#tom riddle/moaning myrtle

[tomriddleinafrillydress]

Chapter 14

Bound into insanity — Bound into eternity

Sneak peak:

“Just hand it over to me.” “I will. Of course, that is when I'll finish reading it.” “Riddle, you cursed...” she bit her tongue as he raised an eyebrow defiantly. “I left your stuff alone. Heck, I even took showers in complete darkness so as not to violate your privacy, and you not only robbed me of my money, you stole my diary!” Although his face remained expressionless, amusement flashed in his eyes. “I appreciate your sacrifice,” he replied blithely, “but it just so happens that I happened to be you, so all that stuff belonged to me.”

“I don't know what kind of twisted logic led you to that conclusion, Riddle, but in case you haven't noticed, you're no longer me, so the diary doesn't belong to you!” “That is true. So the best thing to do is to consider that I borrowed it.” “You stole it.” “I intend to return it, so I borrowed it.” “In order to borrow something, you have to have the owner's permission.” He put on such a perfect expression of innocence that he transformed himself into an angel incapable of sinful deeds right before her eyes. That display of acting skills made Myrtle inclined to believe that all the cherubs were over a metre ninety tall, with jet-black hair and eyes lined with a demonic red gleam. “Asking anyone's permission is a concept that is sadly unfamiliar to me.” “I've noticed,” she replied bitterly. “Perhaps I was wrong about you,” he said, reaching into his bag for her diary. He seemed to have opened it on a random page. “I expected you freak out at the very thought of me reading your girly antics, such as those from fourth year: ‘Dear diary’,” he smiled predatorily “Donna didn't give me a break today, I think Olivia put her up to it. Anyway, they wanted me to write a list of boys I'd ‘let do anything to me’. Of course I hadn't taken the bait, after all, it's clear Olivia would let the list circulate, I'm not daft, but they don't know about the diary, do they?” He ducked swiftly as Myrtle jumped to him with outstretched arms. She was red in the face as intensely as she had been when she hid in the corners in her fourth year, writing out this utter nonsense. “Give it back, Riddle.” “First place. Many people would be honoured,” he said, leaving no doubt that he did not count himself among them. He closed the diary with a deafening clatter. “Tell me, how hurt are you by the fact that I turned down Bagshot's invitation? After all, he's almost treading on my toes.” He grumbled, shaking his head slightly. “Fifth place, three below me empty.”

Read Chapter 14 here.

Read from the beginning here.

#tom riddle #tom riddle fanfiction #hp fanfiction #hp fanfic #moaning myrtle #moaning myrtle fanfic #tom riddle fanart #tom riddle/moaning myrtle #hp fanart #hp fandom #harry potter fandom #harry potter fanart #harry potter fanfiction #tom marvolo riddle #bodyswap #body swap #body switch

[solavonn]

“It’s hard being a teenage dark lord. It’s hard and nobody understands.”

#hp fanart #tom riddle #moaning myrtle #myrtle warren #but she's dead and it's literally just her hand #vonn doodles

[hollowed-theory-hall]

Secrets of the Darkest Art: How to Make a Horcrux

So I saw many theories regarding how to make a Horcrux, but none of them really made perfect sense to me, so I decided to give it a crack myself as part of my mission to understand Lord Voldemort/Tom Marvolo Riddle (Which I think I did, big post coming about that at some point, this is but another piece of that puzzle of a man)

So this is my reverse engineering of a ritual to create Horcruxes based on book evidence, my knowledge of real-world alchemy, real-world ancient Greek cults and rituals and linguistic analysis.

How to reverse engineering a dark magical ritual:

The first thing, is to define what we knew fore certain:

The name: "Horcrux"

The creator is an Ancient Greek wizard named Harpo the Foul.

A death is required in the making.

A Horcrux holds a piece of the casters soul that anchors them to life so they won't die.

I'll actually start with the third point.

How to split a soul?

Both Dumbledore and Slughorn mention a death being required to tear your soul to make a Horcrux, and that never really sat right with me. It magically doesn't make sense and even the canon examples we have for Horcrux murders make this statment iffy.

We have seven examples of murders used to create Horcruxs (thanks to one Tom Riddle being dramatic):

The Diary - Myrtle Warren - killed by a basilisk. Sure, Tom freed the Basilisk, but it hardly seemed targeted at Myrtle specifically and you can argue he didn't actually kill her (more a manslaughter by negligence). He didn't cast the spell, so how come this tore his soul?

The Ring - his father (Tom Riddle Sr) - Avada Kadevra.

The Cup - Hepzibah Smith - she was poisoned by her house elf. Sure, the elf was under the imperious, but it wasn't a first-degree murder, and like with the Basilisk I find it hard to consider this the same as casting a killing curse. Magically those are very different things.

The Locket - Muggle Tramp - Avada Kadevra

The Diadem - Albanian Peasant - Avada Kadevra

Harry Potter - himself - backfired Avada Kadevra

Nagini - Bertha Jorkins - Avada Kadevra

Now, I used the term "magically different" or "magically make sense" what do I mean by that?

Well, besides the fact I'm going to make a full post about how I see magical theory in the Harry Potter Wizarding World, I'll say it takes a lot after occult philosophies from Alchemy that are very old, Slughorn mentions as much in book 6 and there are a few other references to it. I'm just gonna cover the basics required for this theory.

In Alchemy, everything (people, animals, plants and rocks) are built of three base components:

The Salt - the body - the physical form.

The Sulfur - the soul - the self that holds the divine flame.

The Murcury - the spirit - the life essence that binds the salt and sulfer together.

