Evelynn wakes up to see green drapes, which short-circuits her brain for a minute before she remembers everything - the last time she'd slept in a real bed, and not either the ground or an abandoned ruin of a house or manor was…eight years ago, at the very least. Probably more.
She's not really counting the time she spent in the Hospital Wing, seeing as she doesn't remember most of it.
And her conversation with Death in her dream last night…dammit, he could've told her before now! Apparently…she can bond with one person. Just one, and it can't be taken back or even consciously decided.
One person to share the Hallows with, share all the things they give her - unending life and youth, the power of the Void, the abilities of the Hallows, all of it. One person in the entire history of the universe, since she could - if she so chose, after a few months for her magic to recover fully - go back to Merlin's time and go from there, but she can't pick who it is. Its something Magic herself will decide, according to Death.
Once it starts, it can't be stopped either - it hasn't started yet, thankfully, as apparently she'd have to trust someone completely and them trust her just as much, they'd have to understand her.
Which puts the kibosh on ever Bonding her soul with anyone else, as she swore to herself she'd never trust anyone with her life again after her 'best friends' went and hunted her down for twelve years after everything they'd been through together. As if anyone could possibly understand her, either - a betrayed, burned time traveler that was hunted down by her former best friends after she literally died for them. Yeah, good luck with understanding that mess. Apparently, though, the human mind isn't meant to be alone forever, hence why she's even capable of bonding her soul with someone - and yet, the past thirty years of her existence has been entirely alone, when it came down to it. Its all she knows how to be, dammit!
And, apparently, it was never relevant before now since I was all alone on the run all this time!
Quickly changing the subject before she can accidentally freeze the entire room, she grabs her stuff and heads for the showers - she had at least some control of the Hallows, but that was in her much older and healthier body that was used to using magic. And used to the Hallows, having adjusted to them.
Her twelve-year-old body? Not so much.
One thing Death said was that she'd have to adjust to being the Master of Death once more and relearn her control - and, dammit, that took a few years before she got the hang of those abilities! And all her magic! Even if she intellectually knows how to control them, her body has to adjust to the power of the Hallows and the full force of her magic once more - ergo, she has to be careful not to freeze anything by accident or have a case of accidental magic or some such for about a year.
She's also going to need a serious amount of potions just to get to a normal height and weight, damn the Dursleys to Hell! Far as she can tell, Death just reverted her body to its twelve-year-old appearance, taking all the scars she'd acquired along the way off. Not that it leaves her as a blank slate, but at least she doesn't have 'I must not tell lies' carved into her hand anymore. That would've been hellish to explain.
She gets into the shower, and shampoos her hair as her thoughts inadvertently return to Dumbledore and her relatives, how he made her return to them time and again.
Damn that old man and his twinkling eyes!
Knowing how he manipulated her entire life, she can easily imagine him doing the exact same to Tom Riddle. Had he not pushed the as-yet relatively innocent boy into going so Dark - no, not even Dark, Black, Black as night and Blacker than even the Black Family! - had he helped him even once…well, the hot-as-Fiendfyre sixteen-year-old she met in the Chamber of Secrets was angry at the world, but he was also bloody brilliant.
It was there for her to see easily, his brilliance - he was a bloody prodigy, she looked him up after the incident with the Chamber. Straight O's across the board, he never had so much as a detention, for Merlin's sake. Or an EE, for that matter.
Who knows where the world would've gone if even one person had reached out to Tom Marvolo Riddle, instead of taking Dumbledore's word for it that the Orphanage was perfectly acceptable and he was a lost cause. A monster in disguise, just waiting to grow into its claws.
Several shrieks suddenly resound at once, and Evelynn quickly realizes she's accidentally lost control of her magic - and that the water is now almost literally freezing cold, with the floor under her starting to frost over.
Well, its hardly a surprise since she knew it was going to happen eventually…
Tom jerks in shock, barely biting back a curse in Parseltongue when the hot water suddenly goes freezing cold - from the sounds of things, others don't have as much control over themselves.
What catches his interest, though - much more than the theories being thrown around by Carrow, Nott, and Avery about why the water is so cold - is the magic he can sense in that cold water. Evelynn Peverell's magic, and it feels…angry.
No, that doesn't begin to cover it - her magic feels like its lashing out in unbridled fury.
He hasn't told anyone he's sensitive to things like that, much like being able to read people's emotions and thoughts just by looking into their eyes - which started out as an accident, and still is on occasion - but its coming in handy now, sort of. The water has that same cold from Halloween night, with just a hint of that electric feeling in it - as opposed to when the air was practically buzzing with it.
