Living The Riddled Life

She ran her forefinger over the dark, leather spine carefully until the book loosened it´s cover and it flipped open. She whispered a cautious `Lumos´ and held the glowing wand tip close to the page as she frowned in concentration, memorizing the contents of the old, worn page. Muttering the ingredients under her breath, she quietly closed the volume and placed it back on the highest shelf, covering her face as the dust settled once more over the usually undisturbed area.

Quickly she scuttled around the storeroom, opening and closing cabinets, urgently reading labels and throwing items into a plastic shopping bag. She dropped the bag in front of a large pewter cauldron (one that would make the least noise when the concoction boiled), tied an old, gray apron around her waist and lit a tame fire beneath the great pot. Pulling a measuring spoon out of a pocket in the apron, she opened jar after jar and poured spoonfuls of various powders and glutinous substances quietly into the cauldron. She bit her lip when the spoon clinked against the jar loudly and when the potion sizzled after a silver liquid was added and was relieved when all that was left for her to do was sit back and wait.

She waited silently, lighting a dim candle and bringing forth a chair. Staring into the simmering brown liquid, sniffing the light, tangy odor produced, watching the bubbles grumble and pop, she remembered what had happened earlier that day - after Tom had voiced his outrageous plan...

"Immortality!" she had repeated, not bothering to pick up the mess of broken biscuits scattered across the floor, "Surely you´re joking!"

"No... I mean it, I am going to achieve immortality," he replied calmly, looking up at her as though she was overreacting. He gestured to the seat next to his and she numbly walked over to it.

"But... but... but no one´s ever done that!" she stuttered, sinking into the chair, staring at him in astonishment, "You can´t be serious!"

"But I am... and I know no one´s done it before. That´s precisely why I´m going to try. Think, Veronica, if I succeed... no, when I succeed (because I´m sure I can once I get this darned text right)... when I succeed, my name will be down in all the books! Everyone in the future will read about Lord Voldemort and how he created the Immortality Serum... they´ll even know about you, if you help me! And once the product is out on the market, just think! It´ll sell for hundreds of galleons! Just think, we´ll be rich and famous and everyone will know and respect us. Just think!" he repeated excitedly. Veronica stared at him, aghast.

"No... no, Tom... no one´s ever done this before..." she repeated weakly.

"I know that, Veronica... but just think about it! Didn´t you hear what I said?" he replied, losing a bit of his enthusiasm.

"You can´t Tom... no..." she muttered, putting her head in her hands and leaning forward so her elbows rested on the table.

"You think I can´t do it?" he asked, his temper rising, "I am Lord Voldemort... and you think I can´t do it?"

"Merlin... Tom, nobody, not even Grindelwald or Vilius or Merlin or even Slytherin... you can´t, it´s not done!" she pleaded, rubbing her temples and not looking at him. It seemed most important to make him understand that this had never been done.

"Of course it´s done! Haven´t you heard of the Sorcerer´s Stone? Nicholas Flamel, he´s probably older than 500 now and who´s he? Just some old crackpot trying to turn tin into gold! I can do it, and I will!" he shouted, giving her an angry glare. She took her face out of her hands and gave him a startled look.

"You can´t do it Tom! And I don´t want you to spend your whole life trying to achieve something that no one´s ever reached, I´m not going to watch you for the rest of your life killing yourself trying to find out how to live!" she cried with new determination. She pushed back her chair and stood up, suddenly disgusted with herself at even sitting next to this man.

"What are you going to do about it?" he asked tauntingly, ironically calm at her outburst.

"I... I... I won´t help you!" she yelled before stomping off into the storage room and slamming the door behind her.

That was about ten hours ago. And now, at two-thirty in the morning, after spending almost half a day thinking, researching, and thinking some more in the blasted storage room, her head was somewhat cleared.

She knew that if he were to achieve immortality, he could very well do it without her help but at the time it was all she could have thought of to say, that sounded mildly threatening. In reality, she did believe that he could do it. And that was what scared her...

-:- -:- -:-

Tom sat in an overstuffed, dark green chair a little ways away from the crackling fire in the Slytherin Common Room. He glanced at the portrait hole when it opened and turned back to his transfiguration text when a burly sixth year entered. It was the middle of November and he´d discovered that magically, he was some kind of genius. He had so far been able to perform every spell practiced in class, on his first try and his professors adored him.

The portrait hole squeaked open and Tom looked up again, this time with a smile as a girl and a boy climbed through. They walked over to where he sat and settled into chairs facing him. Veronica´s face was flushed and she pushed a damp curl out of her face before reclining in the chair and closing her eyes. The boy - Calvin Borg - was panting.

"Where´ve you been?" Tom asked, frowning. Calvin put up a hand and Tom waited for him to catch his breath. The blond boy and Tom had become friends a few weeks into their partnership at Potions and he had introduced him to a few of the other first-years.

"Veronica..." he started, still breathing heavily, "Veronica was in the Great Hall... and a couple of Gryffindors came over and they... they tried to hex... her..." he said while gasping. Veronica finally opened her eyes and looked daggers at Calvin.

