Tom's First Murder
Tom stood as still as a statue and as pale as a ghost. Delphini was hissing apologies and excuses behind him while the Ravenclaw girl laid lifeless at his feet.
In the back of his mind, he was aware that he wasn’t breathing. However, he felt about to crash down, to drop into the worst panic attack of panic attacks. He didn’t dare blink, in case the body was still there when he opened his eyes. He didn’t dare move, in case it brought someone’s attention to this.
How did it look?
Tom Sallow, from the Gaunt bloodline, standing over a lifeless girl in the girls’ bathroom with a huge basilisk at his back.
And it was not any girl either.
It was that Ravenclaw, Myrtle Warren, the one with a crush on Harry, his Harry.
There was a motive.
There was a tool - a beast in this case.
There was the fact that he was still standing at the crime scene and he couldn’t get to fucking move-
“¡Tom!”
Professor Sallow took him by his shoulders and shook him. But it wasn’t Professor Sallow at that moment. It was Uncle Ominis. Worried pale eyes looking in his direction, close to meeting his own eyes, wand pulsing irregularly, taking in the scene he walked into.
Tom couldn’t help but notice that Ominis seemed to be ignoring the two big elephants in the room, keeping his main focus on the boy that caused everything.
“I didn’t-” he began to say, hating how his voice stuttered, how he sounded his age for once.
“Hush, hush, I’m just glad you’re fine,” Ominis replied, wrapping his arms around the boy in a warm hug.
“But-
“Hush,” Ominis repeated, then turned his head to the hissing noises of the basilisk. “ Go back to the Chamber,” he ordered, and Tom was again wrapped in the feeling of home at listening to his dad’s parseltongue, the one thing he and only he shared with Tom. “Tom,” he called, getting the boy’s attention back. “I’m going to take you to your dormitory, and I need you to promise that you won’t leave it until tomorrow morning for breakfast.”
Tom stared at Ominis with a couple of tears gathering in his eyes.
“What about-”
“I’ll handle it,” Ominis said. “Your mom and dad might come to visit,” he added. “I just want you to stay in your dormitory, and convince your classmates that you were there the whole night. Forget this happened, for now.”
“I didn’t mean for this to happen,” Tom whispered.
Ominis sighed. There he was, his fifteen-year-old, following two of his parents' footsteps and staining his hands with blood at a young age. None of them were clean, though, how was he supposed to punish him when they -the three of them- were no better.
“We’ll talk about this later,” he promised. “Try to act like your usual self. No one can suspect you, ok?”
Tom nodded, forcing himself to keep the tears at bay.
“Good,” Ominis smiled, ushering him out of the bathroom and through the hallway towards the Slytherin wall. “We’ll be waiting tomorrow in my office after breakfast.”
Tom nodded once more and entered the common room, making a beeline to his dormitory where he eyed his dormmates with his usual cold calculated gaze.
“What were we doing?”
Being a Gaunt descendant had its perks, even if some hated that the name was lost to Sallow. But no matter. Gaunt, Sallow or Sayre, Tom and his family were respected and feared on the same level.
Ominis, meanwhile, was levitating a girl’s body down to the Chamber. He didn’t want Ishbel or Sebastian in there, mainly because Delphini could very well kill them as she did with Warren, but he couldn’t take it up to the Charm’s classroom or his office or his quarters.
Someone could see. Tom had… special problems with the Transfiguration Professor and Ominis wouldn’t let him blame Tom for this. Even if this time Tom was to blame.
“Go hide, ” he ordered the basilisk. “I’ll tell you when you can come back outside,” Delphini hissed sadly about disappointing his young Master when she left. Ominis deposited the body in a corner, running his hand through his hair. “Honestly, why couldn’t he adopt a stray cat?”
Then he went to his office and send an owl to his spouses. Not ten minutes later, they were crossing the floo flame, looking worried.
“Where’s Tom?” Ishbel asked, looking around the office.
“I sent him to his dorm. Thought he should have an alibi.”
“An alibi?” Sebastian repeated, raising his eyebrows. “What did he do? Kill someone?”
Ominis hadn’t written details for obvious reasons. He just told them they needed to come as soon as possible. His silence, however, was answer enough.
“I’m surprised it wasn’t you,” Ishbel joked weakly, turning to Sebastian.