Now, in Alchemy, the main study is in purifying and combining these different aspects of material. Let's look at a herb, for an example:

If we want to retrieve its salt, we'll dry the herb completely using fire to leave behind a fine light grey ash that represents only the physical form.

If we wanted its mercury we'd distill all liquids from it until we get a purified, clear liquid which in the case of plants would be alcohol (it's why alcohol is referred to as "spirit").

And if we wanted its soul, we would take the remains from the distillation and drying process which would be a kind of oil.

(it can get more complicated with different materials, but this isn't a post about Alchemy)

Now, back to Horcruxs.

So, if we would want to split a soul, Alchemecly, how do we go about it?

Well, we don't. Not really. See a soul can't really be split, as every part of it, every bit of that oil from our random herb represents the entire soul. It's why something like a Horcrux could theoretically work in giving a full life to the diary the way we see in Chamber of Secrets.

Additionally, to work with any material in Alchemy, you are required to purify it first. It means that to get a piece of soul to bind to a diary, you need a pure soul.

Killing someone else won't sever your own soul from the spirit and the body, it's not how this works. Killing someone severs their spirit and therefore splits their body, spirit, and soul. Besides, an Ancient Greek man, like Herpo was, would hardly consider murder as vile as we do today. It wouldn't even cross his mind that any murder (even an indirect one) could harm one's own soul.

No, the only way to "split" a soul is to first sever it from life, disconnecting the bond between soul and body. Essentially, the only way to promise you immortality is to kill yourself.

I know it sounds a little confusing, but, essentially, once the soul is severed from the spirit and body you can split it. Think of the herbal oil, once you have the oil, separate from the rest of the plant parts, you can combine it with new ingredients. You can only work on a specific aspect once you severed it from the other two and as what binds all three together is spirit — life — the only way to do it for a human soul — is death.

But really, how?

Well, here comes the second thing we know about making Horcruxs — that dear Herpo was Ancient Greek.

In Ancient Greece they had multiple different religious cults, some of which were Chthonic cults. Cults that dedicated themselves to death or ditties and heroes associated with death and more importantly — rebirth.

Many of these cults were dedicated to figures like Orpheous, Dyonysus, Persephone, characters in mythology who are known for going through the underworld — through death — and coming back out. These cults were very secretive and not much is known about their practices, but some is.

What is known is that they had rituals were they reenacted a death and then rebirth (usually drinking wine — a water if life, was the representation of rebirth).

This created a very clear idea in my head — to split a soul, you'll have to ritualisticlly, magically kill yourself, severe a peice of your soul and then revive yourself with a water of life — a potion.

This potion is never mentioned, but I believe it exists due to these Chthonic cult rituals and how they were structured. Not only that, but the Greek underworld did have a river known for being incredibly painful to drink, literally made of fire, but being able to bring the dead back - The Phlegethon River.

Note: Lethe River Water (the river in the Greek Underworld that makes the drinker forget) is a canon ingredient in a Forgetfulness Potion.

So what is the dead body for?

Well, congratulations, you killed yourself to retrieve a sliver of your soul and revived yourself so you won't stay dead. You found an item you can keep secure to tie that sliver of soul, too. Now, how would you bind then? After all, the only thing meant to bind a human soul to a body is a human spirit - a human life... you get where I'm going with this.

This is why Tom didn't have to be the one to do the deed. As long as he had a recently deceased corpse to harvest the life from to use to bind his newly split soul and the item of his choice.

It explains why nothing was missing from the bodies. Myrtle and the Riddles were investigated by the Ministry of Magic. One would assume the aurors would've noticed if any corpse was missing a hand due to the killer eating it (as other Horcrux theories suggest).

Not only was nothing missing from the body, the soul was intact. Myrtle became a ghost after death, a ghost is quite literally, just the soul, no body, no spirit.

So the only thing that was taken from Tom's victims was their life, quite literally at that.

Is that all? Can we make a Horcrux now?

Not really. See, when analyzing spells in Harry Potter is their name.

Avada Kadevra - is a reference to an Aramaic healing spell "Abracadabra" pronounced in Aramaic as: "Avra Kadebra" and meaning "I will create as commanded". Merged with the Latin word "cadaver" meaning "corpse" to create -> "I will create dead bodies as commanded"

Or Wingardium Laviosa - is a cross of the English word "wing", the Latin word "arduus" (meaning "high, tall, lofty, steep, proudly elevated"), or "arduum" (meaning "steep place, the steep" and the Latin word "levo" (meaning to "raise, lift up"). So together the spell means -> "lift high up".

So, it's pretty clear spells, their names and incantations are very self-explanatory. So a Horcrux should be no different.

I've seen some attempts at translating the name Horcrux. Unfortunately, these attempts treated the name as Latin, modern Greek, or Old English. Herpo, was Ancient Greek, though, so I went and translated a few possible meanings from Ancient Greek (Classical Greek and Homeric Greek are what I looked at):

ὅρκος (orkus, pronounced "hor-kus") - an oath, the object by which one swears, bound by oath (still used in modern Greek).

κρόκες (crukes, pronounced "cru-kes") - saffron-colored (blood red in Greek), crocus flower. The crocus flower symbolizes both death (the saffron that is the spice) and rebirth (the golden crocus which brings renewal and joy) because Demeter wears them when Persephone returns from the underworld in myth.

So what we have is a spell called "binding oath of death and rebirth" which all around sounds fitting.

There might also be a "made in blood" tucked at the end due to the association of κρόκες with the color of blood.

But what does it matter?

