Epilogue: The Forgotten Pensieve
There—was the door—the door that was always locked and no one ever went in. Not Draco, or even her, no matter how hard they begged, or how many tantrums he threw. Now, however, she knew the spell to get in...
"Aloh humora," she whispered, wand out. Glancing both ways, she slowly went in, wincing asthe door creaked. She froze. No one, not even a house elf, came marching up. She slid in and closed the door behind her.
It was dark. "Lumos," she murmured. The thin wand beam lit the whole small room, which looked as though nobody had been there in years. Cobwebs adorned everything, and there was basically nothing in the room. She could now see it was circular, with a pillar in the middle, like the chamber in the Hiding Place. A cobwebby pile of wooden boxes lay on her right near the door. Carefully leaning over to read them, she wiped the dust off and made out one said 'Violet's things,' one 'wedding,' the most faded read 'old life,' and the most recent one, 'baby.' Heart quickening, she desperately wanted to open the boxes. What sort of mysteries did they hold? But when she looked up, she noticed something on a pillar she hadn't registered before, so engrossed she was in the boxes.
Instead of a dragon's egg, like she first thought, there quietly and beguilingly sat a pensieve. She gasped in wonder. Should she look? What was the reason this room was locked up for so long? She needed to know. She cleared the dusty cobwebs from the pensieve rim and leaned in.
At first it felt like she was falling—then she recognized the interior of the Hogwarts Express train. She looked around. She noticed a tall, sixth year boy swagger into a compartment with some shifty looking kids his age. Her eyes followed the boy; he had neat black hair, and the girls around him giggled and pointed when they saw him. Bella peered into the compartment where the boy sat. She stared at his blue eyes, then scrutinized his cronies. With a jolt, she realized one was her old dad, Lucius! It was so funny seeing the boy in real life. He had short, neat blond hair much like the older boy's. She bet he looked like what Draco would look like when he grew older.
The blue-eyed boy didn't seem to notice what Lucius was saying. His eyes followed an eleven-year-old grey-eyed girl with a yellow and black scarf. "She wasn't even sorted…" he muttered. He got up, opening the door so he could lean out. "Oi Hufflepuff!" he called. The girl turned around. "You certainly think you know where you're going to be sorted."
"Right," the girl said solemnly, flicking her waist-length curly blond hair over her shoulder. "I'm gonna be a Hufflepuff. Not just any Hufflpuff. I'm gonna be the best and kindest there is. I wanna go down in history—and people will read about me and say 'I want to be kind just like her.' It'll happen, you wait and see."
The boy stared at her, impressed. "That's Slytherin ambition there."
The girl shook her head. "I'm a Hufflepuff. Gonna be, anyway."
"What's your name?"
"Violet." (Bella gasped.)
"I'm Tom Riddle," the boy said cunningly. "Come sit with us."
"Why are you inviting a first year in here?" an irritated fifteen-year-old Lucius said. When he looked up, he didn't seem to want to take his eyes off her.
"What are you staring at?" she asked coldly.
Sneering, Lucius fiddled with his walking stick instead.
"Want to join our club?" Tom asked Violet. He leaned casually back in his seat, legs crossed.
The others gasped. "You want this kid to be a De—I mean, be in our club?"
Cocking her head, she critically scrutinized his friends. "Uhhhh," she said skeptically. "Dunno. Could I ask the orphanage director first?"
Tom immediately looked intrigued. "They don't really love you, trust me," he said, leaning forward, eyes locked on her.
Frowning slightly, she said, "Is it really a club, though? They said—"
"Listen, Vi," Tom cut her off, "Orphanage directors don't really care, ok? They're in it for money. I know from personal experience. This group—we're a little family. Is your orphanage full of boys?"
"Yea," she said slowly. "Looks like your family is full of boys too."
"Great. We'll treat you better than them."
"You're a boy."
"I know, but I'm nicer than they are, I bet. Do they hunt you and beat you up?"
"Sometimes. Only because I stood up for someone else. I fight back, though."
"Well," Tom said craftily. "When you go back for the summer, you should have some better fighting skills. To scare them away, you know. I can teach you."
She looked hopeful. "Really," she whispered.
"Why are you offering," a brown-haired boy Bella recognized as Rudolfus Lestrange from family photos muttered.
"Sure," Tom said breezily, ignoring him. "You're magic, so I bet getting revenge was easier for you than the others." Vi was nodding. "So you will need to know Muggle fighting, since now you can't do magic at home. That fighting—it would be easy for me to teach you."