“Hey!” Sebastian scoffed. “I’ll have you know that the kid and I have been getting along really well lately.”
“Yeah, since you began teaching him dangerous spells,” Ishbel smirked. “I guess if it worked with us it’d work with him,” she signaled to Ominis and herself. “You get to bond with him!”
Ominis shook his head. He had expected it, them not taking this seriously enough, but he had hoped. He cleared his throat.
“I followed his pet’s frantic hissing to the girl’s bathroom,” he explained. “He was in shock and clearly traumatized. I can only guess, but it seemed like Delphini came out before he could clear the room and this Ravenclaw girl saw her.”
“Ouch,” Ishbel grimaced. “The first murder is always the hardest. Especially if it was an accident. Can’t we see him?”
Ominis shook his head.
“Maybe tomorrow,” he said. “I told him to come here after breakfast. I called you to help me with the body. We can’t leave it in the Chamber, after all, someone could track it.”
“Wait, hold on,” Sebastian raised a hand. “The Chamber. The Chamber of Secrets? Is it real!? And you didn’t tell us?”
Ominis could only imagine the kicked-puppy look Sebastian was sporting at that moment. He could also picture Ishbel mirroring him. They did spend their last year at Hogwarts looking for clues to that particular secret. After the Scriptorium, anything was possible.
“I told you it was in the bathroom!”
“No, you said there was a snake in a sink,” Sebastian turned to Ishbel.
“And you said it was impossible for it to be in the bathroom!” Ishbel crossed her arms. “Only because it was the girls’ bathroom, I bet.”
“Ominis and I couldn’t just walk in!”
“Of course, you could,” Ishbel said. “I was always sneaking into your dorm and the lockers!”
“It’s different.”
“Is not.”
“Guys!” Ominis exclaimed, sending red sparks from his wand as he did in classes and he had to get his students’ attention. “Tom, please.”
“Oh, yeah,” Sebastian rubbed the back of his head. “Sorry.”
“Well, let’s go,” Ishbel said, hopping to the door. “I knew he didn’t just find a stray basilisk. This makes much more sense.”
With the help of Ishbel’s Ancient Magic and Sebastian’s Unspeakable secret knowledge, they were able to completely erase the body from existence. Ominis, for good measure, swept the bathroom with a charm and cleaned any hint of Tom’s magic and presence from the room.
Ishbel went to Ravenclaw tower and the girl’s dorm (it only took her two tries to solve the riddle) and raid the girl’s belongings in silence, making sure to not wake up the other two girls. She took everything that looked important to be able to claim that she left on her own.
From what she read in her diary, it wouldn’t be hard to believe. This Warren girl was as bullied as Puffskein Dunkein, and as likable as Cressida Blume. She also wrote a few days ago about how she wished “she could be anywhere else”.
Ishbel left the diary under the pillow with a giddy smile, then she pocketed the rest of the belongings and scurried back to Ominis’ office. Her two husbands were sprawled over the couch, listing with his fingers to make sure they didn’t forget anything.
They fell asleep, recounting how they felt about their first murder, and planning what they were going to tell Tom in the morning.
To Ominis and Ishbel’s surprise, it was Sebastian who talked to him first. In retrospect, it made sense, because Sebastian was the one who suffered the most that one time. Tom cried a little and apologized, and vowed to be more careful.
Ishbel crushed him in a hug.
“Don’t worry about it Tomtom,” she shushed.
Once Tom left for his classes, Sebastian and Ishbel turned to Ominis with matching grins.
“Don’t say it.”
“Our precious dark lord,” Ishbel gushed.
“His very first murder,” Sebastian continued.
“I've got to write to Imelda,” Ishbel said. “She’s gonna win so many bets with the others.”
“I should go to work,” Sebastian mussed. “Let me know when we’re looting the Chamber.”
Ominis facepalmed.
“Sure, I have a NEWT class anyway,” he waved them off.
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De-age fic, but good parents AU
Something de-ages danny, not a clue what exactly, but it does. BUT, danny had already had a good reveal with his parents, so he goes home and they see him de-aged and immediately get to work figuring out how to get him back to normal.
