The Pureblood Prince Chapter XX – A Marked Woman
It was a wonder the Deputy Headmaster hadn't noticed the pounding of the fourteen year-old's heart as she stood outside his office that day. The throbbing was deafening to her – it thumped through her chest and her brain – the rain that hammered down outside went fully unnoticed.
"Wait here," Professor Llewellyn, the Ravenclaw Head of House, had told her as she shut the door harshly in her face.
After what seemed like an eon, the door creaked open to reveal the very weary looking man she had been waiting for.
"I'm sure you are well acquainted with my student, Miss Prince," Professor Llewellyn said matter-of-factly. "She demanded to talk to the Headmaster, but obviously, during these times…"
Professor Dumbledore took one curious look at his young students frazzled face and turned to Professor Llewellyn.
"Indeed, Bryony. Though it has been a week since our last Transfiguration class together, so I thank you for jogging my memory." Dumbledore said with a tired smile. "Come in, Miss Prince. Thank you, Professor."
The Ravenclaw Head of House and Defence Against the Dark Arts witch bowed her goodbyes to the Deputy Head. "Very quickly, Prince," she warned before taking her leave.
Professor Dumbledore motioned for the frantic Eileen to follow him into his office.
"Professor-!"
"Miss Prince," Dumbledore said calmly, raising a hand as he sat at his desk. "You need not explain everything again – Professor Llewellyn has told me much of what you were about to say. Please sit. Lemon sherbet?"
"No, thank you," Eileen replied in a frustrated manner. How could he be so casual at a time like this? "… Sir, please…"
"There is nothing that can be done about it, Eileen."
"But it wasn't Hagrid, Sir! It… it couldn't have been Hagrid. You must believe me!"
"Like I have said," Dumbledore interrupted; his calm demeanour was far more effective in getting Eileen to shut-up then it would have been if he had shouted at her. "I have been informed of your take on things by your Head of House. Unfortunately Headmaster Dippet has weighed the evidence against Rubeus… I am afraid to say the word of a fourth year with no legitimate indication for the authorities to think otherwise-"
"The only evidence was that Hagrid was in possession of an Acromantula - how does that…"
Dumbledore's blue eyes pierced through her soul from his position at the desk. Eileen suddenly felt ridiculous for even being here. "I think you'll find that it more than explains the poor girls death, Miss Prince. At least to the Ministry. Acromantula's are dangerous beasts…"
Eileen lowered her head. She did know what to do, or what to say anymore. For all she knew Aragog could very well have committed the crime, and in most probability, he had done… but here she was, the person who had helped Hagrid raise Aragog, who taken care of the creature, who had felt sorry for the creature, and the guilt was overwhelming… she knew she had to fight for her friend, lest she be consumed by it.
"Can I speak to the Headmaster, at least?" she choked.
"I'm afraid that will do you no good, Miss Prince. While I admire your loyalty, I propose you to try and put this terrible ordeal behind you. I'd advise you to simply be there for Rubeus. They would have broken his wand by now." The way Dumbledore looked at her with such expectation made her feel even more hopeless.
"Has he left already?"
"He is still within these walls, I believe. He is to be taken back to Kings Cross tomorrow when the Hogwarts Express collects him. If you wanted to say goodbye, I suggest now to be a most suitable time."
She knew that that was her cue to leave –Professor Dumbledore must have had a billion other more important things to do, especially only days after Myrtle had been killed by Slytherins monster, than listen to a guilt-ridden, emotional teenage girl – but Eileen could not contain her frustration at how Hagrid was being treated.
"But even if Ara – the Acromantula - had… you know… that wasn't Hagrid's fault! He trusts too much; that's all he's guilty of."
Dumbledore actually appeared to stop and consider this, or Eileen could have just been a tad too hopeful. Either way he nodded and made to stand up from his desk.
"That is something that is still in discussion between Headmaster Dippet and myself. Now, if there is nothing more, Miss Prince, I unfortunately must take my leave from you. I should have been at the staff meeting several minutes ago."
Eileen walked the crowded corridors of Hogwarts, full of cheery students celebrating the end of the short period of terror, as if there was a dark storm cloud threateningly looming above her. Her dark mood was made all the more worse by the realisation that she had not once stopped to think about Myrtle; she did not care at all of the girls fate. She merely cared that Hagrid was the one to be expelled for being an accessory to her murder and she was the one who got off scot-free. It made her feel like the most terrible person alive, but she had hated Myrtle and Myrtle knew it; she would have been a lying hypocrite if she had said otherwise.
