Chapter Text
April 7th, 1943
The day had been nothing short of an unrelenting humiliation.
Quills that snapped mid-sentence, parchment that curled and tore beneath his hand, a Transfiguration practical wherein his raven refused to transmute into the neat, writing-desk Professor Dumbledore demanded. Each failure was a barb-prick in end of itself, poking holes in the carefully woven veil of composure he presented to the world.
Tom Riddle did not fail. He did not falter. And yet—today, everything had turned to scattered wind beneath his touch.
He had longed, therefore, to retreat early to the dormitory, to fold himself away from the babbling tides of his housemates. But privacy, it seemed, had elected to spurn him too. For as he slipped through the doorway, he found Souci Rosier ensnaring Abraxas Malfoy and Cyrille Lestrange with yet another dispatch from his vaunted cousin Vinda—tales from Grindelwald’s front lines, of fire and conquest, of Europe burning under a wizard’s hand.
The words had curdled in Tom’s stomach. For beneath them lurked the shadow of a parallel war—Hitler’s war—that the wizarding world pretended to scorn but which Tom could not ignore. A war that would sweep through London, through the orphanage, through the fragile veil of anonymity that had been his meagre shield.
No wand, no spell, no carefully polished charm of superiority would save him from the bombs, the rationing, the quiet obliteration of nameless children like himself.
He had remained long enough to affect indifference, claiming study materials from his trunk with an air of disdain. Then he had fled to the common room, seating himself like a brooding statue and fixing his thoughts upon the inevitability of endings—cruel, ignoble, messy ends.
But respite would not claim him there either. Walburga Black—smiling like a gilded dagger—had descended upon him with her coy barbs and honeyed scorn, demanding his immaculate study tables. And under the pitiless scrutiny of the four other Blacks scattered like vultures across the room, he had surrendered them.
“A tactical retreat,” he told himself, though his pride shrieked.
And so, stripped of work and solitude alike, he had risen with fury simmering hot beneath his skin and departed. No one had moved to halt him. Why would they? They had already agreed, in the silence of their watchful eyes, that should Tom Riddle bring trouble down upon Slytherin, Slytherin would answer him in kind.
He slipped through the castle like smoke, unseen, unfound, until the stone gave way to roots and moss, and the vast black canopy of the Forbidden Forest consumed him.
At first, he wandered with no aim beyond escape. But the mind, restless and sharp as a blade, could not dwell in purposelessness long. He began to note the pale star-flowers along his path, the curling roots that he knew bled sap useful for narcotic draughts. The clumps of fungi along the trees that might, with precision, be distilled into something useful for his final project.
Work, then—secret, dangerous work—would justify his intrusion here.
Half an hour had passed before the forest disturbed itself. The silence, thick and solemn as a cathedral’s hush, shattered with a sound both serpentine and savage: a half-hiss, half-screech, slicing the night air. It was answered by the frantic neigh of something that was not wholly beast, not wholly man.
Tom froze, every muscle taut, his head cocked like a hawk’s. Again came the hiss, stretched long, thick with venomous promise.
“*Flesh… blood… mine…*” The words were indistinct, but unmistakable in their rhythm. Parseltongue. He felt the syllables curl against his spine, yet they were not meant for him.
He moved. Silent, sleek, a shadow among shadows. Through coils of bracken and thickets sharp with thorns he crept, eyes narrowed, until the source of the commotion unveiled itself in a clearing bathed by fractured moonlight.
There—a centaur, muscles slick with sweat, bow snapped in two at his side. Before him, vast and terrible, a serpent writhed. Its body was thick as a man’s thigh, scales black as polished obsidian, its horned snout lifting and striking with measured malice. Venom dripped from its fangs like molten glass.
The centaur bellowed, a sound that shook the air, and lunged with a broken spear haft clutched in his fist. The serpent met him with a snap that cracked like thunder, missing flesh by inches, fangs gouging bark as it struck a tree. Splinters rained. The beast coiled back, tail whipping with such force it tore grooves in the earth.
Again it hissed, voice curling like smoke: “*Weak horse-thing. Fall. Die. Your herd will feast on your bones.*”
The centaur answered with defiance, jabbing the haft into its side. Scales split, black ichor welling, but the wound only enraged the creature. It reared, body arching higher than the centaur’s head, then drove downward with all the weight of a collapsing tower.
The centaur was flung himself aside, rolling hard, chest heaving. His leg buckled beneath him, blood streaking where the fangs had grazed him. Still he rose. His breath came ragged, but his eyes blazed like coals.
The serpent circled, unhurried, savoring the hunt.
