A/n: Myrtle's last name was totally made up. Yay.
Ch. 2: Breaking Silence, Breaking Up
I met up with my friends and we walked to the Great hall together. No words about Riddle were exchanged, or my tardy company. Parsnip stew greeted us at our table.
'Ugh, parsnips. Rabbit food…' I thought. Staying only long enough to hear the latest gossip, I was off for the bathrooms sooner than usual. Everyday during the end of lunch I would go to the girls' bathroom on the first floor to freshen up before class. I was forever fixing my appearance in a mirror. Vanity could have been my hobby.
I have to admit though, I enjoyed being on my own for a little while. Only today I was not on my own. My eyes couldn't help but roll when I heard a familiar sobbing.
'First Amelia, now Myrtle ?'
Myrtle Miser was a blubbering cow of a girl who gave real meaning to the muggle witch reference 'hag'. All she ever did was cry and whine and throw pity parties for herself. And here she was invading my bathroom time on top of it.
'Such an embarrassment to the school…'
Her sobbing continued. Turning from the mirrors that hung over the taps, I called over my shoulder:
"Myrtle whatever it is that you're going on about this time, would you mind doing it a bit quieter? I am trying to wash up." Not only did my request not cause her to shut-up, her decibel level actually increased. I yet again rolled my eyes, gripping the white porcelain sink beneath my well manicured nails.
"Leave me alone!" she cried, a harshly revolting sound followed that told me she'd blown her nose. That was it. I turned and stalked over to the stall in which she was sulking.
"Look, I'm not asking much. Only that you keep your damn racket down a bit. The walls are causing it to echo and you've no idea what a headache you're giving me." I bit off in a frustrated huff. This was not the perfect little brown noser she saw in class (when the Slytherins were paired with the Hufflepuffs) and I believe I alarmed her somewhat. Never the less, she didn't hesitate to snap back.
"I-I'm in more pain than you and your blasted headache."
"Excuse me? I'm one of the few people who leaves you alone in the hallways. And you think you can talk to me like that, you pathetic little"-
"Mud-blood?" A cool voice echoed behind us.
"Thomas? So this is why you don't come to lunch…you're patrolling the girls' bathrooms?" I didn't quite laugh. I didn't have to, my tone did it for me.
"What are you doing here? You're a boy." Myrtle sniveled before Tom could even reply.
"News flash." I snorted, yet again rolling my eyes at her simple mind.
"I heard crying and some yelling. I hope you haven't been bullying her up too much, Lydie." He smiled at me. From the look of that smile it seemed Thomas hadn't come in here for Myrtle. Not that I blamed him.
"Quite the contrary, she was mouthing off." I spared a glare at the pathetic creature still huddled on the floor.
'How disgusting.' I thought. You couldn't have paid me to sit on a floor. And that was saying something.
Tom leaned to look around me, hands clasped behind his back.
"Myrtle perhaps you should go get cleaned up. Class starts in about ten minutes, I would never want your classmates to say something nasty to you." I was surprised to hear the subtle sarcasm in his remark and it rather amused me.
Myrtle stood and smiled at Golden Boy in a manor that I suppose was meant to be sweet. He met her with an acknowledging nod. I however received a scowl from the annoying little prat as she scampered off. Massaging my temple, I turned to Tom.
"She had something of a point you know. What are you doing in the girls' bathroom? Certainly not just checking on her."
"It is my duty to do so…whether I like it or not." He grimaced over his shoulder at the exit before turning back to me.
"Hmm, no doubt racking up more brownie points?"
He shrugged, "She's a whiner. Someday she may decide to go to the headmaster about all the teasing. Why get in trouble with the rest when I can use it to my advantage later?"
"I see, be nice to the weaklings to please the pitying powerful."
"Precisely." He beamed proudly. Men are so cute when they think they're being smug.
"Is there anything you good at?"
"You, from the sound of your tone." His comment held just as much snark as mine had. Good to know he could keep up.
"That, and finding your way into the right bathrooms." I smirked.
"I told you I was on duty. I had actually just come from the library"-
"Oh, so is where you go during lunch?"
"Yes, if you must know."
