A/N: Hey amigos! How's it going? I've finally done some writing, and I think I might be on a bit of a burst this weekend. It's so gonna be a jimmers, junkfood and jwriting weekend which is ace for story progress. ANYWHO. Here's a chapter. I quite like it. I hope you do too. Let me know what you think! =]


Blank Canvas

by Flaignhan


Everywhere she goes there are whispers. She tries to keep her head held high, tries to ignore the eyes that follow her while cupped hands shield hurtful comments from her ears, but it's difficult. When she gets back to her dormitory at night, she holds in a sob, determined not to be beaten, and falls into a restless sleep.

When she wakes, her face is damp with tears. She tries to roll over and get back to sleep, but it's no use. Unable to stand the silence of the dormitory for a moment longer, she gets up, puts on her slippers, and goes down to the common room. She lights the fire, sits in the most comfortable velvet armchair, and opens a textbook.

Eventually, the sounds of the other Slytherins slowing coming to life filter down the spiral staircases, and Clara goes to ready herself for another day of misery.

When she looks in the mirror, the dark circles under her eyes and the gauntness of her features only lower her mood. As much as the other students are affecting her, she doesn't want them to know, but this is something she cannot hide.

She especially cannot hide it from Professor Dumbledore, who clears his throat at the end of her Transfiguration lesson and says quietly, "Clara, a moment of your time, if you will?"

She feels the heat rise in her cheeks as the others in her class share knowing expressions, and stays in her seat as they all stand to leave.

"Anything I can help you with, Tom?" Dumbledore asks politely.

"Oh, I was just waiting for Clara, sir," Tom replies. Clara looks up to see that he too is sitting in his seat, his leather satchel filled with textbooks and straining at the seams.

"Well I'm sure you can wait for her in the Great Hall. Save her something nice for lunch, won't you? I believe the elves have some particularly nice steak pies on the menu today, and it looks as though Miss Dewhurst could do with a rather large slice of one of those."

"Yes sir," Tom says obediently. Clara watches as he leaves, her stomach twisting into knots. She knows what this is. And part of her wants to tell Dumbledore every single thing that's been upsetting her in the last two weeks. She wants to tell him that she doesn't know if she can trust Tom, but feels awful for doubting him. She wants to tell him that she's scared, and worse than that, scared of herself. She wants to cry, and she wants him to tell her that everything will be fine, that she's not in trouble, and that whatever she's done, no matter how awful it is, they'll be able to fix it - or even better, they'll be able to fix her.

But when Professor Dumbledore perches on the edge of the desk in front of Clara's and peers down at her through his half moon spectacles, her throat dries up. She cannot utter a word. She glances to the door, and wonders whether Tom is actually making his way down to the Great Hall, or whether he's waiting outside for her.

She wonders whether he's listening.

"Going to Dumbledore is a bad idea, you need to trust me."

Tom was quite firm on that.

"Tom Riddle doesn't have friends."

Dumbledore was quite firm on that.

He follows Clara's gaze towards the door, then raises his wand, and with a simple flick, a blanket of silence falls around them.

"No one outside of this room can hear anything you tell me," Dumbledore says softly. "And there is a lot you'd like to tell me, I think."

Dumbledore has never implored her to trust him. Tom is constantly telling her to trust him. Tom needs her to trust him more than Dumbledore does.

Maybe Tom cares more.

"You're close to Tom, aren't you?" Dumbledore says quietly, his hands clasped in front of him. The way he looks at Clara makes her skin prickle with shame. It's like he's disappointed in her.

"He's all I've got." Clara doesn't meet his eye. She can't.

"Is that what he's told you?"

"It's what I know."

"Clara," he sighs, "You are so very vulnerable in your position. Placing you in Slytherin house was a mistake that I dearly wish I could go back and fix."

"I wanted to go in Slytherin."

"With Tom, because Tom was nice and you had no idea that the others would not be remotely accommodating."

"They hate Tom, too."

"They're jealous of Tom. They won't admit it, but they are. Tom is living proof that purebloods do not make a greater wizard. They cannot stand it. You, on the other hand, are a separate matter entirely."

"How so?"

"You don't matter to them."

Clara sits up straight. "What?"

"They've all established their...relationships with each other, you have no family thus no important connections, your value to a Slytherin is approximately zero."

"Nice," Clara says thickly, trying not to let herself feel too hurt by the comments.

"It is not a measure of your faults Clara, but a measure of theirs. Had you been in any of the other houses you would have been valued for other things - in Hufflepuff, you would have found yourself surrounded by people keen to befriend you, as being a Hufflepuff is enough to them. In Ravenclaw, your sharp mind would have seen that you were appreciated, and Gryffindor...well, a knowledge of how to have a good time is often regarded as an excellent quality."

"But all the other houses, they all hate me because I'm in Slytherin, so they can't be that much better than the Slytherins themselves."

"Oh you shan't hear me defend their attitudes, but perhaps if we take a moment, we could understand it. Not justify it, but understand it. The Slytherins behave to the other houses as they do to you. How much regard do you hold for your fellow housemates?"

Clara skews her lips to one side, and Dumbledore continues.

