Of Serpentine Etiquette

The boy that was no longer Tom Riddle was on top of the world. The color was in his fair cheeks and a wild grin split his angel face. The world suddenly felt so right. He was filled with hope for the future and joy in the present, joy in breathing and living and existing on such a fine day. Such a sense of power filled him, intoxicating and limitless, that he felt he could do anything he wished. He could with a single thought set the stars to declare his banner, extinguish the sun's flame with no more effort than a blink, crack the world in two on a whim.

As he ran from the opulent house that contained the quite, quite dead bodies of his Muggle father and his father's Muggle parents, the rain on his face was a baptism and the world was new and fresh and beautiful.

And he ran breathless in the exquisite beauty of that rainy summer night, filled with the soaring exultation of the kill, a feeling as new as it was beautiful. It had not been the same before. No, not at all. When that girl in the toilet had discovered him, he had set the basilisk on her. It was she who made the kill, not him. Even the kill of that silly cow Claire (One dead cow in the toilet, one in the bathtub--do I sense a theme? Kill them in the kitchen next time! came the swift, arcing thought) hadn't been the same. He had planned it, yes, and experienced bland relief when she was gone, but it wasn't fun, it wasn't personal, it wasn't something he had planned for twelve years! And the joy bubbled up in him again like clotted blood in a wound and he tried to resist the urge to laugh. But he did anyway, the high, cold laugh that suited him beautifully.

And it had quite suddenly and frivolously occurred to him towards the tail-end of his laughter that he hadn't seen Claire in simply ages and it was really time to pay the old girl a visit. Why not? His father was dead (dead! dead! DEAD AND GONE!!! his mind exulted) and the beautiful, beautiful world was his for the taking, any time he chose.

So he Apparated to the grounds of her home and strolled merrily in the family crypt, and with the same roguish grin he found her coffin amongst the endless Ladds and carelessly shoved the lid off, his skewed smile not faltering at all with the tremendous bang that echoed off the stone walls as the metal lid hit the floor. He had tilted his head and smiled in that disgusting, sappy, self-demeaning way he used to smile at her and rested his hands on the edge of the coffin, looking fondly at the almost-fleshless, dusty bones.

Tom had greeted her, Claire darling, asked her how her coffin suited her and wasn't it just a tiny bit smaller than the private room they let him have as Head Boy, and inquired as to whether or not she was comfortable. He saw the rosary wound tightly between her finger-bones and had really laughed then, his high, cold laugh that suited him beautifully, because had known Claire better than she knew herself. Over-sexed, self-glorifying, contemptuous, petty, stupid Claire; a rosary was just ridiculous. Tom kindly commented that the ridiculous rosary matched her eyes, but added that he wasn't entirely sure it did because they'd rotted away and he'd forgotten all those pretty things he'd said about her eyes. (blue as the heavens? green as emerald orbs? gray as cold winter steel? soft brown like mahogany? he couldn't remember which he used, only that it was treacley and dense and she loved it.) Ah well, one can't remember anything.

And the exultation had not nearly left him, so he just kept smiling his slightly skewed smile, and just a touch frivolously lifted her dusty, not-quite-fleshless skull from the delicate neck bones that no longer attached quite right. He placed a hand to his chest mournfully and posed with the skull in one hand and the false despair painted on his face, and iterated sadly, Alas poor Claire, this skull had a tongue once, and insisted in putting it in my ear, disgusting bitch! He dropped the mournful face, laughed, and for a time the detached, cool part of his mind that was not reeling with glee but instead planning his next move had feared he'd never stop. But the moment passed, and he finally ceased, and had moved to dispassionately toss the skull back in the bone-box so he could leave, leave to plant the seeds of his power.

But he was distracted by a swift green movement near the skull and looked down before the skull left his hand. For out of the jaws of his dear, dear Claire a small garden snake had wormed itself.

The little serpent slithered gracefully from between the skull's jaws.

(beautiful isn't it, skull and serpent, it's beautiful his mind barely had time to note)

The cruel, amused expression fell off his face abruptly to be replaced with one of genuine kindness. He let the little diamond-tailed snake wind herself into his long, white fingers and smiled.

I am Nagini. she introduced herself politely. Was this one your mate?

He laughed and laughed.

Only in one or two very limited ways. he replied with an amused grin.

Ah. she replied delicately, not pursuing the matter. Goodbye, Parselmouth.

Goodbye, Nagini. he bid her.

She inclined her head with the unfailing courtesy snakes tended to be so overbearingly proud of, and he set her on the dusty stone floor of the crypt, where she slithered off into the moonlight.

He waved an amused goodbye to the especially prim little snake, who was really quite a darling little thing. So fascinating how she differed from the erstwhile Claire Ladd; both were female but one was elegant and clever and ineffably beautiful and the other was so petty, dull, and grasping. And now that he thought of the little cow, he'd really better not waste a second more with trite goodbyes. People to meet, places to go, worlds to conquer. Ah, the freedom of it.

With serpentine grace Nagini would envy, Tom bowed in courtly fashion to the still-opened coffin and his sort-of-mate inside, and airily tossed the skull over his shoulder. By the time it hit the floor with a dreadful, delightful sound somewhere between a crunch and a thud, Tom had left the Ladd crypt. He stood smiling under the rain in the pretty garden of the Ladd's estate, glad for the flowers and trees and the moon and the rain on his face and the lifeless, terrified stare of his dead father.

He placed his hands in the pockets of his robes as he started to walk and whistled like the schoolboy he was not really anymore and never really had been in the first place. The boy he once was did not have precious much reason for a cheerful whistle. He had not been able to see the life drain out of his father's eyes all at once, see his father fall like a poleaxed ox to lie sprawled and graceless on the floor, see the irony of it as Tom left him dead and alone.

The boy that was not really Tom Riddle anymore was filled with joy as a wound is filled with clotted blood. The summer rain that plastered his hair to his face was a baptism and the world was fresh and new and beautiful, beautiful as the sudden image of the skull and the serpent forever burned into his memory.