Chapter 6
She waited him for him in the entrance hall, wrapped up tightly in a travelling cloak of crimson to protect her from the harsh wind and rain that raged on outside the Manor. Footsteps sounded behind her and she turned to see Riddle descending the grand, curving staircase in a swish of his long black travelling cloak.
When he reached her he did nothing but observe her with eyes as cold as the weather outside - but Estela couldn't help but notice the scent of ink, soap and fire smoke he brought with him. He didn't speak a word to her as he approached, and didn't even properly meet her eyes as he held out his arm and silently willed her to take it. She did. And moments later they were swirling through a void of flashing lights, her body being pushed and pulled in all directions, before her feet finally met solid ground.
She took a deep breath as she steadied herself. Estela had never liked apparating, it messed with her mind and made her feel sick to her stomach. When she'd fully adjusted, and her brain had finally stopped spinning, she looked around at the strange place in which she was standing.
She made a mental note of Tom who was standing just to her left, his bright eyes scanning the area as though it were a battlefield. Wherever it was that Tom had brought her was a strange place indeed, and from the cautious way Tom was moving and the strange feeling swirling around in her gut, she thought that this was a place she should be very wary of.
The scene surrounding her was damp and gloomy, and the smell of leaves and mud was extremely potent. She looked up to find no sky, but rather a ceiling of trees that prohibited any sort of light from breaking through their branches. They created a shadowy bleakness that hung over the forest-like place, and there was an eeriness in the air that sent a shiver crawling down her spine like a spider.
Despite the lack of light, various plants and flowers seemed to be emitting a faint glow from the trees, grass and bushes that encompassed the clearing. It was strange. Everything seemed to glow. Bizarre-looking flowers of a glowing electric blue, radiant berries of neon red, even the dark trees seemed to be emitting some kind of green-ish/brown glow. She looked at Tom and only just noticed the way his skin was shining white like snow on a bright winter's morning. But his eyes, Merlin's beard his eyes. They looked otherworldly. Even in natural light they were striking, but now... Now they were like two utterly captivating portals to some distant land of pure ice and blizzards. She didn't know whether they were beautiful or terrifying. Probably a mixture of both.
A thick mist lay across the damp and mossy ground, making it hard for her to see her feet and where she was stepping, and glowing fireflies flickered around in the heavy air. She squinted around the darkness, and couldn't help but feel that nothing was quite as it seemed, and was strangely comforted to know that Tom was close by.
He inclined his head in an order to follow him, and they slowly and silently pushed their way through a barrier of thick leaves and bushes into a second clearing, where the dampness and murkiness of the forest suddenly mixed with the smell of incense and smoke.
It took her a while to notice the small, wooden house before her. It seemed to be clinging onto the trees that surrounded it. It was a sprawling wooden shack covered in brambles and vines that slithered their way down the rickety looking wood. A faint radiance cast its self onto the damp ground beneath their feet from the open windows of the shack and Estela swallowed hard as she looked at the way it seemed to blend into the trees. The sound of faint whispering and humming could be heard somewhere between the trees, as well as the sound of the strange little trinkets and doodahs hanging from the roof of the shack that were clinking softly in the oddly warm breeze.
Her stomach twisted as though it was warning her not to take a single step closer, but Tom had begun to move towards the shack and was already at the foot of the unstable looking wooden steps leading up to it. She hesitantly followed, quickening her pace to stay close to him, and when she reached the porch, she noticed that some of the small hanging items that had been making a sound were skulls - skulls hanging by a line of thin and tattered rope as they knocked together in the gentle breeze.
She gaped, freezing where she stood to stare up at the sight. She was about to point it out to Tom, but he was already through the door. She swore under her breath and reluctantly followed him in.
Candles. So many candles everywhere she looked. They were on the floor, lining the entirety of the narrow wooden corridor that led on to a single room before them; they were on the walls and the ceiling, and there seemed to be a candle on every single table and shelf and anywhere that could possibly hold one.
