A/N: As suggested and requested by the lovely reviewer, Terra106, I've written this optional chapter. It's simply chapter 6 in Tom's point of view, so we get to see his thoughts and feelings. Thanks Terra, for requesting this. 3 Reading this chapter is optional, of course.Tom woke up that morning feeling resolutely cruddy.
The sun streamed in and hit his closed, sleeping eyes. He groaned rather pitifully and raised the green Slytherin quilts up to his forehead, trying to block out the intruding light. His eyes felt as though they were laden with lead, and when he tried to pry them open, it felt as though some tiny demon were taking its little claws and lightly scratching his eyeballs. With another moan, he turned to the beat-up brass alarm clock sitting on his bedside table.
His eyes widened at the time.
He fell back onto his messy sheets and blankets, muttering curses and oaths at the man who decided waking up early was a good idea. All the other boys seemed to have left already, which was unusual. He was usually the first one up.
Finally, he got the incentive to tear himself from his warm covers.
His bare feet touched the cold stone floor of the castle, and with great effort, he didn't try and bring them back up to the covers. He walked, scratching his messy black hair, towards the shower. He shivered. It was cold out today, and wearing only pyjama pants wasn't very warm.
Teeth chattering slightly, he undressed and showered himself, the hot water waking him up much better than a faulty alarm clock or the unforgiving bright sun. Once he was dressed and his hair combed, he slung his bag around his shoulder and made his way down the breakfast.
He moved quickly; morning classes started in five minutes. He climbed down the last few stairs. The Great Hall was just ahead of him now.
Then he heard a loud, intrusive, rather familiar squawk which sounded much like a very surprised pelican.
He spun around just in time to see Smith herself come tumbling down the stairs. He hastily jumped out of the way, not wanting to become her run-way like last time. Unfortunately the small third year Ravenclaw boy standing behind him did not know of her hobby of using innocent students as landing cushions.
Smith barrelled down towards the poor boy, completely out of control. The boy only had time to let out a terrified squeak before being engulfed in a tornado in the shape of a short, black haired girl called Cassandra.
She quickly got off of him, bleating apologies and straightening his glasses. Once the boy looked half-alright, she ran to the Great Hall with speed he didn't know she had and grabbed a piece of toast from the nearest house table. He knew why too; almost instantly after she picked up her piece, the breakfast items completely disappeared.
His stomach bleated at him slightly for food, but he ignored it, feeling sort of queasy anyways.
As the day progressed, Tom began to feel more and more cruddy. He felt out of it, and he felt dizzy when he got up too fast.
He managed to get by without anyone noticing his ailment, whatever it was, but he knew he wouldn't be able to for much longer. By the time dinner rolled around, he was starving (having missed lunch for fear of puking it up) and ate quite a lot more than he was normally accustomed to.
After dinner, he still felt as though he were going to pass out, so he made his way back to the dormitory.
He slept for a couple of hours, shedding his outer coat as a sudden feeling of warmth went through him. When he woke up again, the sun was nearly set.
He gasped a little.
It felt as though he couldn't breathe, like there was a weight on his chest that wouldn't leave, no matter if he stood or lied down. He opened the window, trying to get a little air, aware of the cold sweat beading on his forehead. He finally gave up and made his way down to the front doors, exiting onto the grass and walking leisurely, drinking in the fresh air that seemed to calm the weighted feeling. After a while he found himself at an old, tall oak. He looked up at it appreciatively, looking at its long, thick trunk and branches.
That's when he noticed something unnatural about said tree.
He approached it cautiously, not quite certain what the thing was. It was brightly coloured, that's for sure.
As he approached a face came into view.
His eyebrows shot to the top of his forehead.
There she was her face crimson, her hands attempting to hold down her skirt and her clunky, overly-large shoe caught in between to precariously placed branches. Cassandra Smith.
She looked down at the ground, where he saw her wand. She was giving it puppy eyes as if begging for it
to come back into her hand. She took one short arm and attempted to grab for it, but her stubby little arms were a few meters short.
A rumble of thunder echoed across the water of the lake.
She twisted around, giving the castle a longing look, then sighed, letting her arms fall to her sides.
With it, her skirt came down as well and Tom lowered one eyebrow as she unconsciously gave him a peep show.
She looked about ready to cry, so he decided to intervene.
"What", he asked her, "are you doing hanging upside down?"
At the sound of his voice, she jumped in surprise and began to flail around uselessly as she tried to get a glimpse of the speaker. Her long skirt became caught with one of her arms and with a loud snap, the branch she'd been caught on snapped.
She fell towards the ground with a scream, and before he knew it, he had moved directly beneath her.
She fell lightly into his arms, and he was surprised at how utterly weightless she was.
Although now safe, she continued to scream.
He paused.
He blinked a few times.
"Why on earth are you still screaming?" he asked her, an irritated edge to his voice.
Her screaming torrent stopped abruptly.
She opened her scrunched eyes, blinking a few times before a look of wild happiness came to her face. She grinned and balled her fists up in utter excitement. He rolled his eyes.