"Exactly, so while it is easy to tar a group of people from the actions of one, it is a great deal easier to tar a single teenage girl with the actions of many. Not nice, especially not for you, but not impossible to understand. However," he says, after a deep breath, "not all that helpful for you."

"No," Clara agrees.

"The reason you feel that Tom is all you have is because you have convinced yourself that that is the case. Should you need to talk about anything, anything at all, you know where my office is. Rest assured anything you do tell me will remain between the two of us."

"I know, Professor. Thank you."

"Now. What exactly is troubling you?"

She believes he would keep her secrets as if they were his own, but if she tells him that she's worried that she's attacking the students, that everybody keeps saying that she's the heir of Slytherin, that she's a risk to the hundreds of people in the castle...well, she's not sure he'd be able to keep that to himself. And how could she blame him? She ought to be selfless, she ought to seek redemption for the terrible things she's done, by stopping herself from doing it again.

If she tells Dumbledore, it could all be over by the end of the day.

I hear those Azkaban cells are rather...cosy...

Her stomach jolts, and she tries to ignore the voice in her head that sounds like Tom's.

"That pie's probably getting cold," Clara says, getting to her feet and swinging her bag onto her shoulder.

"Warming charms are really quite simple, Clara."

"The pastry goes all...funny..." She backs towards the door, hating herself more and more with every cowardly step she takes.

"Very well," Dumbledore sighs. "When you're ready to talk, you know where I am. Just remember that you have more than one friend in this castle."

"Yes sir," Clara says, reaching for the handle, her fingers trembling. "Thank you sir."

She exits quickly, walks rapidly down to the end of the corridor, turns left into the girls' bathroom, and rushes into a cubicle. She would have thought that her diminished appetite would leave nothing to splatter against the porcelain. Wrong. When she is finished, she sits with her back to the wooden cubicle door, her knees drawn up to her chest, tears falling freely.

She feels pathetic. Worse than pathetic. She has the ability to change things, and if that means that she gets punished for what she has done, then so be it. She deserves it. She wipes the tears from her eyes with the sleeve of her cardigan, gets to her feet, her legs still a little shaky, and leaves the bathroom.

She will not stand for this. Her parents, whoever they are, would be ashamed of her. Her mother would be fussing over how little she's been eating, and would make her a large dinner - steak pie and mashed potatoes, with something sweet for dessert.

Her father, perhaps a newspaper reading type father, one with chequered shirts and brown leather loafers, well he would probably purse his lips at the site of a lemon tart or a slice of cake. There can be too much of a good thing, after all.

Clara is so wrapped up in building herself an imaginary family that she doesn't pay any notice to the fact that she has reached the Great Hall, nor does she realise that she is storming towards the Slytherin table in a determined manner that naturally attracts attention from the other tables. She takes a seat next to Tom, shoves her bag under the table and tucks into the plate of food that Tom has saved for her. When she is finished, she helps herself to seconds, while Tom simply stares at her, his eyebrows raised.

Clara ignores him, and continues to eat, but when she next looks up, a group of Hufflepuff girls are watching her every move.

"Why don't you take a bloody photograph?" Clara demands, and the Hufflepuffs turn quickly away. A Slytherin on the opposite side of the table rolls his eyes at the disturbance. "And you can get stuffed as well!" Clara tells him. He scowls, and Clara stares hard at him until he turns away.

"What in the name of Merlin has gotten into you?"

"I am fed up," Clara says, accenting each word by dumping a dollop of mashed potato on her plate, "of being treated like this. I'm not having it. Not for another moment. The next person to whisper about me is going to regret it. Big time."

"What did Dumbledore say to you?"

"Nothing that concerns you."

"What did you tell him?" Tom grabs her by the shoulder and turns her to face him. "Clara, you need to tell me what you told him."

"No I don't," Clara argues, pulling herself from his grasp. She has been a coward for too long, and although she has run from Dumbledore today, she will not make things worse for herself. She will not bow to Tom. She will play him at his own game.

"Clara -"

"You need to trust me," she says simply, cutting up her pie.

"But -"

"If I told you everything, I wouldn't need you to trust me."

"Clara you're being -"

"What?"

"Look," Tom says, taking a steadying breath. "My only concern is you. I don't trust Dumbledore, so naturally I'm worried that he's tricked you into saying something you might...regret."

"I do trust Dumbledore. And he didn't trick me into saying anything. Believe it or not Tom, you're not the only person who gives a damn about me."

"I never said I was," Tom replies softly.

"But you make it seem like you are."

"No I don't," he says. "I've never done anything of the sort. All I've done is look after you. And this is how you repay me..."

"I didn't realise I was indebted to you." Clara doesn't even try to keep the acidity in her tone at bay. "I thought you were my friend."

"I am. Clara, I am."

"Friends don't expect payment in exchange for kindness."

For the first time since she's known him, Tom is stumped. He has no response. No quizzical expression. No smirk. He blinks, his face blank, and then stands, without uttering a word, and leaves the Great Hall.

"Hey," Clara says. "You there, yes, you with the sneer."

The dark haired girl turns to look at Clara.

"Pass me the chocolate gateau."

The girl complies, albeit with a murderous look in her eyes.

For the first time in weeks, as she helps herself to a larger than necessary slice of gateau, Clara Dewhurst grins.