They peered through the door at the end of the corridor and saw a circular room before them. The whole place smelled strongly of incense and smoke, and the air was dense with something that made Estela's eyes feel extremely heavy.
The way Tom moved and scanned his surroundings reminded her of the time they went to the Gaunt shack, where Tom had been utterly fearless against his crazed knife-wielding uncle. Not a trace of panic seemed to have the nerve to touch him. Here, he was in control. Here, nothing could stand in his way.
As they entered the circular room, Estela didn't think she'd seen so many candles in her life. Well, except maybe for the ceiling of the Great Hall at Hogwarts, but this room certainly rivalled it. This time, every single candle was black, and each one lit wit a slow burning flame swaying gently.
The room itself was a teeming clutter of many, many objects that didn't seem to have a rightful place, but had merely been placed wherever had been convenient at the time. Cages hung from the roof of the wooden shack and shelves lined the walls which were full to the brim of faded books, jars full of various unknown substances, herbs, spices and... bones. A flight of narrow, wooden stairs led up higher into the wooden shack, and faint clinking noises could be heard from up there, too.
Estela looked towards one of the open windows, just as a means to offer herself a sense of security – a way out if needed - and she noticed a large green vine from the forest was slowly making its way in. She gulped, and had been utterly absorbed in her surroundings until a distant, dream-like voice met her ears.
"Tom Riddle."
It was a strange voice that seemed to carry its way down from upstairs. Although the way it echoed around her made it seem as though it was coming from right behind her.
"You have returned. Come," the voice spoke again.
Estela looked to Tom who held a single finger to his lips to instruct her to remain quiet, and mouthed the words 'stay there'. She shot him a quick look that was supposed to say 'don't you dare leave me here, Tom Riddle!' but he didn't seem to understand her message as he ascended the stairs towards the voice.
As she watched him leave, she didn't know which option she would rather most: that Tom left her here - alone - in this creepy, candle-lit wooden room, or that she followed him up the stairs towards an unknown, eerie voice. As she thought about it, she decided that she preferred the first option, and so she stood awkwardly in the middle of the wooden room, being sure to stay far away from any of the windows where the weirdly sentient vines from outside were slithering their way in and out of the cabin.
***
Tom made his way up the stairs, somehow managing to move soundlessly along the rickety wooden floors before he came to a halt before the table.
The room was almost identical to the one downstairs, except this time there was a woman sitting behind a cluttered desk, staring at him with eyes of amethyst that shone brighter than the flames of the many, many candles that surrounded them. Riddle stopped before her, his head almost grazing the roof as he stood with a natural confidence.
She had cat-like eyes that were heavily defined with black and purple to match her patched-up robes of plum. She had an equally cat-like smile and straight black hair that made its way down her back like a sleek, shiny curtain. Beautiful. But full of deceit.
The seer looked up from her cards, the deck as dark as the nightshade plants that grew around the cabin, embossed with ancient golden runes and swirling strands and diminutive green specks that twinkled in the glow of the many floating candles around the room.
She beckoned him forwards with a finger covered in rings that clinked against the wooden table every now and then along with her long, red nails.
"Tom Riddle," she purred in a voice thick with a heavy East-European accent as Tom took a seat opposite Cassandra Vablatsky, one of the most celebrated seers of her age.
"Last time I saw you we finished our meeting on a slight misunderstanding, did we not? Last time, you came to me showing doubt and disbelief in my powers, and you left with even more. As usual, your corrupted soul weighed its self against my talent. Your blindness for your own authority left you enraged. And yet, here you are." She smiled wickedly, as though she had gotten the better of him. "Back again in the hopes I will reveal your fate, despite the way you insulted my gifts last time."
Tom's gaze of ice set on her own, though he seemed utterly unfazed by her condescending smile and tone of disdain. "Then let us hope that this meeting is more successful. For your sake."
The seer's amethyst eyes brushed their way along his face without so much as a single trace of fear, and her head gave the tiniest twitch as she looked right through him.
Then she paused in a way that made Tom's alertness heighten to the max.