She turned to him, a grateful, happy look plastered to her face and words of thanks already leaving her lips.
Then she saw his face, and that soft word of thanks turned into a snarling number of startling dirty swears.
Internally he sighed, but externally he gave her that smirk she hated so much and inclined his head to her.
"I'll be guessing you want me to put you down now?"
She was silent for quite awhile.
He blinked a couple times.
Then rolled his eyes for the second time, and snapped his fingers in front of her face.
She jumped as though shocked by electricity from his arms, and began muttering gibberish that sounded like a mix between thanking him and insulting him. He quietly wondered how on earth she'd managed to ever get through school with the gibberish she was currently throwing at him.
He took a finger and placed it to her lips, silencing her.
He flashed that smirk again.
"Shut up." He told her simply.
She scowled and turned from him, walking towards the castle.
Tom sighed, this time for the headache and the general woozy feeling that seemed to be brewing within him.
A clap of thunder, a flash of lightening, and the heavens opened up.
He heard the rain and wind before it hit them, drenching them both in cold October rain and tearing at them in icy claws. Ahead of him, through the rain, he saw the outline of Cassandra kneel to the ground, trying to block out the storm.
He looked to his left and saw another torrent of wind come bursting along the field towards them at alarming speed. He shouted to her to run, but she stayed put, not hearing him over the roaring wind. He ran.
He grabbed her arm roughly, pulling her into a frantic jog across the grounds towards the castle doors.
The rain was mind numbingly cold, but he ignored it.
They finally reached the castle, slamming into the doors by accident as the torrent of wind clipped them from behind. They were drenched and shivering as they banged and yelled at the closed doors, but no one ever came.
He took her arm again to try and find another door around the castle. They were all shut tight, and no one ever heard them.
They eventually took shelter in between the greenhouses and a crook in the castle. The rain fell straight down on them here, but the wind couldn't touch them. He looked to his right where Cassie was huddled against the wall, shivering like mad. She turned to him.
"Don't you have your wand?" she managed out through chattering teeth.
With a sinking feeling he realized that his wand was sitting in his outer-robes pocket back up in the boys' dorm rooms. He shook his head gravely at her, and she omitted a little noise of misery and curled into a tighter ball, trying to keep warm.
He had half the mind to warm her himself, but he knew it wouldn't help at all. He was just as drenched as she was.
They sat there for a long time, huddled together against the wall like two miserable scamps, drenched to the bone and freezing. The darkness was absolute, no light coming from anywhere but the instances of lightening. As a flash went off and a rumble sounded in the distance, he remembered something.
He turned to Cassie, relieved he'd remembered.
"Cassie! I think I have a way inside", he told her over the wind.
She turned to him, hope glowing off of her pretty eyes.
"But, we'd have to walk to Hogsmeade though...and break into Honeydukes", he explained, knowing she wouldn't like the idea.
She didn't.
The glow of hope in her blue eyes faded like a dying star, and she looked at the ground playing with her shoe.
He felt instantly guilty for some reason, and let a small smile on his lips as she looked back up to him.
"You up for it?" he asked her, a little mischievous lilt entering his voice.
She tilted her head to the side like a curious child but gave him a little smile and a nod.
"Anything to get out of this rain!".
The door clicked, and slowly swung inwards.
He ushered a wide-eyed Cassie inside, stepping in himself and re-locking the door. With a small smirk, he handed the bewildered girl back her hair pin.
"Wizards and witches," he whispered, ""don't think about muggle tricks. So they don't put wards up. Since we didn't enter by force or by magic, the wards didn't go off."
She gave him a little nod of interest, and then made their way down the stairs to the cellar. He was a little nervous that she would fall and alert the owner to their presence, but her feet didn't betray her this time.
It was pitch black in the cellar, and he lit small candle to light their way. He could see her properly now in the flickering light of the small flame, and he couldn't help but noticing how a piece of her long, wet ebony tresses clung to the bottom of her rosy little lips.
He gestured to her to help him move a couple of boxes, where underneath, the secret passage into Hogwarts was hidden.
He lifted the latch on the trap door and opened it.
Smiling, he gestured to her.
"Ladies first; or would you like me to go first?".
She scowled at him, and the piece of hair fell a little. She didn't move, so he hoisted himself into the hole, stepping lightly on the ancient stairs leading down into the black.
The passage was just as he remembered it; long and dark. The ceiling was low at some points, which forced him and his height to duck his head down uncomfortably. Behind him, Cassie's little footsteps echoed lightly off of the walls, her breath bated as though she were scared to breathe too loudly.
A hushed, dead-like silence hung in the air like a great black blanket around them, and Tom imagined for a moment that he could almost feel the darkness pressing onto his cold skin.
Suddenly, the second pair of footsteps that echoed behind him became fainter and fainter, as though someone were slowing down. He could hear her breath quickening as she began to let it the dark's black
fear flood into her veins.
He stopped and turned, lifting up the tiny fluttering candle to illuminate his face and the path behind him. Cassie let her breath loose and hurried over to him, coming to a stop just in front of the candle and his face, panting quietly as though she'd been chased by something sinister.
