Sixth year students gathered anxiously around the scrawled writing opposite their Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom as they watched in horror while the stony body of Maribella Steiner lay motionless on the floor underneath the words "Mudbloods beware". Isabel Rochester stepped forward from the crowd, attempting to implement some semblance of order.
"Someone go get Professor Dippet!" She barked, shoving two of her fellow classmates in the direction of his office. "Well, don't just stand there someone else go inside and get a teacher!"
On her command two more students scrambled into the classroom in order to alert their professor.
"Excellent use of command, Rochester…" A smooth voice whispered from over Isabel's left side, "But I believe command of this situation would best be placed in my hands."
Isabel need not turn to face the boy behind her; she knew his silky voice and warm breath on the back of her neck all too well.
"Oh, Tom!" She cried, finally allowing the rush of emotions and horror to overtake her as she buried her head in his chest.
Tom stood still for a moment, unsure of how to deal with this unprecedented show of emotions. He had always known that Isabel was, at her core, weak, but she had never been one to display that weakness, especially not to him. He slowly lifted a masculine hand up to the crown of her head and patted her lower back lightly, "It will all be okay…" He said unconvincingly.
Professors and younger students began to crowd around their frozen classmate and the whole room parted as Headmaster Dippet and Professor Dumbledore made their way through the crowd in order to assess the situation.
Dippet stood horrified, while Dumbledore's face remained unreadable. Tom quickly pulled his arms away from Isabel and addressed his headmaster.
"Is she dead…professor?" He asked.
Dumbledore answered, "No, it seems she has been petrified."
Tom stood for a moment, unable to comprehend the information. She should have been dead. All signs pointed to…
"She is merely frozen, but still living," Dumbledore explained. "As long as we still have the garden of Mandrakes out in the Herbology greenhouse, Miss Steiner should be alright."
Tom stood, still motionless, attempting to conceal the anger that was rising up inside of him. He had instructed it to kill. He had told it, plainly, to kill…
"So she should be alright?" Isabel asked, staring at her fallen classmate.
"Yes, she should be able to come out of it," Dumbledore responded, his eyes still on the crestfallen Tom Riddle.
"H—How does something like this happen?" She asked, a solitary tear trickling down her pale cheek.
"I have many theories," Dumbledore replied, "But they are only that."
Professor Dippet, looking more worn and frazzled than ever before finally turned to face Tom.
"Tom, please, gather the prefects and instruct them to bring their classmates back to their respective common rooms," Dippet sounded frightened, "Do it as quickly as you can."
Tom, who wished only to linger as a fly on the wall to watch the scene unfold, turned grudgingly on his heel and let out a barking cry, "Prefects! Bring everyone back to their common rooms! Slytherins, follow me!"
He led the younger students back to the Slytherin common room with Isabel walking closely at his side, her tall black heels clicking as they hit the stone floor. She stared at Tom, with sympathetic eyes that were unbecoming on a Slytherin girl, especially one who had found such favor with Tom Riddle.
Tom stopped the group of excited Slytherins at the cold stone wall, behind which their common room lay and muttered the password "Parseltongue"
One by one he watched as the smaller Slytherins piled into the common room, and more specifically he watched as Isabel as she walked nervously behind them. Tom followed them into the common room and addressed his young Slytherin charges.
"I'm sure you all have a lot to talk about," He said quietly, a faint smirk twisting the sides of his delicate lips, "But you're going to have to do so in your dormitories."
As the population in the common room dwindled only Isabel and Tom remained, standing next to each other in front of the burning hearth.
"What is it, Tom?" She asked quietly. "What happened to her?"
"How could I know?" He replied nonchalantly, "But whoever it is has the right idea."
Isabel turned to face him, her dark eyes shining in the firelight, "If you knew what was happening, you would tell me, wouldn't you Tom?"
"Of course," He lied, a cool smiling spreading across his dimly lit face.
The two of them stepped closer to each other, each silhouetted by the firelight. Tom could sense their passions rising, and he could tell that the heightened tensions in the castle had in turn heightened the sexual tensions between the two prefects. She leaned in slowly, as did he, preparing for a kiss.
Isabel wrapped her arms around his waist and buried her head in his chest once more, taking in his own naturally alluring scent.
"I'm so glad I have a friend like you, Tom," She sighed. "You always make me feel safe."
