A/N: Right...So it's been a trying day for me. My dog bit my sister's toe, and my mum starting going on about putting him down, I had a whole screaming match where I screeched for ten minutes, threatening to do crazy shit if my mum put my dog down. XD Welll, we're not putting the dog down now (I'd probably run away with little Buster if they were and you wouldn't get an update for awhile. XD) sooo...On with the story!
Oh yeah, and I'm going to be awayfor the week so if I don't update for awhile, that's why.
The rest of the Christmas Holidays passed by quickly and all too soon, Cassie was saying goodbye and boarding the Hogwarts Express. After managing to find an empty compartment, she heaved her trunk onto the racks above the seats and fell lightly onto the comfy tartan seating with a tiny huff.
The students all bustled outside in the hall, the rumble of chatter and talk floating through the slightly open compartment door. After the movement began to slow out in the hall, a laughing, giggling blonde girl wrenched open the door and stumbled in, slamming it behind her and plopping down beside her.
"Hey, Cassie!" Kelly Abbott exclaimed cheerily.
Cassie grinned and hugged her friend excitedly.
"I thought you were staying at Hogwarts over the break!" Cassie blurted out, pleasantly surprised.
"I was, but my Dad was well enough to go home, so we spent the rest of the break at my grandmas house!" she cried happily, clapping her hands together.
"But oh my gosh, you will never guess what happened!"
For the next ten minutes Cassie was forced into listening Kelly's long tirade of what terrible love triangle between her aunt and her uncle had occurred, all told in dramatic tones and complete with head-shakings and hands to her heart.
"...and then, Mark kissed her! I couldn't believe it! He had just finished telling Rebecca that he'd love to spend forever with her! Oh, I wish I had a boyfriend!" she then sighed, but turned to Cassie with alarming force.
"Sooo, Miss Smith, anything exciting happen over your Holidays?" she asked, sounding like an Auror in the process of squeezing information out of a known criminal. As much as Cassie loved the girl, she was certainly a terrible gossip.
"Oh...Nothing much. Left my shopping till the last minute of course. The whole family piled into my house, just like every year...and, oh yeah! Tom came over for Christmas. "
Kelly gaped.
"Tom? Tom Riddle?" she asked, completely agog.
Cassie reddened and shifted uncomfortably.
"Yeah...Him."
"Ohhh! What did you two do?"
"Nothing!" Cassie exclaimed defensively.
Her friend raised an eyebrow but said nothing, gesturing for her to continue.
"He came over Christmas Eve and had dinner. He stayed the night, we opened presents in the morning and he went home. That's it."
A wave of nervousness swept over her when she saw the mock-disappointed look that graced Kelly's pretty blonde features.
Cassie flew open her trunk and rummaged through the messy contents, grumbling and swearing softly.
Slughorn had given them an extremely difficult assignment that was due the next morning, and when Cassie had gone to tackle it, where was her Potions book?
Naturally, it was nowhere to be found.
After she successfully managed to tear apart the girls' dormitory without luck, she threw herself at her bed and screamed into her pillow, muffling the would-be terrifying shriek and kicking her socked feet against the mattress in a raging bout of anger.
Once she was calmed to a reasonable level, she kicked herself off the bed and went through her trunk more slowly this time, sifting through the tangled clothes and objects with more care.
As she moved a pink knitted sock from inside her trunk, something small and square fell onto her lap.
She paused, staring at it.
It was a small, rectangular box tied with a ribbon, a small tag attached to it reading "To Cassandra".
She blinked, the search for the elusive Potions book leaving her mind completely as she unwrapped the simple blue ribbon and pulled off the top.
A little wooden figurine of a brave looking girl, decked out for the harshest of winter conditions.
Her Father's carved figurine.
With a loud squeal, she clutched it to her chest, grabbing the box by the attached paper tag, looking for the name of the person who gave it to her.
But there was nothing there.
"And, pray tell, why didn't you pass your essay in on time, Miss Smith?" asked an irritated Slughorn, tapping his sausage-like finger on his oak desk.
"Well, er...Um, you see, I couldn't find my Potions text book and-"
"and the option of borrowing a friends' textbook never occurred to you?" he finished dully, raising a bushy eyebrow.
Cassie's face and neck turned crimson. That blatantly obvious option hadn't actually occurred to her.
Slughorn sighed impatiently, turning his gaze back to the papers he was supposed to be correcting.
"Well, so sorry, but I told you that you only had tonight to do it. I stand by my words, and I'm going to have to fail you for this particular project."
"But Sir-" she interrupted desperately.
"No 'buts', Miss Smith! Now out of my office, and be sure to try and pass things on time in the future."
By lunchtime, Cassie was in a foul mood, stabbing her pasta with harsh pressure, screeching off of the glass plate and making a lot of people cringe or move away entirely. Her sullen murmurs were halted suddenly by someone sitting right beside her and putting their arm around her shoulders.
"Aw, cheer up, Cassie!" Kelly told her brightly, her pretty blonde hair tickling Cassie's face, "What did that poor pasta ever do to you?"
Cassie glowered, pushing her arm lightly and trying to suppress her friend's contagious smile.
"The pasta didn't do anything", she replied, digging her fork into the mound of macaroni and shoving it in her mouth, "eh fwas de blohhdy poshoons Profssher!"
"Come again?" Kelly asked, looking slightly disgruntled at her friend's terrible eating habits.
"I said: It was the bloody Potions Professor", Cassie verified after swallowing the lump of food in a loud gulp, "He wouldn't accept my essay late!"
