The Cornered
Chapter One
"May I sit here?"
The handsome dark-haired boy looked up from his book, glancing unhappily at the girl who had interrupted him in his reading. That's the thing he hated most in the world; being interrupted while he was gaining knowledge.
"The other seats are all occupied…"she continued awkwardly, shifting her weight from one foot to another under his scrutinizing gaze. She was dressed in the school robe, an uncommon thing in the night. A pile of books were under one hand, a candle stand in another
'Sure," he finally replied, ducking back into his book. She seemed relieved that an answer, no matter how curt it was, had finally come out of Tom Riddle's mouth. Sitting down facing him, she sat the candle stand down and started writing, dark hair with a tinge of green falling smoothly across her face.
The book Tom was reading was interesting, but so was the green-eyed girl sitting directly in front. She didn't flirt with him, even though she was the typed he'd like: tall and slender, not exactly pretty but smooth, with straight shoulder length hair that defied the current fashion. That's good, he thought dryly, watching her furiously scribbling away at a piece of parchment, at least I won't have somebody bugging me to spend the night alone with them.
The girl looked up for a moment, saw his gaze, blushed quickly and turned back to her work again. It was quite amusing actually, and he felt he could be mean tonight. Just to tease her a bit.
Leaning across the table, he glanced at the scroll of parchment. State clearly the geographical features of Ghosu, the second satellite of Pluto.
"You are taking astronomy?" he asked. Without looking at him, she gave a short and sweet answer, "Yes."
"Need some help?" he smirked, silently measuring the length. She took a much longer time to decide, and the blush creeps up her face again.
"Yes…if you don't mind teaching such a dimwit like me," she replied.
Chuckling, he moved to her side of the bench and started giving her a detailed lecture of the geographical features of the satellite.
"…the rare mineral Uyio found in earth is in an ambundance there. People are trying to sent spaceships there to collect those and come back…"
"For what? Making money?" she asked, her face hardening.
"Exactly," a few tense moment were shared as both toyed about the greed of men, but eventually they move on. Interesting small details that would surely push her grades up were included, things that she can't picture were drawn out for her…time passed merrily, and her homework was finished.
"What's your name?" Tom asked as he checked the work for any error.
"Terene, Terene Ikuo Horriu," she answer, getting over the blushing part.
"That's an interesting name…here, the Irrika Mountain is spelled with double 'r', and it has storage of water, not wafer,"
Smiling embarrassingly, she pulled the parchment to her and corrected the errors.
"You are Tom Riddle, aren't you?"
"Oh, am I that famous?" he said sarcastically, a hint of teasing in the dark eyes. "Which House are you from?"
"Ravenclaw…fancy me, such a dimwit, being sorted into Ravenclaw?" she laughed ironically, mocking at herself.
"You aren't stupid…just a bit slow. Look at your homework now. I've given you the information slowly and clearly, and you are able to write it out." He offered the comfort that she'll need. "And what's more, neither am I a pureblood, but here I am in Slytherein."
A dark shadow passed through her face as he mentioned his House. From the earlier conversation, Tom had thought that she forgot about his House…For the rest of the editing, they were very quiet, speaking only when necessary. The parchment was passed one last time, and the work was done.
He focused back to the book, Defense Against Dark Magic—understand them first. He had bought it from some unknown bookstore in the darker streets of the wizardry world. It had attracted him like a magnet ever since he set eyes on it. Grotesque drawings were drawn, of wizards and witches and muggles suffering. Another head sprouting out, green puss oozing out of the ghastly opened wound with the owner of the hand howling in pain. A page was flipped, and he was there, at the Unforgivable Curse.
"Crucio..." he muttered quietly, his wand aiming aimlessly. By a stroke of fate, the curse hit him. Yelping, he jerked the wand up to take the curse off. What happened? He, at the mere age of fourteen, is able to do the unforgivable curse?
That was the least of his problems now. His yelps had attracted the attention of the other students. Hastily, he shut the book, collected his quills and parchment, and left in a hurry, not noticing (as he usually would) the pair of green eyes following him out.