Riddle and His Lady
Chapter Nine: Party at 12 Grimmauld Place - Part 2
Previously:
Hermione smiled at him then and jumped from her seat, knocking back her wine in one gulp and reaching out for his hand. He gave it to her willing and hoisted himself from his chair, quite liking the feel of her significantly smaller hand enclosed in his larger one.
"Come on," she said cheerfully, "we have to mingle at some point."
Orion quite enjoyed having Hermione tugging on his hand, leading him through the rooms until they reached the main living room where everyone stood socialising.
"Do you want to meet a few of my relatives?" Orion asked suddenly, releasing her hand and looping her arm through his and he looked down at her.
Hermione took a shaky breath and smiled, her eyes flitting around the busy room. She then nodded her head and accompanied him through the crowd, unaware that she was being carefully observed by another handsome, young wizard in the corner of the room.
Orion lead the suddenly cheerful witch over to a small group of young witches and wizards stood in the centre of the room, chattering happily to each other and finishing their drinks at an impossible rate. Hermione observed two young women stood within the small congregation, one wearing a long black, figure hugging dress with her long dark hair held behind her back. She had high cheek bones and dark red lips with pale blue eyes; she was the image of a Pureblood princess. The other woman had very short fiery red hair, styled with a victory roll and the rest, curled perfectly around her face. She wore a smart red dress, fit tightly around her legs and finished just below her knees. It was not as racy as the other woman's dress, but it certainly suited her and made her look very prim and proper. It struck Hermione that the woman seemed very familiar but for the life of her, she could simply not put her finger on it.
Hermione was first introduced to three young men. The first was named Alphard Black, who had short black hair and typical aristocratic features of the Black family and was also Orion's second cousin. The second was called Ignatius Prewett, a distant cousin of the family although he did not at all resemble a Black relation. He had quite light brown hair which was pulled back in a short ponytail with a black ribbon. Both greeted her with a warm welcome and Hermione warmed to them both immediately, although the third man was far from welcoming. He was a short man, but seemed just as old as she was. He had short, unkempt light hair and a sour, pinched face with lines carved into his forehead. He seemed like a positively unpleasant man and only grunted when Hermione greeted him. She chose then to ignore him but perked up upon hearing his name; Lyall Pettigrew. She immediately took a deeper dislike to him.
Orion then pointed her to the girl with the long black hair who leaned forward to kiss Hermione on the cheek with a graceful smile.
"Lucretia Black," the girl said softly, "It's wonderful to meet you, Hermione."
She smiled in response and returned the compliment. Hermione then turned to the other woman stood beside Lucretia who smiled warmly at her and said in a thick Scottish accent, "I was wondering when I'd finally meet you; I'm Minerva McGonagall,"
Hermione froze, allowing the information to sink in. She had just met her Transfiguration teacher and future Headmistress as a 19 year old girl and now she felt somehow compelled to bash her head against a wall for not recognising her in the first place. Of course, she had aged...considerably in the future and to some extent it was difficult to tell it was her but it was most definitely her, just younger and extremely pretty. She was surprised not to find a stern expression on her face that she had been so used to seeing in the future, but instead there was a pleasant smile and young, bright green eyes.
"It's nice to meet you, Minerva," Hermione replied after a moment of frozen silence, and felt a wave of emotion wash over her at the thought of her old Transfiguration teacher and Headmistress who was rather like a mother figure when her parents went to Australia. Hermione hid her state of sadness beneath a polite smile, but could not help but find it perplexing that the young, pretty woman in front of her was the same one in the future, only older.
They made light conversation for a while, discussing their lives, their connections to each other, but mostly the other people in the room.
"Did you attend Hogwarts then, Hermione?" Ignatius inquired with a perplexed expression on his face, "I cannot remember seeing you there."
"No," Hermione blurted without thinking, "I was home schooled by my Aunt and Uncle from a young age; they wanted to spare me from bullying and the sorts. Two months ago I left home so I could make my own way in the world."
Ignatius nodded, deciding to leave the subject.
"Wha' 'appened to yuh parents?" Lyall grunted rather unsympathetically. Hermione saw a look of disgust flit across Lucretia's face; apparently she wasn't the only one who had taken a dislike to the disheveled lump in their company.