Well, somewhat. As now with this name, I expect the binding between the spirit from the victim, the split soul, and the item would be done in a sort of oath - an orkus.

The association with blood gives us another hint. Blood is the part of the human body most representative of life. Therefore, in Alchemy, your blood is your spirit. So it'll make sense that your own blood would be used in the binding process or more correctly in the process of turning another person's spirit into your own. Making the thread to bind the body (item) and the soul piece your own. As it also refers to just a red firey color, it can indicate the Phlagatton potion I hypothesize should be part of the ritual due to how Chthonic rituals usually went, as the Phlagaton river is made of fire.

So we have a general idea on how to make a Horcrux. You need an item of your choice to bind your soul to. You need a life (spirit) harvested from a human that you transformed into being your own using your blood. And you need a piece of your own soul, which you get by killing yourself and then reviving yourself. And you finish it off by binding it all together with an oath.

But how could you make one accidentally?

So, everyone knows Voldemort succeeded in somehow making a Horcrux accidentally, something a lot of theories I saw don't account for. Becouse whatever process you need to go to to make a Horcrux, Voldemort went through all of it the night he died the first time and marked Harry.

All the steps for my method of making a Horcrux were met that night.

The item in qustion is baby Harry, nothing interesting there.

The soul sliver was split the way it always is — through death. Voldemort dies, killed by his own killing curse and that is what splits his soul.

The life or spirit that then binds his soul to Harry isn't Lily's spirit or James'; it's his own spirit that acts as a binder between Harry and Voldemort’s split soul. Because the spirit was already his, there was no need to transform it by blood.

Step-by-step guide to making Horcruxes:

I'm not going to actually give the full step-by-step least a budging dark lord is looking for this information. I do have notes about exact incantations and even the full recipe and instructions for the Phlagaton potion I'm going to mention. These instructions won't be here since they are more in the realm of speculation and headcanon. This is just the overview of the ritual based on canon information and the occult philosophy I mentioned above.

Step 1 - Life and Blood

Get access to a recently deceased human and extract their Mercury (Spirit or Life Essence).

Submerge the retrieved life essence with your own blood on a new moon (life and vitality). (7 drops of blood will probably do)

Step 2 - Water of Fire

To complete the cycle of death and rebirth you’ll need the Phlegeton Water potion to return you to life at the end of the cycle.

As you brew the potion, it must be brewed in a dark room, preferably underground to remind as much of the underworld as possible.

While brewing the potion one must be in the mindset of the Phlegeton, must be willing to go through agony to achieve eternal life and imbue these thoughts in their potion. (In alchemy, when working, it is believed you imbue your work with your thoughts during the Alchemical process. As an Alchemical process affects both the material being worked and the Alchemist themselves)

Likley Ingrediants:

Saffron spice

Golden crocus flower juice

Pomegranate juice

Step 3 - The Ritual Preparation

Set up your space so none of the components may escape the ritual space and so the ritual will not be interfered with.

Make sure the spirit you retrieved is within reach.

Make sure the item you desire will hold the Horcrux will be within reach as well.

Coax the spirit into the item and prepare it to tie your soul to the next step.

Step 4 - Death and Rebirth

To create a thread of your soul to tie to the ritual, you must die figuratively. Go through death to return stronger from the underworld.

Once you feel like death has reached you and your soul is separated you should heal your soul and finish the cycle, bringing you out of death and back to life by drinking the Phlegeton potion.

After the pain subsides you will feel healthier than before, stronger than before, and you’ll have an additional thread of sulfur (soul) in your chest to be pulled out and placed into the Horcrux.

The split-off soul should, on its own, try to search for life and a body to be bound to. If it doesn't, coax it out yourself and bind it to the Horcrux with the spirit you made in step 1.

Step 5 - Oath of Life

The connection between the body (the item), soul, and spirit is still unstable, if most likely strong enough to hold.

Swear the oath of life to finalise the bound between you, the Horcrux, and the soul thread together to ward off death.

I'll end with this note I made regarding Horcruxes when I started working on this theory:

I don't know what all goes into the process of making a Horcrux but I don't believe a person who truly likes themselves and doesn't want to inflict pain on themselves could make a Horcrux. Tearing up your soul is an act of arrogance above nature, sure, thinking you deserve to change the laws of the world and be the exception is part of it, but it's also an act of self-hatred. You need to hate yourself enough to be willing to kill yourself, hurt yourself, and tear yourself up in the most unnatural ways — hence why so few can do so, let alone more than once.

And Tom Riddle does seem to have that exact mix of arrogance, spite, and low self-esteem that would allow it.

#hp theory #hp #harry potter #harry potter theory #harry potter thoughts #tom marvolo riddle #lord voldemort #horcrux #hollowedtheory #overthinking #voldemort #voldemort analysis #wizarding world #tom riddle #horcruxes #nagini #moaning myrtle #slytherin

[princeisolde]

Jkr I’m gonna fetishize your villain forever as a method of protest against you.

#Im trans and annoying sorry #tom riddle #today on the internet #harry potter #hogwarts #slytherin #ao3 #moaning myrtle #murder most foul #trans rights #jk rowling

[tellmeeverynothing]

What if Myrtle Warren's death was an accident?

What if-

No.

Tom just wanted the Basilisk to know fresh air.

Myrtle stopped moving-

It was the middle if the night-

-and toppled, completely frozen, to the ground.

-and no one was meant to be there.

...

...

It can't be that easy.

Tom hadn't meant to hurt anyone.

It was an accident!

But Tom, who is terrified of death, who has watched London bombed and is researching about magic to offer him a second chance-

But Myrtle, who was kind and sweet and shy, who said hello to him and wept behind him, who trusted him-

-has an opportunity.

