A/N: Here is the next installment folks. :) Something I forgot to say when I was originally posting, I don't have an editor or a beta so please excuse the grammar mistakes if/when you find them. And this is the first part of the story that I haven't had over a year to correct. So if I miss something, or something doesn't seem so cohesive, please feel free to point it out to me. In as kind a way as you can. :) I am also happy to answer any questions you might have on why the story is going the direction it is going.
Thank you again for taking your time to read my story of Keket!
I grab my backpack and what is left of my sandwich and make my way out of the hall, Sophie as if expecting this is right at my side, an extra sandwich in her hands to supplement the lunch I didn't get to eat much of. I graciously accept the proffered sandwich and think again to myself that maybe having made such an impressionable acquaintance could be at the very least handy. We get to the Charms classroom and grab a seat not too far in, but not too far away from the teacher. I want to be able to hear him at least. As the rest of the students come in, the room gets louder. I take out my book and continue reading it, Sophie just looks on and smiles briefly before reviewing her Charms assignment from over the summer. I'm not reading anything too insidious, just a very rare book on Parselmagic. Sadly, that Granger girl is in this class again, and she sits across the room from me. When all of the students in the class are seated the door shuts and the Professor walks into the room. I'm glad I sat close to the front, because he is very short. Like goblin kind of short, not that hobgoblin crap or whatever, like the Gringotts goblins kind of short.
"Hello and welcome young students, to your first Charms class." he says cheerily, "My name is Professor Flitwick, and I have the pleasure of teaching you young folk for many years to come. Now who knows the Alohomora spell?" Potter, Malfoy, Granger, a bunch of other purebloods, and myself raise our hands as Flitwick looks around the room.
"Good, good. This looks to be like a promising class of student," Flitwick looks around, "Mr. Malfoy would you please demonstrate it to the class?"
Draco stands up and makes motion with his wand and simultaneously speaks "Alohamora!" sparks fly out of his wand. "Not quite , you may have a seat. Ms. Riddle could you show us?"Flitwick turns to me.
"Yes Professor." I stand up and draw my wand. I move my wand in a downwards swipe, "Alohamora" I speak quieter than Malfoy. I feel the magic run through my arm and into my wand only to fizzle out at the tip.
"That was perfect Ms. Riddle. You just needed a bit more power behind it to make it work." Flitwick looks around, "Now everyone, even though did not cast a successful Alohamora, you should all follow her wand movements and pronunciations. They were perfect. Let's see if we can't get someone to successfully do it. Ah! Ms Granger. If you would please."
I sit down as Granger goes to stand up. Why did that not work? What is wrong with my magic? Father said he simply dampened it to work like other kids my age. He said nothing about it giving me issues and being ornery. This is not okay. I need my magic. I need access to it. I want to take the necklace off, but I won't I promised Father I wouldn't. Plus, they shouldn't know. It makes me blend in better with the other students if I don't get it all right all the time. Then it hits me.
But that means I have to work for it... again. I have to re-attune myself to my magic again? Blech. That took me ages the first time. That would explain why it's so fussy. Hopefully I will be up to magical ability by mid-terms, before Christmas Holiday if I have my way. I'm brought out of my musings by Flitwick clapping and exclaiming, "10 points to Gryffindor for a successful casting Ms. Granger. We can expect great things from you I imagine." As Flitwick turns to talk to the class some more Granger shoots me a smug look. I ignore her and pretend to be paying immense attention to Flitwick. I whisper hiss something and see Granger squirm in her seat. In the distance I vaguely hear a responding hiss softly saying
"Ssssspeakeer..." and then it is gone.
The rest of the day passes normally. My magic being ornery and not listening to me. Sophie tails me, eagerly awaiting the answers I promised. I try to make conversation with her, I really do. But there are lots of people here. All day I have been around people. I never get a moment of time to myself. And then not to mention all of the people in the Great Hall today. I tried to not let it get to me just how many people were there. But looking back on it, I may simply not take my meals there for a while. Or cast a muffliato on the room. Maybe ask Snape if there is anything I can do to deal with the large number of people here.
Currently I am sitting in my room at my desk. Here in the dungeons we have more space, so its more like two to a room. And each person has a desk, a bed, and a wardrobe to hang their clothes in. It is however a public bathroom sadly. On my side of the room I have changed the colors to blues and greens with silver and black thrown in. The bed is a lovely canopy bed with velvet drapes, to keep the cold out in the winter when even warming charms need some help from what I have been told. I haven't met my roommate yet. I almost hope it is Sophie. Because out of all that girls here, I would rather it be her, muggleborn and all. That and I won't have to re-train the new person to be as considerate and obedient as she is.
