Cassie Claire

Caveat Lector

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*Clears Throat*

We, that is, tromboneborges, tartpants, epicyclical (also know as Josh, Rene, and Cassie), have co-authored a short story, Caveat Lector. The project began in light of schmevil's request for fanon subversion, but within 100 words or so turned into pure spoof, though we did try to maintain our original goal: to subvert fanon!Tom Riddle in all his evil glory. We'd like to thank resmiranda and blackholly for their helpful input.

- Cassie Claire

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~~~~~~~~~~~

One cloudless spring day, though the threat of the ongoing war hung pendulously over all their heads, the wizarding world came to Malfoy Manor to buy up loose junk. Disgraced, their accounts frozen, their evils exposed, the Malfoys found themselves destitute, and with the honor and dignity that was the hallmark of their line were selling off their knickknacks and the detritus of their attics at bargain cellar prices.

Ginny had come, alone – always alone – in search of her destiny, her past, the blood of her soul.

Card tables floated, three feet off the ground, strewn with bronze frog-shaped alarm clocks, photographs of great-aunts, a disintegrating Chutes and Lethifolds box with mysterious brown stains on. Ginny poked with detached interest at a shoebox full of little mouldy squishy things, when a hand bearing an enormous rhinestone ring slapped hers away.

“Actually, my collection of jelly babies shaped like Great Dark Wizards Through History is not for sale,” hissed Lucius Malfoy, tossing the end of his feather boa over his shoulder.

Ginny apologized distractedly and started thumbing through a milk crate of old vinyl albums, including cracked copies of The Floo, The Trolling Moans, and Peter Frampton Comes Alive. She let her eyes roam over the rest of the garage sale. She knew, deep within her heart, a heart that burned with a secret fire, what she was looking for. It must be here, she thought. In the meantime, she must act like the normal, boring, wimpy Gryffindor that her friends were.

Speaking of the Gryffindors, there was Hermione, making out with young master Malfoy again, this time among the discarded bronzed Kleenex boxes. Ginny repressed a shudder at seeing Draco. Since the Malfoys had fallen on hard times, he could no longer afford bleach, and a good half-inch of dark brown roots showed above his luminous scalp.

Plebeian, thought Ginny.

Stepping around two Death Eaters hexing each other over who got to take home the set of travel spoons from St. Croix, Ginny caught sight of Harry, standing beside her brother Ron. His scar stood out in puckered relief against the milky skin of his forehead, that single gash the sum of all that was special about him. But it was enough. Even knowing that he would never, never think of her as anything other than a child--despite her knifelike cheekbones and plump lips--didn't quell the bloom of emotion inside of her. How was it that she'd been good enough for the Dark Lord himself, but beneath the notice of one pathetic Gryffindor boy?

She edged nearer to Harry anyway. Years of practice had honed her stalking skills. She was now close enough to hear Harry bargaining animatedly with Draco's mother over an antique Quidditch jockstrap.

"It is quite the thing to make your package more impressive," Narcissa vowed, with a wink of one violet eye. "Perhaps you'd like me to strap it on so you can see for yourself?"

"I'd like to have a go," Ron said, addressing her cleavage.

Virginia sighed. They were boys, while she, on the cusp of her eighteenth birthday, felt like a woman, a true witch. Perhaps it was because she had been touched by darkness, a darkness so deep that it left her forever marked - althoughher scars were on the inside.

A flash of black leather caught her eye. Sirius Black, stomach spilling over the worn leather of his belt and his hair greased into a shining black pompadour, strode up to the table and surveyed the merchandise. "How *you* doing, Cissy?"

Narcissa regarded Sirius coldly. “Black,” she said. “You are fat.”

Sirius looked insulted. “I am not. I am lissome and appetizing. I have a motorcycle.”

“There’s peanut butter on your bolo tie, Sirius,” Harry hissed in a stage whisper.