It hissed again, louder now: “*Slow. Weak. Venom will eat you. You are mine.*”
Tom’s lips twitched. The arrogance of snakes amused him—such creatures believed the world already theirs by right of fangs and coil.
The centaur roared, stamping the ground, making the earth shudder. The serpent struck; the haft flew from his grip as he grappled it with his bare arms. Hooves dug trenches in the soil, muscles straining as he forced the jaws back. Venom spattered, sizzling against the roots where it fell.
For a moment, man and beast were locked in a tableau of raw power: the centaur’s sinews trembling, the serpent’s body thrashing, winding, crushing. Bark split, branches shattered, the ground itself groaned beneath the violence.
Then the centaur surged with the last of his strength, driving his hooves down, again and again. A sickening crunch reverberated through the clearing. The serpent shrieked, tail convulsing, then collapsed into ruin, its body a broken lattice of scale and bone beneath the centaur’s relentless stomping.
Silence returned, thick and ringing, broken only by the centaur’s labored breath. His shoulders sagged; the spear haft dropped from his trembling hand. Blood—his own and the serpent’s—streaked his torso, gleaming black in the moonlight. Victory, but not without its cost.
The centaur swayed, blood streaking his flank, poison already leeching its way through his veins. With a shudder, he collapsed upon the forest floor.
Tom lingered in the shadows, fascinated. Power undone by chance. Strength rendered helpless by a bite of fate. Only when the creature’s ragged breath seemed certain to still did Tom step forward.
But the centaur’s eyes, wild yet dimming, found him all the same. “Help… me,” he rasped. “Help me, boy…”
Tom tilted his head, the lamplight of curiosity glinting coldly in his gaze. The wound was vicious, twin punctures oozing a black ichor that burned as it touched flesh. He recognized it at once—only one serpent in these forests left such a mark. The Nose-Horned Viper.
A rare breed, viciously territorial, and among the most feared in Europe. Its venom was a cocktail of agony: necrotic, paralytic, suffocating in its final stages. Tom knew the textbooks called it “a cruel ender of lives.” He found the phrasing poetic.
But unlike the whimpering creature before him, he bore no fear of its poison. As a Parselmouth, he could feel the venom singing faintly in the air, and something deep within him stirred in recognition. He was not its prey. He would never be.
He crouched elegantly beside the centaur, letting the shadow of his presence fall over the creature’s shuddering form. His voice was soft, almost silken: “What’s in it for me?”
Magorian—for so he declared himself—glared with animal fury. “Calls himself human, but there is no trace of humanity in him. He would trade my helplessness as though it were coin!”
Tom gave the barest shrug, each line of his body aristocratic disdain. “To draw out the poison will take at least an hour. An hour in this cursed forest, where professors might find me or worse creatures might prowl. I would hazard reprimand, risk taint, labour myself in service to one who has already squandered his own strength. Compensation is only… fair.”
The centaur’s lips curled, but at last he gave a grudging nod.
So Tom set to work. The venom burned bitter on his tongue, acrid as rot, but he drew and spat, again and again, until his stomach heaved and bile clawed his throat. Nausea swept him in shuddering waves, and at last he collapsed against a tree, curling his arms over his head.
“N… now… my compensation,” he stammered, his voice frayed but demanding still.
“Come closer, little Son of Serpents,” Magorian whispered, eyes now rolling white as though the very heavens had seized him.
Tom inched forward, sneer barely restrained. The centaur seized his face in clawed hands. His voice deepened, distant, prophetic.
“Saturn shines brighter than ever. His strength is overpowering. Obstacles will meet you at every step…”
Tom’s heart remained cold, unshaken. He would crush obstacles. He was born to.
“Saturn will come into your life. Too strong to overcome. He knows your tricks. He will haunt your path.”
Tom’s lips twisted. “And I will break him—”
The centaur’s voice grew softer, awed. “And Venus… Venus conjunct with Saturn. Rare as lightning, child. Four centuries since such a union. You will know love. Endless love. Devotion without boundary.”
“Love…?” Tom very nearly laughed in the centaur’s still palled face. “That is your prophecy? That the greatest wizard of the age is destined for a dalliance?”
Magorian waxed rapturous, eyes glazed. “You will feel whole. Consumed with ecstasy. Worshipped, adored, blessed with a bond unbroken.”
Tom rose at last, brushing soil and sickness from his robes. He did not spare the centaur another glance as he turned back towards the castle “Obviously,” he thought with withering disdain, “I was born to be worshipped and inspire devotion! I didn't need some damned centaur to tell me that!