"Ah," she whispered in a voice like smoke. "There is something different this time. This time, you have someone you care about." Her entire face gleamed. "This time you have a weakness."
Under the table, Tom clenched his fists.
"The girl." The seer said, louder this time as she sat back in her chair. "She is here. Bring her to me."
Tom weighed the possibilities in his mind. He didn't want Estela to suffer the seer's obnoxiousness, he could barely handle it himself. But more so, he was afraid that the seer would tell her something he didn't want her to hear. But Cassandra's gaze became more demanding, and so he reluctantly turned his head and called for her.
Within moments, Estela was coming up the stairs and was making her way across the room towards them. Her head was held high as Tom noticed her looking at Vablatsky with careful observation as she took in every detail. It was as though she was immediately classing the Seer as an opponent.
"Estela Markorp. We meet at last." She looked Estela up and down for a moment - examing her - before her gaze quickly shot towards Tom. "I would like to speak with her. Alone."
Tom sat up in his seat, she was cutting his patience into nothing but a thin line that was threatening to snap, but his words were calm, yet sharp, when he answered. "I brought her here like you asked, and in return you swore to reveal my fate. You will not break our deal."
The seer's cat-like mouth spread into a smile. "And reveal your fate I shall, young Lord. But the key to your future rests in her, not in you. Your fractured soul is far too black and shadowed even for my powers. And your mind is too conceited and proud to open up to such magic."
Tom's face was eerily calm as he stared at her in a way that would make anyone else stutter and shake under his intensity. He was sitting in a way that was much too still so that it seemed almost unnatural, as though the world had slowed down around him and motion was too weak to affect him. It was evident that he had no intention of leaving like the Seer has asked.
He did not move a muscle, and the seer glowered at him. "If you want to know, Tom Riddle, then I must speak with her."
Tom glanced at Estela briefly, who was standing fixed in her spot. He could sense the uncertainty that surrounded her, though she was holding herself well, he had to admit. She didn't seem to be letting a trace of the fear he knew writhed within her show. But it was her eyes that gave it away. Always her eyes. The eyes he knew better than anybody else's. Grey and glowing like moonlit mist under the powers of this strange place, they were pleading, pleading for him not to leave her alone with this woman.
But he did.
***
Estela watched him leave, shifting on the spot after he was out of sight.
"Sit, my child." The seer crooned from behind the table.
"Why must you speak with me alone?" Estela asked, mentally mapping-out her surroundings in case she needed to escape. In case anything went wrong. She didn't know this woman, she had no idea who she was nor what kind of powers this strange place held. But she sensed something different here - a kind of power that hummed through the leaves outside that she had never before experienced.
"Because Riddle is corrupt and blinds my vision." She said with a lazy wave of her jeweled hand, as though she was trying to wipe away his presence. "You, however," she began, her feline features twitching. "You have a light in you. A light that enables me to see as clear as day." Estela didn't answer. "You've been dreaming, yes?"
Estela furrowed a brow. "Dreaming?"
"Yes, dreaming. Your dreams tell you things that are to happen. You see things that are to come, do you not?" The seer leaned back in her chair and thrummed her long nails against the wooden table. "A strange talent for a girl who does not possess the Sight. Tell me, what have you been dreaming of, stea?"
She paused at how the Seer referred to her as 'stea'. She didn't know what it meant, but it bugged her for some reason. She returned to the Seer's question and thought back in confusion. She did have strange dreams at times, especially during her time at Hogwarts. Dreams of the white-skinned man with glowing red eyes. Dreams of Lord Voldemort.
She wondered. How could she have dreamed of Lord Voldemort before she had seen Dumbledore's memory of him in the future?
"I dream of him," She said quietly. "And of what he will become."
Cassandra nodded slowly, spinning one of her many jeweled rings around her finger. "And what do you see?"
