it."
The door loomed ahead. Amoret shook her head, but his words burned. There was sense in them; that was what bothered her. Tom Riddle never failed to make the utmost sense. Of course, touching a freshly-made Horcrux with the intention of stealing it, still raw with magic and death—of course it would do something like this. There had been so little research on Horcruxes. If she had known the lengths of what he'd done... maybe she would have accepted that cell in Azkaban. Maybe there wasn't another end.
She kept walking, bumps crawling up her arms, legs sore and wobbly. But Tom Riddle wasn't one to surrender either.
"If you want to see your mother again—"
"Don't," she hissed.
Her chin trembled before a long-brewing onslaught of tears. She refused to cry in front of him. But God, this was so like her. She was still a child outrun by monsters in the woods, as if she could hear the scolding of her sister from the Ministry. She'd spent all her childhood years memorizing and mocking that chiding sound. Some things transcended even the darkest magic.
Tom kept a frustrating calm to his voice. "Don't be a fool, Amoret. You know there's no getting out of this alone."
Unlikely. The door was so close now, so plain she could see the scratches in the wood. Could almost smell the parchment, the drift of Slughorn's potions from down the hall, the satiny brush of her school robes, Nadya and Colette and a train back home... just out of reach.
"You and I—" Tom grabbed her arm and without thinking, Amoret pointed her wand and he gasped, spun, and shrunk down again into a tiny, glittering coin.
"Shut up."
She opened the door and left him gleaming gold in the mud.
[ . . . ] as of this chapter we're at roughly 47,600 words... forty seven thousand... eleven chapters in... this is gonna be a long one / word count.2183
Ups! Tento obrázek porušuje naše pokyny k obsahu. Před publikováním ho, prosím, buď odstraň, nebo nahraď jiným.
