Disclaimer: Most characters belong to J.K Rowling
Chapter 1: Veronica Daniels
1/9/1944
It was an early September morning. The birds were chirping, the leaves were starting to gain some colour and the long August heat seemed to be replaced with a cool breeze.
It also happened to be Veronica Daniels favourite day of the year.
Today, was when she left for Hogwarts, a magical place for witches and wizards to learn and control their magic.
She bustled down the creaky stairs dressed in a simple dress she had gotten from her mother for her birthday last spring. She had already packed her trunk the night before and brought it down the stairs with her mother's wand.
See her mother was a witch, just like her.
But unfortunately, her father was not.
He was out fighting an unforgivable war for Britain, where they currently resided hoping that her poor muggle father wouldn't fall to a bullet like the other thousands of soldiers.
This made life at home stressful. With the constant blasts of bombs and a relestently anxious mother who could do nothing but help the war morale in hopes of helping her stranded husband. It was sometimes hard to believe her mother was even a witch at all. She hardly ever talked about the wizarding world.
It was like Winnie Daniels never was one of the top students at one of the best schools in the wizarding world.
The first time Veronica had ever heard about Hogwarts was when she was eleven and a brown barn owl dropped a letter with a red Hogwarts crest sticker on her front porch. Her mother hadn't been surprised as she knew her only daughter had something special within her just like she did. But that part of her life was over. She had fallen in love with a muggle boy with dark wavy hair and a crooked smile.
"It was unexpected really" Veronica remembered her mom telling her. "I didn't think I'd fall in love with the son of a milkman, but life is like that."
She smiled at the memory. Her parents truly did love each other and in her hopeless romantic mind she thought that her mom giving up most of her magic to be with the love of her life was kinda sweet.
But in the other half of her mind. The logical part just couldn't seem to understand how her mother could just throw away magic like that. I mean magic was amazing. The magical world was amazing. And yet her mother gave it up just like that.
"Hopefully you'll be in Ravenclaw like me" her mother had said to her with a wistful grin when she told her about the letter she had received.
Veronica was confused. What was Ravenclaw? And where was this "Wizarding School, Hogwarts"?
Her mother answered all her questions and suddenly she was excited to go. She knew she was different with all the unexplainable things she had done like change the colour of her dress when he grandma had gotten her the wrong colour. Or how she had pushed that mean girl, Elizabeth down the school stairs without even using her hands. It all made sense now.
Now at sixteen, Veronica was going into her sixth year at Hogwarts as a second year Slytherin Prefect. Her mother was quite proud of her. Clipping the Prefect badge to her navy-blue dress.
"Mom, I don't need to wear the Prefect badge on my everyday clothes, just my Hogwarts robes" Veronica explained to her mother while she looked at her daughter in awe.
"Oh Veronica! But you look so pretty and authorative in it! You're a Prefect why not show the world?" her mother chided giving her a tired smile.
Veronica was worried about her mother. She had dark bags under her eyes and she could tell her smile was forced. This war was tough on everyone, leaving no one unaffected from its wrath. Her father had been gone for four long years, fighting a useless war and every letter from him was a relieve but not a reassuring one. At any moment her father could be killed by a gun, bomb or sickness.
They were forced to downgrade their little cozy house into an even smaller townhouse with creaky stairs and cracks. A soldier's salary couldn't support them. So, her mother got a job at a factory making war materials. It didn't pay much but it allowed them to keep their cramped townhouse.
God, Veronica couldn't wait for this stupid war to be over.
That's why going to Hogwarts meant so much to her. It allowed her to escape the troubles of her homelife for 10 months out of the year. For four long years this had been her reality.
And she was sick of it.
"You ready to go?" asked her mother, shaking her out of her daze.
"Yup" replied Veronica. So, her mother used her wand that she usually only used on special occasions and brought her daughters trunk into the back of her father's rundown car her mother drove to get to work.
They arrived shortly at King's Cross Station. When they crossed the threshold between the wizarding and muggle world Veronica gave her mother her goodbyes along with the rest of the other families.
"Take care of yourself, okay Mom" Veronica made her Mother promise. She looked into her mother's blue-grey eyes that were so much like her own and saw them glass up a bit.
"I will" croaked her Mother, holding back tears.