She considered the question. What had she seen? She had seen herself trapped, chained to a stone wall as Lord Voldemort approached her with an echo of gut-wrenching laughter. She had seen the diadem - seen where it would be hidden – she had dreamed of the Chamber of Secrets before she'd even set foot in it. She'd seen a room of dead bodies. She'd dreamed of herself standing beside Tom as she called herself the Dark Lady. She'd dreamed of a cave, a black book and fire. Lots of fire.
She repeated this to the seer who contemplated her with her gleaming amethyst eyes. "You do not think this is strange?"
Estela shook her head. "They were only dreams. Well, most of them nightmares."
"Wrong." The prophet said almost angrily. "They are signs. Your dreaming self seeks to tell you something your waking mind will not hear. And you should listen."
"I haven't had those kinds of nightmares in weeks." Estela informed her.
"No," she said. "That's because you are living them."
Silence fell between them as the black candles seemed to flicker more violently. And she could have been imagining it, but she was sure a fresh breeze blew its way into the room, bringing with it the smell of the cold wind and the chilling night outside. Estela's gaze fell for a moment to Cassandra's magnificent deck of cards atop the desk - black and beautiful - all different types of ancient runes glistening in the candlelight - the mark of Merlin, too, Estela noticed.
"What do they mean?" Estela asked hesitantly, referring to her dreams, assuring herself that this was all a hoax, all just one big scam.
"Only you can tell. But I would say they are warnings. You care for him. I can see it in you as clear as crystal. You may not listen to your dreams, child, but I ask you to listen to me." She leaned closer and her expression became serious. "He can offer you many things but love isn't one of them. When the time comes for him to choose between you and his power, you will be no more to him than a particle of dust in a wind that carries thousands. Now for once in your life, be a sensible girl and run away."
She froze, feeling a second gust of warm wind make its way around the room, rattling the candles and her spine. And however much she resented him, however much she despised him, he was the last person in the world she wanted to get away from.
Cassandra tilted her head to one side as a sly grin swept onto her plum lips. It was as though she could see right through her, read every single one of her thoughts as they passed, and despite the strength of Estela's barriers, despite her Occlumency skills, she was sure she was reading every one of them – picking them apart as though they were nothing more than petals on a flower.
"Ah," she whispered. "You're a foolishly clever girl. You play with fire. And you play with fire because you want to get burned. You run through the shadows because you want them to consume you." She laughed, but there was no humour in the sound. "You yearn for what you once had. You want it again."
Then the seer threw her head backwards and let out a shrill laugh that froze Estela's blood.
"What a rare sight this is." Cassandra said as she wiped away tears of laughter and Estela felt her stomach curl. "What a tragic story you live, my child. The story of forbidden love – unrequited and lovely – deadly and consuming. Oh how I pity you. You're a clever girl, I can see it, but oh how you've made yourself a fool for the devil."
The words hit her like stone and made her entire body stiffen as the anger boiled within her. "A fool?" Estela spat. "I may be a fool in your eyes, but I'm here for a reason. A reason that goes far beyond your petty magic tricks."
Cassandra sneered. "And what reason is that? To drag him away from the darkness that consumes him? To save him from the fate you know awaits?" She paused, her eyes glimmering. "To win back the boy who still holds your heart?"
Estela knew the seer was trying to make her snap, trying to play her, trying to get a kick out of her lashing out. So she remained calm and still as a threatening smile graced her lips. "No." She said in a voice like velvet. "I'm here to ruin him."
"To ruin him?" The seer grinned delightfully, her face alive with amusement. "I find it sad how you not only lie to me, but also to yourself. You know what you want, Estela Markorp, yet you try to hide it. You try to turn it into something else because you're ashamed of the monster that your heart is drawn to."
"What I want is to rid him of his darkness - help him if I can - you're right. But what you fail to see, no matter how many all-seeing eyes you may possess, is that I'm willing to take down anyone who tries to stop me. I'm willing to stop this nonsense even if it means I have to tear apart his Order myself. What you fail to realise is that I know the secret to his defeat."