-is dead.

So Voldemort's soul splits.

And Moaning Myrtle weeps.

#tom riddle #moaning myrtle #myrtle warren #voldemort #harry potter #what if #headcanon

[expectopatronum81]

"The marauders should have been expelled for what they did to Snape 😤😤"

Tom riddle let a giant motherfucking snake that can kill just by looking on lose in a school full of kids to kill all the students of a particular blood status, and ended up actually killing a student

The most Albus 'the greatest wizard of all time' Dumbledore did was 'keeping an annoyingly close watch on him.' (it's also worth noting that tom learnt how to split his soul from books procured from the school library under said watch)

Lyk.....wtf did u expect, keep up!😂😂

#lmaooo #the lack of safety measures Hogwarts has in place is truly astounding #ik it wasn't done for the right purpose... but could Dumbledore REALLY complain when the ministry wanted to be involved!? #safest place in Britain my ass #harrry potter #severus snape #james potter #sirius black #marauders era #mauraders #tom marvolo riddle #tom riddle #moaning myrtle #anti dumbledore

[simping-4-voldemort]

Onion Headlines and Harry Potter Characters part 21/?

#ron weasley #hermione granger #nymphadora tonks #sirius black #moaning myrtle #myrtle warren #barty crouch jr #barty crouch sr #lord voldemort likes to watch the world burn #lord voldemort sows chaos #lord voldemort #harry potter #tom riddle #goblet of fire #prisoner of azkaban #hp shitpost #shitpost #shitposting

[saintsenara]

bookbinding tom riddle/myrtle warren teen | 35.5k words

‘men like practical women, pudding,’ had always been mum’s advice. men who like country walks don’t want girls in vertiginous high-heels, they want girls in wellington boots. men who like hearty meals don’t want girls who’ll only eat lettuce. men who are in trade unions don’t want girls who don’t pay the greengrocer on time.

men who are orphans, who believe themselves damned and are too thin and don’t sleep properly and live their lives sustained only by a current of murderous fury, require a different type of practicality. they don’t need to be soothed by a wet blanket - with those girls, they’ll push their luck and get into trouble and end up either in hospital or in prison.

they need a girl who’ll take charge and keep them on the straight-and-narrow, since they've made such a hash of managing their own lives so far.

which will win: sixteen years of planning for brutal world domination, or one (1) teenage girl?

this piece was written for week nine of @ladiesofhpfest, on the theme of heartthrobs and heartbreaks [you can find the masterlist for this week's fics here].

tom riddle and moaning myrtle may not be an instinctive pairing for that theme, but i like a challenge...

fortunately, so do they.

bookbinding is, at its heart, a romantic comedy, which means that it’s crammed full of lovely tropes and character archetypes.

there are some author's notes under the cut. let’s dive in.

our cast of characters

our heroine is, of course, moaning myrtle.

myrtle is someone who is not treated particularly kindly by the canon narrative, even though she ought to be objectively sympathetic by virtue of being a murder victim.

on the one hand, this is because she is sincerely and extremely annoying, and harry - from whose perspective the narrative is written - is a teenage boy with a low tolerance for irritation.

but, on the other, she is a victim of one of jkr’s worst tendencies: defaulting towards describing characters whom the audience is not supposed to regard as heroic as physically unattractive (and, especially, describing them as either fat or unusually thin). jkr also has a tendency to write women whom the narrative considers insubstantial in character as emotionally volatile and demonstrative: myrtle’s theatrical wailing and oversensitivity, for example, puts her in the same category as characters such as lavender brown and cho chang - not villains by any stretch of the imagination, but not people whose emotions really deserve to be taken seriously. the ‘good’ women of the series - ginny and hermione chief among them - are not emotionally repressed, but they are emotionally controlled.

i’ve always really disliked this - indeed, i’ve always thought that there’s a slightly victim-blaming tone to myrtle’s canon death (that is, that if she wasn’t crying in the loos about something trivial - olive hornby teasing her about her glasses - then she’d have been fine), rather than a message that voldemort’s bloodlust was unstoppable, and most of his victims were ordinary people who were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

the flip side of this is that myrtle makes a great rom-com heroine - the awkward nerd who ends up with the hottest boy in school is a popular trope for a reason. but, all too often, the heroines of these pieces of media end up conforming to stereotypes in the other direction; the ‘weird’ girl is actually cool, the ‘ugly’ girl takes off her glasses and is hot. the harry potter series already uses this trope with hermione - who only needs one hair product to transform into someone who looks as though they belong on the arm of an international quidditch star - and i thought it was trite when it was first published and i still think it’s trite now.

so it was important to me, then, that the myrtle of bookbinding wouldn’t transform either physically or emotionally beyond the changes which happen to all of us as we go from being fourteen to almost-nineteen. [after all, one of the reasons why the canonical myrtle acts the way she acts is because being perpetually fourteen must be hell - as she tells us here.]

it was also important to me that the characteristics and actions which jkr tends to take a dim view of in women would end up being myrtle’s greatest strengths. her pettiness can be a bad thing (she saves tom from dumbledore - her least favourite teacher - the night he kills the school roosters, allowing the chamber of secrets to be opened), but it also brings her power, not least since she is unwilling to let tom win any arguments. her tendency to seek out gossip and eavesdrop on the staff table ends up saving the world, when she informs tom that the school will be closed if the basilisk’s attacks continue. her predisposition towards wallowing and her own experience of sadness and loneliness makes her emotionally sensitive and good at reading people (as draco malfoy can attest). the fact that she is bullied gives her a certain devil-may-care attitude towards embarrassment. after all, buying chocolates for tom riddle and being rebuffed is probably less humiliating - in the world of the teenage girl - than olive hornby pointing out your spots.

