Chapter 9
Estela thundered into Tom's rooms with a wild calmness and raging anger mixed up into one dark and dangerous storm. Each move was thunderous as she made towards him, her resentment rising as she saw the smile on his face. That smug, arrogant, triumphant smile. Except this wasn't one of his little smirks - it was wide and gleaming and darkly ferocious.
She had been hoping to make an entrance he would never forget, but the invigorating smile and the mess she was just noticing caught her off guard entirely. Around his chambers, tables and chairs were upturned, books and papers were scattered along the floor, the curtains were torn and ornaments were smashed - and there was Tom, standing in the middle of his destructive rage just grinning.
She glanced around before she raised a brow at him. "Redecorating, are we?"
The way he was standing was as calm and composed as could possibly be. He was still wearing his black travelling cloak and his hair was still swept by the wind. He considered her and as he did so his smile fell and was replaced with a calculating coldness that she was much more accustomed to.
"Everything was too pristine for my liking. I like a little chaos around me." He said smoothly.
She had to force herself to snap back to her fiery anger.
He had hurt her. He had made her feel powerless. He had scared her. And she would not stand for it.
He may be the Lord of this place, but she would bow down to no one.
She stepped towards him. "You like chaos, do you?" she asked in a low tone. "Good. Then you're going to love me."
Her hands made one sudden, powerful swipe in his direction where a pulse of power hit him squarely in the chest, and as it hit, an echoing roar of magic rattled the very air around them.
For a fleeting moment, her victory tasted sweet.
She felt everything around her turn dark as her mind was only focused on him, where he was hunched against the wall. Riddle countered wandlessly, his defence a mirror to her attack, equally charged with emotion. Their magic clashed, a vivid display of the fine line between the admiration and disdain they treaded.
She didn't care. She wanted to hurt him as much as he'd hurt her. She felt the candles around the room flicker and pulse with each step she took towards him, her powers overwhelming her, her heart racing with a deep wrath.
Tom sent a curse in her direction and she felt the frightening strength of its power race towards her, but she brushed it away and sent it crashing into the wall with a crumbling blow. He glared at her, his chest rising up and down. He hadn't expected her to be able to block it, she could see it on his face. She had him pinned in place with nothing but her magic as she stood above him, looking down in disgust.
A cold, spine tingling wind blew into the room, the sound of the torn curtains cracking and whipping as it took them in its strong grasp, the candles extinguishing into nothing but a dead puff of dark smoke.
She crouched down to his height so their gaze was level and she smiled at him chillingly. "Let me make something very clear." She said dangerously. "I will not let you treat me like some worthless servant. I will not give in to your every command. I will not let you scare me and I don't give a damn how powerful you've become. Because I want you to listen to me very carefully when I tell you that you are not my Lord and I am not one of your followers."
She got up, looming over him forebodingly as she raised her hand again to strike. The burning blood pumping through her veins was urging her to do it - to give him what he deserved. To make him feel just half of the pain he'd put her through - not just tonight but from the moment she accepted the task to change him. She wanted him to feel the torture, fear, ache and sadness he put her through. She wanted him to understand how much he'd hurt her in so many different ways just so he'd know she wasn't weak. Pain wasn't a weakness, it was a virtue, and it had made her a stone-hearted warrior.
She'd come back from everything harder, stronger and more powerful. She hadn't let the past make her fragile. No, she'd let it shape her into someone who had built such a thick wall around herself so that nobody would ever break through it and make her feel so many things at once.
And that's when she hesitated.
Her hand was still in mid-air, her palm pulsing with the potential pain she could cause him. She wanted to do it. Oh, how she wanted to hurt him. But this wasn't who she was and this wasn't what she believed. In the moment, she wanted revenge, she wanted to put him through some kind of pain just so he'd know how she felt. But what would that amount to? It would just make things worse. She didn't want to stoop to his level.
She didn't want to become like him.
And so she just stared at him, her lips parting slightly as she looked at herself - really looked at herself and realised how much she had been enjoying herself when she'd struck him down.
And that's when she noticed. Tom was still - he was silent. He was doing nothing to resist. He could have attacked; he could have cursed her - anything - but he didn't. He just sat there, leaning against the wall as he let her strike. And he would have let her strike again. And that's when she lowered her hand and felt her chest slacken as though the molten within her was slowly pouring out.