“Damn,” said Sirius, and swabbed at himself with a red silk handkerchief printed all over with Dalmatians. “So, Narcissa, I was thinking, if you weren’t doing anything on Tuesday…”

“Tuesday I plan to commit suicide due to the shame that has been brought upon my family by my husband’s bankruptcy and my son’s unfortunate affinity for Mudbloods,” Narcissa said. Over Sirius' shoulder, she winked at Snape, who was slouching near a display of Lucius Malfoy's used Quidditch gear, his greasy hair gathered into a debonair ponytail atop his head. Snape winked back.

“Then I guess that leaves Wednesday out too.” Sirius was disappointed, but before he could ask about Monday there was a crash as Hermione and Draco, still a heaving mass of tangled arms and legs, rolled sideways and knocked over a stack of Draco’s gold-embossed baby pictures. Hermione was such a slut, Ginny thought disgustedly, turning to glare. Typical Gryffindor, capable only of the shallowest of passions. Hermione’s bare legs waved in the spring breeze, and Ginny started as she caught a glimpse of something that had fallen by the older girl’s left foot – a small, tattered black book that pulled Ginny in closer, its cover being the same black of her own soul’s taint.

Heart pounding, Ginny lunged to pick the book up--it was damp from the grass but she brushed the dew away with trembling fingers, ignoring Draco’s howls of anguish as she trod on his head. The diary felt alive under her fingertips when she sensuously ran her hand all over the leather cover with its embossed gold monogram: TMR. It was almost as if Tom himself were really still trapped within its covers… living…breathing…throbbing with life and dark desires… “Oh, Tom,” Ginny whispered aloud, “I’m still yours.”

"Drop that, Ginny!" Ron shouted, swooping in, as usual, with an ill-timed show of brotherly protection. "It's sure to be a Malfoy book on the dark arts, and covered with germy things. Just look at those teeth marks--Draco himself must have teethed on it. Imagine…cutting your first baby tooth on the dark arts!" Ron began to gaze distractedly at Hermione, who was lovingly pressing a hankie to Draco's bruised head. Ginny took this opportunity to inch away from her brother, whistling so that no one would notice she was up to no good.

"Excuse me. I'll have you know that book is priced at a thousand-billion-seventy galleons, and is not fit for paupers." Lucius's eyes narrowed as he spoke, and Ginny was briefly envious of the fact that he seemed more adept at applying thick black eyeliner than she was herself. He snatched the book from her hand and tossed it over his shoulder before poncing away. Ginny felt a pang in her heart as she watched the book land near Hermione’s foot; even Slytherins were bent on keeping her from corruption. It wasn't fair.

Well…she’d show them. Surveying the area with the sly, Slytherin-like cunning she knew herself to secretly possess, she saw that Ron had joined a long line of boys who had queued up near Narcissa, all of them eager to bid on Lucius’ collection of nudie tarot cards. “I’m keen on divination!” he announced, his voice booming above the others. Draco and Hermione had resumed their snogging with much gusto, and Ginny was able to scoop up the book without either of them noticing. After a quick check to make sure no one was watching, she slipped the thin book into her lace bra and began to wander away, knowing full well that her so-called friends would be too busy to notice her premature departure, even if she was swaying a little from the weight of the magically-lighted makeup mirror she had stashed in her knickers. All that mattered little, as she now had Tom Marvolo Riddle's words pressed to her chest, where they burned like hot light, painfully green.

***

It was the witching hour, and for Virginia it meant cloistering herself behind the velvet curtains of her four-poster bed. The dormitory was quiet, as most witches are curiously sound asleep during the witching hour, but Ginny was awake and sitting cross-legged on the embarrassing duvet cover her Mum had knit for her for Christmas, the center of which pictured a red-haired girl petting a fuzzy white unicorn. Ginny scowled whenever she saw it: what would it take for people to not see her as snowy and virginal?