so why shouldn’t myrtle get a hot (and only mildly terrifying) boyfriend? as a treat.

dear old tom marvolo riddle is many things.

he is a connoisseur of dark magic, a brilliant pupil who aspires to be a mass-murderer, a profoundly- traumatised orphan seeking a place in the world.

he is also a cringe teenage edgelord, who spends most of his time in the library doing extra reading and making up anagrams of his own name for fun. [which is of course why, like all teen edgelords in the 1940s, he has a performative interest in communism.]

i always think it’s worth remembering this: that lord voldemort was once actually young. so much about the adult voldemort is presented as inevitable in canon - even the eleven-year-old tom we meet in half-blood prince is written off as fundamentally inextricable from the shape his adult self takes - that the potential that even tiny things would have had on the outcome of his life aren’t considered. i think this is a shame - and i think it’s a great oversight from the series, given its emphasis on the value of choice.

and these tiny things could have been profound - dumbledore making any effort to deal with the young tom’s crushing grief over the death of his mother, for example - but they could also have been the sort of thing which seems more frivolous - a first kiss, a friend you can chat shit with, a really good piece of chocolate - but which can have a huge impact on the rest of someone’s life.

the tom of bookbinding, then, ends up on the straight-and-narrow through a series of lucky accidents. and this does not require him to be all that different from his canon self - he’s just not a murderer. this tom retains all of the canonical voldemort’s best character traits - he has a surprisingly well-developed sense of honour (the voldemort who castigates wormtail for betraying the marauders would certainly be scathing towards the bullies who don’t have the courage to attack myrtle to her face), he’s very camp, he’s extremely thin, he’s prickly and sickly, he’s a magpie (that the canonical voldemort loves working in the antiques trade is a headcanon i am completely wedded to), he’s a pragmatist, he has a series of very defined mannerisms (he tilts his head to one side when considering things! he examines his hands! he paces!), he’s not somebody incapable of empathy but just someone who sees these things primarily through the lens of himself, he has a tendency towards magical thinking and a very idealised view of his lineage and his place in the world (it’s good for all of us that he never realises how wrong he was about the gaunts)...

and he is absolutely desperate for affection.

which myrtle gives to him, one chocolate frog at a time.

and it turns his whole world upside down. not that he’s prepared to admit it until the very end of the story, of course - before then, he justifies his affection for her as pragmatism (he doesn’t allow the basilisk to hurt her because that would make it obvious it was him who’d opened the chamber), but he’s lying to himself.

i’ve never liked the fanon that tom was bullied at school - he dislikes being condescended to about his background, but i don’t think anyone would dare mock him for it - and i’ve always assumed that his descent from slytherin is widely known in his house. this leads to the belief among the student body in bookbinding - which he is only too happy to encourage - that he is a rich pureblood from exactly the sort of background as his friends.

and i have always preferred the idea - in contrast to dumbledore’s belief in half-blood prince that voldemort has no actual interest in them - that the teenage tom’s ‘devoted friends’ are exactly that. he feels a great deal of affection for the knights of walpurgis in his own little way and they’re not ‘rigidly controlled’ by him (another dumbledore special - in bookbinding we see all of them clearly thinking that tom’s obsession with the chamber of secrets is insane, and conspiring to make him less of a boring workaholic). the issue is that - since all of them are loved and well-off - they can’t entirely appreciate the depth of his need to be paid attention. it’s a good job they have myrtle to pick up the slack.

fans of my other writing will recognise the standard cast of knights - romulus lestrange (having a much better time in this piece than in one year in every ten), abraxas malfoy, tarquin rosier (brother of domitiana), eadmer avery, iago carrow, augustus rookwood and so on.

[if tom has a best friend, though, it’s definitely the basilisk, who is an absolute sweetheart.]

the knights are certainly not good people - none of them have any qualms about disparaging myrtle for being muggleborn - but, crucially, they’re teenagers who have the option to choose a better path. [i’d like to think they’re all sincerely delighted for tom when they hear about his upcoming marriage, and salazar and merope jr. have a devoted team of uncles who don’t spare their blood status a second thought.]

and, as with tom, i therefore wanted to give them a chance to be teens. they’re all deeply uncool piles of hormones who drink in the hog’s head - which trips the adult voldemort up in half-blood prince when he comes to hogwarts for his job interview, exactly as it does for hermione in order of the phoenix - because they think it makes them look interestingly dangerous. [it doesn’t.]

they’re also all obsessed with getting their ends away.

writing tom’s sexual awakening made me chuckle self-indulgently at numerous points - the poor thing was spiralling! and i will never get over how a commenter pointing out that he behaves like ‘a chaotic slut’ at several points in this story made me scream! - and so i think that we ought to give props to the two other women who end up saving the world beside myrtle. antimony tremblay is named after a poisonous metal, but her willingness to throw herself at tom in slughorn’s cupboard ended up curing him of his tendency towards isolation and detachment. domitiana rosier - sister of agrippina rosier lestrange, tom’s scourge in one year in every ten, who is minding her own business here - has an imperious demeanour to match her name, and her lack of interest in tom’s muggle blood ended up curing him once and for all of his flirtation with blood supremacy (she also trained him very thoroughly on what to do in bed). she will get her lovely pureblood marriage and be happy enough, but she will always regard tom as the one that got away. even though he considers himself to have hit the jackpot with myrtle, he will be insufferably smug about this.