Estela panted heavily as she ran a hand through her hair, her eyes flicking around the room as they desperately sought a way out. But that's when she heard the voice that brought her back to her senses.
"I'm-" he began, but the words meant to follow failed him.
Estela spun in his direction. "What?"
He was gritting his teeth as he looked at her, his eyes an icy rage as strands of his hair fell over them. He shook his head and his gaze fell to the ground. "Forgive me." He finally said.
The words echoed around her mind and she thought she had imagined them.
Forgive me.
She spun on her heel to face him and stared in awe as though she couldn't believe her ears.
He hadn't fought back, he hadn't argued, he took it all and simply asked for her forgiveness. And she could tell by the way he was clenching his jaw and tightening his fists that he had struggled to say it. And that's how she knew he meant it.
She straightened and backed away, trying to compose herself. "What?"
He flinched, growling under his breath, the words stabbing off his tongue as sharp as knives. "I said forgive me. I didn't mean to hurt you. I didn't want to."
The way he spat out the words as though they were poison made her realise how much effort it took to say it. She eyed him suspiciously, and she didn't accept the apology. She didn't know what to say so she merely nodded as Tom got up off the floor and wiped the dust off his clothes, flinching a bit as though somewhere on his body was hurt.
He waited for a response, and because she was late in giving one, his eyes pierced her like daggers and the warning present in the way he was glaring at her in that moment would have sent any sane person running. It was a look that said, 'push me any further and I'll slit your throat'. How lovely.
"I'm not going to forgive you. Because if I forgive you it will make you think it's ok to do it again." She said, glancing sideways at him. "And I'm not going to ask for your forgiveness, either. Because I wanted to hurt you just now. I was angry. I wanted you to know what it felt like."
Tom ran a hand through his raven hair, loosing a long breath. "Just don't push me too far."
The space between them was charged, their words a dangerous dance on the edge of a knife. "Then see me as an equal," Estela challenged, refusing to back down.
He nodded slowly as he walked towards the window and leaned forwards against the windowsill. Something was strange - something was different. He'd gone from the raging, terrifying Lord Voldemort to a person she recognised. And something within her stirred.
She walked towards him and sighed, glancing up at him curiously. He stared out the window into the sky, his eyes absent and empty, an expression that branded its self into her mind long ago. A candle without a spark, a sky without a sun. Lost and confused.
She hesitated before she spoke. "You're different now. You see it, don't you? You hurt people all the time."
He turned to her. "It's just who I am." He said as he pushed off the windowsill and walked away.
Estela followed. "Not if you don't want it to be. You always have a choice, Tom."
He was pacing, his black cloak trailing behind him, his head bowed low so his hair fell into his face.
"This is my choice. This is who I have to be." He said in a gravely low voice that rumbled in his throat. She narrowed her eyes at him and watched him silently as he continued to pace. His head snapped towards her. "I want you to work with me, so here's your choice: You can continue with your worthless life - leave and go back to Norway - or you can become someone who matters."
She advanced toward him, each step deliberate. "No, Tom, the choice is yours," she asserted, her voice echoing with gravity. "I stand before you with two paths: one where I aid you, and another where I stand against you. It's your call."
He straightened, an intensity igniting in his gaze as he faced her fully. "Work with me," he implored, the words straddling the line between demand and desperation.
She shook her head. "I'll help you," Estela corrected, her resolve firm.
His expression darkened, and in a swift motion, he bridged the gap between them. Towering over her, his presence was both a threat and a welcomed memory. "Why are you expecting me to be someone I'm not?"
She held her ground and looked into those icy eyes properly for the first time since she'd arrived here. "Because I don't think you're as dark as you want people to believe."
His frustration was palpable, a low growl vibrating from his throat as he turned away, the debris of his fury littering his path towards the fireplace.
"Why did you destroy everything?" she probed, her gaze sweeping the chaotic room. Silence met her question. "It was because you were angry with yourself. At what you'd done."
"Enough," he snapped, his back still to her, the word slicing through the air between them.
"We're starting now. Right this moment. Grab a chair - preferably one you haven't broken." She said with a glower.
He turned his head towards her, a look of irritation marring his handsomely dark features as he looked at Estela who had pulled up a chair and gestured for him to sit opposite her. He didn't move as he watched her with questioning annoyance.
"Good day, Mr. Riddle." She said in a falsely polite tone. "I'm Estela, and I'm going to be your saviour."