Sitting squarely on the unicorn's face out of defiance, she lit a semi-circle of candles at the foot of the bed, but only after pressing the white-hot tip of her wand into the delicate flesh of her lanky, serpentine thigh. It burned like molten silver, and she bit her tongue against the pain, relishing it.

"Hmm. I smell aromatherapy candles and scorched leg hair," Laverne, Ginny's roommate, called out from her own bed. "You know, a simple waxing spell would be an easier way to depilatorize."

Ginny scowled; she hated having her private cry for attention so rudely interrupted by attention. “Lav, I’m conjuring with the Names of the Damned over here,” she said curtly. “I can’t help it if the Damned like elderberry.”

Lav didn’t respond. She’ll never understand, thought Ginny. None understand my pain, the lovely scorched agony that sifts grey flakes of ash over my heart while I sleep. None except…. She got down from the bed and retrieved the diary from inside her pajama top, where it had been uncomfortably and precariously waiting for her attention. Climbing into the circle, she knocked over two of the candles. The wax poured, scarlet, like blood from a hari kari wound, all over the burgundy carpet, clashing horribly. As I clash, Ginny mused. As my hawk’s heart strains to fly from this oppressive tower crammed full of sanctimonious, forever grounded Gryffindors. As my soul of carved ebony clashes with these flannel pajamas covered with frolicking bunnies. As my—

“Keep it down, Virginia,” growled a voice. Ginny looked up to see Lav, head poked through the curtains. “It’s a little late for the whole House to listen to your internal monologue.” She closed the curtains. “Just pick up the candles before you burn down the fucking castle.”

Ginny righted the candles, feeling the drops of molten wax bite the back of her hand. She grimaced with pleasure, and retrieved her quill and a phial of blue-black ink from inside her pajama top. She dipped the quill, and brandished it like a dagger as she opened the diary to its first page, expecting to find it blank. Instead, she found it covered with text, dark green ink in a familiar, girly hand.

May 14, 1944

Once again my attempts to discern my future of dark damnation during Divination class resulted in my cruel humiliation at the hands of my plebeian classmates. When Professor Hawk-Fenster fell asleep suddenly in his chair, his chin beaded gently with drool, I was certain my chance had come. Summoning his crystal ball to me, I clutched it between my long, elegant fingers and murmured fiercely, "Show me the scene of my dark victory! Show me streets running with Muggle blood, the sky lit by a thousand jade-green flames, show me Gryffindor Tower crashing to the ground as the power of Lord Moverdolt reigns over all!" Barely had the mists begun to flicker inside the enchanted ball, however, when those dolt-brained seventh years Bones and Midgen seized it from my hands and Midgen proceeded to pour his boiling tea leaves into my pants. My screams of rage were drowned by their imbecilic laughter. Luckily for me at least Lucius has a good supply of healing salve in his dormitory, although his applications of it to my scorched nether regions lack the alacrity I would have hoped for in a future minion. Also, he says that Lord Moverdolt is a stupid name. He has no imagination.

May 28, 1944

Still trying to decide what exactly to name my elite cadre of killer minions. Lucius suggested The Riddle Raiders, but I coolly pointed out to him that in future I will be known not as Tom Riddle, but as Lord Roomveldt. He did not like this much better than Moverdolt but then he is only a minion after all and his opinion is of no consequence. He also forgot to order the canapes for the meeting, an oversight for which I blame the subsequent poor attendance. In the extremity of my hunger I struck him heavily with a bronzed gallbladder, and as he lay moaning in agony at my feet, it came to me in a flash of brilliance - the Doom Nibblers. A long argument ensued and eventually we settled on Death Eaters as a compromise. My career in darkness has begun.