we have two final shout-outs.

the first of these is to myrtle’s parents. in canon, all the muggleborns we meet seem to extract themselves from their world of their birth - hermione, who ceases to spend any meaningful time with her parents from the summer before prisoner of azkaban onwards, and whose violence towards them in deathly hallows is never interrogated, is the main example. i’ve never liked this - since it’s undermining the point the series thinks it’s making about how blood-supremacists’ beliefs that the magical and muggle should never mix are wrong - and so it was important to me that myrtle came from a loving home which she regards as infinitely superior to the cruelty of the magical world, with parents who respect and encourage her magic.

like their daughter, the warrens are ordinary people who show how being ordinary can change the world. myrtle’s mother, in particular, is the best sort of activist - a normal woman who snaps one day and throws an orange at the prince of wales, who believes that the hard work of compassion is best done through plying tom with iced buns, who is stubborn and never gives up, who isn’t afraid of taking on the state (she’ll get her review into wool’s orphanage), who is happy to be giggly and silly, and who gives extremely good advice. men do indeed like practical women.

the second deserves to go to albus dumbledore.

beyond the fact that he takes against the young voldemort immediately on the basis of his own self-loathing, one of the canonical dumbledore’s flaws is his tendency to prioritise interesting people and take a lack of interest in those who are not spectacular. as a teacher, i can imagine him having little time for the average pupil - as myrtle certainly thinks.

but he learns an important lesson here. there is, as he tells us, beauty in the ordinary - and he recognises, long before tom does, that the beautiful ordinariness of teenage friendship, and girlfriend trouble, and chocolate frogs, and a brilliant (but strange and lonely) boy realising that the love of his life is the world’s most normal girl has altered the course of history. he throws himself sincerely into match-making from then on.

and he’s definitely invited to the wedding.

our setting

we get some hints in canon - especially in half-blood prince - that hogwarts is a school full of teenagers, doing what teenagers do, but harry’s whole ‘saving-the-world thing’ means that he’s a bit too preoccupied to notice what must be a fundamental truth: that hundreds of hormonal creatures, locked up together for months at a time with virtually no adult supervision outside of lessons, will be insatiable.

our setting is also the hogwarts of the forties. i had great fun with the period slang, as well as with the names - beyond the anglo-norman names i use for most of my purebloods (tremblay, duhamel etc.), reginald chive and hubert fawley owe something to p.g. wodehouse, autonoë dashwood-brandon’s mother had clearly been reading sense and sensibility, isabella spats is a distant relation to carmelita spats from a series of unfortunate events, sandraudiga rowle has a norse name like her nephew thorfinn, henrietta savernake is from the poirot novel the hollow, and igor bagman - canonically friends with augustus rookwood - is just as good a quidditch player as his son.

this time-period is, of course, when the second world war was taking place. i’m on the record as disliking the fanon that the canonical voldemort is traumatised by the war (especially the blitz, which he’s at school during), and here his main hardship - as it was for many people - is rationing. myrtle’s shared detestation of the practice is one of the things which really makes his feelings for her (something he’s not quite understood yet when they run into each other in chapter two…) click into place.

our themes

jkr’s lack of sympathy for myrtle contrasts with the fact that she clearly has a sincere dislike of female bullying - and, especially, the sort of petty sniping about appearance which is so profoundly damaging to teenage girls [i do really advise reading what she says about pansy parkinson on this matter.]

however, it’s always seemed to me that her view can be assumed to be that ‘good’ women simply suffer through this torment, knowing that they have the moral high-ground - hermione must, like myrtle in bookbinding, be isolated by being the only girl in her dormitory not in a cliquey friendship-group, but she never seems upset about lavender or parvati excluding her; luna, whose shoes are hidden like myrtle’s are (i think this must be a standard ravenclaw thing), simply shrugs everything off.

but i think that’s bullshit. myrtle is allowed to wallow in her devastation at being bullied and ostracised - and, especially, at her devastation at not ever knowing what she’s done wrong. bringing your own packed lunch, or spilling pudding down yourself, or being happy to receive a birthday present, or having an attractive male friend are such benign things, but they are also the sorts of things which trigger so much cruelty in the teen ecosystem.

i also thought it important that lot of myrtle’s bullying should be connected to being muggleborn. olive hornby doesn’t have the sort of name which indicates being pureblood in canon, but here she is one, and her relationship with myrtle is absolutely driven by the fact that she is an inherent insider to the magical world and myrtle isn’t.

in canon, we get the hint that bullying people over blood status is the preserve of slytherins with death eater sympathies, but this has always seemed reductive to me (not least because blood status drives so much of the ‘good’ side’s narrative - the weasleys are protected by their class, for example, and this changes how they interact with the world to a significant extent, as ron’s view of house elves shows). after all, the trigger for so much teenage bullying is difference of any kind - and muggleborns are objectively different from those raised in the wizarding world. [especially since, as tom himself points out, wizarding society is pretty medieval - they should think about opening cinemas.]

they are also subject to plenty of pressure. i liked myrtle’s fury at dumbledore trying to make her work hard in transfiguration simply because she wouldn’t want to let other muggleborns down (with dumbledore never stopping to think, for example, about how myrtle might be disadvantaged by things like the trace, which never applies to her pureblood classmates). tom, too, is a victim of this pressure. i’m always struck in half-blood prince that dumbledore never tells mrs cole that he’s a wizard, meaning that he must be the only child in hogwarts whose guardian - whose relationship with him is already poor - must have no idea where he goes all year. this is one of the main examples of dumbledore failing to understand the canonical voldemort’s disjointed sense of belonging, and how his isolation feeds his rage, and it was nice to resolve it here, as tom’s colossal abandonment issues become something he finds more manageable once he’s created his own place in the world, with his house, his rabbit, his job, and - of course - a family of his own.