Vi looked quite excited. "Oh boy, Oh boy," she gasped.
Lucius reached out to touch her hair. She felt it. She slapped Lucius's hand away.
"About the club," Lucius grumbled, rubbing his hand. "Should she really join?"
Vi appeared to think. "What's your club like?"
"Oh, we do things. Important things, you know, making the world the way we think it should be," Tom said.
"Brilliant!" Vi crowed. "Like, we make people happy and stuff? That's what Mother Teresa of Calcutta did! She's my hero! You guys should totally look her up; she's awesome!"
Lucius glowered at her.
"Sure," Tom said, studying the back of his hand.
"Yay!" she cheered.
Tom turned to the wild-haired girl next to him. Lazily, he drawled. "Bella. Scoot."
"Yes, Tom," she muttered angrily.
"Why you mad? We have a new member."
"Oh Tom, she has her little head set on Hufflepuff."
"That's nice, Bella. Nobody will suspect her being part of us."
The scene swirled in a tornado of color. Seconds later, Bella saw Tom wave the shifty kids out of the train compartment. Only Vi was left. She was still sitting next to Tom.
"Are you a pureblood?" he asked.
"No, halfblood," Vi said proudly.
Tom looked utterly intrigued. "Me too," he said slowly. "But for this club, you have to pretend you're a pureblood."
"Why?"
"Because I said so."
"Why?"
"Blimey, Vi! I'm also pretending! We can pretend together, you and I. Don't you like pretending?"
"Yea, but—"
"Good, because if the rest of the crew finds out about you, you're toast. I don't want that."
"I don't have any friends. Can you help protect me?" Vi pleaded as he stood.
"Sure," he said casually. Bella thought she caught a triumphant smirk on his face.
The waters swirled again. This time, Tom, Vi, and Bellatrix, along with many more shifty looking older kids, were in a dark room.
"She's a pureblood, right?" Bella said lazily.
"Uhhhhhhh," Vi muttered. She withered a bit under Tom's warning glare.
"Well?" Bella growled impatiently.
"She's a pureblood, obviously," Tom cut in. "She's too clever to be a half blood."
"Oh yes…" Bella murmured slowly. "Good point."
"The prominent purebloods like US are in charge, got that girl?" Lucius said to Vi.
"She's not like her silly twin sister, is she?" Bella scoffed. "Little…hmm, Anwen, so pretty and perfect! A goody two-shoes."
Stuff drifted away, then floated back. Now, there was Vi, Tom, and the shifty kids again. They were in the same dark room, but everyone was standing somewhere different.
Tom smirked. He leaned down to a snake that slithered out of the shadows, and hissed something to it. It seemed to nod, then slithered off. "Well, Nagini is now going out to spy for us," he said casually, hands in pockets. "to see where Rudolfus is."
"You can talk to snakes?" Vi squeaked to Tom, eyes wide in awe.
Tom grinned creepily. She didn't appear fazed. "Of course," he purred.
"Can you teach me?" she said. Tom stared at her. He looked back at his minions.
"What do you think?" he asked them lazily.
"Don't, it's your secret art," Bella insisted.
"She's not one of us," Lucius said.
"Well," Tom said, turning back to her. "I can teach you. You'll have to do something for me, though. That's how this club works."
"Ummmmmmm bake you cookies?" Vi suggested innocently. The others stifled laughs. Tom looked half surprised, half hungry.
"Sure," he purred. "I like chocolate, too."
Everything dissolved, and then there were a bunch of students sitting around a circular table, with a smiling, portly man at the head.
"How lovely!" he boomed. "Nearly everyone is here—" The door opened. "And here she is! Come on in, come in, Violet! We saved you a seat!"
Shyly, Violet slowly came in. She had a black and yellow dress that looked like she had made herself, and had put her hair in a ponytail. She looked so small against the other students, who mostly looked like fourth years to seventh years.
"My only first year," the teacher said proudly. He motioned to the treats on the table. "Help yourself!"
"Who made the dress?" Bellatrix asked as Vi hesitantly sat down.
"Uh," she whispered. "I did…"
The others looked confused. "Speak up, ma girl!" the teacher encouraged. "Don't be shy!"
"She made it," Tom said. "I saw her—she said she was making it for this party."