I settle in to work on my homework because I need to keep up my grades in school. Maybe I can manage to achieve higher marks than Father in some of the classes. He always did say that his Defense grade was horrendous. As I'm about to get started on my Charms homework my roommate walks in. I look over in curiosity and it happens to be Sophie, thank goodness. Not someone who will go into my personal affects and sneak around my things. I walk over to my trunk and pop it open. My Father wasted no expense in having this made for me. I put up my own wards and feather light charms on it, however my Father made sure it was an expandable trunk with three different compartments. One of which we charmed to only be opened by Parseltongue. The first one is the normal tap your wand to the top and the second one is a quote of Voldemort's Ideals. In the first section was all of my clothing and my school or lighter reading material with my everyday necessities. Hair care products, like my brush, my toothbrush, my shampoo and conditioner, all of my other school supplies. The middle one I have the rest of my reading material and some of my more questionable items, like my higher reading material and my rare potions ingredients. I don't really have anything in my last compartment yet, but Father and I figured it would come in handy at some point.
I retrieve my beginners book on charms, and the other on transfiguration and set them out to practice those blasted spells.
"Hey Keket," Sophie speaks, and I turn to look at her and she fidgits, she had promptly taken a seat on her bed.
"Yes Sophie?" I inquire.
"What happened during Charms today?" she asks nervously, "You had all of the wand movements right, but your spell didn't take. That isn't normal is it?"
"You are correct. Normally with a wand a wizard or witch should be able to do spells very easily. However, I am not a normal witch. To go into anymore detail could put you at risk without any Mental Defenses in place." I explain as ambiguously as I can.
"Mental Defenses?" Sophie looks intrigued.
"Yes," I put up my hand and grab my wand and concentrate very hard to put up a simple muffliato on the door so people won't be able to hear through it. I feel the magic shoot through my arm and through the tip of my wand. I grin and then pant a bit, that used a lot of my magical reserves.
"Okay, as I was saying there are mental arts of both defense and offense. They are called Occlumency and Legilimancy respectively. And Legilimancy is illegal to be used on anyone, especially minors, and yet there are some people in this school who use it. And I can't chance you being subjected to it because you are my friend."
At the word friend Sophie's face popped into one of surprise and happiness. I was very glad that she didn't question my statement however, because even I don't know exactly why it came out. I mean she did help keep me fed. But what would Father say if he knew that my first "friend" was a muggleborn witch. However, he may be more curious than furious when I tell him she made it into the great house of Slytherin.
"Why would that happen?" She asks me, pulling me from my musings, her curiosity winning out over her wish to point out that I called her my friend.
"Because people are very suspicious of me and me upbringing. Unnecessarily so, but still suspicious." I respond boredly.
"Well, in that case," Sophie starts and moves closer to me a look of pure determination on her face, "I want you to teach me these things so I can be a good friend and not put those you care about in unnecessary danger." She smiles at me, and I look at her almost struck dumb. However, like a good little snake I recover quickly.
"First I need to send a couple of letters. Are you sure you want to do this?" I look at her, she doesn't know what she is getting into. She doesn't know what my last name means or the stigma that will come with being my friend or ally in the eyes of the rest of the school and the teachers.
"Of course!" She fumes, as though I offended her, "You are my first friend." She says softly as her composure changes. "I imagine you've had lots of friends, or acquaintances," she smiles in my direction, "but no one ever liked me in school. They always called me bookish, said I needed to talk more and be more outgoing. No one ever liked me for me. I don't come from a lot of money, I don't have insane intellect. I work hard for my grades and for the begrudging respect others give me." Her visage goes from mournful, to a steely determination.
"Then there are a few things you should know before you decide to commit to this." I say and turn to face her straight on, whether friend or ally she deserves to know.
"Becoming my friend will change how people think of you. Not only in this house but also in how the teachers think of you and treat you, along with the parents of the students and the other students themselves. You will become primary target number one if you choose to ally yourself to me."
