Disclaimer: Harry Potter does not belong to me!
Sorry for the long wait - but I've finally managed to find time left over from writing Dawn Crux to update another chapter!
Reviews are much appreciated! :)
The last weeks passed painstakingly slowly, moving by inch by inch at a snail's pace, all but driving him insane. Riddle and his thrice damned cronies left him alone most of the day, for which he was thankful, but he never lost the temptation to claw them.
However, he had endured everything, and the moment he awaited had finally arrived… and he knew precisely when he would put his plan to the test.
But, dear Merlin, he detested being in a cage.
The bars pressed upon him in so tight a manner that he felt marginally claustrophobic. Couple that with the swaying and the tilting and the unending rocking, Harry thought it was safe to say he was about to be sick.
He hated his current predicament…
Faintly in his mind, he wondered whether cats, real cats, were nauseous while they were carried by their eager masters who paid them no consideration in the excitement of returning to school from a lengthy holiday.
If so, he pitied them more by the minute…
… especially when Cygnus Black clambered up the steps on the Hogwarts Express, flinging his arm out to maintain his balance and Harry consequently flew headfirst into the bars.
"Meow!"
Cygnus glanced down, peering at him in concern. "Oops, my bad…"
"Black, get a move on," Abraxas Malfoy called pompously from ahead, "if you do not want to share a compartment with the first years, that is. Lestrange, Nott and everybody else is waiting for us."
A tremor of anger ran through his fur, and Harry stiffened rigidly at the familiarity of the notorious last names. In his mind, they would always be associated with the definition of danger and Voldemort.
Nott… Lestrange… If Harry had fists, he would have clenched them. Bellatrix Lestrange. He hoped she would burn in the depths of hell; it was the least she deserved for killing Sirius.
It was unbelievable… utterly appalling. Riddle surrounded himself with bloodthirsty baby Death Eaters already, when he was merely a student at the age of fifteen? God, talk about being twisted…
Harry gave his head a clearing shake. Was he doomed to fight Death Eaters forever, no matter what kind of cruel manipulations fate threw at him?
He wished he could take a break from being the Boy Who Lived.
For the moment though, his main concern was remaining quiet, refraining from making a fuss, and playing to his role of the unintelligent feline he was presumed to be…
It was supposed to be easy.
...
As it turned out, the Slytherins weren't fast enough in getting a compartment all to themselves – but of course, they had to have the best of everything and sharing with first year students was definitely out of the question.
That left only one alternative.
Harry perched in his cage, soft fur bristling and lips drawing back as he observed the exchange from the safety of the enclosure.
It was pathetic, really, he decided; no more respectable than bullying someone smaller and weaker.
That was what the Death Eaters were.
Bullying toe-rags.
A motley collection of despicable garbage; made up of some who were ambitious and seeking shared glory, and the thuggish that gravitated towards a leader who could show them more refined forms of cruelty.
Either way, Harry was sick of every one of them.
Abraxas Malfoy stood imperiously in the middle of the little Death Eater group, facing a compartment of unwitting first years, looking as though he was going to launch a most important lecture.
His blonde hair, slick and elegant, was groomed back in the latest fashion; lying flatly on his scalp after hours of peacock-like preening. Harry wanted to gag.
Directly next to his right was Orion Black and Randolph Lestrange, whose name Harry had effortlessly picked up from their conversations.
The boy appeared slightly older than Riddle. A sixth year, perhaps? His thick, dark eyebrows dipped menacingly with each twitch of his thin lips.
Beside Lestrange were Dorian Nott and Darius Avery.
The gleeful glint in Nott's narrowed eyes set off alarm bells in Harry's head – and he found himself unnerved by exactly why the lanky teen was capable of. Torture, most likely, considering his involvement with Riddle, the model student.
Avery, on the other hand, made a rather poor picture compared to the rest. Like Cygnus, he leaned marginally towards the back of the cluster, with an expression of gormless incompetence written all over his pale face.
He reminded Harry startlingly of Vincent Crabbe.
And then, there were the final two members of the gang: Fabian Rosier and Bryon Mulciber.
They traded smirks, the way a pair of sharks might before they devoured their prey; looking on with ill-disguised interest as Malfoy addressed his younger audience in a self-aggrandizing way.
"Lo and behold, who should we have here but a bunch of first years?" Abraxas accompanied his delivery with a disgusted curl of the lip.
Small heads snapped round to stare incredulously at the new visitor, and one of the boys seemed to take offense at the rudeness. "I didn't hear you knock," he said, accusingly.
The future Death Eaters chuckled in unison, openly mocking the childish ignorance of the boy, sparing no feelings.
It was a harsh sound, sarcastic and unfriendly, grinding on Harry's ears, and he let out a doglike growl.
"I think that would be obvious," Nott said pointedly, "since we did not see any need to grace worthless, snivelling little mice with common courtesy."