our love story

because, of course, bookbinding is really about one thing: how love can save the world.

tom and myrtle are a crack ship, of course, but i do think that they can be made to sincerely work as a couple because they both have a fundamental need for attention - it’s why he flounces over to her when she’s crying in the library, it’s why she storms off after him when he snaps at her, it’s why their meet-cute is neither of them allowing the other’s emotional state to distract from what they want to say.

but their need for attention manifests slightly differently in each of them. myrtle needs affection as reassurance, tom needs it as validation - dumbledore presents his belief that he’s special, his breathless glee at someone taking an interest in him, his joy at being listened to by his death eaters, as arrogance, but it’s clearly caused by the fact that he wasn’t allowed to develop a sense of being wanted and liked as a child. together, tom and myrtle can provide each other what they need - his expectation that she should take an interest in his interests ends up making her feel cleverer and braver, her expectation that he should hold her hand and walk her through things she fears ends up making him feel comforted and wanted for the first time in his life.

after all, the chocolates upend tom’s whole world. and the idea of love-as-comfort - something which the canonical series relegates to a subordinate position far below love-as-suffering and love-as-sacrifice - is one of the key themes of bookbinding. tom always refers to his attraction to myrtle using metaphors of things which are comforting - the roses round the door of the house, honey (after all, he has a famous sweet tooth), the cinnamon sprinkle on the top of a rice pudding, milky tea, a feather bed, a blancmange which cools a sore throat - which seems to be something which has really stood out to many readers. and he seeks out this comfort despite not really knowing why - in chapter two, it should be emphasised that it does, in fact, take that long to walk from spitalfields to walthamstow; tom is making at least a fifteen-mile round trip daily to see myrtle’s house.

and myrtle - who is much more insightful than she’s given credit for, even in canon - understands this. it’s why she notices that tom’s need to comfort himself is lying under the sinister things he reveals to her in the cave. his belief that he killed his mother is something i’ve written about elsewhere, as is his belief that he was always a wizard but nobody understood that - and the self-protective anger in which he wraps his loneliness and grief is a favourite theme of mine to explore when writing him. the shells and sea-glass - a motif of his childhood throughout my writing - turn up in bookbinding too, when myrtle forces him to think about his childhood for the first time in years.

it’s also why she gives him the marriage certificate. it’s implied in canon that voldemort never knows his mother’s name, and myrtle finding it for him is - therefore - one of the most sincerely lovely things anyone has ever done for him and his sense of self. i think it’s for the best that he believes that his parents’ marriage was happy, even though i know that many readers have found this bittersweet to consider.

of course, the fact that they’re both equally stubborn also helps myrtle set tom on the straight-and-narrow as well. the fact that myrtle doesn’t share his love of hogwarts or his obsession with magic is something tom initially can’t comprehend, but he comes to understand how his feeling of not belonging in the muggle world is what myrtle feels in the magical one. by chapter six, he’s a paid-up muggle defender, proud of his background, much to his friends’ initial dismay.

this is a rom-com, though, so they still manage to break up for a bit - although tom, whose canon version is capable of a surprisingly steadfast faithfulness, remains loyal to myrtle the whole time (as she does, bar some igor-bagman-wrangling, to him). but myrtle manages to show some self-growth of her own and realise that she is being a bit of a drama queen. [who among us?]

the course of true love rarely does run smooth… but everything works out in the end.

and the love between the soon-to-be mr and mrs riddle brings about glimpses of the changed future which numerous readers have told me have moved them. my favourite? it has to be tom riddle sr. falling in love with frank bryce, a concept which now has me in a chokehold.

after all - to borrow a life lesson from tom marvolo riddle - there is always something that can be done to fix things.

#asenora fics #tom riddle x myrtle warren #tom riddle #myrtle warren #bookbinding #ladies of hp fest #moaning myrtle stan account #annoying him into changing #i can fix him #and you did baby

[stabby-apologist]

Exactly how big are the pipes in Hogwarts for the basilisk to use them to travel through the castle and then just disappear when someone takes a corner?

Poor Mario would never be able to get out and save Princess Peach.

#harry potter #post #lord voldemort #tom riddle #harry potter and the chamber of secrets #the writing on the wall #girls bathroom #moaning myrtle #tom riddle's diary #heir of slytherin #jason isaacs #mandrake #parseltongue

[ggadtomarry]

Tom | LV fandom, let's delve into controversial matters.

Yes only two choices this time because I would like a clear opinion.

Preliminary thoughts: let's not consider the fact that letting a very dangerous creature free to roam is already criminal. And Tom used this kill to create an horcrux, so he didn't regret it, obviously.

I'm interested about his intent. Did Tom decide to kill someone or not?

#tom riddle #lord voldemort #moaning myrtle

[celestemagnoliathewriter]

💯/📚

Thanks for the ask, anon!

💯 A fic that makes you think #writergoals

Vetus Amicus by @floreatcastellumposts. It's a tremendous work - there are so many pieces that stick with me, months after reading it. It's one of the finest pieces of writing I've had the pleasure of reading.

📚 A fic you wish you could display on your bookshelf

Bookbinding by Asenora/@saintsenara. I have reread this piece THREE TIMES since it was published for the @ladiesofhpfest. It hasn't even been up for a month. It's majestic. Do yourself a favor and read it.

