A/N: At the end of this chapter, there's a reference to the Gemini coven, which is a witch-thing from "The Vampire Diaries". In the series, the Gemini had lots of powerful grimoires filled with spells and it would not be very surprising if certain magical families knew about them.
Disclaimer: I do not own "Harry Potter", only my OC's.
Warnings: torture (Cruciatus and aggressive Legilimency).
She attempted to move her wrists, biting her lip when she felt a burning sensation on her fingers that forced her to stop. Despite only 20 minutes had passed since waking up, it was as if she had been inside the office for hours; tied up to a chair with wrists restrained by magic and whose bonds would only disappear on his command, which wouldn't happen at any time soon, she had to admit this was quite the predicament.
Her eyes slightly widened as the word "Legilimens" left Riddle's lips for the fourth time.
He was scanning through her memories again. To her, it was like crashing into a wall followed by suffocating due to intense heat, showed by her transpiration and too accelerated heartbeats. As usual, she refused to answer his questions, which made his "sorting of memories" more painful. Then, she felt him lingering on a memory: herself exploring the secret library and finding an old book with a black cover. A second later, the scene was replaced by Azure opening the chest and finding a familiar cup.
"Where is the Hufflepuff Cup?" He ordered, grabbing tightly her forehead. "Answer me honestly."
"Gone...stolen," she replied, struggling to say the words, voice and eyes showing signs of fatigue.
"You lie. Crucio!"
She felt her body going into spasms, a violent shock passing through her entire being as she gasped for air, grey and gold eyes adopting a fearful look. Riddle's facial muscles remained the same but his eyes told a different story: he was enjoying making her suffer.
"It's the truth; the Cup has disappeared from the Ashlane Manor since this Christmas!"
She felt him inside of her memories again, now hearing her thoughts on the thief named Fletcher.
"Who is this Fletcher?"
She shook her head and grimaced when the grip on her mind became stronger.
"Answer me, Ashlane."
"Why do you care about the Cup, Riddle?" She demanded furiously, finally pushing him out of her head. "It's my family's to keep, not yours! The Hufflepuff Cup belongs to my Ancestress Hildagarde!"
"The one who was in love with Salazar Slytherin, the greatest of the Four Hogwarts Founders?" He scoffed, not hiding the disgust at the word "love". "The Parseltongue Master who rightfully believed that only Pure-bloods could be accepted as students?" His low voice resonated in her mind once more, making her shut her eyes.
Come on, you stupid shields! Don't let him in!
"Occlumency? Did you really think you could use it against me? The cold laugh that followed made her very uneasy; in practical terms, what she knew of the difficult Art of occluding one's mind amounted to nothing when compared to a wizard who had been polishing these skills since he placed a foot inside this school. "A weakling like you?"
Or...was it even before that?
"If I say it myself, Ashlane, Legilimency has always been one of my...personal tastes."
Azure's suspicions were true; the twit – she instantly felt the impact of a strong backhand on her cheek – had been using her as a "lab rat" for five years.
But why the bloody hell are you so fixated with my mind?
"Your memories," he answered. She imagined punching that smirk off his face. "You knew things that greatly interested me...like the Chamber of Secrets. Of course, it was not too hard to find books on the matter, but since the Chamber is mostly regarded as a myth I had to make sure I could find material proof of its existence. It took me five entire years to learn everything that I needed to know about it." He patted her head mockingly. "All thanks to you."
Her unnerving stare was met with another backhand, this time opening her lower lip. She spat blood on the floor, turning her head to face Riddle, who grabbed the collar of her uniform, amused dark brown orbs staring into her furious mismatched ones.
A rush of resolve appeared. Resolve against Riddle's mad plan. "I...will not let you open it. Deep down, you know that Pure-blood supremacy is not the answer for us wizards and witches! Our school...Hogwarts stands up for co-harmony among students. What you are proposing goes against this very same institution's creed! Worse, it's against the Law!"
"You really are a disgrace of a Slytherin, Ashlane."
She scowled at him. "If by that you mean that I am a sane person, then I will gladly be known as a disgrace in the conservative and hateful Pure-blood magical community. Blacks, Lestranges, Malfoys, all of those that belong to the Dark Alliance mean nothing to me. Do keep in mind that some of us don't believe in the supremacy of one or few over everyone."
"That 'Acceptance First and Foremost' nonsense?"
"It's no longer nonsense when there's a war against a madman who thinks the opposite, quite like you, Riddle," she argued, her voice calm and steady. "Acceptance, cooperation and friendship are more needed than ever. But unlike him, you're worse: Grindelwald may be a dangerous wizard, but he does not fight solely for his interests. He is a revolutionary whose ideas are rooted in the constant prejudicing and persecuting non-magicals did, especially during the Dark Ages. You? You're just a boy. A boy who hero-worships an insane man who is dead since the 12th century."