"You think you will be the one to stop him?" Cassandra asked amusedly. "No, my child, the stars have other plans for you. And you think I don't know of the boy's quest for immortality? I know of his dark and terrible dealings, his acts of such evil that I dare not even speak of them myself. And I know you're looking for a way to reverse them."
Estela watched the seer, keeping her face calm and blank. She knew of Tom's Horcruxes? How? Tom would never tell her. Had she read his mind? Or perhaps hers.
"There is another," she seer crooned, running her fingers along the golden runes embossed on her cards. "Destined to rise from the ashes of thousand-year-old stars. You will not be the one to defeat the Dark Lord, my child."
Cassandra's previous words echoed in Estela's mind. I know you're looking for a way to reverse them. "And you know a way they can be reversed?" Estela asked casually, not specifically referring to the Horcruxes in case the seer was bluffing.
"There is only one way." She said distantly, her eyes landing on a spot in the far end of the room where they stayed, fixed, as she spoke. "The only way the terrible spell can be undone, is for Riddle to feel remorse. Only then can his soul be saved."
Remorse? Estela thought. That was the way to undo a Horcrux? That was the way, the only possibility, for his soul to be mended? It sounded easy. Far too easy. Or at least it would be easy if it was anyone other than Tom. For not once in the entirety of the time she'd known him had she seen him feel remorse for anything. She remembered the hunger in his eyes when he framed Morfin and set out to kill his parents, there was no trace of regret, not a single emption except a pure and throbbing hatred. He would never feel remorse because he didn't care. About anyone.
Except...
"The prophecy about Tom," Estela said, snapping free from the thoughts that now gripped her mind with talon-like sharpness. "What is it?"
The seer looked up to the wooden roof above them, but it was as though she was looking beyond it, up into the sky above and out into the stars.
"I have not been able to see his fate clearly in the past. It was shrouded by misery and destruction. But the Sight is in your favour, Estela Markorp, after months of shadow and mist that clouded the young Lord's fate, with your presence it is lifting."
Cassandra twitched ever so slightly as she stared at Estela. She was still for a moment as they both contemplated each other, but they the seer's body began to quake, her head falling limp on her shoulder as she shook, the table between them banging on the wooden floor as her body moved uncontrollably - as though some external force was willing her limbs to flail and contort in every direction. Estela stood abruptly and backed towards the door, but it slammed shut before she reached it.
Her heart was in her chest and her lungs had forgotten how to function as she looked towards the open window, but it too was blown shut as a gust of wind forced its way into the room, blowing its way through her hair and extinguishing every single candle as it did so.
Silence.
Darkness.
The room was black and everything had stopped shaking. There was not a single movement. Not a single flicker of light. No noise could be heard except for the beating of her heart and the sound of her own heavy breaths. She fumbled for her wand in her cloak, but froze when a pair of glowing, amethyst lights appeared out of the darkness before her. Then she realised they were Cassandra's eyes, empty and luminous.
Then came the voice that twisted and wrapped its way around her mind like seaweed – liquescent and slippery as the sound met her ears.
"It shall be on the day that the sky is alight that the broken man shall mark an endless night.
Trust the one with the silver light, for it is with them you must unite.
As black clouds roar with success, fire will burn against darkness.
The one they fear shall be betrayed, as an age of flame fight for those who are afraid.
Rivers shall flow with the blood of his foes, and only the one with the key can oppose.
A desperate man shall betray the wise, which will bring about a false demise.
On the bleak night of all saints eve, grief will come as he sets out to achieve.
Body will be torn from soul, and bring with it a time of false control.
As darkness rises once more, a new bond shall usher forth a second age of war."
Slowly, as the haunting voice faded and Estela regained herself, the black candles began to reignite one by one. And that's when Estela saw Cassandra, slumped over on the table in a pool of her own blood.
Authors notes: Hello, everyone!
So what did you think of this chapter? I have to say I really enjoyed writing it, like damn.
Oh and if anyone wants to try and decipher the prophecy, I'll give you like 10,0000 points if you get it right!!
Let me know what you think, and as always, thanks for reading, commenting and voting and until next time, nox.