"Even more ambitious than I thought."
"You know what they say, knowledge is power."
Without realizing it, I cocked my head to the side slightly. He had just used a favorite phrase of my father's.
The tolling of the bells interrupted my thoughts and signaled that we had no more than five minutes to get to class. I made for the door, pausing on my way only to get in a last word.
"Best study hard then." Patting his shoulder, I left.
A tiny chink of shattering porcelain caused everyone to turn around. A boy who claimed to be three years my junior, but was more than three times my size, was suddenly the center of attention. Our discerning gazes held no pity as a blush captured his dirty face and he leaned over.
"Sorry 'bout tha'." gathering the remains of his china tea cup in his enormous hands Rubeus Hagrid suffered yet another embarrassing blunder with as much dignity as he could muster. He pretended as though he could not see our disapproving glances and cleaned up the mess in silence as any other Gryffindor would have been expected to do. I pursed my lips, holding back laughter as I turned back to my friends.
Rubeus was half giant and we liked him even less than we liked Myrtle. He was constantly trying to bring dangerous beasts into the castle. I'd even heard a rumor that he'd tried to raise werewolf cubs under his bed once. How he had ever thought they would go unnoticed is beyond me. As far as I knew werewolves were pretty bloodthirsty brutes. My guess is that, even if he somehow kept them hidden, they would have traipsed out and bitten the entire Gryffindor common room occupancy. Not that this would have been a bad thing.
Anyways, he was being his usual blundering self during Halloween tea in the Great Hall, knocking over cups and such. Somehow I wanted to feel bad for him. But with a mother who was a murdering giantess, it was hard to find mercy in my already cold heart.
"Charming, that one." sneered Gregory, shaking his head as he went to sip his tea. Yes, there was no denying he was a Slytherin, even if he did act like a Huffelpuff half the time.
"Honestly, I don't know how he's managed to not get himself expelled by now. All those blithering creatures. It isn't safe having him around." Jonathan frowned down and across the tables in Rubeus's direction. He was Gregory's best friend, which was the only reason we really knew one another. That and he had been dating Celeste for over a year. They were both blonde and possibly more sickenly cute together than Greg and me.
"It's Professor Dumbledore, I'm telling you." I spoke up, still somewhat annoyed with my transfiguration teacher. He was the only teacher who didn't favor Tom Riddle either, and that made all of us believe he discriminated against the Slytherins. As annoying as the mudblood was, there was no denying his brilliance. And yet Professor Dumbledore chose to dote on pathetic messes such as Hagrid. "He loves the troll for some reason." I murmured my disgust discretely.
"It's because he's in Gryffindor. Why else?" Greg reminded us all in a bitter tone, dipping some biscotti in his tea and biting off the soggy chunk that emerged thereafter. "He could get away with murder if it was up to witty, old Dumbles."
"It gets worse than Hagrid, don't forget." Jonathan grimaced deeply, dipping his head mildly to the left. We snuck in our glances one at a time. Riddle was at the end of John's gesture talking quietly with his mates. Odd bunch they were, but at least they normally kept to themselves.
"Some of the people at this school…" Celeste sighed, shaking her head disapprovingly. Greg gave us a hollow laugh that caught me off guard.
"Lydia doesn't mind Riddle so much, do you love?" his eyes flashed over at me and as I swallowed I felt the breath in my lungs smother away. My friends stared for a moment, waiting for some kind of explanation before looking back at Greg. He was more than happy to satisfy their interest.
"Our darling little angel decided to go and have a look at the prefect's bath the other night"-
"It was over two weeks ago." I growled. He kept talking as if I had not.
"With who, but our Slytherin Prefect himself." my so-called boyfriend finished, his unspoken code of silence broken. What had taken so long for the story to come spilling out? It was obvious that it had been building up for a while.
"I didn't realize what was going on"-
"Lydia how could you? His father is a ." Celeste looked almost hurt, as if I were dating her as a posed to Gregory.
"That is the vilest thing I've heard all school year." Jonathon's frown had yet to cease and he had leaned back in his seat, seemingly appalled.
"It's only October." I reminded him in an annoyed tone.
