The Woes of Tom Riddle
A/N: So very very very sorry about the hold-up to any people who are reading my story. Life has been it's usual self – hectic. Oh well, here it is, I hope you like it.
The floor they were lying on was a cold, cold marble that seeped through her clothes and into her bones. The hallway they were in was dark – the only light being a nearby lantern swinging from the roof. The swinging light cast eerie shadows across the walls that would have chilled even the most fearless bones. Coupled with the cold stone walls and floor, it made the perfect haunted house setting.
Ginny moaned, and shakily sat up, clutching her head. She had a massive headache.
Nearby, Hermione was doing the same thing.
"Ow," she said. "I hate headaches."
"So do I," Ginny said.
Faintly, in the distance, she thought she heard footsteps. They became louder, and soon, a girl with black, curly hair rounded around the corner, stopping short at the sight of them.
"I'm a prefect," snapped the girl, sneering. "Aren't you supposed to be in class?"
Ginny and Hermione stared, at a lost for words.
"And you're not dressed in the correct uniform," the girl continued.
"Well, actually – " Hermione started with what she must have thought was a collected, friendly laugh.
"You've got suitcases with you," the girl said with a sigh. "Trying to run away now, are we? School too hard for you?"
Hermione bristled angrily. "Actually," she started haughtily. "We're new students. We got lost on the way to the common rooms."
The girl raised an eyebrow and her expression said quite clearly that she doubted them. Nevertheless she jerked her head at them. "Follow me then."
Ginny and Hermione struggled to their feet, gripped their suitcases tight and followed the girl down multiple unrecognizable corridors, to one they finally did know of. The headmaster's wing.
"Jolly good!" said Ginny, with fake cheeriness.
The black-haired girl gave her a scathing look. "You'd shut up if you knew what was best for you."
Ginny was sorely tempted to reply with a sharp make me but for once she decided that the black-haired girl was right. So she shut up.
The door slid open and they followed her upstairs to where Professor Dibbet what hunched over some papers at his desk. Hearing their footsteps he sat up so fast and violently his neck cricked.
"Ow…" he moaned, "never mind, never mind, come in, come in." He smiled at the black haired girl and rubbed his neck. "Not as old as I used to be."
The girl gave an awkward short laugh. "Professor, I caught these students in the hallway with incorrect uniform and suitcases. They said they were new, but…"
"Ah," Professor Dibbet turned to them, and Ginny found herself locked in his eyes. They were blue, the deepest and darkest of blue with flecks of silver and Ginny couldn't look away. She was lost inside his eyes, marveling every flaw. A sudden sharp pain exploded inside her stomach and then it felt like the Professor's eyes were searching inside her mind and could see everything. The vibrant blue of his eyes in her vision went blurry and she saw nothing but fuzzy blue.
Then she blinked and the world sharply came into focus. Professor Dibbet's eyes became to her just the normal, everyday blue eyes of anyone's. How could she ever have thought that they were something special?
Professor Dibbet turned to the black haired girl. "Actually, Cherie, they are new students. Did I not tell you? It must have slipped my mind."
Next to Ginny, Hermione let out the breath she had been holding, and placed her hand on her heart, relieved. Ginny was also relieved – but puzzled. Professor Dibbet was defending them – that was obvious. What was happening?
Cherie was flabbergasted. "But – I – how – " she then collected herself. "Welcome to Hogwarts," she said, addressing them. "Er – I'm awfully sorry about my rude manner before, but I thought – well, it was complicated. I hope you enjoy your stay here and – " she swallowed, her face twitching, staring at a spot above their heads. She was obvious not used to being made a fool of. "Goodbye."
She turned on her heel and stalked out of the room.
There was a silence, in which the only noise was Hermione's heavy breathing and Cherie's footsteps echoing down the hallway.
Professor Dibbet leaned back in his chair. "So you're from the future, eh?"
"Er – oh, well – "
"Don't try to deny it," Dibbet continued. "I can see it in her mind." He nodded at Ginny.
She cleared her throat. "But, sir, how come you could read my mind like that?"
"Well, I don't know now. It would seem that your defense system against that is very weak, so I could throw it aside easily. You've probably been used sometime in the past before and that's affected your barrier." He smiled. "But I could be wrong."
Hermione and Ginny exchanged looks. Tom Riddle, thought Ginny. He used me.
A chill crawled down her spine at the thought of seeing him again, face to face… in the flesh.
"Dear me, the future doesn't look very good now, if all you people keep coming back," Professor Dibbet continued, shuffling around papers on his desk and placing silver spectacles on his thin nose.
"Uh – all you people?"
"Well, I mean you two and – and that other boy… what was his name? Stuff and bother. He was sent by you, surely?"
"No," said Hermione, her voice trembling. "We didn't know anyone else had come back. I mean…"
"Didn't know?" Dibbet looked at them through the lenses of his glasses. "Didn't know?" he sighed. "What has happened in the future that's so bad you all have to invade here?"
"We can't say," Ginny explained. "No one is supposed to know. But we're here to stop it and it has something to do with Tom Riddle."