Life goes on as normal, its just that danny's body is about ten years younger. He still has to go to school (with a story that the thing that de-aged danny was aimed at fenton and phantom jumped in to take the hit but it got both of them - or open secret au, take your pick), still has chores, still has to deal with the ghosts that cause problems.
With barely a pause to question 'is that still danny?' everyone continues as normal.
Thing is, there's the typical information firewall we like to invoke to explain why the justice league doesnt know about amity. It blocks ghosts, Phantom, infinite realms, liminality and ecto-contamination, you name it.
What it doesnt block? Baby Hero.
As in, now that Phantom is tiny, everyone and their dog is taking pics and recording phantom to coo all over him on social media. Everyone is enjoying how adorable he is while it lasts. Even the rogues are playing nicer to soak it all up.
The justice league is concerned. Apparently there's some new hero (phantom has been active for over a year by now, minimum) operating in the midwest, and he is literally preschool age. Even the Robins didn't start that young! Who is raising this kid? What are they thinking?!
Its frustratingly hard to get any more intel about phantom (because the firewall is still catching everything else about him), so theyre gonna have to send someone in blind to scope out the situation.
Who do they send? You can decide, but i vote they put together a team: batman (wfa characterization) because he knows how to handle child vigilantes, wonder woman because everyone loves wonder woman and she's a good voice of reason, and zatanna (NOT constantine! Zatanna is more child friendly) to cover magical bases in case this is something like a captain marvel situation.
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Which Baldur's Gate Characters Know How To Lace Up Their Clothing - Camp Edition
I got this idea because I noticed Gortash's shirt isn't laced properly, and then noticed Astarion's shirt isn't laced properly, so now I need to look at as many characters as I can because I can't stop noticing. And I'm about to spend too much time on this for it to stay in my brain. Starting with all characters who appear at camp (main party + others.)
Shadowheart, Lae'zel, Gale, Withers, Aylin, Mizora, Duke Ravenguard, Emmaline, and Arnell don't have lacing on their camp outfits.
Starting with the default clothes for Tav. Yes, they know how to lace their shirt. Good job. This particular Tav is Durge, so it's good to know he didn't forget how when his brain got Swiss'd. However, it's not perfectly consistent because on the bottom 2 sets of eyelets he threads from the outside, but the third set he threads from the inside. Though this is probably intentional so the lacing doesn't hang on the inside of his shirt, so 9/10.
Astarion, baby boy, you were so close. But unfortunately there are two pairs of eyelets where he threads one side from the outside and one from the inside. For someone who wants to appear so put together, you think he could take the two extra braincells to lace his shirt consistently. 7/10.
Threaded consistently the whole way through...with one side. Why didn't you finish lacing your shirt? Why even lace one side if you weren't going to lace the other? Why isn't the lacing that you didn't finish shorter than the one that you did finish? All questions I can't answer because I cannot ask. 7/10 at least it's consistent.
I couldn't get a good in game screenshot of Karlach since her lacing is on her pants, but I found a texture rip so I can work with it. So the lacing here is the same all the way through, super consistent, *mwah*, but...it's sneakily unnecessarily complicated. Typically, the lacing that laces from the inside to outside would sit on top, but it's not that way on her pants. She pulls the lacing through the eyelet, then threads it under the other part of the cross, then threads it through the top of the next eyelet. And with as much lacing as her pants have, this must have taken forever for no extra benefit. It would have been easier to let it sit on top. 8/10 its pretty though.
Halsin. Beautiful. Gorgeous. I choose to believe the knots are hidden on the inside. No other notes. 10/10.
I've never actually recruited Minthara so I took a picture from the BG3 wiki. Just like Halsin, beautiful. Again, I choose to believe the ends are hidden on the inside. 10/10.
Jaheira's pants lace the same way Halsin's shirt does: perfectly. Though if the knot is hidden on the inside, I feel like that would be more uncomfortable, so I'm gonna headcannon that it ties at her waist under her shirt. Other than that, 10/10.
Minsc's shirt uses the same model as Wyll's so everything I said there applies here, though I feel like it makes more sense for Minsc. My real gripe here is that Minsc is a liar. Talking 'bout some thrice laced pants, but I didn't see any lacing on those pants. How dare he trick me in this way. 6/10 I don't like being lied to.