"Well, my Halloween's ruined." Celeste got up and left the table. My best friend actually walked away from me. Her boyfriend followed suit. Greg's revenge was complete.
Half the Slytherin table was watching the entire episode. I sent a repulsed and offended glance across the table at Greg before getting up to leave as well.
"I hope you feel better." I threw down my napkin and walked out.
After leaving the Great Hall, I had no idea where I was supposed to go. Slytherin House was ruled out because God only knew that Jonathan and Celeste were huddled up in there. I fiddled with the idea of going outside but didn't quite feel like basking in afternoon sunshine at the moment. I felt like sulking and having a good long brood, as pathetic as that sounded.
'Sulking…' This led to memories of a particularly sulky person I knew: Myrtle. The girls' bathroom worked well enough for her, perhaps if I shut the door properly (unlike her, who was stolid enough to leave it open when she cried) and sat up on the top of the white, porcelain cover so my feet were hidden I could stay locked up in there until the Halloween Feast. By then Celeste and John would have to go to the Great Hall and my path to the dormitories would be clear. This plan actually almost worked, almost…
"Lydia?" I swear Tom was the most persistent person I had ever met. My hand had just closed around the bathroom door, too. Damn you Tom, damn you all to hell.
I turned only to show off a look that said 'You had better have a good reason for stopping me in the middle of something, you assiduous bastard.'
"I believe I'm completely in bounds going to the loo, thank-you."
"Yes, you are right." he dared a few steps closer, acting as though trying to stop a suicidal crazy from plunging herself off a cliff. "I saw what happened back there."
A bitter laugh in the form of a snort sounded from my nose.
"You and the rest of the entire, bloody House..."
"I just thought, instead of shutting yourself up all afternoon and breeding more distain for your boyfriend…perhaps you might take a walk with me? Take your frustration out on a real source, as apposed to bottling it up."
"Why…?" He had proved himself a Slytherin and in the process lost my trust of his motives. His smile was small, but he had a look of knowing his words would have their desired effect.
"Because you look like you need it."
"Is that your twisted idea of an inside joke?" My words hardly reflected my thoughts. The feeling of something crawling inside my brain and biting into my senses came again. It hit my stomach this time as well, winding up knots and making it hard to think properly. Or look at him properly without wincing for that matter. All of this made me seriously want to go with him, for the sake of not being alone when my insides decided to stop working or explode or something.
His hand came gently around my shoulder again and I felt the support of his arms.
"Stop fighting so hard." he whispered. Only my subconscious could fully comprehend his words and it thoroughly obeyed. My concentration was fully set on his voice and my own breathing. The tightness in my stomach had settled. The drowsiness however remained. "There you see, it doesn't need to be so rough, just let me lead you…" and he did.
The hallways and bright sunshine were blurring together. I'm not sure how long it took me to realize that the window light had been replaced by torchlight, but by then we had to be underground. For a second my scattered thoughts wondered if I would be missed. Then the cold feeling of betrayal came back. I didn't want my friends, didn't need them. I would be better off with Tom.
"What did he do to you?" the low murmur in my ear could have been a dream. A frown graced my features and it took me a few moments to muster a reply.
"He told my friends about what we did. How I went to the prefects' bath with you after curfew." I didn't even have to think about what to say, it just came out exactly the way I had felt it.
"Did you not want them to find out?" He kept me talking, kept my consciousness alive just enough so I was still with him. Though I hardly realized that at the time.
"Of course not." No tone in my voice…was it just my imagination, or was the passageway becoming smaller?
"And why not?" He had to have known the answer to that, but he asked anyway. Wanting to hear me state the reasons out loud. Oddly enough, lying to him didn't even cross my mind, only finding an answer.
"They could not know. You have dirty blood. Filthy muggle blood. People like me do not associate with people like you. We have kept to that tradition too long to break it now."
"And yet here we are." he was sneering. Whether it was because he was amused or satisfied I didn't have the capacity to differentiate.
"I know."
"You have begun to tolerate my company. Somewhere in your mind you are intrigued with me."