She gave her Mother one last hug and kiss before she started to cry too and stepped onto the Hogwarts Express making her way to the compartment where all the Prefects met and were given their duties.
As she made her way to the compartment thinking about what her timetable would be like this year, when she noticed someone. I mean everyone noticed him. It was hard not to with those looks.
Veronica looked at him. She knew she shouldn't be staring but she was quite the curious girl and this boy always had intrigued her.
The notorious Tom Riddle.
He looked handsome as always. With his perfect, jet black hair parted to the side most sophisticatedly. He was smirking at something one of his friends said. Avery was his name Veronica casually reminded herself.
Some third year Ravenclaw girls had noticed him while entering a train compartment and were giggling quite obviously, no doubt because of his charming good looks.
At that moment, Tom turned to look at her, catching her staring. Veronica quickly turned away, realizing she had been staring for far too long, but not because of the way most people would think.
She turned around smoothly into the large compartment and was met with the Head Boy and Girl about to start the meeting. Tom trailed behind her, realizing the meeting was about to start and she stood as far away as possible from him.
You see, Tom Riddle gave her the creeps.
He was too perfect, too smart, too handsome and too charming for any of it to be real.
She used to believe that Tom Riddle was amazing. In first and second year her entire world revolved around Tom. She had had the biggest crush on him. She would stare at him all the time. She would daydream about their future and how many kids they would have. It was quite obsessive when she looked back at it but at the time it seemed perfectly reasonable. I mean he was handsome, crazy smart and he was polite.
What more could a twelve-year-old girl ask for?
It was only until the end of second year when she accidentally caught him, and his group of friends practically torture a third year Slytherin for commenting on his blood status.
To be fair it wasn't unwarranted as Leonard Carrow did have it coming for him. All his snide remarks about blood purity about him and the other half-bloods like herself around the common room finally took its toll on Tom and his cronies.
She didn't mean to walk into the scene. It was right after dinner in the Great Hall and Veronica had left her three friends to go get a potions textbook that she had forgotten. But, she was daydreaming and got lost in the confusing layout that was Hogwarts and thought she heard Tom's alluring voice talking quite intimidatingly to someone. Her curiosity got the better of her, so she followed the sounds and was met with a very unappealing scene.
They had bound Leonard with the Full Body-Bind curse and made him speechless with a silencing charm. He was leaning against the wall with fear in his eyes taking every punch and kick thrown his way while Tom, quite villain like, laughed throwing in a couple of punches himself.
Eventually, Tom gave a few last kicks and punches and condescending words to the poor Slytherin.
It was painful to watch but Veronica couldn't tear her eyes off the horrendous scene. It wasn't just the things that he was doing that contributed to the awfulness, it was his eyes. Those dark eyes contained this hatred and evilness that Veronica could hardly describe.
Just thinking about it gave a shiver down her spine.
He had enjoyed it. That what was the sickest part of it all. His other friends you could tell were having a bit of fun, but that was mob mentality and once they realized how bad Leonard looked, a lot of the enjoyment faded. But not for Tom. If anything, he got even more aroused. Tom ended the gruesome spectacle with one last threat and fixed Leonard's wounds with healing spells no second year should've known. It was like it had never happened at all.
Veronica quickly ran away from the corridor as not to be caught, with thoughts of her potion textbook completely forgotten.
Leonard left school after that. Some people said it was because he was too dumb and couldn't keep up in his classes, others said it was because his parents didn't like him surrounded by muggle-borns and half-bloods but Veronica knew the real reason why.
She never did tell anyone what she saw, as to not get caught and punished herself by Tom and his disciples. It was probably the Slytherin in her, cautious and calculating.
Ever since then her silly schoolgirl crush had stopped. She avoided Tom in any possible way she could. Obviously, being in the same house didn't help and having him as her prefect partner, but Veronica did the best she could.
Those eyes could fool the rest of her idiotic peers and teachers, but she knew there was something treacherous lurking beneath them. Veronica also knew he had something to do with last years tragedy. It just didn't make sense that a third year half-giant could cause that much damage.
Plus, that coincidental award he got for "saving" the school.
Things didn't add up
Hopefully, she could quietly look into it to appease her curious mind, without getting caught by a certain someone with a deceitful face and off-putting dark eyes.