Ginny managed to pull her eyes away from the book long enough to accidentally let out the kind of high, girlish squeak that she had been forever trying to alter into a lower, more seductive sort of growwrr. She hadn't been expecting a cadre of Doom Nibblers; on the other hand, nobody expects a cadre of Doom Nibblers, and there was a bit of dark genius in that. But where was the painstaking description of naughty orgies? Where was the impressive and highly unnecessary use of Latin profanity? Still, these entries had been penned at the dawn of Tom's descent into darkness…perhaps it was best to read on. She flipped forward a few pages, bracing herself for the power of Tom's prose, which was at least written in that lovely hue of serpentine green, even if he did seem to dot all his 'i's with what looked like small, delicate hearts.

June 3, 1944

Dirk Hornby accused me of attempting, as he put it, to "put the moves" on his sister Olive this afternoon. Just because I suggested to her private tutoring might help her overcome her unreasonable fear of Arithmantic rituals does not mean I was seeking an excuse to be alone with her, nor does the fact that I gifted her with my most prized possession -- a self-portrait drawn using my own blood for ink -- mean that I was trying to, as he crudely put it, "get into her knickers." After all, I, the future Lord Trovemold, am possessed of a slithering, silkily evil charm that, should I choose to exercise it, could turn any woman into a boneless, willing slave to my darkness. It is merely that there is no woman at this school worthy of my attentions. Thank the Dark Forces for Lucius and his endless supply of pornography.

June 14, 1944

A bitter, bitter day. I overheard Lucius in the corridors outside the Slytherin dungeon attempting to bribe a set of first-years to come to tonight's Death Eater meeting. They were cravenly unwilling to attend, a disappointing phenomenon which proves to me that my theory about inbreeding producing thinned wizarding blood is without doubt accurate. "But Tom is such a wanker," the spottiest of them was heard to complain. "And he always reads his poetry aloud and it's so bad."

Only the greatest self-restraint prevented me from performing the Killing Curse on the spot and ending their miserable, mouth-breathing lives in a burst of dark fire. I sit now, alone and trembling, in the third floor girl's bathroom where none shall find me and mock my despair.

I know what I am -- Outcast. Loner. Genius. I must bide and wait for the time when my vengeance shall be wreaked against all, especially those too stupid to grasp iambic pentameter. If only there were someone who understood me, a kindred spirit, a sympathetic soul. I know Lucius tries but unfortunately he is male and despite his best efforts, and the judicious application of glitter to all parts of his body, I simply cannot force myself to feel anything towards him but the distant tolerance of master for minion-like slave. It truly is unfortunate as I had really better hurry up and have sex soon - I hear the Immortality Rituals have some rather nasty side effects and I doubt anyone's going to want to shag me after my nose has gone. Thank Hecubus at least I have my bitter rage to sustain me through this darkest hour. Lord Omrotveld forever!

There was her Tom. Her poet. Her outcast. Her genius. She feverishly stroked the page she was reading, knocking over the inkwell and three candles in her excitement. She found herself flushed –- flushed with a heady fever of power and desire. Her fingers played over the spine of the diary. She inhaled deeply the smell of old paper and elderberry that filled the room like a black musk. Knocking over two more candles and her clothes-hamper, she brought the diary to her face and kissed it, hard. Her tongue ran up and down the crease between the pages. Tom – or his diary – tasted dry, acrid, dusty, green.

Suddenly a vicious snap of tingling pleasure/pain crashed through her head, and she withdrew herself from the pages, a line of iridescent drool still grasping for Tom’s words. She dragged her finger across her tongue now, feeling the paper cut.

Standing up purposefully, and knocking over another candle, she knew what she had to do. She could not stand this substitute-Tom, this blocky, rectangular Tom, all hard angles and wood pulp. I will bring him back, she thought. It is simple blood magic. I will have him, and I will be his! The guardians of time and flesh will stand aside in awe of my necromantic will!

The velvet curtains parted slightly again. “Gin, it’s three in the fucking morning. Isn’t it time your necromantic arse was in bed?”