And then, suddenly, the magic is gone - like she reigned herself in, almost. Still, it takes several Warming Charms on the shower head before the water's even lukewarm.
At Breakfast, she's steadfastly refusing to so much as look at the Professors' table, but she's perfectly polite to Slughorn as she insists she doesn't want to sit around all day doing nothing. He'd swear she knows exactly how to play Slughorn like a bloody fiddle, because she gets him puffed up with pride and saying that if she needs to she can go back to the Common Room at any time or go to Madam Pomfrey for a Potion or two. What a coincidence - either her personality is suspiciously perfect for getting Slughorn to let her do what she wants...or she just manipulated the Head of Slytherin House without him being any wiser. Tom's leaning towards the latter conclusion, for the moment.
She makes it through Potions easily enough, spending about two minutes in the ingredients cabinet then brewing a perfect Potion without looking at either her book or the chalkboard for instructions even once in the entire time he discretely watches her. And watch her he does, he watches as she expertly prepares her ingredients, watches as she stirs them in effortlessly, watches as she prepares a perfect potion despite it being her first time in the class with them.
How very interesting. Lucky him, he's had a perfect view from directly behind her all this time - he made sure to take the seat behind her for exactly that reason, to gauge just how well she'll 'learn' the material.
Once she's bottling her Potion, he leans forward and asks "Interesting, isn't it, Peverell?"
She glances over at him, one corner of her mouth twitching as she does, and says "Very."
Tom smirks at her, feeling a bit of respect for his fellow Slytherin welling up - she can easily claim to be talking about the Potion or the class, but the look in her eyes says she's talking about anything but. "Rumor has it you were raised by magicless relatives. Your aunt and uncle."
That amusement of hers fades at once, replaced by cold indifference to the subject as she tersely asks "What of it?"
Family is a touchy subject, good to know.
"Were they right?"
Her voice is cold as ice when she says "Yes. Unfortunately."
Tom blinks, then internally curses himself for it - most people can't normally meet his gaze for more than a few moments, yet she not only did but actually made him blink first. And she isn't the least bit intimidated by him, something even the upper years in Slytherin are after last year when he cursed that Fourth Year through sheer willpower alone. "Your picking things up remarkably well for someone who only knew about magic for less than a week."
Evelynn shrugs, disinterestedly saying "I'm a quick study, always have been. Not that my aunt and uncle encouraged it."
Tom raises an eyebrow, asking "Oh? And what do you mean by that?"
She lowers her voice, quietly - angrily, he notes - saying "I mean they hated me. Made sure I knew I wasn't welcome or wanted. Made sure I knew to be bloody grateful for the roof over my head and the scraps of food I was given by my nice normal family. You want to know what conclusion I've come to? Family bloody well sucks, because every time they hurt you it cuts a little bit deeper than it would've otherwise. Because your family is supposed to look out for you, yet they considered me anything but."
Its like chips of ice coming out of her mouth, instead of words - and the very air around them is all but literally freezing. He knows its cold in the Dungeons, to preserve the Potions Ingredients, but its not usually this cold! Evelynn stalks out the door as soon as the bell rings, leaving a dumbfounded Tom Riddle behind her - he'd think she was faking it, lying about her family, but…you simply can't fake emotion like that. Not in your magic, at least - and they were all there in her magic, there for the world to sense if they could. The bitterness, the pain and anger…she's telling the truth, at least about her relatives.
Still, he's sure she's not telling the whole truth. Whatever it is she has to hide…he'll figure it out. He just needs a little time to work on her…without bringing her relatives up again. He'd like to not have ice in his hair, if he can help it, and he swore he could feel it forming as he kept pushing.
AN: Hey, everyone! Next chapter is up - hope you like it! So, I read this story where Harry went and saved Merope, and then the Hallows eventually chose her as well...and sorta got the idea of bonding her soul from that, but added my own twist. As for Tom...yes, he's turned into a semi-stalker, its just how it ended up writing as. In his defense, though, she did pull off the impossible multiple times and then tease him with that hint of her emotions. So...he's gone into information-gathering mode...and trying to ask her blew up in his face, almost literally. Poor Tom. As for why she's just giving him that info about her relatives...its not like he's going to be able to do anything with it, since A, they're supposed to be dead via Fiendfyre, B, they don't actually exist yet, and C...Evelynn's just as likely to Curse someone for bringing it up as to give them answers, something they won't be expecting since I looked up how women were expected to behave back then...and its really different from now. And, little tip...Evelynn definitely doesn't fit the pattern.
Anyway, enjoy! More chapters coming soon! Please review!