"Yes." Our game of entertaining insult, having become rather frequent as of late, was something I hated to admit that I enjoyed. He showed me a special kind of attention I wasn't quite used to. Our banter was my only stimulus in a world I was getting bored with more by the day.
"You even wish I had pure wizarding blood sometimes."
"Yes."
He sighed, "So do I, my dear Lydie, so do I."
We stopped outside of something shadowed. Tom pulled out his wand, still keeping a hand on my shoulder. I couldn't make out what he said, but it sounded like a low mumble or perhaps even a different language. Maybe some trapping of Latin I had yet to learn.
We stepped over the threshold into a circular room. The crackling fire burned bright green in its grate, seemingly coming alight only as we walked in. The furniture was all slightly moth-eaten and worn down. Finally his hand left my shoulder.
As if he had been feeding a life force into my body and suddenly stopped, my legs wobbled and I collapsed across the cold, stone floor. My eyes could stay open no longer, but even as they closed I could not sleep. My ears prickled at the sound of his low chuckle a few feet away.
It took longer than it should have for the feeling of his support to return as I was lifted onto the only sofa in the room. I wanted so much to move, but my muscles were useless in their desperate protest.
"You are feisty, aren't you?" he laughed. He was back where he had gone to leave me the first time. "Why do you fight so much? I will not harm you Lydie, you have nothing to fear."
I heard a hiss and felt cold, leathery muscles contracting and slithering beside my body.
Shivering, I opened my eyes. There was a large snake, at least the length of my body, lying beside me. A rush of adrenaline finally allowed me to move and I sat up, moving away from it as it "sniffed" me, wriggling its tongue for my scent on the air.
"A Slytherin afraid of a snake? You must be joking." He laughed again before taking the snake away. It was in his arms now, obviously his pet. Why was it hidden down here?
"Not afraid…just startled." I argued in my defense.
"Let us hope so." Before letting the snake free on the floor, he spoke to it. However, his words were not in English. Nor were they in French, or Dragon Language or anything that could be taught at Hogwarts. Tom Riddle, the mud blood orphan and annoyingly perfect prefect was a parselmouth.
My eyes went as wide as they could. I was shaking mildly.
"So why you're in Slytherin." I mumbled.
"You could say that." He took his seat beside me. Groggily, I looked around, still trying hard to sit up straight.
"Where are we?" None of this was familiar, but I liked it for some reason.
"You know of Salazar Slytherin, obviously. But do you know of the secret rooms, passageways and chambers he carved into this school's structure?"
"He only left the Chamber of Secrets behind, and that hasn't been found by anyone, least of all a mudblood." my conscious sense had come back and I was free to say what ever I wanted him to hear. Though the fact that it had ever been impaired was not in my memory yet. As I tried to recall how I'd gotten down here all I could conjure up was nearly collapsing on the first floor, near the girls' lavatory.
"He left more than that behind. This is one of his study chambers. His private office you might say." Tom sounded awfully proud of himself while talking about Slytherin's accomplishments.
"You mean…he was He's been in this very room, touched these walls, sat in these chairs?" Instantly I was enamored. Salazar Slytherin was the only person I had ever put on a pedestal. I idolized him.
"Quite."
"So how is that some one like you came to find it?"
"I am much more ambitious than you could possibly imagine." his stance was friendly, easy-going, harmless.
"I'm starting to see that…" I tried clearing my throat, but my entire mouth was dry. "You wouldn't have anything to drink, would you?"
I was met with a sweating goblet of chilled, white wine. Crisp and clean it slid down my throat leaving a softly burning trail.
"Thank-you." As I took another peckish sip, I wished I could gulp but I would never. My mother hadn't forced proper etiquette into my brain pattern for no reason, "Where did you get such a frivolous indulgence?"
"It was here when I found the room. It's enchanted to never empty, nor grow warm." In accordance with his claims, the goblet was full again when I looked down.
"Alright, I'm impressed…but why am I here?" my strength was slowly coming back. The wine had helped that along brilliantly.
His smirk remained steadfast, even growing somewhat. Tom's eyes reflected the enchanted green flames that roared just a few feet behind me.
"You looked like you needed it."
