N/A: I normally don't start with N/As, but okay... This is a silly fanfiction I wrote last year for Christmas and now I'm translating it to English (: So, Harry Potter doesn't belong to me, neither A Christmas Carol. Oh, yeah, this story was not proof-read, so, I'm sorry for the mistakes. Hope you enjoy the story~
A Christmas Carol
Chapter 01 - Christmas Eve
Tom Marvolo Riddle was considered by many the best student of Hogwarts. The boy was, with no doubt, brilliant: he always had good marks, his school file was clean and he was an example of responsibility and politeness… For example, now that Christmas was close, the young Slytherin would wish a good holiday for everyone that crossed paths with him on the corridors, always smiling and being extremely polite… What nobody knew was how Tom Riddle wished he could jump of the astronomy tower every time he said a "Happy holidays, sir."
The boy had never enjoyed this time of the year. For him, Christmas had never had a meaning and New Year only reminded him that another year of his life had passed by and he was one year closer to death. Back when he spent the end of the year at the orphanage, Tom hated to attend to Mrs Cole's simple celebrations of Christmas and New Year. He also hated when the other kids wished him a happy birthday on the new year's eve… He had always known that they only did that to be polite, but what they actually wanted to do was to run away from Tom as soon as possible.
But now the Slytherin was at Hogwarts and he could stay quiet in his own corner during the holidays… Well, at least when Slughorn didn't come up with the idea of dragging him to some random Christmas party, but, in that case, he always managed to slip away from the teacher... And it was exactly that what Riddle did when the Master of Potions asked him to join the rest of students that stayed in the castle during the holidays and some teachers on a dinner on Christmas day.
"Professor, I'm sorry, but I think I won't be able to go… You see, I'm not feeling very well."
"Oh, Tom, why don't you go see Madame Heilen? I'm sure she can help you," the teacher smiled and tapped the student's back lightly, "In case you're feeling better by tomorrow night, come to join us."
"Of course, sir."
Tom smirked as he saw Slughorn walking away. Perfect. He had managed to get hid of his teacher and now all he had to do was to go back to the Slytherin's dormitory, which was all his during the holidays, as all his classmates headed home during the break, and enjoy the rest of his Christmas Eve. After crossing the castle, the boy finally got to the entrance of Slytherin's common room, but, before he could get in, two Ravenclaw girls walked by him and smiled, muttering a "Merry Christmas, Tom," and giggling. Riddle smiled back to them before turning back to the stone wall in front of him and whispering the password.
Once inside the common room, Tom looked around, noticing that there was no one else in the Slytherin's dungeons, and threw himself at one of the comfortable dark couches of the room while, with a wave of his wand, he managed to prepare a cup of tea for himself… Everything was in the way the liked: the common room was quiet, wamr and the boy was happy, enjoying the silence and drinking tea while he watched the fire burning in the fireplace.
With a tiny smile on his lips, Riddle closed his eyes and let his head lean against the couch. After a few minutes, the boy opened his eyes and looked around when a irritating sound caught his attention. He finally found the source of the noise when he looked at the fireplace where, above it, someone – probably a ickle first year – had put a garland with a tiny golden bell attached to it. The small bell was shaking, making the annoying noise.
"What…? Stupid ghosts, could you stop that!"
The bell went still… Only to start shaking again.
"Accio garland," the boy whispered, pointing his wand at the object, and it flew right to his hand, "Damn it," Tom said as he threw the garland at the floor.
He took a deep breath before raising the cup of tea to his mouth again, but gasped with the drink when he heard a loud noise behind himself, as if something heavy was hitting the wall.
"For Merlin's sake, leave me alone!" the boy yelled and turned around, searching for what had made such a loud noise, waiting to see Peeves or another ghost there, but there was no one.
Whispering curses to himself, the boy sat back in the couch, but as soon as he turned to look at the fireplace…
"Hello, Mr Riddle!"
"What the…!"
Standing in front of him there was a girl smiling and blushing slightly. She was short, with dark hair pulled into two pigtails and wore a pair of round glasses… Tom knew her… Merlin, of course he knew her!
"Myrtle?"
"It's good to see that you remember me," she smiled and sat down next to him, looking at him with a amused expression on her pale face.
"What do you want?"
"I came to warn you, Riddle," the ghost of Myrtle Mortmore, the girl killed by his basilisk in his last school year, said, "See, I know what will happen with you in the future… And, believe me, it's not a pretty future that you have ahead! Your destiny will be worse than mine," she sighed heavily, "You won't even stay in the form of a ghost if you don't change the way you are…"
"The way I am? Merlin, I choose the way I act, alright? One visit of you won't change me."
"Oh, poor Tom Riddle," Myrtle shook her head, "You don't know how your future will be… This life you're having right now will only take you to the wrong path, believe me. And, by the way, it won't be my visit that will change you…
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that you'll have another chance. If you change your behavior after this night, everything you did until today," the girl spoke, "Everythin… It includes killing me, will be forgiven."
The boy stared at her for a moment before rolling his eyes and laughing softly, "And who said I want to be forgiven? And who the hell will forgive me? God? Make me laugh, Myrtle."
"Be quiet and listen!" the spirit yelled, extending her arm as if she was going to punch him, but her hand only went right through the Slytherin's chest, "You, Mr Riddle, will be visited by three spirits! They'll come after you and I really hope you can learn something from them."
Tom kept staring at the girl whose arm was still inside his chest, giving him a strange cold sensation. When she saw the surprised expression on the other's face, Myrtle smiled and backed away.
"As I said, who said I want their visit?"
"As I said, be quiet!"
"Since when you're so rude?"
"Since I died! Since you killed me, you idiot!" Oh Merlin, Myrtle started crying… Well, Tom was not sure if ghosts could cry or not, but she was whimpering as if she was crying, "I have the right to be rude to you! Now, pay attention because I'm already losing my temper with you: the first spirit will come at one in morning! I warned you…"
And, after saying that, the ghost started to sob almost desperately before flying across the room, disappearing at the wall behind the couch.
Tom's eyes didn't move from where Myrtle was a few seconds before while he tried to understand everything that had happened. Shaking his head and telling himself that it was nothing, only the spirit of a hysterical girl trying to scare him, the boy got up and headed to his room, getting ready to go to bed.
N/A: So, it's so weird to translate this one... I mean, I had so much fun writing it, but now I'm not sure if it's good or not. I know it's short, but this fanfiction's chapter are kinda short ): Well, as I said before, it's kinda like a parody of Charles Dicken's A Christmas Carol ... I've never read the book, only watched at least 4 versions of the movie XD my sister read the book though... Well, this fanfiction was originally written right after I wacthed the last version of A Christmas Carol released, you know, that one with Jim Carrey. Anyway, I wrote this just for fun, so don't expect anything "oh-so-good" of this fanfiction ._.'
1- Myrtle Mortmore: Moaning Myrtle... I thought it would be nice to give her a last name.
2- "Garland": is it right? We call it "guirlanda"... I searched on internet and I believe it's "garland" in English.
Oh, yeah, this fic takes place in 1942, so Tom is... 15. He'll be 16 on the new year's eve of 1942, if I'm not wrong.
Hope you enjoyed it (:
Ari.