"And then...?" Tom prompted, looking between them curiously.

"And I told them to leave her alone... but they´re older than us--"

"They´re in fourth year," Veronica clarified, still glaring at Calvin. Tom nodded, it was probably the one who put the dung bombs in his bag.

"Yeah so then one of them challenged me... you know, to a wizard´s duel. And I told him we´d better take it outside and we did. `Cept when me and Veronica got outside we ran because we couldn´t possibly win..."

"You should have stayed out of it. They wouldn´t have hurt me, you know!" Veronica cried indignantly. She rose from her seat and stomped over to where Felicia Borg, Calvin´s twin, and Rebecca Luis were chatting by the fire. Tom and Calvin watched as Veronica took a seat by them and in no time was immersed in their animated conversation.

"What was that all about?" Tom asked Calvin, who was watching Veronica with a frown. He tore his eyes away from her and looked just as puzzled as Tom felt.

"No idea... she was ahead of me when I got out of the hall and I met her on the stairs..." he said absent-mindedly.

-

"Hey! Veronica!" Tom called to the figure ahead, "Veronica, wait up!" The figure stopped and turned, waiting with her arms crossed for him to come to her. It had only been an hour since she and Calvin had arrived at the common room, red-faced and panting, and he´d followed her back out, curious as to what she was doing.

"Yeah?" she asked irritably, feeling a tinge of guilt at the bright smile on his face. She loosened her arms a bit.

"Where are you going?" he asked tentatively, at the tone of her voice.

"I have a detention," she answered with a sigh. He raised an eyebrow.

"Detention... for what?"

"When Calvin told those boys to meet him outside the Great Hall for a duel, I left the hall and I was running and knocked into Professor McCarthy. He was holding a crate of potions ingredients and they fell down the stairs and most of them broke... he got really mad and gave me a detention. I have to go put his shelves to order..." She shuddered at the thought of coding countless vials of gruesome ingredients, from most common to most rare and in alphabetical order.

"Crikey... I´m sorry..." was all that Tom could think of to say. He wanted to know why she was so rude to Calvin back in the common room but struggled to find the words. He decided on, "Are you mad at me?"

She frowned at the question, wondering if her previous tone had affected him that much, "Not at all. Why would I be?"

He ignored the question countered, "Are you mad at Calvin?"

"I´m annoyed with him, yes."

"Why?"

"Why? Because he had no right to stick his nose in my business. He should´ve left me alone." she said resentfully.

"Oh..." Tom thought this was quite a petty reason, "He was just trying to help, you know. He´s sorry..."

"Good. He should be sorry. And how did he think he was helping, getting himself into a duel with four fourth years? He would´ve gotten us into trouble. I did get into trouble."

"He thought they were going to hurt you... he told me they were going to hex you. Maybe he wanted to distract them so you could run away or something." Tom suggested. She rolled her eyes.

"Well that was all very noble of him and all but he´s better off staying out of it. I can take care of myself!" she finished, becoming indignant. Tom wouldn´t relent.

"I would have done the same," he declared, raising his eyebrows.

"That would be stupid of you, wouldn´t it, now that you know I don´t want you to? Look, Tom, I don´t like it when people act like they have to take care of me, or stick up for me. In fact, I hate that they act like I´m a weak little girl. I´m much more than that, and I can take care of myself." With that, she turned on her heel and started back down the corridor. Tom watched her go until she turned the corner and was out of his sight.

For some reason, that little speech repeated itself in his mind that evening, barring him from thinking of anything but Veronica Doyle.

-:- -:- -:-

"What´s that you´re making?" a voice said from the doorway, bringing her out of her daydream with a gasp. It was Tom, and he´d somehow gotten the door to open without making the slightest noise. Actually, upon better inspection, he´d made the door disappear completely.

"Tom," she said quickly, lighting another candle since there was no longer a need to conceal her presence. "You´re up."

"So are you," he observed quietly, "And you´re angry with me."

"No... I´m not really... how would you know anyway?" she challenged bitterly, knowing well that it wasn´t much of a challenging question.

"Well for one thing you haven´t spoken to me since about four in the afternoon. And you´ve locked yourself in the storage room," he answered wearily, finally crossing the threshold to stand above the cauldron. He looked into it but she could see that he wasn´t really looking at all.

"And what would you care?" she ventured softly. He shot her a cool glance that encouraged her, "When was the last time you cared about anything but your books and your power and--"

"You´ve been in here for ten hours. You can make every potion in existence and I know that you know more than a few that are fatal. I thought you´d hurt yourself." He spoke softly and watched her every movement, reaction.

"Why would I do such a thing? I´m not weak Tom, you know that too. I was just thinking," she answered bitterly, determined not to show that she was indeed touched by his concern, "Like you said."

"So what´s this?" he asked, pointing to the now clear, blue, syrupy substance in the cauldron. She put out the fire and stirred it slowly, helping it to cool.

"It´s the strongest translating potion I could find."