Unfinished Business


Chapter 1.1

Death was all around me. I could feel it, smell it, taste it. The darkness was blinding, the silence deafening. Was this how it will be from now on? There was nothing. Absolutely nothing. No bright light, no afterlife, no heaven, no hell. There was nothing.

Except death.

The sticky feeling that lasted on my tongue. That scratched inside my throat. Tickled on my skin. The horrid sound that rang in my ears. That echoed in my veins. Pushed into my brains.

The sound of footsteps, however, caught me quite off guard.

Death can walk?

"Hey! What in Merlin's name are you doing here?"

And talk?

The voice that echoed through a seemingly large room was such a disturbance that it actually brought me back to my senses. I felt hard stone beneath me. My hands ran over its smooth surface, its cold running through the tips of my fingers. I can feel where I am. But the darkness was still around me, squeezing me further, about to numb my senses again.

Oh my, I am blind!

I could feel my heart race up, pumping horridly fast against my ribcage. My mouth fell open, releasing rapid breaths. But my eyes –

Hold on. Eyes. Open your eyes!

As I screamed at myself, I realized that I actually squeezed my eyes shut, afraid of what was around me. Afraid of what I might see. They had seen too much horror…

OPEN YOUR EYES!

I did, blinked several times to focus and saw a dark ceiling leading into nothingness above me. I moved my eyes left and right and saw huge pillars all around me. What a large room. What a… strangely familiar large room.

As I then noticed the giant snake heads framing a wide hallway to my left, it dawned on me.

I've been here before!

It was then that my eyes landed on the owner of the voice that had brought me back. This is not how I pictured Death. A tall figure stood several feet away from me, an enormous tension on an otherwise handsome, young face, jet-black hair matching with the dark surroundings, a surprised yet angry look within narrowed dark eyes.

I sat up very slowly, overwhelmed by the realisation that I could move my arms and legs. That I was not dead. Or was I?

"Am I… dead?", I then asked, my voice husky, towards the boy staring down at me.

"No", it came back, sending a jolt of relief through my veins. "But you'll be if you won't explain me what you are doing here!"

No more relief.

I stared up at the boy whose face was as strangely familiar as the room I was in. Feeling my heart race inside my chest, I swallowed hard.

"I… I don't know", I said honestly, looking around the room in utter confusion.

I've been here before.

Yet I didn't know where I possibly could be right now. What kind of a room was this? Huge pillars leading into black nothingness above my head, snake statues all around, and – another question popped inside my head – who was he and why was he as familiar as this room?

I tilted my head and studied the person in front of me. Yet the longer I stared at him, the less sure I became that I actually knew him. He certainly didn't know me. So why did I have this feeling inside my tummy?

"Where am I?", I asked, my voice still as hoarse as if I hadn't spoken for a very long time. What had happened to me?

But the tall boy – who seemed to be in my age even though his eyes made him look much older – just looked down at me, his jaw clenched, his eyes dark pits full of anger. Why was he so angry?

"Please, just tell me where I am", I continued, pleadingly looking up at him, trying hard to ignore his fuming stare.

"I can't tell you where you are", he then answered, his voice ice cold. "But I need you to tell me how you've got here?"

I furrowed my forehead. "I really don't know how I've got here", I said, half to him, half to myself. "I just… woke up here."

The black-haired boy raised an eyebrow, still glaring at me as if I was a ghost.

A ghost. Oh dear, I couldn't possibly be a ghost, could I?

I instantly looked down at myself, checking if I might be semi-transparent or anything. But luckily, I wasn't. I was wearing some kind of uniform; a pleated skirt, a blouse and a grey sleeveless sweater with an emblem on its left side. I stared down at the emblem, totally unsure what it meant. When I looked back up at the boy, I noticed that he was wearing something similar; grey trousers matching his grey sweater, yet he was wearing some kind of a robe over it, a black robe that held the same emblem I was wearing.

He seemed to notice my stare and followed it, his eyebrows knitted, onto the emblem.

"What is that?", I asked bluntly.

He looked at me again, his anger halfway hidden behind a wave of confusion.

"That's the Hogwarts crest", he said, his tone semi-irritated, semi-taken aback.

"Hogwarts?", I repeated and looked down at the emblem again. There was a large H in the middle of four pictures of different animals; a snake, a lion, a badger and an eagle. It had a slight familiarity, just as this room and the boy that still stared down at me as if I was insane.

"This school", he said after a while, folding his arms across his chest.

"School?" So this was a school uniform I was wearing.

"Yes, a school. Of Witchcraft and Wizardry", my opponent replied, rolling his eyes in growing annoyance.

I stared up at him in disbelief. "Witchcraft? Wizardry?"

"By Merlin, did you fall on your head?", the boy blurted out, his arms falling to his side again, as he stared down on me, clearly thinking I was either mentally ill or completely stupid.

But I was neither, I just couldn't remember anything!

"I don't know what happened, okay? And I really don't know anything but… but that I am here in this… room… and everything seems quite familiar but it really isn't!", I yelled in utter frustration, pulling my knees to my chest, looking around again.

