Chapter 14

Diana wondered if Professor McGonagall had said anything important. Apparently not, because she just shook her head and let Fred, George, and Diana free to roam the school at will. Diana walked around the school alone. She wanted to go to a room she had seen before called the Room of Memory. It would let you live in the past without worrying about the future or any real time passing by. It just left enough to open and close the door. If you did anything differently, it wasn't really changed. In that respect, it was also known as the Room of Deceit. Of course, no one remembered what happened once they left the place, making neither name truly valid. All they remembered was the majestic feeling of not worrying about the future. Diana walked up four staircases to get to the corridor, which held this room. She walked almost all the way down, but she stopped at the second to last room on the right.
She opened the door slowly after making sure no one else was in the hall. As she walked in the room, however, she was in a place she did not recall. She walked around the Hogwarts grounds, but it was a different Hogwarts; an older Hogwarts. She walked around cautiously as if expecting to run into trouble. She saw a boy with greasy black hair walking around and immediately recognized him as a younger Professor Snape. He was sitting on the grass, talking to a girl with red hair and green eyes. Was this Lily Evans?

Diana walked closer to them, but stayed perfectly silent. She saw an Invisibility Cloak that was carelessly left on the ground, so she took it so she would be able to get closer to these people to see them better. She was in utter shock that two people like this would be such great friends. She saw Lily take Severus's hand. That in itself made her cringe. She got bored of what Professor Snape remembered and walked around a bit, still under the Cloak. She saw a boy who somewhat reminded her of Draco. She followed this boy in curiosity.

This boy was surrounded by fellow Slytherins of his. He was very apt to insult any person who strolled by in less than perfect robes. Diana walked up to him slowly. When she was within earshot of him, she stopped. He was talking in an undertone to his friend Narcissa about how he wanted to be a Death Eater when he was older. Voldemort was in power at the time, so this wasn't an insane proposition. Narcissa was a very pretty girl, also a Slytherin.
Diana wondered if this was going to be Draco's mother. She also wondered what would happen if she were to take off her Invisibility Cloak. None of what happened in here actually happened, right? So it wouldn't change anything for anyone. She would just have to be wary of Professor Snape. If she was seen by him, she would likely be in loads of trouble.

Diana followed this group of Slytherins into the Great Hall, and Professor Snape was nowhere to be seen. She went to a dark corner and took off her Cloak. She set it down on the ground next to her and walked over to the Slytherin table. She sat down next to a girl who looked like a younger version of Draco's mother. Being sure not to make a scene, Diana slowly said,

"Hello."
"Hullo, are you new?" asked the girl.
"Yes, I was sick the first week of the semester," Diana told her.
"I see. How are you liking Hogwarts?" asked the girl.
"Oh, it's great. Say, what is your name?" said Diana.
"Narcissa. And yours?"
"Diana."
"That's nice. Fancy your hair," said Narcissa, smiling.
"Thanks," said Diana, wondering what was so special about it, then remembering that it was blue. She wondered why it had been permanently dyed when she was younger. It must have been some sort of spell.

On the other side of Narcissa was Lucius Malfoy. He greatly resembled Draco. Diana wondered what Draco would think if Diana told him that she'd met his father in his first year. She laughed slightly at the thought. She couldn't help but think of how this boy would grow to be the man who abandoned her. Most of the recipients of the table were facing Lucius, who was talking about his manor. He talked about how it was likely thrice the size of the Weasley residence. This caused Diana to wonder how long the Weasleys and the Malfoys had been rivals. She asked him this, and he looked at her as if she had asked the stupidest question ever.

"Haven't I said it enough? It's been...oh, you must be new. I'm Lucius Malfoy, as you have likely heard from someone or another. Who are you, may I ask?"
"I'm Diana Riddle," she said honestly but very quickly as if hoping the last name wouldn't calculate in his mind.
"That name sounds oddly familiar," he said with a tone of suspicion.
"Well, it may be somewhat of a common name," Diana said, trying to be convincing. Apparently it had worked, because he no longer spoke of it.