The other students stared at her in envy or awe. "She—made her own dress, for MY party," the teacher said softly. He clapped his hands. "How dedicated!" He leaned forward. "Do you know anyone famous? Related to anyone famous?"
Violet slowly shook her head.
"She's an orphan, like me," Tom said.
"My!" the teacher gasped. "B-but—such talent! And determination! YOU, ma girl, have the makings of someone famous!" She broke into a wide grin. "You're quite like Tom here; I bet if you too worked together, you could be unstoppable!"
Tom gave Vi a long, hungry glance before the colors shifted and became darker. Tom stood in the same dark room, glowering down at Bellatrix.
"Why do we even have that girl?" she hissed. "I've seen you—you've been spending time away from us to teach her Muggle fighting! Muggle fighting! And your secret art of parseltongue! And I heard you call her your 'little snake' the other day, don't deny it!"
Tom's eyes glittered. "You don't know what I can see in her," he said softly. "She has so much potential…learns quickly, and absolute determination…the very makings of the ideal servant! Think about it—she could be so powerful—we just have to help her along the way. Which includes being nice to her, for now."
"I see," Bellatrix murmured submissively after a moment. "Brilliant as always."
Tom smirked. "Of course. And as for the Muggle fighting…we'll just call that 'training' shall we?"
Again things swirled, the colors suddenly tipping sideways like it was a painting that dripped. Another scene formed; Vi and some third year boy with black hair were in the library.
"How do you put up with him?" the boy said. "He's so arrogant, and you keep disappearing with him. I don't trust him at all. He seems so charming, clever, charismatic—he's a bit too perfect! There are bad people in this world, you know. What if Tom is one of them?" He turned his eyes up to Vi. Bella jolted to see they were hazel. He looked very much like Eustace.
"I don't think so, he's not bad," Vi said fiercely. "I like him! He gives me treats, and sometimes hugs. I bet he likes me too."
The boy relaxed a bit. "Well, nobody else does give you treats," he murmured, sounding only lightly suspicious.
"Yea, he lets me go to his meetings with all his friends, and he also has been teaching me parseltongue," Vi said defensively. "And it's only me, too! He likes me, I tell you!"
The boy frowned. "I hope he's not using you. And how could you possibly admire the kind of magic they do? I'm starting to think you don't understand."
"Oh Eustace," Vi huffed. Bella gasped. "He's nice. He hasn't hurt anybody."
"You don't even like snakes!" younger Eustace said, slamming his book on the table. "Vi, you're Irish. And he's a Slytherin. I know we're Hufflepuffs but we don't trust Slytherins that easily!"
The scene dissolved as Vi stared at the ceiling. Another scene pieced together; Vi and Tom knelt in front of a covered cage in the same dark room.
"Look Violet! Your first snake," Tom said. He pulled the cover off the cage. Violet squealed. She crouched down to look.
"Ohh, it's so cute!" she giggled. "Yay! Thanks! Hiss-khahasss," Vi murmured.
Tom smirked. "Trying out your skills?"
She nodded, then jumped up and hugged him, sobbing 'thank you' to him over and over.
The scene changed again. Tom and Vi stood on Kings Cross platform. Vi clung to Tom's sleeve.
"I don't want you to leave," she sniffed.
"Oi," he said softly, patting her cheek. "There's next year."
"B-but, next year is your last one!" she sobbed.
"We can keep in touch," he purred cunningly. "In fact, I'll buy you an owl if I can."
"Really?" Vi squealed.
"I'll take your snake for the summer so he doesn't eat the owl," Tom said. "Besides. He won't last long in Ireland."
Bella pulled herself out of the pensieve. The thrill was a mixture of dread and secrecy, and the guilt of possibly getting caught only eased when the door was safely locked, she had walked far away, and assured herself that nobody went there anyway. Nobody would see the clues that she had been there.
There. Clues, about Violet. She couldn't wait to tell her mum.
Author's questions: Wow! That was so fun! Did I do well? Was that a good book? Was there anything that I did wrong that you want to point out? Lol.
Also, I have to work on the next book...and I predict that I might start up again in March. But to keep us busy, I will be posting several short stories between now and then. I only have two so far, but my mind is always overflowing with ideas for one thing or another and I might have more. (The ideas I have now are a Harry Potter fluff set in medieval times and a Silmarillian what-if story) Also, I may be able to start the next book before March, but don't get your hopes up because I am super slow. I will be starting the next story on September 22 in honor of Bilbo and Frodo's birthday. So, until then! :)