Chapter 3: Nothing good ever comes from reading someone else's diary. Especially Tom Riddle's.


III.
Caring Is Creepy
[Hogwarts | September 1943]


"You know, sometimes I get so flushed, it's interesting... Do your palms ever itch?" A golden-haired witch, Penelope Fairchild, chatters, leaning back from the Slytherin table and casting a conspicuous glance down the hall towards a group of boys. The girls seated around her giggle, except one, whose mind is somewhere else entirely. Penelope Fairchild is the darling of the seventh years, rumored to be part-veela, although she's the one who says that, so we all know how reliable that information probably is. But with her brilliant white smile, royal blue eyes, and voluminous flaxen hair, she doesn't need to be part veela to win the attention of every boy in the school.

"You've probably been poisoned. I'd get that checked out if I were you." A waif of a girl with inky dark hair drawls, staring down at her soup. Her green and silver Prefect badge shines in the candlelight.

"Oh c'mon Spektor don't act like you've never fancied anyone..." One of the other girls pipes up, nudging her playfully. She tears her eyes away from her lumpy pea soup to look in the direction Penelope had just indicated.

"Yeah yeah..." Spektor yawns. She slips her hand in her pocket for a moment, forgetting whether she'd taken along that little black book she'd found earlier.

"He's so handsome isn't he?" Fairchild coos. He is handsome. Tall, dark hair, good posture, strong shoulders, an air of mystery and danger about him. Plus he's the bloody Head Boy. Not that Spektor's thought a lot about Tom Riddle. These are all just basic observations. Spektor rolls her eyes. Gathering her books, she rises from the table.

"Don't stare Penelope, he's not a bloody work of art." Spektor says, a little too loud. Penelope, in the process of sweeping around to dramatically to shush Spektor, knocks a goblet of pumpkin juice over, the contents spilling all over her. Spektor voices some impolite phrases, causing the whole table to look over at her, and stalks out of the Great Hall dripping with sticky orange liquid, off to make her rounds of the castle.

After an hour of her Prefect patrol duties, her shoes conspicuously squelching as she patrols the corridors, Spektor runs into the object of Fairchild's desire.

"You're not on duty now, Riddle." Spektor states, eyeing him curiously.

"And your point is?" Riddle says, shifting the books under his arm. He seems to be in a hurry. Or at least that would explain the irritation if he weren't always like this.

"Headed back to the common room?"

"Of course. Where else would I be going?"

"The common room is that way." She says flatly, pointing in the direction he had just come from. What a wise-ass.

"So it is." He says, cracking a sarcastic grin. Spektor narrows her eyes.

"Where do you go at night?" This is something she's been wondering for a while now.

"I could ask you the same thing, Spektor." He counters quickly, raising his eyebrows.

"Fine then. I see how it is." She says, starting to walk away. As she does so, she slips a flask from her robe pocket and taking a swig.

"Drinking on the job?" Riddle asks her back, eyeing the flask with considerable interest.

"No. Uh. Well...not exactly...it's...a potion..." She spins around, his irritation creeping into her own inflection. What's he doing watching her as she walks away, anyway. There's only one way to remedy this. Tom Riddle might be annoying, but he might also not be as much of a square as he seems... She approaches and offers the flask to him. He eyes it skeptically, then takes it from her outstretched hand. He sniffs the liquid.

"This smells poisonous..." He says, wrinkling his nose.

"Don't be stupid, I just drank it. Give it a try if you like..." She watches the young man raise the flask to his lips and take a very small sip. He feels a pleasant tingling sensation spread to his whole body, his muscles relaxing as if he'd just been given a two-hour massage. The hall takes on a rosy tint, and he isn't sure whether he is sitting or standing. His mind goes completely silent, and his face takes on a dazed expression.

"What...what is that?" He stammers dreamily.

"Draught of Dreamlife." She says, "My own personal brew." His eyes widen. She can see beads of sweat forming on his brow. He was desperately trying to resist the effects of the potion, but his efforts were only making him extremely anxious.

"I...uh...I can't feel my feet." He stammers, "Make this stop. I don't like this...Shit, Spektor...I'm gonna be sick..." He gropes around for his pocket, and attempts to take out his wand, but fumbles and drops it on the floor. Goofily he stumbles after his wand, which is now rolling slowly down the hall. Spektor snatches up the wand and slips it back in his pocket, then grabs his arm. He immediately tenses, but is too uncoordinated to yank it away.

