Snow-Doused Fire

Author's Notes

As I do on so many of my other stories, I will take the time to thank everyone who has helped me with this story on the first chapter ... and the first chapter only.

That said, I would like to give a huge bouquet of dark pink roses and many *huggles* to:

- Jan (Magical Maeve), of MNFF

- Theresa (notsosaintly), of TPP

- Evie (apollo13), of MNFF

- All the wonderful Moderators/Administrators of MNFF and TPP

Snow-Doused Fire

1943

A cold sleet fell lightly to the frozen ground. Each minuscule drop of frozen rain shaping the ice sheet shattered sharply as it touched the dead and brittle earth, adding its unique hexagonal shape to the steadily growing frost graveyard slicking the barren ground. Strangely, there wasn't the slightest hint of wind; nothing stirred the spindly gray branches of the trees reaching upward like so many skeletal fingers, grasping futilely at the hidden stars, reaching, hoping, searching for an answer, a spring that seemed never to come. It was not a normal winter's night. Where was the whirling blizzard? Where was the tortured scream of the late-migrating birds tossed and turned brutally by the gusting zephyrs? Where was the snow, turning the skeletons of winter into objects of beauty? Gone...never there, really. This winter's night was not one in which to be out wandering; yet, beneath the branches of one of these trees (a truly magnificent Horse-chestnut, standing thirty-five meters tall, its uppermost branches tangled together to form a crown-like mass of brittle, brown, skeletal limbs) huddled a cloaked figure, its head bowed and held tightly by raw, wind-bitten hands.

"Please give it to me. I need it. I love it. It's mine. Give it to me. I want it."

During this speech, the girl on the ground had paused, her movements stilled in fright, but as the lad ended his admonishment, and reached out a derisive hand to the small figure opposite him, she suddenly sprang into action. With a gasp, the cloaked girl started jerkily, jumping to her feet, her thick, fur-lined hood falling back as she did so. Despite himself, the crouching boy gasped as a completely unexpected sight met his staring eyes: the surprised girl, whose own heavily-lidded eyes were wide in shock and surprise, was exquisite. Never had the tall youth ever seen a more stunning figure; she had dark, almost black, hair..."Raven," the youth whispered to himself, his chiseled lips silently forming the word, oblivious to the girl's probing stare...and brown eyes flecked with amber, their deep glow as ever-changing as the fire that gave 'burn stone' its name.

The boy, not long speech-bereaved or embarrassed, rose swiftly and gracefully to his feet and looked down at the stunning girl standing cowed before him. Neither spoke a word, but for the lad's earlier questions. Possessively, lustfully, the boy's gaze traveled over the trim body of the slender girl, no, woman, standing before him. Her cloak masked her body from head to toe, but a light burst of wind...its presence, along with the heavy, snow-laden clouds, signifying the oncoming blizzard...swirled the dark material to the side, revealing an elegant waist, full bosom, and the Hogwarts' school ensemble of stockings, skirt, and sweater.

Suddenly, as if the white snow had woken him from a dark, forbidden pleasure, the boy pulled his mouth from the girl's, his flushed face a contrast to the creamy winter around him. Panting, he pressed a long, gloved finger to the girl's equally flushed forehead, the chill of his finger creeping forth from the wool. "Who are you?" he asked again. Never before had a woman had this effect on him; never before had he allowed a woman to get close enough to have this affect on him.

With an animal cry, the boy flung himself closer to the girl, desperately trying to hold her. Her vague features frightened, the girl lifted arms of light to the boy, reaching for him as well. Despite their efforts, however, the girl continued to evaporate at an alarming rate as thick, pelting snow dashed the boy this way and that. As she disappeared, the boy began to cry, true tears of pain and anger flowing down his smooth face; another possession belonging to him, perhaps the most precious one he'd ever owned, was being taken from him. Cold tears, not of love but of cold, quiet fury, ran down his structured, pale cheeks, clouding his eyes, freezing his elegant nose with their icy rivulets of moisture, but, somehow, despite the swiftly-falling snow and his tear-clouded eyes, the boy managed to catch the last candle-like glimmer of light in the girl's enchanting dark eyes before a final gust of wind swept her fully away.