Many of the Slytherins introduced themselves. Diana found it odd that she was meeting the parents of some of her friends when they were her age. It would be quite odd when she returned to Hogwarts. She only hoped she wouldn't accidentally call Draco Lucius or something to that effect. She saw Severus Snape come in, and she hid behind Narcissa as he walked to the Slytherin table. He seated himself on the opposite side of where she was, however. Spotting her from that far would simply be impossible, especially since he wouldn't be looking for her. Conversations at this table went quite the way they would at the Slytherin table in her generation. They were about anything from how Slytherin was better than everyone else to why the sky was blue. A very annoying, almost squeaky voice came behind Diana.

"What are you doing here, Diana?"

Diana didn't recognize this voice, but when she looked behind her, she immediately recognized the face as that of Severus Snape. He wasn't the Potions master now, and Diana knew as well as he did that he would remember none of this once he left this room, so she ignored him and continued talking to Lucius. She heard the scratching of a quill against parchment and felt a slight gust as the person behind her walked away. Lucius found Diana very intriguing, and Narcissa asked her if she wanted to join the "Weasley Sucks" club. Diana found this rather amusing, but declined the offer, saying she didn't know who Weasley was. This was quite far from the truth, but they didn't know that, nor did they need to.
Diana left the table after what felt like hours of talking to the Slytherins and getting involved in various games involving Pumpkin Pasties and unsuspecting Gryffindors. Diana muttered a bit of Latin that made the world around her dissolve and the door to the Room of Memory open. She walked through the door and closed it on her way out. She then strolled down the corridor to the staircases, where she met a very cross-looking Professor Snape along the way. She didn't know why he was so angry, so she looked at him with curiosity.

"Miss Riddle, I would never expect such careless behavior of you. Interfering in my memory like that. Clearly, you have no regard for rules, or other people's feelings in that case."

Diana cocked her head. She had no clue what he was talking about. She scanned him to make sure he wasn't physically wounded. That sometimes led to mental instability. He wasn't. He looked fine. She looked at a small sheet of paper he held in his hand, on which he'd scribbled some rubbish about seeing her in the past. That wasn't possible. She didn't remember seeing him in the past.

"Are you sure you're okay, Professor? Perhaps I should escort you to the Hospital Wing," she recommended.
"I am perfectly fine. You know as well as I do that you have been taking trips to the Room of Memory. I just witnessed one myself. I wrote it down on this sheet of paper. I have the right to visit it, because first, I am a professor. Second, I had the permission of Albus Dumbledore," said the professor irately.
"If I hadn't a right to go there, there would be a password, wouldn't there? You would only have to ask him for the password, and that there was not. And since no one recollects what goes on in that room, I see no problem here at all," Diana explained.
"I am not fit to argue with you, Miss Riddle. I just ask that you do not go there when you know there are things you don't recognize."
"Yes, Professor."

The professor stalked away, not looking quite irate, but looking like he had certainly had better days. Diana wondered if she had really interfered with his memory. She halfly wondered why he would care. It's not like you remembered any of the events from the room once you left. Perhaps it was different for adults, but it couldn't be. He'd had to write everything down to even know she had been there.

Diana walked to the Slytherin common room. She was still thinking about Lucius Malfoy abandoning her as a child. She wondered if she should tell Draco this. It would be a good thing for him to know, or so she thought. Perhaps it wouldn't have been such a great thing. It may make him ask his father about it, and that would make his father very angry. Draco might be forbidden to associate with Diana if it leaked out what he had done in the past. Draco would most likely find out eventually, whether Diana told him or not. Diana felt like this indecision to tell him meant she wasn't ready to quite yet.
As she jumped into the trapdoor of the common room, she immediately saw a large crowd of Slytherins standing around something. It must have been quite a spectacle, because elder Slytherins were letting first years closer to it to see it better. Diana walked over to the crowd, and she was shoved to the front with the other first years. This reminded her of how much she hated crowds. She looked at a necklace with a large, badger-shaped crest on it sitting on a table. It didn't seem that special to her. She wondered why every Slytherin here was gawking at it. It wasn't anything all that interesting. It started running across the table. Diana was slightly amused, but she didn't see what was so amazing about it.

Diana forced her way out of the crowd and sat alone in a corner of the common room near the fire. She looked at the fire. It was somehow mesmerizing. She stared at it, small sparks dancing around a dull flame. She felt her thoughts slowly drift away from her. All she thought of was the burning fire. Fire: such a beautiful thing, yet it was taken for granted by many. She felt someone tap her shoulder, and that jerked her back into reality.