"Oh dear...Come with me." She drags him into a nearby empty classroom and sits him at the professor's desk. "Seems it doesn't agree with you…It'll wear off in a bit, don't worry. You just have to wait..." Riddle heaves a big sigh and leans back, his eyes still wide, his body both extremely relaxed and extremely tense, trying to figure out how that's even possible. He stares at the ceiling for a while, completely transfixed, breathing loudly, sweating profusely. Spektor sits on the desk and watches him for a bit, then, pulling out a notebook and quill, starts to sketch. Neither are quite sure how much time passes, but it feels like hours before Tom Riddle emerges from his all-too-lucid dream. He watches Spektor draw for a moment before she looks up again. They lock eyes, and he speaks.

"What...are you drawing?" Riddle asks slowly, yawning. Spektor returns her attention to the notebook, putting a few finishing touches on the picture before revealing it to Riddle. "What's that supposed to be?" He asks, his jaw tightening, his heart starting to beat faster, faster.

"That's you." Spektor points to the figure of a tall, handsome young man, "And that's the basilisk." She points to the giant snake coiled opposite the young man, it's head tipped, it's mouth open slightly. The position of the snake and the young man leads one to believe they are engaged in some sort of conversation. Tom's heart is pounding furiously in his chest. What did this girl know? And, more importantly, how did she know it?

"You're not a very good artist." Riddle snaps, leaning back in the chair as casually as he can manage, given the state of his nerves.

"Are you alright?" Spektor asks, closing the notebook and returning it to her bag.

"Why did you draw...that?" Still trying to be casual. Still failing.

"You can talk to snakes." She says. Riddle almost falls out of his chair.

"How. Do. You. Know. That?" He stammers.

"I heard you." Spektor says. A smirk creeps across her thin lips. "It's extremely rare."

"Yes, I'm aware." He says, dripping with condescension. "Well...and the basilisk...?"

"Snakes have different accents. Basilisks have a certain pattern of speech. But I'm sure you're aware of that as well." Spektor swings her legs a little, back and forth. "Heard you talking to one last year..." She isn't about to reveal just yet how it is she knew any of this. All in good time, if he is to be trusted—which has yet to be determined.

"What are you playing at, Spektor?" Riddle evaluates the abnormally tall young woman, who is perched on the desk in front of him like a vulture, her weird out-of-focus grey eyes rimmed in winged black eyeliner, thick dark hair elegantly coiffed, severe cheekbones, crimson lips slightly parted. Uniform hanging loosely on her wiry figure, tie dangling from her neck like a noose, shirt slightly untucked—she might be considered reasonably pretty by most standards if she wasn't so pale and uncomfortably skeletal.

"I'm curious about you."

"Curious?" Riddle laughs, a high, cold laugh that doesn't suit him. "I assure you, Spektor, there's nothing of interest about me." Then she pulls out a little black book from her pocket. Riddle stops laughing, a look of horror seizing him.

"Well, you'll have trouble convincing me of that now...after a glance at this..." She holds the diary in her bony hands, flipping its pages. In a matter of seconds, Riddle rises from his chair and lunges at the girl, knocking the desk over with a loud crash, and her with it.

"Bloody hell, Riddle. Get off me." She grunts, heaving the angry young man off her, then massaging the back of her head, which had just smacked against the hard stone floor. She was still holding the diary, but not for long. Riddle, who had scrambled quickly to his feet, and is now towering over her, grabs it out of her hand.

"You dirty thief." He hisses. Spektor rises to her feet, scowling.

"Saw it on your desk after potions... Maybe you ought to get more sleep...don't want to be leaving things like that just lying around." After a pause, during which Riddle seems to be replaying the events of earlier that day to see if her story checks out, she says, "You're lucky I'm the one who found it."

"Lucky?" Riddle chews the word and spits it out. Apparently her story does check out, and he's already kicking himself mentally for being such a careless fool. He's not going to tell her the reason he forgot the diary. It's not like he was distracted by the young woman that sat in front of him during potions. Of course not.

"Just imagine if someone else found it...like that Penelope Fairchild."

"Who?" He hisses, his anger quickly dissipating and replaced by apathetic bewilderment.

"She fancies you." Spektor picks up her bag from the floor and throws it over her shoulder. "For some reason..." She says over her shoulder as she glides towards the door. She lets it slam behind her. Seconds later Tom is in the corridor behind her, footsteps hurried but silent.

"Spektor. Wait. I don't know what you read, or why you were reading it in the first place, but..." Riddle begins in a stern whisper.

"Don't even think on it, Riddle." She replies in a whisper as well. "I don't really care what you get up to. I suppose you're right—there isn't really anything of interest about you." She turns around and sets off down the darkened corridor, leaving him standing stiffly in front of the empty classroom's door, still slightly ajar.


A/N: For those of you who are curious, I nicked the title of this chapter from the title of the first song off The Shins' album Oh, Inverted World. It's worth a listen if you like dreamy indy music that has nothing to do with the chapter you've just read.