Authors' Note: This is an X-fiction written by two authors a lot of you already know. We do not know the future plot any more than you do. The point of an X-fiction is oblivion of the future and attention to the past. The odd-numbered chapters will be written by Blue, while the even-numbered will be written by Rhapsody.
Disclaimer: We own nothing that you recognize.
Chapter Three
By "Blue"
Tom's casually forced smile faded away as soon as he had turned away from Porter Lestrange. His eyes, glimmering in the torchlight, wandered over his shoulder and gazed back at Porter. "Idiot," he thought coldly. If Porter had raised too much noise, a professor would have come out, and the whole thing would have taken a lot of explaining.
Tom could imagine the questions even as he strode down the dungeon steps. Why is a first-year girl out of bed with a bump on her head? Do you and Lestrange have anything to do with this? And for heaven's sake, Riddle, why are you wearing a necromancer's cloak? Tom shuddered. Then they would have figured out about the memory charm, and the last thing Tom wanted was for any of the professors to find out what he was up to…
The fourth-year frowned slightly and picked up the pace. Lucky thing that he had been blessed with considerable acting skill. Minerva had bought into his concerned façade completely—almost too completely for his comfort. Tom did not like Minerva at all, but he respected her intelligence, and worried that she had also been putting it on. That was definitely the case if she was anything like her sister.
Reaching the entrance to the Slytherin common room, Tom stepped aside. "After you, Porter," Tom said to his companion, voice laden with ice. To the taller boy's great annoyance, Porter was now laughing at something. Tom folded his arms and leveled a glare at Porter, who shut up immediately. "Mind telling me what exactly you find amusing?" Tom demanded, voice dropping to a dangerously soft pitch.
Porter shrugged. "Just think it's funny, is all," he replied. Tom idly waved his hand. Quiet anger blazed in his eyes, but did not extend itself into his face. Instead, it manifested itself in the spell he had used. Porter shrank back, doubled over, every nerve in his body feeling as though it was on fire.
"You shall answer me directly." Tom worked his voice into a lazily domineering drawl. "I asked you what was so funny."
"You're not going to like it—" Porter gasped, eyes screwed up with pain.
Tom's slight smile slowly widened, and Porter hunched over, choking, as the agony doubled. "Must I be sharp with you, Porter?" Tom asked, a frightening parody of pleasantness lilting at his voice. The sight of his least favourite classmate in this kind of pain was sending him into a spitefully sadistic euphoria. "I utterly abhor people who evade inquiries. I do not give a bloody damn if you think I will not like what you have to tell me. If you know what is good for you, Porter, you will answer me. Truthfully."
"I—ah—thought of a pun," Porter wheezed. Tom's eyes narrowed as he spied the glimmer of duplicity in Porter's face.
"Tell the truth, you idiot," Tom hissed, his violet eyes starting to look drastically more iridescent. Porter whimpered, which would have been a comical action for one so bulky, had it not been for the fact that the other was looking at him with pure venom in his eyes. Tom raised his hand again.
Porter hurriedly gave in. "I was laughing because I thought you were standing up for that Gryffindor because you liked her," he rasped in one breath.
Tom's expression of dark amusement morphed into pure, cold rage. Porter shrank back, but the fourth-year did nothing. He lifted the spell, that look of revulsion still ravaging his face. "I told you to go in first," Tom repeated, his voice barely a whisper. "Either you accept the favour, or you do not."
Porter shakily approached the common room entrance, seeming unwilling to turn his back on Tom. "Anguis atrox," Porter whispered to the wall, still eyeing Tom warily. The entrance slid open and Porter dashed into the common room. Tom heard his elephantine footfalls rushing up the staircase to the seventh-year boys' dormitory, and waited for the telltale slam of a door before walking into the common room himself.
If there was one thing Tom abhorred about being a Slytherin, it was the common room. The Slytherins had originally had their own tower, but it had been destroyed in a fire in the early nineteenth century. Without enough Ministry funding to rebuild the tower, the school had been forced to move the Slytherin common room to the one available place—that is to say, the largest of the unoccupied dungeons. The common room was near pitch-black and rough-walled, lit only dimly by greenish lamps hanging in chains from the ceiling. There were no tapestries to hold in the heat, so it was also freezing cold. Not that Tom minded the cold. It was more the spiders and the leaks that bothered him. He cast a disenchanted eye around the commons and seated himself in a high-backed armchair before the dying fire.
He could tell from the feeling in the air there was not another living soul in the premises. But the common room was not empty, by far. Dozens upon dozens of ghosts swarmed through the chamber, looking like pearly-white moving statues. Most other people would not have seen the ghosts, but Tom had been blessed with the Sense ever since birth, and he could see and hear all of them. Yawning, Tom scanned the crowd for any new faces. Seeing none, Tom turned back to the fire—only to see a newcomer sitting in front of it. She had her back to him, and had long, silver ringlets falling down her translucent back. She had the nearly opaque, cloudy form of a ghost only recently bereaved, and appeared to be about thirteen years of age. Tom could tell who it was in an instant.
"You've returned," Tom said mildly. The ghost girl turned her once-pretty face in his direction. Tom did not wince, but it was a close thing. The girl's face, neck, and shoulders were covered with inch-deep lacerations, and an even deeper gash ran in her throat, going through all four jugular veins. Had her arms been uncovered, it would have been apparent that her arms were slashed just as fiercely. Pale silver blood was splattered down the front of her low-necked gown, causing it to cling to her intangible skin.
"You expected me to stay away forever?" The girl's voice was melodious and unearthly, and Tom felt a jolt of painful memory at the sound of it. She glanced at him, somehow looking serene even with the ghastly tears in her flesh. "Have you gone through with the plan yet?" she asked, running a mangled hand through her dark silver hair.
"I have been trying," Tom murmured in response, not wanting to raise his voice in case one of the other ghosts heard. He added dryly, "Your sister put an end to this evening's attempt."
The girl grimaced. "How's she been taking it? Do you know?"
"I do not speak with her often," Tom responded grimly. "As far as I can tell, she is making an attempt to drown her sorrows in textbook pages."
"No, love," the ghost replied softly, her harplike voice going from neutral to torturously gentle. "That's you."
Tom's face contorted, and he stared at his hands. As a reflex, the ghost laid a hand on his arm, but he shuddered as a rush of icy cold shot through his veins. The girl drew back, flinching.
"I'll look in on her later. What did she do to disrupt the operations?" the ghost continued, hurriedly changing the subject.
"She screamed," Tom said shortly. "I panicked and sent the ghosts off."
The wraith winced. "She's gotten curious since I left her, I suppose," she said quietly. "Can you point me in the direction of the Gryffindor common room? I want to see her."
"It is up the marble staircase, down the north hallway. I believe it is located behind a portrait of a woman in pink." Tom hesitated. "Must you leave so soon, Miranda?"
The phantom gave him a sad smile. "I'll be back to see you whenever I can," she promised. "Please get the job done soon, Tom."
"I will do my best," Tom said vaguely. "Goodbye, then, Miranda."
Miranda nodded and breezed out of the room, leaving Tom to his very turbulent thoughts.