*

In the Slytherin dormitory dungeons of Hogwarts, a flushed young boy of about seventeen years woke with a start. Raising himself on shaking elbows, the boy reached up a pale, long, thin hand to his head and pushed the damp, dark locks from his eyes; if the hand hadn't been, in fact, a hand, one might have received the illusion of a long-legged white spider creeping brazenly into a flattened patch of rain-beaten weeds. Tom Riddle sighed shakily; his dream had seemed so real ... and that girl had been positively stunning! He could still remember all her characteristics very clearly: Her taste, her smell, but her eyes most of all, her captivating, flashing eyes burning with that carefully concealed fire. She was enchanting; he had to see her again.

Though his reminisces were pleasant, such dreams were not the stuff of greatness ... or remembrance. With a yawn, Tom dragged himself wearily from his bed and, shivering in the damp cool of the dungeons, padded across the heavily-carpeted stone floor to a trunk containing his most prized and precious belongings. Flinging the trunk's lid open on rusted hinges, Tom pulled out a half-melted tallow candle, a brass candlestick holder, a heavily-embellished book of blank parchment, a paring knife, and an owl quill with a pot of black ink. Holding the items delicately in his elegant hands, Tom strode back to his bed onto which he promptly plopped, spilling the various possessions clasped in his hands onto the mint green wool sheets.

A distant cough sounded, echoing through the catacombs of the Slytherin dormitories. Yet another reason not to live in the dungeons, Tom thought as he rolled his eyes and concentrated on the task of shaving his quill into a point. Oh, but how Tom loved the dungeons. They had the closed-in comfort that towers and the open air withheld.

Sniffing greedily, Tom inhaled the sharp, clear scent of winter that permeated his room, conducted into the depths of the dungeons by a specially-made air hole connected and cleared (magically) to the roof of Hogwarts castle. Tom had been offered special quarters due to his status as Head Boy in the upper regions of Hogwarts, but he preferred the safe feel of his room in the dungeons to the open-air terraces of Hogwarts. The room reminded him of an armoire he'd once owned ... long ago, at the orphanage. Tom's face contorted in silent rage at the unwanted memory of the orphanage; he dropped the knife and quill, snatched up his wand and, in a clipped whisper, muttered, "Accio table."

Instantly, a heavy table zoomed across the room, making no sound at all as it skimmed several centimeters from the stone surface; Tom savagely plunked the brass candleholder down on the rich ash surface of the heavy table he'd just moved, a dark scowl marring his lovely face. Fiercely, Tom jammed the tallow into the candleholder and, pointing his wand at the unlit candle, mumbled, "Incendio." Immediately, the candle flame flared to life, and Tom found himself thinking once more of the flickering flame buried deep in the enigmatic, vision-girl's beautiful eyes.

As he stared dreamily...a position possessing sure embarrassment if he were to be found...at the stone ceiling of his room, Tom felt something moist creeping onto the knee of his pajamas. "Damn!" he yelped, leaping agilely from the bed like a graceful, long-legged antelope. The pitch-black ink from his overturned, insecurely-capped inkpot had begun to leak and soak into his pajamas like drops of dark blood. With another muttered curse, Tom pointed his wand at his knee: "Scourgify," he spat, and again, "Scourgify," as he pointed his yew wand at the creeping pool of darkness on the warm, woolen sheets. Sighing in exasperation, Tom grabbed the bottle of ink and set it beside the candle on the table before climbing back into bed. Grasping the quill, a rather commonplace feather in such elegant hands, Tom dipped the sharpened end into the bottle of ink and, opening his book, placed the ink-soaked tip to the parchment; it spread, shining and grasping, on the parchment before Tom, contemplating the point of this midnight writing, began his first sentence. "Last night, I dreamed of a temptress..."