Blimey, I took long but finally the second chapter is up! Firstly, I'd like to thank you all for your wonderful messages, you're great! To Dark Eternity (the private answer is disable D:), I can totally see what you did there, and I'm working on the ooc-ness thing, I promix. To the anonymous, I understand your point, and I'll try to take more care of the misspelings from now on (you can warn me of special misspelings that bother you most and that I keep repeting, if you may).
Also, I'd like to thanks Madison specially, for betaing this chapter. You are the best, as I already said a thousand times now haha.
Read, enjoy, and review!
Disclaimer: None of these characters are mine (thought I wish).
Hermione was heading to the kitchens. She knew she was supposed to be in her bedroom, as ordered by Dumbledore, but she'd been awake for more than three hours now, and she was starving. Also, she was very aware of what happened if she worked all day long without properly eating; she would pass-out, the King would think she was being lazy, and she'd be punished severely. Better prevent it.
She reached the end of a long corridor surrounded by torches. On the wall before her, there was nothing but a chipped painting of a bowl of fruits. One would hardly believe that to enter the kitchens the only thing she'd have to do was to tickle a pear on it. But that was, indeed, what Hermione did and while the pear laughed it turned into a green door-knob. As if someone was waiting for her, the door opened immediately to reveal a very small, thin creature wearing a piece of what seemed to be an old sheet.
"Hello, Ms. Granger! We've been waiting for you! Enter, enter…" said the house elf, grabbing her hand with long fingers and pulling her inside.
The kitchen was a very large, circular room that was always a little bit hotter than considered comfortable. It had some tables placed around the central fireplace from where a great part of the light came, but the room's space was taken up mostly by house elves working at the several stone stoves.
She'd barely caught her balance once again, when at least ten more elves appeared at her side and made her sit by one of the dark, wooden tables. They would not stop talking and moving while they handed her every kind of food that existed. Soon, Hermione had eaten so much she was not sure she'd have to feed ever again in her life.
"No, thank you, Winky, I don't want anything more." She said to one of them that was standing at her left and that kept offering her a piece of cake.
"But Miss needs to eat! Miss is so weak. This is no good, Winky knows. Winky has seen people dying because of weakness!" said the house elf with a high pitched voice while placing the cake in front of Hermione and looking at the girl tentatively.
Hermione sighed but gave in, slowly taking the cake to her mouth. She didn't want to worry Winky nor any of the other house elves. God knew the poor creatures had enough to worry about already.
If mudbloods were considered the lowest social status that one could get, house elves were not even considered a status at all. They were treated like a thing by everyone. A thing that you could inherit, and would clean for you, feed you, obey you, and die for you. Compared to them, Hermione was treated wonderfully, and that was saying something.
"How are things down here, Winky?" Hermione asked kindly, after she finally ate the piece of cake.
The elf squeaked and didn't meet Hermione's eyes as she spoke, cleaning her hands in her already dirty sheet she said,
"Oh, things are good, Miss. Very, very good. Everything is normal. Great."
"Things are not good, Winky! You should not lie…" another angry voice, this time at the girl's right spoke. That particular house elf was not wearing anything similar to the others. Instead, he looked like he had tried to use all the clothes he owned at once. There was a colorful hat at his big head, a pair of gloves on his hands, a knee-length sweater, and at least five pairs of socks on his feet. Hermione did not know whether to cry or laugh.
"Dobby! How are you?" The girl asked, bowing down and hugging the tiny creature tightly. Dobby was the only free elf of the entire Castle (and, Hermione suspected, of the entire Kingdom as well). The house elf had belonged previously to the Malfoys, a very rich family of trades people. However, thanks to a distraction of Lucius Malfoy and to a very brave Harry Potter, Dobby was set free and, later, hired to work at the Castle.
"Dobby is good, Ms. Granger. How are you, Miss? And my friend, Harry Potter?" Hermione laughed slightly. Of course, after Harry had saved him, Dobby felt like he was forever in debt to him.
"I'm fine, Dobby, thank you." Hermione said, sitting straight again. "And so is Harry, of course." She completed quickly, smiling. "But what did you mean with 'things are not good'?" Inquired her, furrowing her eyebrows. He stood on the chair next to hers in order to reach the same stature as the girl's and looked straight into her eyes.
"Many people have been walking in the Castle during the night, Miss." He said in a low voice, his hands grasping each other anxiously. "We can hear from here. People walking and whispering the whole night. And then, yesterday, Mr. Dumbledore came here himself! Winky had told the King about the whispering," Dobby said, turning to Winky and looking at her reproachfully, "and the King was really angry. He beat her!" He completed with a shiver, his voice lowering while he looked around as if expecting Grindelwald to show up at any second. "Dobby had to heal her. That's when Dumbledore came, and he asked her not to tell anyone about the whisperings anymore." Concluded Dobby, while stuffing his chest proudly and looking over at Hermione. "Dobby, of course, would never say anything."
All the other house elves had faded quite and were looking at Dobby. Some of them seemed suspicious, but the majority of them were just really curious.
"What did Grindelwald do after this?" Hermione asked after a moment of silence, standing up and walking back and forth in front of the fireplace nervously waiting for the elf's answer. Could it have something to do with the odd behavior of Lord Riddle earlier? Could Grindelwald think she was the one responsible for the 'whispering' problem, as Dobby said?
"I don't know Miss. After he hurt Winky he called Dobby to pick her up and bring Winky back here." He answered, finally sitting down on the chair and observing the girl with wide, blue eyes.
Hermione stopped her pacing and eyed the fireplace, crossing her arms tightly. She was sure the incident with Winky and her own incident of earlier that morning were connected. She knew it.