Yenna's mom may be dead, but she made sure her baby knew how to lace her shirt before she did. She may have gotten kidnapped by Orin, but she looked put together while doing it. Perfect 10/10. She deserves it after what she went through.
After being dead for 100 years, Isobel didn't forget how to lace her armor. Gotta be put together to see her girlfriend again. 10/10 Isobel can do no wrong.
Volo...I don't know what you've done to the front of your pants but it doesn't look good. Some of those crosses are missing. It looks sloppy. What is this. This is something I would do as a joke to see if anyone noticed. Well I noticed and I hate it. 2/10 it keeps your pants closed I guess.
That's it for the camp. I'll link other sets of characters below as I do them.
Tieflings
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Supersons +1 prompt answer
If you asked Danny, 12 year old half-ghost hero of Amity Park, how half-life was going, he'd tell you things were mixed.
On the one hand, he had just spent the last three or four months in family/scientist/'this house is a death trap waiting to happen' therapy with Jazz, and by some miracle, it worked. He wasn't sure if this was some kind of dream as his parents poured over years upon years of research, crossing out lines, rewriting equations, and reevaulating everything they thought they knew about ghosts.
Was the shudders family therapy worth not going over how they'd like to dissect him? he's still not sure. The horror.
Not to mention the attention. Danny was sure he was going to throw up if his parents drag him away for more bonding time, only for a ghost to attack and for him to run off to transform. What made it worse was when the Fentons came barrelling out, guns blazing, alternating between getting mad that he'd interrupted their family time, and asking him questions about "Your suspicious spook culture, if you even have one you dangerous delusional delinquent!"
At least they were trying, but Danny was very much comfortable not spilling the beans on the whole half-ghost situation, thank you very much.
And that's why, when Dad proposed to take him to Gotham to show off their latest invention, he jumped at the chance. The home city of the Batman, one of the greatest heroes known to man (except for Martian Manhunter and Superman of course) and Dad promised to take him to Gotham Observatory too. Not to mention how much he wanted to get away from Jazz's smug looks of superiority. Gotham here he comes!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Damian Wayne scowled as he scanned the crowed of scientists with more smarts than sense. Really, a flying toilet seat. For what deviant?
"Maybe they're for people who can fly." Kent piped up beside him. Father had let the two of them run off together, and his company was mildly more appealing than being alone with his thoughts.
"Why would Superman ever need to relieve himself mid-air. I do not believe you would appreciate your father's rear end being on display for all the world to see."
"True." Jon hummed. His voice lowered to a whisper. "You think indecent exposure is what your dad meant by "scoping out any potential future villains?"
Damian gave Jon a flat look. The sooner this convention ended, the better.
The crowded shifted, and the mass of visitors pushed toward a certain corner, where a man large enough to rival Superman's build stood upon a podium, with a boy their age off to the side.
"Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce to you the latest in FentonWorks' innovations, the Fenton Ghost Zone Radar, soon to revolutionise the study of ghosts!"
"I thought ghosts were a magic thing." Jon said. "You know, stuff Constantine and JLD deal with."
"They are."
"Mixing magic and science is like, like, oil and water. No way this guy's serious, is he?"
"His name is Jack Fenton. That's Daniel Fenton, his son." Damian pointed to the boy in question, looking like he'd seen this scene a hundred times before, but with that knowing glint that promised something deeper. "They're normally spotted alongside Jack's wife, Madeline. Widely regarded as quacks by the larger scientific community for chasing paper-thin theories about ghosts, they've nonetheless gained funding from the government. This is the first time they've left their base of operations in Amity Park for years."
"Woah, you know your stuff, Dami!"
Damian glared at the young Superboy in disguise. "I read the briefing files. Didn't you?"
Kent looked uncomfortable and looked away. "Uhh, maybe?"
"Typical."
"Well, if he's so crazy, then why'd your dad even let him in." Upon another scathing glare, Kent relented. "Oh right, the whole supervillain thing."
"Enough chatter. We'll zero in on the younger Fenton. I intend to squeeze him like a grape, and make Father proud."
"Dami maybe you should be a little nicer-" Only for Damian to march off without him.
Honestly, inane niceties were above someone of his status. Those things were Superboy's job, and if Daniel Fenton wouldn't crack, then Damian was itching to try a new torture technique.
@impyssadobsessions
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