Tom's heart sank as he realized that he had misinterpreted Isabel's motions, and that once again he had been reduced to merely a friend. He had long awaited his chance to take advantage of all of Isabel's charms. To fully explore the wonder that was Isabel Rochester, but he had never been allowed that privilege. Since their first year, when he had met her on the train to Hogwarts he had become enamored with her stunning looks and cool charm, even more stunning was her sorting into Slytherin which had never quite been clear to either him or his classmates. Isabel was unusually ambitious, remaining right under Tom for head of their class and always in charge of organizational events within Hogwarts, and it was that ambition that truly marked her as a Slytherin. Her pure lineage and daunting beauty also placed her with her fellow Slytherins, but her unusual kindness and pride in morality often set her apart from the rest of her class.
In Tom she had found a friend within whom she could confide, a friend who would listen and though he was not extraordinarily comforting, the fact that he was listening always served as comfort enough. Isabel had often imagined that with her he could let down his stoic demeanor, and that she knew a Tom different from the charismatic yet reserved student that Hogwarts students and faculty saw. She imagined that Tom felt similarly about confiding in her, though he rarely did so.
Tom had devised a strategy for obtaining Isabel's affections, which after six years had made very little progress. Though he kept his vow of revealing his secrets to no one, he allowed Isabel to share in small confidences in order to make her feel special and set apart. Tom's obsession with Isabel had grown over the past six years, to the point where on cold and lonely nights Tom would don an invisibility cloak he had stolen from a shop many years before and sneak into the girl's dormitory in order to watch her sleep. He became entranced by her rhythmic breathing, and the small whispered moans she emitted when he dared stroke her hair.
Tom and Isabel had grown in Slytherin together, and as Isabel had grown Tom could not help but notice that she had become the perfect image of all he desired in a woman. She exuded a pureblood class that complimented her stunning beauty. Her long dark hair fell in pieces around her pale face, and her dark brown eyes glistened with emotion. Tom liked to think that he could read her through her eyes, and recognized them as her greatest weakness. Her eyes gave away her every emotion, her every dream, her every love, and unfortunately Tom had never been able to make them gleam with anything other than friendly adoration. When Isabel came to him distressed or saddened, Tom could not help but feeling a pang of emotion that he rarely had allowed himself to feel. On dark nights, when the moon was just right and the stars twinkled in through Tom's bedroom window he often mused that he could love Isabel, but in time this thought gave way to other desires. Tom did not love anyone, but he did harbor a strong desire for Isabel, not only sexually but mentally. He wanted to understand how people like Isabel lived their lives, so freely and independently. He wanted, more than anything, to bind her to him. To take away that freedom that she flaunted so carelessly throughout her life and make her his own.
Tom stood perfectly still as Isabel let out a dry sob into his shoulder, muttering something that he could not make out.
Isabel pulled away, her eyes glistening with tears as the firelight danced across her face.
"Tom, did you know Maribella?" She asked.
"No," He said calmly.
Lying had become an easy thing for Tom Riddle. Tom had known Maribella, but only briefly. It was during the last trip to Hogsmeade and Tom had dropped in to the bar that had only recently been opened to get himself a warm butterbeer. Inside were Maribella and her friends, laughing loudly as he entered. Tom had always taken a special interest in laughter, it being something he did not indulge in often, so he listened closely to the girls sitting in the booth.
"Well I mean he is good-looking, Mary!" A bushy haired girl laughed from across the table.
"Who? That freaky orphan? Well, yeah, but he's still completely bizarre." Maribella replied.
"You know, I heard that his parents just left him out to die, and he had to fend for himself until he was five!" A smaller girl said from across the table.
"I heard he was raised by an old squib who trains snakes!" The bushy haired girl laughed.
"That's probably it," Maribella said. "What that pretty Isabel is doing with him, I'll never know—Did you hear Joshua wants to ask her to the Yule Ball?"
"Joshua?" The bushy haired girl laughed, "Does he even know her?"
"I don't know, I suppose so," Maribella answered. "Well, I hope she goes with him, I mean she deserves a break from that Riddle character at any rate."
Ahem
The three girls turned around and blushed immediately to see that Tom Riddle had been leaning up against their booth, for how long they didn't know.
"Positively nasty weather out," He said nonchalantly, examining his fingernails.
None of the girls said anything, except for Maribella.
"If you didn't like what you heard, w—well that's your own fault! You should have been eavesdropping!"