Ignoring her roommate, she hopped from the bed once again, padding quietly over the wax-caked carpet to her chest, where she pulled out a small sealed kit with "Do it Yourself Dark Arts" emblazoned across the top. She'd gotten it from a shop just at the corner of Knockturn Alley. She'd wanted to go deeper inside, lured by the winding path and the tempting array of bones and velvet cloaks glinting from behind dusty glass windows, but she had been held back by her painfully cheerful family and their irritatingly busy bustling. They didn't see how she needed to answer the call of her soul. One way or another, Ginny was always being held back from her true potential. It had been a testament to her Slytherin-like skills that she had managed to get the kit at all.

Crawling carefully back onto her bed so as not to knock over the remaining candles, she broke open the shrink-wrap and poured out the contents onto the fuzzy horn of the unicorn. There were more candles, cheap, white ones--not nearly as nice as the kind she had already; a rolled up black felt pentagram that she spread carefully, a sealed package of what could only be human blood, a plastic dagger, and what looked like a shiny tin goblet…all of it stamped with “Made In Taiwan” in large letters. It would have to do.

She placed the opened diary in the center of the center of the pentagram and mentally prepared herself for the work she was about to begin. It would be dangerous, no question of that, and there would be no room for second-guessing or insecurities. Keeping her mind pure, full of thoughts as cold and sharp as icicles, she cut open the bag of blood with the knife, watching it spill in dark, ruby rivulets, staining the pages and soaking into the coverlet below. The smell conjured up midnight visits to the Hogwarts chicken coops and a giddy sense of possibility. She picked up the instruction booklet.

"Do not spill any of the conveniently pre-packaged blood onto an object of obvious dark origin," she read aloud. Oops. The rest of the instructions were written out in horribly misspelled Latin that she couldn't be bothered to proofread at such a late hour. Impatient, and longing for the depraved Parseltongue touch of her childhood consort, she skipped forward to the Index and found the listing for Wicked-kwik Necromancy. According to the instructions, all she had to do was use the conveniently pre-packaged blood to write Tom's name on the palm of her hand, press the palm of her hand to her chest, and voice an incantation aloud three times.

Eagerly dipping her fingers into the blood she'd spilled on the diary, she scrawled out Tom's name on her left hand as best she could, though it was too hard to fit Marvolo in and she was forced to shorten her beloved's middle name down to Marvy. In her eagerness she missed and pressed her hand against the soft bunny fabric of her pajamas, but a second try and her aim was true--her hand pressed against her heart and it burned there exquisitely, this despite the disconcerting squish and curiously strong smell of raw poultry. Odd….was the blood on her hand supposed to transform into a raw cutlet of chicken? Perhaps it symbolized the sacrifice that came with transforming words in a diary into living, breathing flesh. She nodded sagely. That had to be it.

"Pullus, Aqua, Alpha, Tom…" she said in her clearest, yet sexiest voice--just in case Tom could already hear her out in the ether somewhere. The response from the diary was gratifyingly prompt. It heaved and buckled under her touch like a live thing. Encouraged, Ginny repeated the incantation twice more--rather quickly, as she was beginning to fear salmonella from the bag of cold blood still pressed to her supple breasts. She hoped Tom wouldn't mind, but then surely fifty years trapped in a diary would produce some heavy-duty sexual frustration. She'd have to have a face like Millicent's Bulstrode's bum for him to turn her down after a half-century of wanking off somewhere out there in the stratosphere. If one even could wank off while technically bodiless--

Ginny's musings on this topic were interrupted as a smallish black tornado suddenly ripped its way out of the diary pages. It whirled above her head, resolving itself into a vaguely man-shaped black shadow which seemed to be hardening, gaining substance…definition ...life...

Ginny threw her arms wide. The bag fell from her hand to the floor with a sickening, fleshy plop. "Come to me, my demon lover!" she shouted with an impassioned toss of her flame-red hair. If only those boring lumpish Gryffindor ex-friends of hers who made her life such a misery could see her now, her scarlet hair flying, her pajama top stuck firmly to her pert young breasts with blood! If Harry didn't get a hard-on that lasted a week from that, then he really was gay-- a possibility which Ginny had long suspected. "Come to me, Tom, my sable prince!"