Dibbet looked at her and Ginny felt the sensation again of being trapped in his eyes. But looking at his eyes through the lens seemed to dull the power it had over her.
"Are you okay, child?" he said. "I sense great suffering."
"I'm fine. Really," Ginny insisted awkwardly. "Er – may we please go?"
"Ah, yes," Dibbet focused once again on his work. "I suppose you can stay in the Slytherin Common Room. Tell them you are temporary overseas exchange students. Goodnight."
Hermione and Ginny grabbed their suitcases, and with the speed of one being freed after many years in prison, they fled.
Outside Professor Dibbet's office, they halted, catching their breaths.
"What on Earth does he mean? Someone else has also gone back in time!" Hermione asked. Ginny looked at her, and was instantly hit with the figure of a mad woman. Hermione's hair, though not as bushy as it was five years ago, had regained its frizzy fuzz, and sneaky tendrils were flying about her head. Her eyes, full of fear and concern, were large and bloodshot, and she was twitching. Ginny backed away.
"He's just mad. That's all," Ginny reassured her.
"Huh," said Hermione, picking up her suitcase and heading off. Ginny hurried after her.
The approached the Slytherin Common Room for the first time in their lives. It was so quiet their footsteps seemed loud, and echoed off the stone walls. Ahead of them was a portrait of a serpent.
Hermione shivered. The corridor was freezing – Ginny was willing to bet it was at least zero degrees. The cold had that unpleasant sensation of traveling straight to your bones and numbing them. She rubbed her goosebump-ridden arms.
"So," she said, tapping the portrait in a mock detective style. "This is it, then?"
Hermione was swaying from one foot to the other. "Uh-huh. What's the password?"
They were both stumped.
"Mudblood," Ginny tried.
"Slytherin."
"Pure-blood."
"Snake."
"Dar – "
The portrait door swung open with out warning so hard it smacked into the wall. The serpent let out a mournful cry.
A young man stepped out of the room, and for a moment, didn't see Hermione or Ginny. He was muttering to himself.
"Hopkins will help me later, all that means is that I need to get Lu – " he looked up at long last and jumped wildly at seeing them.
It was Tom Riddle.
Ginny thought it probably was the longest few seconds of her life. She hadn't looked on that face for about eight years or so, and seeing the face so real and so vividly was startling. The face that haunted her nightmares was always blurred, and Tom Riddle's face was so clear, and so real, it made her want to vomit from fear. As it was, the bile got stuck in her throat, and for the next few seconds, she could do nothing but stare in stark fear at him.
Tom, for his part, was looking at Ginny curiously too. At first it was the look most boys give a girl they find attractive, but then it changed to puzzlement, as though he was sure he'd seen her somewhere before, but could not, for the life of him, remember.
Hermione was the first to break the silence. "Hey. We're new."
Great starting line, Ginny thought sarcastically, but couldn't have done much better because the blockage in her throat didn't seem to be going anywhere yet.
"Uh, hey," Tom's puzzled look deepened. "Who are you guys?"
"We're new foreign exchange students. We were told we were going to be put in Slytherin." Hermione flashed Tom a cheesy smile, which he seemed to find alarming.
"Oh, right, like that other dude. Okay, then, welcome, the password is Potions."
"Thanks," beamed Hermione. After shooting Ginny another puzzled look, Tom pushed past them. Ginny picked up her suitcase with limp, numb fingers and after forcedly swallowing the lump of terror in her throat, climbed in after Hermione.
He's just a teenager again, she told herself. He doesn't remember you and he won't hurt you.
But he did before, another voice in her head told her. When he had to. You know what he's capable of.
She hastily shut the voices up, because the whole common room went silent when they entered. Hostile, unwelcoming gazes bored into her. But she was pretty much used to seeing dead faces. And she meant that literally, too.
Hermione cleared her throat. "Hi. We're new."
No one spoke.
"Where do we sleep?" Ginny asked, in a more direct manner. She spoke in her normal, cold voice, none of Hermione's fake cheer. The Slytherins seemed to warm to it anyhow, at any rate, because one of them pointed mutely to a nearby staircase.
She and Hermione marched off, and gradually the talk started up again behind them.
"So, what did you think of Tom?" Hermione asked, as they put away their clothing.
Ginny's heart skipped a beat. "Er – what do you mean?"
"Well, you never told me he was so cute!"
Ginny thought. The horror that terrorized her nightmares, cute? She thought deeper. Well, she supposed he did have a sexy smile that made her weak at the knees, and a cute habit of flicking his hair back from his face, but that was about it. It was strange thinking him as cute.
"I suppose," she left it at that. "I've just never thought of him as that."
"I imagine so." Hermione unfolded a shirt. "Oh damn, I accidentally grabbed one of Ron's."
Ginny recognized Ron's checkered shirt. "He won't mind."
"Never mind. Anyway, who do you think this person is? I'm worried about it. Someone else came back in time before us, who could it be - ?"
"No need to work your brain so hard anymore, Granger."
The cold, calculating, and very familiar voice came from behind them. They turned very slowly around, dreading who they might see.
"Malfoy!" Hermione spat.
Draco Malfoy leaned against the door and laughed.