She looks like she is about to interject, but stops when I raise a hand. "Let me finish Sophie." I see her acquiesce. "
"My Father, my real Father has a reputation that precedes him. The crimes he committed and the things he did instill fear into people's hearts because he was the most recent Dark Lord. He grew up during the 1940's, I believe that a muggle by the name of Hitler was causing trouble then. Well here in the wizarding world we had our own problems to deal with. We had a Dark Lord by the name of Gellert Grindelwald who was trying to enforce the Statute of Secrecy by any means necessary. You see uninformed muggleborns, also known as mudbloods, such as yourself come into this world thinking that they can just do as they please. Well this isn't so. We have our own traditions and rules and history that you know nothing about. Gellert was trying to keep muggle life and wizarding life separate as finitely as he could. In doing so he killed many muggles and their families and many muggleborns. Our current Headmaster, Albus Dumbledore was the one to kill Grindelwald and became an international hero. There is one problem with this though, Albus and Gellert were involved when they were teenagers. So Albus took his wand against the one person he loved more than anything else." Sophie who had been listening intently, and curiously, dropped her jaw in shock.
"Exactly. If Albus could rip his heart out and kill Gellert then what is there to stop him from doing awful things to anyone else? All for the sake of this cause he calls the 'greater good.' That is one of the reasons why I don't like him." I told her and stopped for a moment to reign in my anger.
"I don't see what this exactly has to do with your Father." Sophie said softly, confusion marring her adequate features.
"I did say he was a Dark Lord. This background works into it I promise." I respond softly, and she settles in for a long story.
"Well, my father, seeing the necessity of what Gellert was trying to do created his own order to take action, originally called the Knights of Walpurgis, they eventually became known as the Death Eaters. Anywho, that will become important later. You'll see. He went through the curriculum here at Hogwarts and easily made his way to the top of the class, and stole everyone's hearts. Teachers, students, I mean everyone, except Dumbledore. Dumbledore could see the plans that were brewing in my Father's head when he was a teen. Let us just say, to cut the story short, my father also tortured and killed muggles and muggleborns, for his own personal reason I'm told. But never children. Though no one would say that, except his followers, or so Lucius tells me. Needless to say, he killed the Potter brat's parents and disappeared that night. Some say he died, others claim he went into hiding. But needless to say he isn't liked much by the faculty and many of the students. Thus making me not liked much because I bear his last name, and they are afraid I will turn out to be just like him. However it gives me immunity in the Slytherin house." I shrug and look at her thoughtful expression.
"Why do you get immunity in Slytherin house?" She asked looking for clarification after a few minutes of thinking.
"Well, my Father was a Slytherin. That and Slytherin is known for being the 'pure house' meaning that we hardly ever, more like never, get any students that are muggleborn. Meaning you being here is an anomaly. That and I can talk to snakes which is something only those descended from Salazar Slytherin can claim to do." This information causes her to dawn a confused and intrigued look.
"So when you hissed in Charms today..." she trails off a light in her eyes, "that wasn't just a simple hiss was it?"
"No." I look at her, she really is more intelligent than I would have ever imagined. "It was a mild tickling spell in Parseltongue."
"So… how is it you were able to make a Parselmagic spell work on the first try, but couldn't get a simple Alohamora to come out of your wand?" Sophie questions almost studiously.
I sit there struck by what she has just brought up. I really have no answer for that. I mean the best answer I could give would be that I didn't have to use my wand for it. Wait…
"Parselmagic doesn't require a wand..." I trail off out loud, an expression of wonder on my face. "Sophie you are genius. How did I miss that?" I stand up quickly and pace in front of my desk.
"Sometimes it takes a fresh set of eyes to see the things that we ourselves cannot." She says softly, and I stop and look at her, saying nothing more. Not knowing what to say.
The silence hangs in the air as she now takes the time to digest the brief background I gave her on what this would mean. She would become an outcast in the eyes of the other houses. Any hope of becoming friends with them would be obliterated. Yet on the bright side, she would get immunity in the Slytherin house. No one would dare touch her while she was under my protection. And being a muggleborn, as she now knew was dangerous here, she needed any boon or protection that she could get. Honestly I am impressed she is thinking about this as long as she is. Most kids our age would just jump on it or banish it from their minds completely, but here she was, a little muggleborn, using her brain and cunning to make an informed decision. This girl continues to intrigue me with her intellect. I sit back down and turn back to my homework and get through about a foot of the Potions essay before she gets my attention again.
"I think I've come to a decision." She says, and I look at her expectantly, an Obliviate on my tongue.