This time, I could not find it in me to grow annoyed. He had been right either way, because I had needed it. At least that's what I was convinced of. Besides, I was away from Greg, I was again alone with Tom (which was an opportunity I had secretly been hoping I would someday have once more), I had wine and I was in a hidden chamber that had once belonged to my idol. I wasn't exactly in any position to be complaining.
"I know what bothers you."
I stared fixedly into his eyes, silent.
"Why do you stay with him? Why do you allow him to control your actions? You tolerate it from no one else." his hand was on my knee. The way he was looking at me, I had a hard time being suspicious of his motives. It was obvious Tom was looking out for my best interests. Perhaps he had a crush on me.
"I have to stay with him. My parents"-
"Your parents? You're allowing your parents to control you? I would never have imagined, not from you. You're too independent, too strong."
"They're my parents, Tom! You have no idea what it's like, you're an orphan."
He took a deep breath. I wondered if I was imagining the look of frustrated malice that crossed his eyes.
"I know , I know you're better than him." his teeth were practically gritted as he spoke, moving his hand from my knee to my hand.
"Trust me, I know it too." I smirked.
"Then break up with him Lydie. He doesn't deserve you. You shouldn't put yourself through a relationship with no grace…no real love."
His other hand found my cheek.
"Love isn't my aim." I laid my own hand over his and removed it from my face, shaking my head sadly.
"Then what is? Independence? Power? I know that is what you want. I know there are times when you can't stand to be with him. He's too weak, too much like the Gryffindors and Huffelpuffs you despise."
"This goes so much deeper than what I want." I responded, trying to make him see.
"Only because you let it." He said, removing his hand from around mine.
"Why is he an orphan?" My hands absently toyed with the family crest charm hanging on a silver chain about my neck. My eyes were staring clear across the unusually quiet room as everyone did some last bits of homework the following Sunday night.
"What?" Gregory looked up from his homework as we sat around the table nearest the fire in our common room a few nights later. I had already finished my work and was lounging across one of the many jade couches. Despite the fire's warm orange light, the room was cold with pride and guile. For the first time in a good twenty minutes I acknowledged my boyfriends presence with my gaze.
"Riddle…why is he an orphan? Does any one know?" I asked.
"Why do you care?" he snorted, going back to his parchment.
I sat up straight, "You can be so boring, you know that? Perhaps I was just trying to make conversation."
"About mudbloods? Honestly Lydia, I'm trying to do my work." his eyes stayed on his parchment, ignoring me. His voice had given a clear air of annoyance.
Sighing, I threw myself back into my previous position and indulged my eyes in what they really wanted to study. Tom's own orbs were mad with urgency as he scribbled fervently. His forehead crinkled in thought every now and again. He had an annoying tendency of licking his finger before turning pages. Somehow I found myself tolerating this behavior and soon I was savoring it, waiting just to see him do it.
Ever since Tom had showed me around the encasements of Hogwarts, namely Slytherin's old hangout, I was finding it difficult to ease my frequent thoughts of him. Tom, not Salazar. Perhaps unfaithful guilt would have been more appropriate, but my newfound distance rather botheredGregory and I could only revel in that fact at the moment.
Celeste had always gushed over Greg's bright smile, his muscular build, his 'sweet' protectiveness over me. Hmph, and she called herself my best friend. She saw only what I wanted her to. And sometimes only what she wanted to. Tom saw through Greg and maybe even a little through me. When he stirred up trouble and lured the snark out of me, he knew exactly what he was doing and he enjoyed it. And suddenly I knew why I did too. His arrogant smugness, brilliance and cunning were everything that Gregory lacked.
I looked back at Gregory. We had been together for a year thanks to our parents. He of course came from old money and my father liked that; possibly quite a bit more than he liked Gregory himself. He was nice, in a 'just-nice-not-great-or-anything' sort of way. At first I really enjoyed sneaking him away for a snog because I knew I could count on him to put up a fight about breaking the rules. However, before long his resistance was just pure whining and I soon grew tired of it.
Tom was right. Whatever I wanted, it wasn't my boyfriend.
"Gregory, we need to talk."