Eileen sighed and made a promise to herself to not let this whole ordeal ruin her studies – which were of top priority to her, even over her friends and certainly over her family; when they had gone and left her, her brains would be the only thing in life she could rely on. But just as that resolve manifested itself, Eileen thought of the one particular person who had managed to find a loophole in it.
~*~
She finally found him walking out of the dungeons, surrounded by a larger-than-normal group of boys, girls… even Professor Slughorn was walking by his side, intermittently shaking his hand and patting him on the back, as he smiled and nodded in everyone's praise. Eileen watched him from a distance for a while, and begrudgingly marvelled in him.
Apart from the recent mishaps in the castle, the past few months had been some of the best of Eileen's life. It had been the first opportunity she ever had to observe jealous girls glaring in her direction as she strolled the corridors with the most popular boy at school at her side. And now he was a hero. Even if it had led to Hagrid's expulsion, there was no denying Tom Riddle's bravery in confronting both the half-giant and the beast that night. As Tom began to break off the crowd and started heading in the direction of the prefect's study hall, Eileen seized her opportunity. Hagrid and the monster and certainly Myrtle had all but been forgotten.
"Tom!"
She tapped him playfully on the back and as he turned around she gave him a vivacious smile.
"I've missed you, Tom."
But there was no response at all from him, no charming smile or a witty response, no invitation to walk and talk with him; there was almost no recollection of who she was at all. Tom simply stared vacantly above her eye line for a few seconds before turning his back on her and continuing on his way.
"Tom!"
Again, no response. Eileen followed him down the corridor.
"Tom…? What's the matter? You can tell me. You can tell me anything."
Part of her felt like declaring: "you can trust me, Tom, unlike all the others!" and it made her wonder just what sort of person she had turned into lately. She did not like how seductively dangerous she felt when handed a shred of power…
It seemed that Tom's apparent vacant stare over her was not so vacant after all… it was a cue. Without warning, Eileen felt an irritating sharp tap on her shoulder blade, she spun around reluctantly to see a boy she recognised as one of Tom's gang standing barely a foot from her. She stepped backward and hit the stone wall behind her harshly.
"What?" Eileen demanded, feeling extremely angry that he had interrupted her alone time with Tom.
"Miss Prince, I believe?" His tone was machine-like, lacking any sort of expression from which to gauge his intentions.
"… yes. Goodbye." Eileen snapped rudely, and made to continue after her Tom before the boy grabbed her by the arm with a pincer grip.
"Get your hands off me!" She shrieked. The boy immediately released as soon as a long, ebony wand tip cut into the side of his Adams apple.
"Shh, shh, shh, shh." He threw up his hands. "I didn't mean to frighten you, girl. Just… calm down. That's it."
He spoke as if he were a wild wanderer attempting to pacify a maternally outraged Hippogriff. Eileen gaped at him with a dreadfully unamused raised eyebrow.
"Rawr!" she burst sardonically, her charcoal eyes wide with dramatic mockery. It appeared her sense of humour was lost on the boy, however; he simply blinked at her with apparent confusion four or five times before he continued.
"Uh. Well, yes. Fair enough. Listen, I was wondering if maybe you would care to stroll with me by the lake, Miss Prince?" He swallowed nervously as his eyes moved downwards towards where the wand was still prodding. "I'd, er, I'd very much like to… get to know you more. I am a Pureblood as well, you see."
Eileen almost laughed in his face; indeed, she could not help but let a contemptuous snort escape her lips. "Are you indeed? I'm sorry to disappoint but I'm not one of those Purebloods…"
"Those Purebloods?"
"One who would shack up with people who had the very likely potential of being a distant relative. Am I really one of the only ones left here whose marriage hasn't been arranged?" There could be no other explanation of why the hell this random Slytherin Pureblood friend of Tom's was suddenly paying her attention.
"Well, yes. And I would have thought you'd be a bit more appreciate, frankly."
"Why?"
The boy looked befuddled, almost stunned. "Well…" he gestured to himself – his face and his body – and then to Eileen's scrawny boyish frame.
"Merlin, I have never heard such enticing repartee." Eileen snapped, trying to maintain an air of nonchalance when in truth her insides were squirming with all-too-familiar hurt. The most insulting part of his action was that he was not all that physically attractive himself.
