All belongs to JK Rowling!

Only she didn't sleep.

Outside her four-poster bed her roommates could have been murdering each other for all she knew, thanks to her muffling spell. However, no amount of peace and quiet from outside could drown out the voices in her own head.

The satisfaction of her petty act of spilling orange juice all over Tom had quickly evaporated leaving behind a dull emptiness. For days, Lyra had practically prayed to feel nothing and now...she would have given anything to replace the emptiness with even the worst grief.

Lyra rolled over onto her back and stared up at the green curtains above her. She had grown up subconsciously resenting the color green, Lyra realized. Slytherin had been her mother's house and the house of her mother before her, but she had always been a Hufflepuff like her father. Now she didn't know who she was.

Liar, murderer, Slytherin, orphan. These were all words that could be applied to her now, and with a shock Lyra realized they could also be applied to Tom. But I'm nothing like him, Lyra reminded herself. Everything she had ever done had been for justice. It had been done out of good intent, not out of a desire for power or fame.

Pushing these troubling thoughts out of her mind, Lyra turned to her situation at hand. She would have to start classes tomorrow...classes a year above her actual grade level in a time period in which the curriculum could be very different. She would have to start her investigation; the sooner she discovered whether or not Tom had already taken steps towards immortality the sooner she could finish this mission and go home.

Lyra ran her fingers across the soft surface of the emerald stone in her ring. She still had no idea why her grandmother had given her the ring, nor what its purpose was. Perhaps the Elaina Selwyn of the 1940s knew.

Closing her eyes, Lyra tried desperately to sleep; tossing and turning, thoughts running through her head a mile a minute. As the first rays of light began to filter their way through the curtains around her bed, Lyra sighed in defeat. There was nothing left to do but go pour herself the largest cup of coffee possible.


Tom had already been up for over an hour by the time the first of the other seventh-year Slytherin boys began to stir. Putting down the book he had been reading on alchemy, Tom swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood up; already dressed for the day.

"Merlin, Riddle! Did you even sleep?" Cepheus Lestrange asked, yawning as he sat up in bed; his head a mess of curly black hair.

Tom shot the boy a dark look, walking briskly to the door and leaving the dorm room before any of the other idiots could pester him. The only thing Tom preferred about the wretched orphanage was the privacy his single room gave him. Due to his "undesirable tendencies" as Mrs. Cole called them, Tom had been given a single room since he was seven - a privilege none of the other orphans had received to this day. If the room had not felt so much like a prison cell, Tom would have been pleased.

The Great Hall was empty as usual at this time in the morning as Tom took his usual place at the Slytherin table. Remembering the events of last night, he felt raw anger surge through him.

She had meant to do it; Tom was sure of it. There had been a look of poorly veiled malicious glee in her eyes when she had spilled the orange juice all over his robes and dinner. He didn't even need Legilimency to know she hated him; it had been written all over her face whenever she smiled at him. The girl was hardly a good liar.

But why. That was the real question. Why did she hate him so much when he had been nothing but polite to her - even defended her - while the other students had virtually attacked her. Had she seen through his pretence? Had she judged his character correctly after only a few minutes? Had she seen something in him that day they had met in Diagon Alley that had made her suspicious? Or worse...did she know something about him?

Even more disconcerting than these questions was the strange sense of deja-vu he had whenever he looked at her. It was almost as if he knew her from somewhere.

Tom shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts. There was absolutely no reason to be paranoid for no reason. He would watch her intently over the next couple of days and with the right blend of charm and Legilimency he would soon have all the answers he needed.

"Hello Riddle." A voice said, making Tom jump. He ground his teeth in annoyance as he looked up into the smirking face of Lyra Reed.

"Good morning." He said, putting on his most convincing mask of polite cordiality. "How did you sleep?"

Lyra sat down and quickly reached for the coffee pot, "I didn't." She replied, laughing humourlessly. "You?"

Well that explained why she looked like a corpse, Tom thought to himself. "Fine, thank you." He replied, "Do you mind if I ask what it was that-"

"You already know." Lyra interrupted and Tom stared at her. It had been years since anyone had been so blatantly rude to him and in a weird way it almost amused him.

"I already know?" He asked, raising an eyebrow.

"What classes are you taking this year?" Lyra asked, and Tom noticed her hands were shaking as she poured herself some cereal.

"Why did you avoid my question?" Tom asked, looking her over intently.

"What question?" Lyra asked, feigning confusion.

Tom quirked an eyebrow, watching as she squirmed under his gaze. There was nothing special about this girl, Tom realized. However much she had given him reason to suspect her, there was no reason to fear her. Almost effortlessly, he could see scenes from the night before float up from the back of her mind. Snippets of her life flashed before his mind's eye as he read her like a book: the carriage ride, the antechamber, Druella, the orange juice-

With a surge of anger that shocked even Tom, the door to her mind slammed shut and Tom was left staring into the mutinous brown eyes of Lyra Reed.

"Get the hell out of my head, Tom Riddle." Lyra snarled, slamming her hands onto the table and leaning forward to glare at him with an intensity that Tom had only seen in himself.

Before Tom could blink, she had stood up, and was marching away from him as fast as she could; her long golden hair shiny against the black of her robes. Tom watched her go with a mixture of shock, anger, and suspicion. Perhaps, Tom thought grimly, she would prove to be a more complicated problem than he had previously believed.