"Ginny." A voice came from the center of the whirlwind. "Ginny, my love. Are you prepared to see me in all my glory?"

"Yes! Oh, Tom, yes!" Ginny cried.

"I think I might be naked," came the voice again. "Are you quite sure you're up to it?"

"YES!" Ginny shrieked impatiently. "I am your dark bride! Of course I'm up to it!"

"Hold on." The voice sounded a bit curious now. "I'm not naked...I think I'm wearing an angora sweater...what's all this then?" it demanded and then, with a pop, the smoke and flames vanished, and Tom stood before her. At least, Ginny assumed it was Tom. It was rather hard to tell, as he was covered from head to toe in long white chicken feathers. And what was that protruding from his proud and arrogant chin? Could it be a wattle? Ginny averted her eyes. Damn, she thought. It must have been chicken blood in that bag. That's the last time I do a necromantic spell without reading the instructions.

Her Dark Lord spoke. “Uh, do you have any…do you have any dried corn? Or some bran? I haven’t had a bite in forty-five years.”

Ginny kept her eyes locked on the wax spill on the ground. “I think I’ve got some granola around here somewhere.”

“If you could just sprinkle it on the ground a bit? That’s a dear.”

She finally lifted her gaze to the boy before her, looking for the aura of power that would surely exude even through a mass of feathers and down. Did his dark eyes not burn with the very fires of Hell? She couldn’t tell behind the thick lenses and huge tortoise-shell frames of his spectacles, which were bent slightly out of shape and made his head look too small. “Tom,” she said, swinging her hips as she approached him. “I am yours. Your companion of the shadows. I have brought you through the cold black of Time to be with you. We must make wild chicken love! Now, right here on my unicorn bedspread!”

Tom blinked several times and adjusted his glasses nervously. “That’s great. Listen, I’m still a little dizzy from the whole dark ritual thing.” He sat down heavily on the bed. “You caught me just after Midgen and Bones had finished flushing my head in the third-floor girl’s lav, all right? It’s been a full day for me. I’m all headache-y. Can’t we just cuddle?”

”Thomas!” Virginia tore at her pajama top; when it failed to wrench open, she cursed her mother’s high-quality stitching and settled on quickly unbuttoning it. Throwing the blood-soaked morass down, she cried, “Take the ceremonial serpent knife from my nightstand! Our blood and sweat will mingle tonight in a forbidden dance of black and scarlet rapture! The Slytherins will like me, and those whinging Gryffindor pussies will know how much better I am than they! I will be your Dark muse! I can finally get rid of all this unicorn crap my mum keeps buying for me!”

”Just fuck her already, Tom!” came a muffled voice from the other side of the curtain.

Ginny stood before him, half-naked, chin up, unable to catch her breath, in anticipation. Tom shifted uncomfortably on the bed. “I, uh, I think I’ve laid an egg.”

Ginny exhaled deeply.

“Look,” said Tom, “I’ll just nest here in this pile of laundry for tonight, all right? And we’ll see in the morning. Meantime, you might want to mop up the blood before it stains. Necromancy is all well and good, but you don’t want to leave a mess for anyone, I think. It’s just impolite.” He hopped down to the ground, circled a few times in the laundry, pecked at a bra thoughtfully, and went to sleep.

Ginny stood in stunned silence for a moment, then slowly picked up her sopping pajama top and hung it over her closet door to dry. She lay down on her bed and stared up at the ceiling, clutching her lace pillow covered with poke-bonnet-wearing ducks and wondering at the cruelty of the universe. The dorkness consumes me, she thought. But Tom did say we’d see in the morning. He must have something prepared, some sign of his indomitable power and impelling charisma. And the next witching hour, he will be mine. Yes! she cried out in her mind. Yes!

“Gin! Shut! Up!”

Yes! she cried out, actually only in her mind this time. Evil wins again!

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