"C'mon...Let's go..." he heard himself say.
He gently linked his lean arm with her scrawny one, making sure himself that she wouldn't get left behind. They began to walk, and were walking for a little while when he felt her head turn, looking at the black wall in behind them. She quickly snapped her head back ahead of them, but other than the small quantity of light the candle gave them, the dark wall was there as well. He heard her breath quicken again, and his feet stopped.
"Perhaps you should hold the candle..." he commanded her, his voice barely above a soft, quiet, gentle whisper.
He passed the little candle from his large hand to her tiny one.
She stared at the candle's flickering light, and how it penetrated and alighted the darkness ahead, and he saw her body become rid of its tenseness. With a steady breath, she thanked him softly, and they continued on their way into the darkness.
When they reached the castle they came out from behind the statue of the One-Eyed Witch in the third floor corridor. Keeping together, they crept all through the castle and safely made it to the dungeons. They were just about to turn the corner and climb through the portrait hole when a hand placed itself on their shoulders.
Tom couldn't help but let out a small surprised yelp, but beside him, Cassie screamed as though she'd been murdered.
They turned to the assailant as wandlight cast into their vision the image of Albus Dumbledore, who was taking in their wet clothes and hair with a surprised expression.
After his initial surprise had passed, he looked upon Tom with his usual look of apprehension, causing something in Tom to clamp up and growl.
"Miss Smith, Mister Riddle...What are you doing?" he asked them curiously, scrutinizing them above his half-moon spectacles.
"Well, Sir," he replied politely, "Miss Smith and I had been outside when the storm hit. All the doors were locked, and no one heard us knocking. We went looking for another way in, and we eventually found one."
Beside him, he could almost sense Cassie holding in a snort. Why, he wondered, he probably would never want to know.
Dumbledore looked at him sceptically, a look he was very used to from this professor, then said professor gestured for them to follow him.
Tom held back a growl in his throat and they followed reluctantly, passing Cassie a sour look that which she returned indigently.
"How on earth was I supposed to know it was close to curfew! I was stuck in a goddamn tree! And don't blame me for that random thunderstorm!" she hissed at him.
"Well maybe," he hissed back "if you hadn't been such a fool and climbed the goddamn tree in the first place we wouldn't be in this bloody mess!"They fought like this all the way to the headmaster's office, and all too soon they were standing outside the door.
Dumbledore knocked smartly, and from inside an imperious, weedy voice told them to enter.
The sumptuous and fancily decorated room was not strange to him, having visited it many times for errands and Prefect business, but beside him, Cassie drank it in with a slightly furrowed brow, interested.
Headmaster Dippet sat in his usual chair at the desk, fiddling with papers, the usual harassed look present upon his old features. He gestured for them to sit in two hard chairs, and they did so with reluctance, shivering through their wet clothes.
Dumbledore suddenly exclaimed something about forgetting to dry them, and with a few muttered words, their clothes were warm and comfortable again.
Tom watched Cassie as she was dried by Dumbledore, her hair drying into an untameable mass of black curls that bounced lively over her shoulders. He wondered vaguely why on earth she would want to magically straighten it, when he saw Dippet raise his head out of the corner of his eye.
The man cleared his throat and brought them to attention.
"So, what on earth were you two doing out there?"
Tom explained with careful politeness the same story he had told Dumbledore. Internally he grudgingly thanked Cassie for being so accepting of his story, nodding at intervals and feigning interest.
Dippet looked at them both long and hard before nodding and smiling.
"Alright Tom, I believe you. But, as for you, Miss...?" He paused.
The expression of the short girl beside him fell a little, and he saw her opening her mouth to reply when he suddenly felt himself speak.
"Smith", he replied.
"Well, Miss Smith, I don't know about you. You knew there was a storm coming, so why would you go out? Mister Riddle was probably out looking for stray students, he's a Prefect- "
Her expression turned angry in a heartbeat, and Tom felt a slight twinge of annoyance towards the Headmaster.
"She's a Prefect too, Sir."
He was forced to refrain from raising an eyebrow. How could he not know all his Prefects? There weren't that many.
Dippet spluttered slightly, looked at her suspiciously, then exclaimed something about sending them to bed.
That was all he needed, so he turned on his heel and followed Dumbledore out of the room. They followed him all the way down, said there goodbye's, then walked through the portrait hole.
As soon as he entered, his eyes fell on a group of fourth year girls, sitting prettily on the couch and giggling. At the sound of the door opening, they turned about. He vaguely heard Cassie exclaim angrily about how stupid Dippet is, but she was over bowled by one of the girls on the couch.
"Out on a snogging session?"
"Phew, Tom! Where'd you get her?""Well, I suppose she'd only be good for one-night stands, wouldn't she, Tom?"
He heard them speak, but he was already to the boys dormitory stairs and didn't reply.
On the first stair, he turned though, and looked at Cassie who was looking at the girls with pure hate, hurt and frustration.
"Goodnight, Miss Smith." He told her simply, and turned to go to bed.
A/N: FINALLY. Rawr. Tom's POV on chapter six. Enjoy!