Hi all, sorry for the long wait, I've been so busy it's unreal. Here's the third chapter!
Thanks to LucyMoon1992, PurpleMoonWizard, BleckBlah5956 and CountOnIllusions for reviewing!
The first week was probably the craziest time of Sarah's life and that included the time she was shipped over to Germany during the First World War to destroy a gang of German-soldiers-turned-vampires. Ah, fun times.
She was so rushed off her feet, she could barely contain her excitement when it was finally Friday afternoon and she could relax. Well for a while, at least. She had a study session with Minerva at seven and then one at eight with Riddle.
Now there was a person she just couldn't understand. He was awfully mysterious and looked like he barely ever spoke though he was massively popular and everyone in Slytherin adored him. Not to mention half the school was in love with him. But he remained completely indifferent like he didn't even care. And even though she was only in two of his classes- Defence against the Dark Arts and Potions- she found that every time she turned around in the Great Hall, he'd be staring at her, with an unreadable expression etched across his handsome features. But no matter how many times Olive Hornby rattled on in class about this being her year and she and Tom would finally get together, Sarah would glare in retort. Fine. They're bloody perfect for each other.
In addition to this, Sarah didn't know why but she had a strange feeling his interest in her increased with their first class of Defence against the Dark Arts on Wednesday morning…
"Ugh, why do we have this class with the Slytherins?" Hollie huffed, crossing her arms over her chest and glaring at the other house which was standing on the other side of the corridor, pretty much copying the exact same motion as her.
"Stop it." Sarah urged, "Stop trying to start arguments. You're hopeless, you are." She tsked, trying to stop the smile from covering her face.
"Ah, everyone is here. Splendid."
The door swung open and there stood the DADA teacher, Professor Merrythought, a small, stout but extremely happy (considering his job title) wizard.
The class filed into the large classroom and Sarah took a seat beside Hollie near the back of the classroom. Once everyone was sitting and ready for their lesson, Professor Merrythought gave the class a large smile.
"Welcome to your first DADA class of this year. As most of you know, my name is Professor Merrythought and I am your DADA teacher. The reason why I'm reintroducing myself is because we have a new student with us this year." Professor Merrythought turned his twinkling eyes to Sarah and the rest of the class looked on. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Miss Andrews. I hope you enjoy your time here at Hogwarts."
"Thank-you." She replied simply and he laughed.
"Though I don't exactly understand why Professor Dippet thought you would have to attend DADA classes as nothing can harm you."
This man was smart, Sarah thought shrewdly, but let's see just how much he knows about Hunters.
"Well, if you know a lot about my kind, Sir, then you would know that's not exactly true."
He grinned and nodded. "That's very true and actually that's what I wanted to talk about today with this class."
He turned back to the other students as Sarah leant back in her chair and waited to see what he would say. Not many knew the only way to hurt a Hunter but she would be very impressed if he had the correct answer.
"Now, as many of you know from Professor Dippet's speech, Sarah is an extremely rare and amazing creature. Her kind are only born after the present Hunter dies. Always remaining the same age, they are immortal beings with superhuman strength and amazingly fast healing abilities. They sometimes have visions of things to come and can sense when danger is near. A hunter can also possess the abilities of a witch, as shown with Miss Andrews here, and can't be harmed by a wand."
He shifted his eyes to her and she nodded.
"May I ask how old you are, Miss Andrews?"
"I'm 94 years old."
A few gasps of surprise from the students in her class while Olive Hornby managed to come out with "How can all the boys fancy a granny? How disgusting."
"That's enough, Miss Hornby." Professor Merrythought warned and turned back to Sarah, "Well, well, well, how interesting. You're quite young then."
Sarah nodded in agreement.
"What happened to your predecessor?"
At this Sarah's eyes grew angry and annoyed. Her face crunched up in disgusted as she replied, "She fell in love."
"Ah." Professor Merrythought nodded his head in understanding, "I assume with the wrong kind of person?"
"She was naïve; I know better." Sarah muttered, "We have one cardinal rule- don't fall in love. That's why we seclude ourselves." She paused and then added, "Obviously it was a wizard who killed her, we know that much. We don't why though. He killed himself after doing it to her so we'll never know."
"I'm sorry, Sir, I'm completely confused." Hollie suddenly interjected, looking back and forth between Sarah and the teacher, "What are you talking about?"
"Shall I explain it to the rest of the class, Miss Andrews?" Professor Merrythought asked the Hunter. She simply shrugged in response so he took that as a yes.