"They died when I was very young; do not apologise for my loss, I hardly knew them." Hermione chuckled. She did not feel too guilty lying to them; after all, it was only a half-lie. Her parents didn't even know she existed.
"So, you're a orphan?" Lucretia asked, a tone of sympathy in her voice.
Hermione nodded and Ignatius muttered, "So is Tom; although he doesn't like to talk about it."
The group fell silent for a moment before Lucretia exclaimed, "I absolutely adore your dress, by the way Hermione! We must go shopping together one day."
Hermione laughed and replied, "Thank you; it was a gift from Orion."
Lucretia raised an eyebrow with a wicked smile on her lips, "Oh really? It must have been an expensive gift..."
Hermione frowned and turned to Orion, "Oh, yes. I hope you didn't spend too much on me," she said, concerned. She had never liked people spending a lot of money on her, especially boys.
Orion chuckled, "As you can see; my family has more money than sense, so money is no object, Hermione."
Lucretia winked at Hermione, making her face heat up but she decided not to argue with him in front of people. Hermione found it quite odd, as she stood quietly and observed the others talking, that Minerva, a bold Gryffindor, would be spending her time socialising with Slytherins. She was clearly quite friendly with them; especially with Alphard as she had seen him shooting her small smiles every now and then and Minerva's face heating up in response with another shaky smile in return. She had never known of Minerva having a husband, or children nor heard of any sort of relative.
The lively chatter around the group was soon interrupted by an arm being slung around Lucretia's waist and Tom appearing beside her with a cocky grin on his face.
He greeted everyone with a polite nod of the head before turning to the red-headed woman and saying, "Minerva," with a slight tone of hostility in his voice.
Minerva nodded sharply at him with a cold look in her eyes, refusing to say a word to him. The stiff exchange between the two did not go unnoticed by the rest of the group but they seemed to turn a blind eye to it.
"I was wondering when you would grace us with your presence, Tommy," Lucretia purred, a seductive smile smeared on her perfect face. Hermione's mouth suddenly felt very dry as she watched them flirt with each other shamelessly, with his arm set firmly around her tiny waist and her hand rested possessively on his chest.
"See what I mean?" Orion whispered in Hermione's ear, referring to their previous conversation about women falling at Tom's feet. Hermione nodded, suddenly feeling very uncomfortable as she felt Tom's eyes burning on her skin. It seemed to go unnoticed by Lucretia that Tom was not paying any actual attention to her, but was staring boldly at Hermione instead.
She could not help but feel incredibly irritated at the young man stood before her in his beautifully tailored suit and his perfectly carved face, as he continued to annoy her. It was blatant he was trying to make her jealous, although for the world, she could not figure out why. Nor could she figure out why she was getting jealous; she did not have feelings for him, she did not even like him. He was just someone she knew who was devilishly handsome and happened to destroy her life in the future.
Hermione gritted her teeth in annoyance as everyone else chatted away contently whilst she could feel Orion's dark gaze burning into her as she forced herself not to look at Tom grazing his hands all over Lucretia and toying with her hair.
"Hermione," Minerva exclaimed, leaping forward to loop her arm through hers and brushed a smile on her face, "Shall we refill our drinks?"
Without waiting for Hermione to answer, she was dragged away from the group by Minerva and pulled through the crowd of people. They soon entered yet another room with only a couple of people stood in there with their arms wrapped around each other and facing glued together. It wasn't an unpleasant sight and they weren't doing anything too explicit, it just wasn't the sort of thing you could imagine anyone daring to do in the house of the prestigious Black family. Hermione very much doubted Sirius' prim and proper mother would like it very much. Upon hearing the click of their heels, the couple turned to look and fled at the stern look Minerva was giving them. It seemed she wasn't that different fifty years in the past after all.
"Thank you, Minerva," Hermione said once she realised that Minerva had actually just done her a huge favour, "That scene was becoming exceedingly painful to watch."
"It's no problem," she replied, leaning against one of the dark blue walls beside a portrait of a rather ugly looking woman who was staring hatefully at the red-headed witch, "The stench of testosterone in that room was becoming too much for me to bear."
Hermione laughed at that and decided that she quite liked this new, younger Minerva.
"From that public display of manliness," she began with a crooked eyebrow, "I am guessing you came here with Riddle but you've done something that he doesn't like, and so he's trying to make you jealous."
"How did you know I came with Tom?" Hermione asked.