"Yeah." Lestrange bared his teeth in a hybrid of a smile and a snarl…
Harry shuddered at the sheer viciousness of the group. They were like a pack of savage wolves, ripping down prey without hesitance, those weaker than themselves. Brutes. Barbarians. Beasts. With no regard for others.
A girl, blonde hair falls in curls around her cheeks, glared intensely at the older Slytherins and tugged on the sleeve of the boy, who appeared like he was about to explode. "Shut up, Zack, they're not worth it," she hissed.
Mulciber glanced at them in plain irritation.
"Clear out," Lestrange bluntly informed. "In case your pea of a brain could not comprehend, this compartment belongs to us. We sit in here year after year – and the record is not about to be broken by… you."
"Yours, eh?" the first year boy retorted. "The seats don't have your names on them. Wanna take a look for yourself?" Scornfully, he pretended to look down and inspect the bottom of the seats, and then shook his head hard. "Nope; don't see nothing."
"You insolent little –"
"Hey!" the girl had stood up, her petite hands on hips. "Don't throw names around! We do not want any trouble, so just leave us alone."
"Get out of here," Lestrange growled.
"No."
"Get out now –!"
"We already said no!"
In the split of a second, the wands came out, snapping from under the sleeves of the dark robes that each of the Slytherin boys donned.
The scene was truly intimidating.
Eight teenage boys, eyes narrowed threateningly, lips parted to reveal their teeth, eager to teach the young a memorable lesson, raised their wands simultaneously. Even Cygnus joined in, not keen to be the odd one out.
"Then, I suppose, we'll have to get rid of you ourselves," Lestrange sneered. "I don't mind getting my hands dirty. It will be short work; I take it you have no useful spells stored in those thick noggins of yours?"
Rosier snorted in abhorrence. "Of course they haven't, Randolph. They're silly little Mudbloods, or can't you tell?"
"We'll curse the movement out of their limbs –"
A suffocating, intense, dark and utterly seductive force had merged with the atmosphere, wafting to fill the space of the compartment. Harry almost choked. All the child Death Eaters stopped dead in their tracks.
"You will do no such thing."
Malfoy spun around, eyes widening as he took in the sight of his lord looming in the doorway, arms across his chest and wand twirling casually in one hand, between the index and middle finger.
"Tom –"
"This is highly inappropriate, Malfoy, Mulciber, Avery, Lestrange, Nott, Rosier, Black, and Black." As Riddle went through each of their names, sharpness piercing every syllable, they flinched in turn.
Harry was shocked.
Of all the people, he had not expected Riddle to leap in as the saviour.
"I go to the Prefects Compartment for five minutes, a mere five minutes, and I see my own snakes misbehaving and frightening our newest students… I confess myself disappointed," Tom sounded positively dangerous as he addressed them.
"But –"
"Silence!" Riddle snapped. "Fighting over a ridiculous compartment is not the acceptable conduct of Slytherin, so tidy up your actions! I do not want to see anything similar happening again in the near future."
'Or someone will pay' hung unpromisingly in the air.
"Naturally," Riddle peered sternly at Malfoy, "I will be reporting your delinquency to Professor Slughorn, and I cringe to think that you have earned yourselves detentions before the first term has even started!"
Next, he twisted around apologetically to the two first year students, features schooled into an expression of compassion, concern, sheepishness and a genius dose of annoyance.
"Forgive me," he said, tone light, "for the appalling beginning of your school year. However, I hope you will remain open-minded to what Hogwarts has to offer and I assure you that you will not be dissatisfied. Good luck at the sorting, and I'm sure I'll see one of you at the Slytherin table tonight."
The boy still looked uneasy, but the girl immediately seemed to warm to Tom.
"Thank you," she blurted. "I'm sorry about the misunderstanding."
"I'm sure that my acquaintances too are sorry," Tom replied. "If all is well, we will leave you in peace…"
"Oh," the girl exclaimed in a sudden fit of generosity, "you can have it, if you want. I'm sure we can find other seats somewhere else."
"Goodness." Tom laughed softly. "Are you quite sure?"
...
"You dimwits."
"We're sorry, Tom."
"You should be." Riddle's face was practically a storm cloud, his features in stark contrast to the sunshine that streamed through the windows. "Do you suppose you can go around bullying students and expect the professors to be oblivious?"
Harry observed the scene from his cage, taking in everything.
"Of course not, but they cannot pin anything grave on us," Malfoy pacified.
"Small droplets build up to great oceans," Tom said grimly. "Either you idiots can grow a brain to share between you, or I will correct your behaviours myself."
"We understand, Tom –"
"I will not walk around tidying up your messes," Riddle interrupted. "You cannot continue like this, especially with Dumbledore, the old codger, keeping such a tight eye on me this year."
"Naturally…"
"If you drag me down with you, I will torture you to the brink of life and bring you back to do it again," Tom responded – and Harry couldn't tell whether he was serious or not.
Not that Harry would stick around long enough to know.
Once the train arrived at Hogwarts, he planned on escaping his damned cage and finding Dumbledore…
After that… he would be one step closer to finding his way home.
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