"As you all know, Hunters cannot be harmed by wands. However, when a Hunter falls in love with another being and they fall in love with her, her defences are down, quite literally. It's because her heart is open for this person to take. Which means if they truly loved her and she loved them, why would they ever hurt her?"
"So what you're saying is, Sir," Hollie began, "if Sarah fell in love with someone and them with her, they could cast a spell on her? Even kill her?"
He nodded his head, "That's correct, Miss McHart. But this is no ordinary infatuation, which is what most people feel when they encounter Hunters. What we are discussing is unconditional, irrevocable true love. Which has to be felt on both sides. So in that respect, it is extremely rare for a Hunter to ever feel this way. Unfortunately, this is what happened to Sarah's predecessor and because the man she fell for was a wizard, he must have used the killing curse on her. How sad."
"It's her fault." Sarah spat, angrily, "She knew how dangerous it was to feel like that but she clearly didn't care. She deserved it."
Professor Merrythought looked extremely surprised at his student's outburst. "I assume you are against the idea of love then, Miss Andrews?"
Sarah held her hands up in the air in a mock-surrender. "Hey, it is fine for humans to do it; knock yourselves out, but I find the idea with Hunters to be ridiculous. I, personally, could never be able to trust someone enough to fall in love with them. It'll never happen with me."
Suddenly, without warning, a series of images flew through her head and she gave a yelp of indescribable pain.
"But you said you would never…and now he can hurt you!"
"Miss Andrews, it is critical that we do something, this whole matter is spiralling out of control. You need to leave."
"I'll see you around. Don't worry about a thing; I'll be back in no time. Remember the only thing that can truly kill me is you."
When she opened her eyes again, she found the whole class looking at her as if she was mad.
"What?" She asked wearily, watching the scared looks on her fellow pupils faces, "What?"
"I assume you just had a vision, Miss Andrews?" Professor Merrythought asked her, watching her cautiously.
She nodded. "I haven't had one in years. That was strange."
"Are you okay?"
She smiled, albeit tiredly; visions always made her want to go to sleep. "I'm fine. Really, it's no big deal."
Professor Merrythought grinned. "Well, I think we can safely say we know a whole lot more about Hunters and now you can all understand Miss Andrews slightly better…let's move on, shall we?"
As Professor Merrythought began talking about werewolves, Sarah zoned out. What the ruddy hell was that? The moment she promises she will never fall in love, she suddenly has a vision about falling in love with someone? And what was the second bit about? Professor Dumbledore telling her she needed to leave. When would that happen?
Sarah sighed and decided to push the vision to the back of her mind. At this moment, all she wanted to care about was studying and being normal. Hah. As if that was possible.
Just as she was about to take notes, Sarah had the distinct feeling that someone was watching her and casting her eyes around the room, her green orbs fixed on a pair of black ones.
She gave a sort of startled gasp at the attentive, almost possessive gaze Tom Riddle was throwing her. And he still wasn't looking away. There was something deep and dark in the depths of those eyes that Sarah couldn't place but she felt a shiver of unadulterated lust that made its way down her spine. Not good.
She had dealt with lust before. It made sense; everyone who met her wanted to have her. And if she was attracted to someone else then that was grand. Because after things became a little too serious, she would be away again. A new country every few weeks. However, there were several problems here; one: She would be here for the next three years as would he. Two: Tom Riddle seemed like one of the most conceited people she had ever met and she vowed not to fall for his false charms. She could smell danger from a mile off and this boy reeked of it. And three: He was far too good-looking to be trustworthy. She knew boys, knew what they were like but he was completely different to anything she had encountered before. And it unnerved her. She didn't like the unknown.
After what seemed like an eternity, his smile curved upwards and he shot her a triumphant smirk, to which she found herself glaring at. Nonetheless, she was still unable to look away.
The bell rang with through her ears and the spell was broken. She felt her cheeks redden and cursed herself for reacting so strongly to a boy. She grabbed her bag in a hurry and rushed from the room, ignoring Hollie's cries to wait for her. When her fellow Ravenclaw finally caught up with her, Sarah was glaring forwards, muttering incoherently under her breath.
"Not going to fall in love, eh? That's funny considering you and Riddle just gazed into each other eyes for about 15 minutes."
"I do not like Tom Riddle." Sarah snapped and Hollie just raised her eyebrows.
"Hey, I don't blame you, he's majorly beautiful and if anyone is going to snatch him up it'll be you."
"I said I don't like him, Hollie." Sarah barked, getting steadily angrier, "Just drop it okay?"