"It seems familiar?", he replied in an unusually quiet tone. "What? You've been hit by a Memory Charm?"

"A what?", I replied, confusion deafening my senses.

"Memory Charm? Hex? Spell? Magic? You know, what wizards and witches do?", he said as if he was talking to a really dumb child.

"Magic?"

"For Merlin's sake, yes, magic, this school teaches magic, how to use this", he added as he pulled out a long, thin piece of wood out of the pocket of his robe. "A wand", he explained, sounding obviously annoyed now, as I stared at the thing in his hand. "Alright, you do seem to have been hit by something."

"But… how? And –", I broke off, lowering my gaze, staring at my shoes.

I didn't know anything. Everything seemed familiar but nothing was for sure. Where was I? Who was I? Oh my, I didn't even know who I was. I've lost my memory. That was when the tears came.

"Hey, stop doing that!", I heard a rather distant voice say.

I sobbed repeatedly, quickly wiping away the tears before I looked up, seeing my opponent stare at me with a slightly milder expression, his wand – as he had called it – clutched in his fist.

"What should I do?", I cried, my voice a notch too high for my liking.

"Calm down, will you? Tears will take you nowhere!", he said, his voice as stern as his expression.

"But –"

"No, listen to me: I will now bring you out of here into the Hospital Wing, and there, someone will take care of you –" I was almost sure that he wanted to add: '- so I don't have to cope with you anymore!'

I then nodded at him and clumsily got to my feet, straightening my skirt and sweater. I once again took a glance around as I noticed the enormous statue behind me. As the centrepiece of the long room, right at the end of the causeway framed by those huge pillars, the head of an old man with long hair and beard – that, in its flowing, resembled thousands of moving snakes – was staring down at everyone standing beneath. I cautiously took a step back, awed by the weird stone formation.

"Who is that?", I asked, throwing a glance over my shoulder at the boy standing by one of the pillars.

"That is Salazar Slytherin", he said in a proud voice, while replying my gaze with a stare that certainly meant to say: 'How dare you to not recognize him!'

"Who was he?"

"He was the greatest sorcerer in the world!", my question was answered by yet another proud tone. Then the topic was dropped.

As I turned around to face the boy opposite me, still towering over me by at least one head, I noticed that his glare shot over me right into the stony eyes of the wizard's statue, a confident flicker in those dark pools, a small, satisfied smirk on his lips. I raised my eyebrow at the sight of it.

He then lowered his head, for a moment staring down at the dark stone floor beneath him. I could actually hear him exhale. As I cleared my throat, he quickly looked up again, meeting my puzzled gaze with an obviously irritated one.

"Come on, then, let's get you out of here", he said, his voice ice-cold again.

I followed him slowly as he turned around, walking along the aisle between the pillars towards the other end of the large room. We reached a rustic looking ladder leading up into another, way smaller tunnel. It was then that he stopped in his tracks. I came to a halt right behind him as he turned around quickly, eyeing me suspiciously. I replied his gaze with a frown.

"What is it?", I asked.

"You must not see this", he said, more to himself.

"See what?"

"The way to –", he hesitated, before he demanded in a rising voice, that actually made me flinch: "Cover your eyes!"

"What?"

"Or… no, I've got a better idea", he said, again more talking to himself than to me. He then raised the wand he was still holding in his hand, pointing it directly at my face.

Even though I couldn't imagine how a small piece of wood could cause actual damage or anything else in that matter, I was still afraid he might poke me in the eye with it. Backing away from him, I stared from the tip of the wood into his pale face.

"Just hold still!", he said, before he muttered something I couldn't understand, raising his wand even closer to my eyes.

I swallowed hard, my eyes widening, as a small flash of light erupted from the tip of the wand. Then there was darkness. I gasped in shock, my hands flying up to my face, until I felt the tightly wrapped blindfold around my head. And I thought he blinded me! Well, he did but not in the permanent way.

"Why did you blindfold me?", I asked, trying to remain calm, moving uneasy from one foot to another as I stood in utter darkness.

"You are not supposed to be here", he told me. "So you are not supposed to see the way out either."

"The way out of what? What is this room anyway?"

"I am not allowed to tell you", he said, before I felt his hands upon my shoulders, directing me forwards.

I blindly stretched out my arms to feel around for anything coming closer, as my fingers touched rusty pipes. The ladder, I remembered. The ladder leading up into the other tunnel.

"Climb up", I heard him say, his voice extraordinarily close to my ear, so close I could actually feel his breath on my skin. That was when another jolt of familiarity hit me. Yet I couldn't declare this feeling, as I felt his cold hands running over mine, leading them to the steps of the ladder. I clumsily grasped the rusty metal, still feeling around. "Raise your foot", he told me. I did and then felt the lowest step underneath my shoe.

After that, it was quite easy to climb up the ladder, one foot there, one hand there, the other foot there, the other hand there. Yet as I reached the end of the ladder and no steps could be felt under my touch, I almost stumbled – if it wasn't for a hand supporting the small of my back. I felt the strangely familiar, yet completely unknown boy climbing up right behind me, his hands gently shoving me forwards.