Tom merely smiled at the three of them, took one last sip of his butterbeer and made his way out of the bar. He imprinted the image of Maribella's face in his mind. Sitting down she seemed to be about five foot two, golden blonde hair, pale skin, blue eyes, a freckle above her eyebrow on her left side. He tried to keep this image in his mind until he returned to Hogwarts and hastily walked to his dormitory. When he was surely alone, Tom pulled out a blank parchment and tapped his wand onto the page "Aparece" he whispered and watched as charcoal lines spread across the page, coming together in the perfect image of Maribella Steiner's face.
Later that day, on the pretense that he was making his rounds as prefect, Riddle snuck into the girl's bathroom he knew only too well. He was certain that no one would be present since most students had gone safely to bed hours ago. He locked the door behind him, just as an extra precaution, and bent over the familiar out-of-order tap.
"Open" He hissed and the wall did as he commanded.
He made his way down into the chamber and called out to the beast that lay within.
"Nagini!" He called. "Nagini, I have a task for you…"
The snake came when called, and slithered to Tom's side, appearing almost docile before the sixteen year old.
Tom pulled the drawing out of his pocket and laid it down in front of the snake, she blinked questioningly.
"She will be the first," He hissed. "Do not forget her."
Nagini nodded and slithered back into the depths of the chamber, taking the drawing carefully in her mouth.
Tom smiled as he remembered the precursors to the events of that evening. Those few malicious mutterings by an ignorant girl had left her lying petrified in a hospital bed in a school which may or may not have the cure. Little did Maribella know that her condition had brought he and Isabel closer together.
"I don't want to go back to my dormitory, Tom," Isabel whispered. "Stay with me out here tonight."
Tom's heart raced as blood pumped through his body and he sat down quickly to conceal himself.
"If you really need me too…"He said, trying to hide the excitement in his voice.
Isabel sat next to Tom on the long, black, leather couch and rested her head in his lap. He thought quickly about the appropriate course of action as his desires noticeably mounted. Her hair fell in curls gently in his lap and he breasts moved gently with the rise and fall of her breathes. Tom felt an urge to stroke her, but he'd never done such a thing before. It was such a curious concept to Tom; to simply reach out your hand and run it over another person's exposed skin. To twist your fingers around the gentle curves of the hair or to explore the contours of the body so gently that the person being stroked merely relaxes at the touch. Tom lifted his hand, eager to show his heightening nerves that they could no longer stand in the way of his conquering Isabel. He ran his fingers slowly through her hair, and felt his skin prickle as the warmth of her body touched his.
"Mmm," she moaned sleepily, "That feels nice Tom, keep doing it until I fall asleep."
Tom said nothing, but was delighted by this opportunity to touch Isabel. He ran his hands down her back and up and down her neck until he himself fell asleep, Isabel breathing gently in his arms.
As the first light filled the Slytherin common room Tom woke up with the hazy recollection of the previous nights events. He allowed a faint smile to grace his lips as he watched Isabel stir from her sleep as well, opening her eyes and immediately searching for Tom's.
"Oh T—Tom…" She yawned, "I can't believe we lasted all night."
"Neither can I," He replied quietly.
"Do you think anyone saw? Imagine the rumors!" She giggled, sitting upright. "Then Joshua would never ask me to the Yule Ball!"
Anger flooded Tom's entire body as the name he'd heard only once before came spiraling back into his life, more powerful than ever. He knew nothing of Joshua, nor his interest in Isabel, but what he did know is that he needed to crush him.
"Joshua who?" Tom asked casually, not allowing his anger to betray him.
"Joshua McKinnon," Isabel giggled, "He's in our year, very funny, Irish I think."
"What house is he in?" Tom asked.
"Oh, you're not going to like it, Tom," Isabel said bashfully, "He's a Hufflepuff."
Tom tried hard not to retch on the spot. The thought of a Hufflepuff touching the woman that was rightfully his caused the anger that had been boiling in his stomach to rise.
"A mudblood, no doubt," He spat.
"Tom," She shook her head. Being a Slytherin, she had grown accustomed to use of the word, "Does blood really mean everything to you?"
"Blood is everything," He replied casually, "Salazar Slytherin knew that."
The two turned to look up at the daunting statue of Slytherin that stood in the corner of the common room. It always comforted Tom to see his relative watching them. He often mused that Slytherin himself was egging Tom on, helping Tom continue his quest for greatness. He imagined what Slytherin would tell him at that moment.
Crush him. A voice he imagined to by Slytherin's said. Crush him beyond repair.