"Okay, okay I get it." Hollie replied, smirking slightly and stopped, moving to stand in front of Sarah, "Anyway, I know you're going to skulk away off later on but remember we have a study session together at…"
Sarah frowned as Hollie trailed off, her eyes widening as she looked behind her friend.
"Good afternoon, Miss McHart, Miss Andrews."
Sarah gave a groan of annoyance and turned on her heel.
"Hello, Riddle."
His eyes narrowed slightly at the informal use of his name but he didn't comment on it. "I must say, I was very intrigued by our lesson with Professor Merrythought today."
Sarah shrugged, "Yes, well if you look hard enough for it, all that information can be found in some big, old, boring book in the library."
Riddle nodded, his lips curving upwards slightly. "I'm well aware of that. I already knew those things about your kind, Miss Andrews, but I wasn't sure if they were fiction or not."
"Well now you know." Sarah felt uncomfortable as she shifted her weight from her left foot to her right. She felt like she should say something intelligent to make Riddle think she wasn't some clueless idiot…wait a second. Why should she feel the need to justify herself to him? He was just like any other student, wasn't he? Granted, he was brilliant and gorgeous and had eyes that looked like they were staring into your soul but still…
"I've always liked a challenge, Miss Andrews. This year is certainly going to be interesting." He commented causally as both Sarah and Hollies jaws dropped.
"E-Excuse me?!" Sarah snapped indignantly. What the holy hell was that supposed to mean?!
He smirked at her and she could feel a blush rising to her cheeks. For God's sake, Sarah, get a hold of yourself! "Never mind, Miss Andrews, I was just thinking out loud." Yes because that made it so much better- you better start explaining Riddle!
"Now, just hold one minute-" Sarah started but Riddle seemed almost bored now.
"I must be off or we'll all be late for our next classes. Until we meet again, Miss Andrews, Miss McHart."
Sarah glared, barely restraining herself from stomping her foot on the ground like a petulant child. "I can hardly wait." She muttered and he grinned.
"Sarcasm aside, I will be talking to you soon. Until then." And with that, he gave a bow and marched off down the corridor, turning left and disappearing from Sarah and Hollie's view.
After a moment of stunned silence, Hollie threw Sarah a sly glance. "Well," She started, "that was-"
"Don't, Hollie, just don't." Sarah growled out, "Let's go to our next class."
Hollie McHart was sitting on her bed, reading Witches Weekly when her new friend stomped into their dorm-room looking extremely unhappy.
"I thought you had a study session with Riddle now?" She inquired, eying up her friend suspiciously.
"I do but I came back here first to sort some things out."
Hollie watched as Sarah went over to the mirror and began grabbing at her clothes and ruffling her hair.
"Uh, what the hell are you doing?" Hollie asked, laughing at her friend's annoyed expression.
"I'm trying to make myself look un-presentable. Like I haven't been trying too hard."
Hollie laughed harder, much to her friend's disgruntlement. "You're actually trying to make yourself look bad so Riddle thinks you don't care?"
Sarah glared.
"Oh dear, my friend, you have got it bad."
Sarah puffed her cheeks out and grabbed her bag. "I do not!" She snapped, "It's just after what he said last Wednesday, I don't want him to think I care. And to be perfectly honest, Hollie, I've never had to deal with this kind of problem before."
Hollie raised an eyebrow. "And what kind of problem is this, exactly?"
"The whole mysterious thing Riddle has got going on. I'm meant to be the mysterious one, I'm meant to be the one leaving him all confused and flustered."
"So what you're saying is he's making you all hot and bothered?" Hollie asked, smirking.
"No, of course not, I just don't understand him, that's all."
"Join the club." Hollie said, rolling her eyes, "I've known him for five years and let me tell you, he usually doesn't go anywhere near girls…not unless he wants something." She leaned back on her pillows and studied Sarah, "You're the first girl he's said more than five words to. I don't think you understand how monumental this is, buddy. He's affected by you."
Sarah waved her friend's comment away dismissively. "Don't be ridiculous. This is perfectly normal, all boys get like this around me."
"Tom Riddle isn't 'all boys' Sarah. I'd watch myself if I were you."
It was Sarah's turn to roll her eyes. "I'll be fine, don't you worry Mother." Glancing at her watch she gave a yelp. "Yikes, I'm late, got to go!"
As Sarah rushed out the door, she just managed to hear Hollie shout, "See you later! No kissing on the first date now!"
And Sarah growled, slamming the door loudly behind her.
So her study session with Riddle is next chapter! Hope you enjoyed some insight into Hunters. I know exactly where this story is headed and if you don't mind me saying, it's pretty good! Please review and thanks for reading.