Riddle gritted his teeth and prodded her chin with his wand, eyes brimming with rage. "I will become greater than anyone. Greater than Salazar Slytherin and Grindelwald! When the Chamber of Secrets is opened and mark my words, it will happen very soon, this school shall be purged of the unworthy!"
"Before you do it, you will be expelled, Riddle. I will tell everyone about your 'great plan'!"
In response, Riddle's wand conjured a red flash, the sensation of being electrocuted as painful as it had been the first time. "No, you will not," he said calmly, one cold hand on her cheek, mockingly caressing it. "You will assist me, Ashlane. Do you know why? Because you descend from the noble Salazar Slytherin's bloodline. We are relatives."
"NO! WE ARE NOT!" She protested, the horror and disbelief clear in her eyes as she shook her head violently. She was not related to Slytherin, no one in her family was related to that vile man, the man who Hildagarde loved when she probably was just being manipulated by him.
Bathilda Bagshot's Hogwarts: a History described Salazar Slytherin as a powerful wizard who had married another Pure-blood witch and bore her a son, beginning a bloodline. And Helga's daughter Hildagarde knew about it. She had written about it in those letters Azure had found in the Ashlane Manor. Despite later being married to another, she fantasized about having Slytherin's child, how important this was for one thousand years later...
"I don't believe that for a second!" Azure exclaimed, the defiant look returning to her eyes, albeit it looked far weaker than the previous times.
"You're a fool if you think you're just of Hildagarde's blood."
Suddenly, she began hearing a horrifying sibilant sound that seemed to put her in some kind of trance, the sound eventually becoming vowels and consonants.
"This is the proof that you, like me, descend from the Great Salazar Slytherin."
To her, this sounded like English but she knew it was a different language: Parseltongue.
"No, no, no!" She unwillingly felt her mouth open and, as she answered in the same language, tears were streaming down her face. "It cannot be!"
"We share the same blood, Ashlane. You are the Heiress of Slytherin."
"No, I cannot be. I won't be. I will leave the school before I become your accomplice!"
"You speak as if I am giving you a choice," he hissed, the sound ringing through her head. "Deny all you want but it will be useless..."
A sickly big pair of yellow eyes was in front of her subconscious, blood and a black liquid flowing down her hands. It was then replaced by another that made her shiver as she sensed its Aura: a huge cave with a gargantuan statue of an old man whose hair could be confused with snakes, snake-shaped stone pillars and, lying on the cold ground, was the mangled, bloody body of a petite figure: a young girl with twin-tails and glasses, unseeing eyes and lips opened in a frozen scream...someone she knew too well.
"Please don't kill her! She is an innocent, Riddle!" Azure's desperate hisses only amused him more, his hand casually placing one loose strand of her hair back in its place.
"You should be happy, Ashlane; I am doing you a favour by eliminating that annoying little girl."
"R...Ri-"
"Not Riddle. The name 'Tom Riddle' means nothing to me." He grabbed Azure by her hair, tightly pulling it. "Lord Voldemort! That is the only name they will ever know, the name of the one who successfully defied the Law of Life and Death!"
She shouted in her mind to not fall asleep because if she did she would forget. Again. But her traitorous body didn't obey. As dark spots blurred her vision, Azure looked at him one last time and shivered at the sheen of murder in his eyes.
"One last thing," he whispered maliciously, leaning his lips against her ear. "That Mudblood will be the first to die and you will be there to watch it."
"NO! I have to warn someone! I have to-"Azure's mouth and eyes closed and with that, her body went limp, the magic bonds disappearing from her wrists as she fell unceremoniously on the floor.
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"Foolish woman," he sneered after erasing her memory as usual. She had believed him! He almost pitied her...no, he didn't. Though, the whole thing was very amusing.
She hadn't realized that he had manipulated her mind the second she woke up in his office, well down until the part where she had spoken Parseltongue, which was in his personal opinion, a nice touch to compliment the "Heiress of Slytherin" revelation.
As if this Blood-traitor could be descended from Salazar Slytherin. No, he had only implanted the thought in her head as a way of slowly destructing her, endangering her sanity and damaging her Aura Sight beyond repair.
If she tried to remember or say anything to anyone, a curse would take effect.
This time, he had learned much more than usual; Ashlane had shown him two very important things: the fact that he could overcome Death and that the stolen Helga Hufflepuff's Cup could be in the hands of someone named Fletcher, a cup that would serve his purposes perfectly...but that would have to wait.
He needed to find a way of neutralizing all threats to the Serpent of Slytherin, namely the rooster's crowing. Perhaps Avery would be useful for the task; his "friend" was good with memory Charms and had quite the interest in the Dark Arts. For instance, one of the Gemini coven's forbidden spells that had controlled the Fortescue girl's movements, causing her to strangle the Mudblood, one of Ashlane's weaknesses. The other was that dim-witted Hagrid...
A frown appeared on his face. He was currently threading into thin ice; while opening the Chamber of Secrets was his priority, he had to do it in a way that would not expose him as the Heir of Slytherin and endangering the carefully crafted mask of the "model student" persona he had created.
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