"At any rate, even though it is an extremely impudent act of yours to make me have to admit to such a thing – but my affections lie elsewhere." They certainly did. Dear half-blood Tom was such a breath of fresh air from all this inbred Pureblood mania.
"What… with Tom?" Eileen was infuriated to see a slight smirk appearing on the inbred sods face.
"What if it is?" she sniffed indignantly. The boy began to fall about with laughter then, selectively overlooking his evident aristocratic airs and graces – something Eileen was quick to spot, having overlooked hers many times before.
"Oh come on, Eileen-"
"It's 'come on, Miss Prince' to you!"
"Tom was the one who instructed me to ask for your company. At least he thinks that highly of you, Miss Prince, that we are to form a Pureblooded alliance. Surely that should be enough for someone of your…ah… disposition."
"My disposition! Instructed!"
"Please, cease with the hysterics. Frankly, I fail to understand what the problem here is. You – an unattached Prince; myself – an unattached Black… think of our families elation at such a match!"
He was obviously a fruitloop. They were all fruitloops. Eileen really couldn't blame that on them of course, anyone would be slightly unbalanced if they simultaneously had an uncle, father, aunt, mother, cousin, niece and nephew for parents. She started to feel a bit unbalanced herself at the thought of her own family. That was the only…
"Black?"
The mention of the name turned Eileen's already unnaturally pale face stark white.
"Orion Black." He smiled, clearly getting the wrong end of the stick. "The Most Noble and Ancient House of Black. Now I am sure you see the vital importance of an alliance between our families."
"I…" but Eileen's tirades of insults were lost on both herself and Orion. She didn't feel playfully angered and amused anymore; she felt nothing but white-hot terror. Now all she saw when she looked at him was that man… that man… who could very well have been this boy's father. "I have to…"
She stumbled briefly against wall, and, regaining her balance enough to keep herself upright, shoved the perplexed Orion Black out of her way as she raced down the corridor in search for Tom.
He was where she gathered he was headed. The Prefects study hall. Fortunately (and Eileen never thought she'd use that term in referring to what she was about to next), a gaggle of girls had stopped Tom just outside the room, which gave Eileen the chance to get to him… she obviously had no access to him from within the password-guarded walls of the Prefects rooms. The four giggling girls looked almost like an elegant waterfall of blonde and brown curls, red ribbons and flawless snow-white skin - which did not give them the air of someone sickly with a noxious sour pallor as it did to Eileen's, but rather showed the immaculate privilege given only to those most wealthy and aristocratic. Pure white virgins to hard labour and unforgiving elements. Eileen of course, was all of these things, but possessed none of the physical rewards.
"Tom."
Even Eileen was starting to doubt her existence.
"Tom?"
This time she was directly in front of him at the doorway; the four other girls looked rather excited by all the apparent drama but she didn't care for them.
With a charmed smile and a courteous nod to all but the ebony head, the door slammed shut.
Eileen sat silently on her bed in the Ravenclaw dorm barely ten minutes later. She must have stared at the stone wall opposite her for at least an hour – deciphering where the various cracks had come from was a whole lot better of an idea than coming to terms with how used she felt. How stupid and ugly and unworthy she felt. How… how her dear friend had been expelled because of her own greed, and of her selfish want to be noticed and envied… how Tom Riddle had casually pawned her off as if she were some broken piece of furniture he had no need for anymore… that inbred moron Orion Black… no, it was too much to muse on. Far too much for a girl of fourteen.
There was a black ink mark on the wall… how on earth could that have got there? It wasn't a splatter, but a definite line. What girl, perhaps years and years ago, had made that mark and why? Eileen lay her fragile body down sideways and continued to stare at it, immersing herself in it, and when the black mark became blurred and swirled within her vision she viciously rubbed the salty stingers from her eyes and merely continued to watch. Eileen started to see herself in that wall after a while…
She slept fully clothed and dreamed of pushing every single wizard she ever knew promptly off the Astronomy tower – and when she woke wished she was strong enough to actually do it.
A/N: It's... been a while. Sorry. Working in ICU is... well... intense, as the name suggests ;) and I sort of just collapse onto my couch every day and don't have the energy to do much, least of all write a backstory that I'm obsessively dedicated to getting exactly how I envision it. Heh.
Hope you enjoy this chapter and check out my new fic if you haven't already... thanks ever so much readers, and have a fabulous few weeks :)