Tom Marvolo Riddle was a very busy man. The most required painter of the Kingdom, and also a researcher of magical artifacts when he could manage to find a break in between his paintings. He, hence, had no time to spend at the wide, well illuminated royal garden, chatting with the gardener as if he had no better place to be. However, it was exactly what he was doing in that morning.
"It's a beautiful specimen of a Midnight Fear you have gotten here, Miss." said Tom, lowering himself and lightly touching the petals of a black, wonderful flower that was lying on the top of a bush on the ground. He was right in the middle of what could have been a labyrinth made exclusively of plants. There were some fountains with intricate patterns here and there, along with very realistic sculptures of angels, animals and, though more rarely, some of the King himself. At his back, a white seat was hidden in the wild, forgotten.
"Isn't it, Lord? This is one of my favorite flowers, actually. I'm quite proud of it. It's beautiful, and the magic properties are very unique, too," said the elder woman at her knees, close to said flowers, pruning.
"It can make a person paranoid, if I recall correctly." Tom replied, straightening himself and looking expectantly at her, as if she could correct him at any moment.
"Yes, that's exactly it!" She said, looking briefly up at him and then turning her attention back to her work, "You're a very clever boy, Lord Riddle. Not many wizards would know about it…" Tom smiled warmly, trying to suppress the rage that bowled up inside him at being called a boy.
"Thank you, Miss Sprout." He said happily. "Oh, and is it true? That it can also be used in the new found Amortentia Potion? I just don't quite understand how," he commented, wide-eyed. Of course he knew it could. He also understood how he could use it, obviously, but he had to gain Sprout's trust by making her feel like she was actually teaching him something, like she actually mattered. Tom felt the urge to roll his eyes.
She seemed surprised at first, snapping her head up to see Tom's expression, using her hand to block the sun.
"I'm astonished, Lord! If not many wizards would know about the direct magical properties of this plant, even less would know about the use of it to brew a love potion." She said, standing up next to him. She looked down to the flowers, one hand on her back. "It's true, it can be used it to brew Amortentia. Ironically, the addition of a petal of this single beauty can make exactly the opposite of what it'd do if used in the Paranoia Potion. It makes the person who drinks it not be paranoid at all." She took a handkerchief from inside her robes and used it to clean her face. "The person who drinks Amortentia falls deeply in love, or more like an obsession, for real love cannot be created by using magic, as you're probably aware. The addiction of the Midnight Fear, though, makes the person thinks there's nothing wrong with their sudden passion for someone they held no further interest in beforehand." She completed, pocketing the handkerchief again.
"It's terrible… One taking another's free will, I mean. Of course, many wizards are talking about the dangers of this potion, and how it's not right to control another wizard or witch's fate. But no one cares about controlling the fate of those poor mugl-" Tom stopped himself, his mouth shut in a thin line as he shot a worried glance in Sprout's direction. Of course, he knew all along that the elder woman was sympathetic to the Muggle's-rights cause, since she was the one whom he often caught glimpses of in the middle of the night, sharing food between the filthy muggles that appeared by then. They were all pathetic, as was Sprout's attempt to help them. However, Tom could not let the gardener know his true feelings, for he needed to gather information from her. Information about a certain mudblood to whom, Tom knew, the other woman was well acquainted with.
"Oh, deary, there's no need to hide your true feelings!" Sprout said, excitedly, her tiny dark eyes looking around them carefully, trying to prevent from being overheard. "I share your opinions, as most people that work in the Castle do." She was smiling broadly as she touched his left arm in what was supposed to be a comforting gesture. Tom smiled back at her, and sighed, relieved.
"Oh, God, for a moment I thought I-" He didn't end, instead took his hand to rest above his heart. "I'm glad that I'm not the only one with this opinion, then." He completed, his face serious while he leaned forward to the other woman, his voice nothing but a whisper.
"No, dear God, we are plenty!" Sprout answered, her eyes as wide as they could go. "If only you knew… Most of us that work for the King had muggle-born friends and even muggle friends. Until the Betrayal, I mean," her voice faded away, while she looked to the sky above their head blindly.
"I had thought that the only person who'd understand my feelings would be, why, Ms. Granger, of course." Tom finally reached the point that was crucial to all their conversation. The girl. "Since she is a muggle-born herself, I assumed she'd be the only one in the Castle that I could freely speak with, without fearing being judged or hushed. However, I've never gathered enough courage," he mumbled, avoiding Sprout's eyes and watching his feet instead, putting his hands inside his pockets forcefully.
"Well, yes, Hermione is a muggle-born and she's obviously very keen of the Muggle's-rights. You should talk to her, really." Sprout's voice was animated, and Tom saw the way she moved from one foot to another. "Such an intelligent girl, always knew a lot about many things. You'd not be disappointed. Hermione is the brightest witch of her age, you see, so if you want to hold thoughtful and meaningful conversations about politics or even magical theory, she's the right girl." Sprout was clearly selling off the mudblood. What was she expecting? Tom to end up married to someone with dirty blood? He almost snorted.
"Indeed?" He said, politely, eyeing the elder woman. "She does have an air of- how can I word- specialness about her. But the King is always there when she's near, so I don't think I will ever have an opportunity to actually meet her properly." Tom sighed again, his shoulders down.
"That is not a real issue, dear," replied Sprout, placing a hand gently on his upper arm. Why did she keep touching him? How unnerving. "See, Hermione has a very busy schedule of work, and the King won't keep a track on her whereabouts all day while she's on it. If you may, I can give you her schedule. I don't think she will mind it at all. She's very understanding, Hermione." She completed, drawing her hand back.
"Oh, that would be amazing!" Tom said, his voice truly happy for once.
He had gotten the mudblood.