Minerva opened her mouth before halting and closing it and then opening it again with a sigh, "I could say I am just so intelligent that I thought of it all on my own, but that would be a lie," she chuckled, "Eileen told me."
"Ohh," Hermione said, unsure of what else to say. "Well, I have no idea what I might have done to anger Tom."
Minerva seemed pensive for a moment and gnawed on her bottom lip before clicking her fingers with a grin, "He must have heard us talking about the dress."
Hermione's brow furrowed, "What about the dress?" she asked, folding her arms.
Minerva sighed impatiently, "Orion bought it for you? And you've turned up here at Orion's party, with Tom, wearing a dress that Orion bought for you."
Hermione suddenly felt very silly; it had never occurred to her that boys would see that as trespassing over a fellow male's territory. Pathetic, she thought.
"That's absolutely ridiculous." Hermione said, shaking her head.
"Men are ridiculous, Hermione," Minerva chuckled and then frowned, "although, I must say, I have never Riddle act that way because of a girl before...especially a muggleborn."
"How did you know I was a muggleborn?" Hermione inquired.
Minerva laughed, her eyes crinkling at the edges, "Your surname is not a pureblood one, although I suppose you could be a halfblood...at most."
It did not surprise Hermione to see that she did not care about her blood status, although it was still a shock sometimes to her that people were accepting of it. Silence then met them and they stood quietly as Minerva twirled her wand in her right hand before she suddenly jumped into life and clapped her hands together.
A house elf suddenly appeared upon the second clap with a loud crack, staring up at the two witches.
"Mifty!" Hermione exclaimed with a smile, "how are you?"
"Very well, mistress, thank you. Is there something you needed?" She squeaked with a toothy grin, clasping her bony hands behind her back.
"Yes," Minerva said, "we would like four shots of fire whiskey please, Mifty."
"Yes, mistress." Mifty replied and with a crack, she disappeared, leaving Hermione with her eyes wide and a slackened jaw.
"Fire whiskey?!" she exclaimed. Hermione had only ever drank fire whiskey once during a night in the Leaky Cauldron with George after the war. They had both experienced loss during the long, long battle and needed some comfort which they soon found in each other. She certainly regretted drinking it in the morning and found herself leaning over the toilet of her parents home where she found herself. She had not returned there since she had sent them to Australia and sold the house soon after the night out with George. Soon after that, Hermione heard that George has left England, his family and friends and moved to Romania to live with Charlie and his new wife. The Weasley family had not seen him since, although they had seen Charlie, but George never came home. It was as if Molly and Arthur had lost two sons.
"Yes," Minerva said with a wink, "it is not often I get a chance to go out and I think we're going to be good friends, so let's just loosen up a bit and have a free drink."
Hermione could not argue with that, so when Mifty returned with a tray of four shot glasses and a bottle of fire whiskey, she found no reason for her to refuse them.
"So," Hermione drawled, four shots later and with another held loosely in her left hand, "What's with you and Tom? You don't seem to like him."
Minerva chuckled darkly and threw another shot down her throat with a wince before sliding her wand from her dress pocket and transfiguring one of the glasses into a tiny bird. "That would be an understatement. I cannot stand that man and I there is no doubt he feels the same about me."
Hermione nodded, "can I ask why?"
"You can," Minerva grinned, "Me and Riddle were in the same year at Hogwarts, you know. In fact, we shared a common room together because we were Head Boy and Head Girl. Soon after our last year began, I started seeing what he was really like. He would act charming and polite in public to teachers and students but when he was with his friends in our common room it was as if he was a different person." she spat.
"How do you mean?" Hermione inquired, stroking the blue feathers of the bird that had landed next to her on the floor.
"Well, here's one example; I had a bit of a crush on him at one point, but so did every girl, and when I heard I'd be sharing living quarters with him I felt on cloud nine! Although, one day I was outside near the Black Lake practicing some spells and Avery appeared. I was so distracted by what I was doing that he took advantage and he manage to disarm me and levitate me upside down in the air so my skirt would go with it...People were crowding round and you could see everything. It was horrible..." she paused, glancing her eyes down as if ashamed to be telling the story. "And when I saw Riddle appear and tell everyone to leave, I thought he was going to help me and punish Avery for it, but he just stood there and laughed and then tossed my wand to me and left."