Fic Recs Ask Meme

#fic rec #fic recs #harry potter fanfiction #harry potter #tom riddle #tom marvolo riddle #moaning myrtle #myrtle warren

[tomriddleinafrillydress]

Chapter 8

Bound into insanity — Bound into eternity

Sneak peak:

“I happen to be in a good mood today, so I'm giving you a choice, Warren,” he said so monotonously that he almost contradicted his own words. Their confirmation was only provided by a relaxed expression that could be interpreted as good-natured. “You have the option of voluntarily going along with my request or pointlessly resisting. Which one will you choose?”

Myrtle blinked in bewilderment, shifting nervously from foot to foot. “What are you going to do?” “I'm going to check something.” “What exactly?” “This matter doesn't concern you.” “Since you're clearly going to cast some kind of spell on me, I reckon it does.” A shadow of impatience flashed across Riddle's face. If he was truly in a good mood, he was slowly wearing himself out with every reply Myrtle made. “Just yesterday you begged me not to test anything on your body,” he remarked, drawing his wand. “You should be grateful to me for honouring that request.” “And how can I be sure you're telling the truth?” “Outof the two of us, I'm not the one lying through my teeth at every opportunity.” “Well then, tell me what you have in mind and I'll think about it.” When she received an irritated grimace in response, she reached for her wand, but she didn't even manage to find it with her fingers, and it was already flying towards Riddle's prepared hand. Myrtle swallowed and, as if in slow motion, rushed towards the door, but, hit by a spell in the back, stiffened halfway. She fell on her face, unable to make the slightest movement, and a cry caught in her throat. “To think that you could have used this opportunity to form a bond of trust,” muttered Riddle, unhurriedly stepping closer. “Next time I'd advise you to make a wiser choice.”

Read Chapter 8 here.

Read from the beginning here.

#tom riddle #tom riddle fanfiction #hp fanfiction #hp fanfic #moaning myrtle #moaning myrtle fanfic #tom riddle fanart #tom riddle/moaning myrtle #hp fanart #hp fandom #harry potter fandom #harry potter fanart #harry potter fanfiction #tom marvolo riddle #bodyswap #body swap #body switch

[adeadlyobsession]

Tom and Myrtle: An IdeaTM

Okay, I'm sick and my sickness brain decided to go down this path:

Tom Riddle must really regret killing Moaning Myrtle for the two years he has left at Hogwarts. He's a prefect, and later a Head Boy, meaning he has access to that bathroom reserved for the prefects, bathroom that dear old Myrtle has canonically invaded for the sake of spying on naked boys (and maybe girls too, who knows).

I headcanon that Riddle gets terrified (in the most angry way) of Hogwarts bathrooms after the first time she appeared floating above the pool while he was bathing. She never knew he was the one responsible for her death, nor is she ashamed of showing her interest in him (like 95% of the school's population back then).

Anyway, crack fic where Moaning Myrtle is a terror and Tom can't even have a quiet time at the loo without her finding him. This + having split his soul once already = an even more volatile Tom Riddle who jumped at the occasion to kill his Muggle family. Oh he had other plans for them before that, imperio them into giving him their money, stealing their house and making himself heir of their entire fortune for one, but after all that time trying to evade a fucking ghost, he kills them because he can't kill her anymore. And exorcism who? Under Dumbledore's nose? Unlikely!

#tom riddle #moaning myrtle #crack #headcanon #harry potter #something I might write someday #for now brain is not functional so any fics are on pause until I get better #muchADOaboutnothing

[thisisanomdeplume]

Tom / Myrtle -- One Shot -- WC: 4537

She liked him. It was obvious. 

It was also useful. Everyone always gave him something to use to get what he needed.

He dragged his bottom lip between his teeth and her lips parted ever so slightly. 

Little slut.

#fan fiction #ao3 link #harry potter #harry potter fanfiction #tom riddle #moaning myrtle

[faust-vs-mephistopheles]

What amazes me is how much Tom Riddle Jr/Moaning Myrtle is a missed opportunity of a pairing. She's his first victim, a muggle-born witch. Imagine if she went from his first romantic interest to his sacrifice on the way to his so-called greatness. She deludes herself into thinking that he wants to become a DADA teacher to be closer to her even after her death, only to learn later that he was the one who arranged her murder. Her constant switching from sanity to insanity in afterlife and him slowly falling into madness in his quest for eternal life. Immortality: his biggest dream is her greatest curse.

#tom riddle jr #voldemort #moaning myrtle #lol

[rhosinthorn]

So, all of you lovely, lovely people.

My spouse and I got to talking tonight, and the subject in question was: what would happen if Myrtle Warren (Moaning Myrtle) started haunting Tom Riddle (Voldemort) after the events of Goblet of Fire?

Our basis for this scenario was simple:

1. Myrtle haunted Olive Hornby until the Ministry made her stop. So she is clearly down to haunt those who have “wronged her”.

2. Myrtle did not know who set the basilisk on her, but it’s entirely possible that someone explained the Heir of Slytherin/Tom Riddle/Voldemort thing to her directly, or she overheard it.

3. Myrtle is eternally a teenager and this is teenager level petty/spiteful.

4. Myrtle also has a massive crush on Harry, and might be willing to do such a thing for his sake.

I’m currently refusing to entertain taking this on as another WIP, so it’s fair game for anyone who feels inspired by the thought of a petty teenager making Voldemort’s life hell.

#harry potter #fanfiction prompt #voldemort #tom riddle #moaning myrtle #the thought of voldemort being sassed over failed plans by a petty teenage ghost makes me crack up