"One last step", he said and I raised my foot and found it standing on solid ground again. A sigh escaped my throat as I pulled the other foot along with it. I waited for him to do the same, but he was already beside me again; I felt his arm next to mine. He then put his hand on my back again, shoving me forwards. "Go on."

I blindly stumbled forwards, my hands stretched in front of me. It would have been easier if he took away the blindfold. As if I would tell someone about this room. Unless –

He couldn't tell me about this room. And he was not going to. It obviously was a hidden room. A secret room, in this school called Hogwarts, no one seemed to know about. Except him. Who was he anyway?

As we walked further through this seemingly never-ending tunnel, while I felt around with my hands, stumbling through the dark, his footsteps echoing from the walls, his hand still resting on my back, I couldn't help myself but ask: "Who are you?"

I wasn't sure if he had heard me – for it took him a while to answer. "My name's Tom."

Tom? Just Tom? Well, alright, that's a start, I thought as he pushed me further, until we came to a sudden stop with him grabbing my lower arm.

"Wait here", he said and let go of me altogether, the noise of his footsteps growing weaker as he walked away from me. I actually hold my breath, hoping he wouldn't leave me in the darkness for too long. In the far distance I could hear very quiet hissing sounds, it sounded just like a snake. After the hissing sound died down, a rumble shook the room. Somewhere a door was opening.

As I felt his hand grab mine, I almost gasped, then realizing that I had been holding my breath the whole time. Exhaling loudly, I let myself being pulled forwards again. "Watch your step", he said, as he walked behind me again, pushing me forwards through a seemingly smaller gap. I raised my foot cautiously but couldn't help feeling the outline of a round door, as I stepped over its threshold. I assumed we were now in another room, larger than the tunnel before, as I heard our footsteps echo quieter from its walls.

"Are we there yet?", I asked, still walking quite clumsily beside him, feeling his hand loosely on my back as he guided me through the darkness.

"No", was all he said.

We walked a little longer until we came to a halt again; this time I accidentally walked into him as he suddenly stopped right in front of me. My hands felt around in wonder, but all I could feel was the fabric of his robes in front of me. I stopped in mid-air as he turned around all of a sudden, my fingers accidentally brushing over the badge on the front of his robes.

"We have to go up now", he said, stiffening in front of me, as I slowly lowered my hands from his robes.

"Up where?", I asked, but my question remained unanswered.

I just felt myself being pushed forwards, two hands on my shoulders, guiding me towards a wooden banister. "Hold onto that banister", I was told before I felt him push past me, walking ahead. "And follow me", he added, his voice already sounding far away.

I quickly grabbed the banister and followed its way – until I bumped my toe against a stone step, pain rushing through my nerves immediately. A staircase. I numbly raised my foot, still hanging onto the banister, slowly ascending, feeling for every step with my not bumped foot. I climbed bit by bit, following the spiral staircase into nothingness as it seemed.

It was then I realized that I couldn't hear his footsteps any longer.

As panic rose inside me, I clung onto the banister, my voice an only shriek: "Tom!"

His name echoed from the walls, ringing in my ears. Another flash of familiarity rushed through my veins, but just as it was about to reach my head, maybe revealing snippets of lost memories, I felt a cold hand taking hold of my wrist. I gasped as his icy fingers ran over my skin, yet at the same time felt relief as he pulled me into a niche several steps further.

"Are we there yet?"

"Are you always that annoying?", he replied in a hushed voice.

"I was just asking…"

"And the answer is no! Hold on, will you?", he snapped.

I remained silent for the rest of the walk, I wasn't even complaining about how his tight grip cut off the circulation of my wrist, I just followed him through the dark, hoping that at the end he would take off the blindfold, not only letting me see again, but maybe also giving me answers to whatever question was still lingering on my mind.

We then finally reached what seemed to be the other side of a portrait; its surface rough as the fingers of my free hand brushed over it. I heard a quiet screeching sound as he pushed against the portrait. "Wait here", I heard him say, his voice a mere whisper. He then let go my wrist – whose skin I immediately caressed with my other hand – and walked ahead. I heard him step over something onto hard stone floor, where he remained.

"Come on", he hissed and I felt around for something to grab, until I noticed his hand right in front of me. I took it, my fingers buried within his, the coldness of his touch making me shiver. He then pulled me through what appeared to be a small gap in the wall, seemingly hidden by a painting on the wall of the other side. Just as I emerged from the hidden passage, the frame of the painting closed before it again.

My hand was still in his, as Tom dragged me after him, walking quickly forwards, taking several turns and then stopping right in the middle of what seemed to be a large hallway. It was then I heard him mutter something – before I suddenly looked straight into his dark eyes.


A/N: Chapter 1.1.
Part two of Chapter 1 will come as quickly as you can change the letters of Tom Riddle's name into Voldemort's xD

Please review and tell me what you think thus far!