"Oh, Minerva...I'm so sorry," Hermione said, pouring her another shot and sliding it over to her. She accepted it gladly with a small smile.
"It's fine; it was ages ago. But after that, I started to realise what who Riddle really was."
Hermione nodded and then asked, "Who's Avery by the way? I don't think I've met him..."
"You don't want to. He has a bizarre hatred for muggleborn's so watch out if you do meet him.
When we were in school together, Riddle had two groups of friends. His first group was one that everyone in the school got on with even though they were Slytherin's; Orion, Abraxas and Lestrange. His other group were considered the school bullies but they were much more than that. They were dangerous and people seemed to think Riddle was just a pawn, but now I look back I realise that he was in control of them; not the other way round."
"Who were they?"
"Avery, Nott and Carmichael. They're typical stuck up Purebloods from disgustingly rich and stupid families, but they dealt the cards out in Hogwarts."
"Are they here tonight?" Hermione asked, levitating the now empty bottle of whiskey.
Minerva laughed and crossed her legs in a rather unladylike way for saying she was wearing a dress, "No! Of course not."
"Why not?"
"Because a few years ago Nott made a rather aggressive pass at Orion's cousin and he's never trusted him again. Although, I wouldn't put it past them to turn up."
Hermione nodded and lazily dropped the bottle to the floor. They sat in silence for a moment and her mind began to wonder back to what she had been told about Tom. If she did not know of what he would become in the future, she would find it impossible to believe that this polite young man was actually a manipulative bully as Minerva claimed. Although, Hermione knew him to be so, yet for some reason she still wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt. She had always tried to live by the idea that no one is totally lost and everyone deserves a second chance no matter what they have done. If she was speaking of Voldemort in the future, he was beyond help...but perhaps this younger version of him was not lost just yet. Perhaps with her help, he wouldn't become such a revolting creature and instead live a good life with no killing and make a good name for himself for his intelligence, rather than his hatred of muggles. Yes, perhaps.
"We should probably join the others," Minerva muttered and Hermione agreed, dragging herself up and leaving the empty bottle on the floor. She was too drunk to bother about things like that.
They were about to walk from the room, or rather, stumble from the room, when Ignatius appeared in the doorway and grabbed both their hands in his firm grip and saying, "drinking games have started in the drawing room. You two must be there!"
The two women followed him until they found a large group of wizards and witches surrounding a large round table. Around the edge of the table, shot glasses had been placed and the group was compiled of Alphard, Orion, Lyall, Lucretia, Tom, Abraxas, Lestrange and Eileen.
Minerva and Hermione joined them around the table as Orion explained the rules of the game; each shot glass would be filled with some sort of alcoholic drink and then levitated by four people who would be sat at the table and given ten glasses each. They would each be given ten seconds to levitate one shot glass at a time. Each glass they levitated successfully, they would be able to drink. The more drunk a player got, the less accurate their magic and the more likely they are to drop the glass, the player would be given three shots, one containing an unpleasant potion rather than alcohol.
Hermione could not really see the point of the game, other than to get more and more drunk. But she was not one to argue; after all, she had already had more than was sensible to drink so she was hardly going to turn more free alcohol down.
Once he had explained the game, Lucretia, Lyall, Abraxas and Eileen took their seats at the table and Orion joined Hermione as she watched and slid an unexpected hand across her back and to loosely cup her waist.
"Having fun?" he asked with a charming grin on his face.
Hermione nodded with a smile but did not say anything.
"Well, that's good because I have an inkling tonight is going to be quite eventful," he said with a wink and continued to watch the game unfold.
I'm dreadfully sorry that it's taken me so long to update. I've been quite busy with college and other things and this chapter didn't seem to want to be written. Thank you to everyone who has reviewed; they're gradually going up and it's great to hear your feedback!
I apologise for the links I left on the last chapter as I only realised after I posted it that they didn't actually work, so here is one picture for each actor:
Tom Riddle - Harry Lloyd: . /tumblr_m8mofjerm91rdwahho1_
Orion Black - Eoin Macken: .
Alphard Black - Ben Barnes: .
Minerva McGonagall - Olivia Grant: .
Lucretia Black - Yancy Butler: polls/000344555/polls_yancy_butler_0605_686112_pol l_
Eileen Prince - Felicity Jones:
I will try to update as soon as I can. Thank you for reading and please review!
- Buckbeak