Work Text:
It was low-tide, when Tom Riddle found the cave the ocean had carved into the cliff face. It was small, little more than a ledge and a rocky pool of brackish seawater. He wasn’t entirely sure what he would use it for - a bolthole for the self-styled Dark Lord? - but he knew that this place would be important for his future.
Tom had recently graduated from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, an escape he had only dreamed of when he’d been growing up in a barren muggle orphanage. He’d grown up surrounded by bullies, both his housemates and the Matron who was supposed to care for the children.
His escape had quickly turned into a prison in itself. For ten months a year, he had relative freedom where he could learn whatever he wished. The remaining two, he was back in that hellhole in the muggle world.
He had promised himself that when he was an adult, he was never going back to the non-magic world. There was nothing for him there anymore, if there ever had been anything in the first place.
He was in the process of solidifying his power; had just, in fact, marked his first few followers two nights prior. Having named himself Lord Voldemort while he was still in school, he had begun the steps on the path he now tread. There was little to no resistance from the so-called Light side so far. His main hurdle had been a single Hogwarts professor who had decided a single Muggle-raised student required close watch.
Whether it was because he had been sorted into Slytherin, because he could do wandless magic, or because he saw through the masks that people in power held, he wasn’t quite sure. All he knew was that it had been a stifling, watchful gaze that had followed him, and had driven him to the shadows.
There were no eyes here, in this small cavern carved out by the elements.
A few flicks of his wand later and it had more than tripled in size, the walls extending outward and upward, the cave floor lowering by a few meters. He considered the space for a few moments before detaching the ledge from the wall, rounding it out and using it to create a dias in the center of the room.
As he stepped foot on the oval of stone, he looked out at the surrounding water.
This place was nowhere he intended to spend any amount of time in. It reminded him too much of the dungeons of Hogwarts; he could almost hear the jeers of his housemates echoing against the stone walls.
He apparated out with plans to only return once he knew what he would do there.
It was mere weeks later when Voldemort graced the cave once more. There was a storm raging outside, violent enough that even the waters inside were moving with the current. A simple cloth bag fell away to reveal a locket gleaming gold in the dim light of his wand.
It was old and elaborately carved, the chain heavy links that spoke of indelicate but skilled craftsmanship.
A swish and flick later, the locket was in the bottom of a stone bowl, rapidly becoming submerged in a potion. It was one of his own creations, corrosive to skin on prolonged contact and poisonous to those who dared ingest it.
He was no master, but he knew how to create a potion. He had some wizards that were skilled in the craft under him, but none were yet conscripted into true service. He hadn’t wanted to risk anyone else knowing just what potion he was using; there would be no antidote unless he himself came up with it (and why would he?)
He admired the rainbow, oil-slick surface of the still liquid, the locket protected beneath it.
It was the gold at the end of a fatal rainbow, should anyone be foolish enough to go on the hunt.
Faintly, Voldemort heard the whispers of his own voice before turning abruptly away. As he left, Voldemort ruminated over other ways he could protect this horcrux - and how else he might protect others he created.