"Well...He did say that he wasn't going to accept any of them late...You can hardly blame him..." Kelly said shrugging. She always had a soft spot for 'Ol Sluggy', considering she was invited to every one of his little parties and was a member of the Slug Club. Her family went back a long time and were very prominent in the Wizarding world. Not to mention her father's well known escapades in the War, Kelly Abbott was certainly a famous person, indeed.
"...Hello, Earth to Cassandra Smith, come in Cassie..." Kelly called dully, waving a hand in front of the short black-haired girl's face.
"Huh? Oh yeah! Well...Um, looks like it's time for class again!" Cassie said her voice overly bright and her grin far too large, trying to cover up her little black out.
Kelly giggled, rising from the bench and joining her friend's short-legged stride out of the Great Hall, adjusting the bag hanging off her shoulder.
Their first class of the afternoon was Defence with the Hufflepuffs. There were few students there yet, considering they were a bit early. Kelly and Cassie leaned against the stone wall, goofing off and chattering about inconsequential things, and sharing Christmas stories.
"...Yeah, it was sooo cute!" Kelly paused and a grin crept to her face, as if remembering something," Oh yeah!"
"What?" Cassie asked, sipping on some pumpkin juice she'd brought with her.
"I forgot to give somebody their Christmas present!" she trilled, reaching into her bag.
Cassie clapped excitedly, managing to drop her glass of juice and spraying it all over the floor. She blushed furiously and swept down to clean it up with her wand.
"Woops, heheh..." she giggled sheepishly.
Kelly laughed heartily and handed over a small green box.
With a grin that threatened to split her face, she pulled off the lid and looked inside.
"Aww! You shouldn't have!" she cried, pulling out a pretty silver necklace with a green jewel hanging down the front.
Cassie immediately put it on, spinning around and striking a ridiculous mock-pose.
"How do I look?" she asked, jutting her lip out and imitating the models in the magazines.
"Great!" giggled Kelly, whacking her friend's nose with her finger.
The girls calmed and were silent for a moment, looking at one another's shoes before, inexplicably, they burst into fits of uproarious laughter, clutching at each other and trying desperately not to fall over.
"Green shoelaces..." Cassie managed out through gasps of glee, causing Kelly to cackle harder.
The students that were now gathered around looked at them bewilderedly, missing out on what was obviously an inside joke.
"Alright, class!" barked the voice of the ancient Defence Professor, "We're going to be practising duelling with partners today."
Kelly immediately sat closer to Cassie, shoving her school things closer to her friend's, picking her partner.
Professor Merrythought caught this and let out a short, crow-like laugh.
"Nice try, Miss Abbott, but I'm going to be picking partners. Once I've assigned everyone a partner, group together please. And do it quietly, there's no need to babble!"
A collective moan rang about the classroom, and the Professor began calling out names and making matches.
"Miss Abbott with Miss Tashia."
Kelly groaned, casting Cassie a disgruntled look. From across the room, the snobby, pig-eared Slytherin seemed to not be happy with this pairing either, casting her equally snobby friends a disgusted look.
"Mr Fairmont with Miss Marigold.."
"I bet you a sickle that I'm gonna be paired with Tom..." Cassie whispered bemusedly in Kelly's ear.
"No", she whispered back, "I'll lose!"
"Miss Smith with Mr Riddle"
"Told ya!" shouted Cassie, slightly louder than she should have.
Professor Merrythought took a moment to glare at her before continuing.
"You've always gotten paired with him, ever since first year" murmured Kelly.
"Yeah..."
"Right then. Off you go. Once everyone's with their partners, I'll count to three and then try to disarm your opponent."
Cassie picked up her short mahogany wand and walked boldly over to where Tom and his followers sat, crossing her arms and jutting her chin up at them defiantly. The others surrounding him made to spread out with their assigned partners, and Tom stood, towering over her and smirking, giving her defiant look a raised eyebrow. He waved his wand and moved some desks out of the way, clearing some room in the already crowded classroom.
"Step a good five feet or more away from your partner, and on the count of three..."
Cassie gazed at Tom determinedly from six feet away; him responding by smirking wider.
"One..."
Cassie licked her lips, readying herself.
"Two..."
Tom extended his wand and took his other hand out of his pocket.
"Three!"
The cry of 'three!' was muffled by shouts of spells, jinxes and curses alike as the sixth years battled to disarm their opponents. Swinging wands and screaming mouths were everywhere, causing bodies to be thrown against the walls and to the floor. Some were writhing and some wands were flying out of hands, hitting others and knocking them out.
Once the usual noise was over with, everyone turned to Cassie and Tom.
They hadn't cursed each other yet.
People backed against the walls as they circled round each other, like cats, staring into each other's eyes, daring one another to make the first move. The room got quiet as the crowd waited, watching interestedly to find out who would fall.
"Expelliarmus!" they cried in union.
The class gazed over each of their shoulders as both of their wands flew from their hands and hit the wall, clattering to the stone floor with loud definition in the quiet room.
The Professor gave a little 'Ho, ho!' and rounded on them with a grin.
Cassie was stunned.
Even though he had disarmed her as well, she was still shocked all the same.
She had managed to disarm him.
She had managed to disarm the great Tom Marvolo Riddle.
The class erupted into waves of chatter as the Professor walked over to them both and awarded twenty House Points to Slytherin, ten each.
When the teacher dismissed them Cassie gathered her books in an ecstatic daze, a goofy grin stretching her cheeks stupidly, causing Kelly to burst into peals of cackling laughter. As she headed out the door with Kelly giggling in her ear, she caught Tom's eye.
His dark eyes were cold, and a stony frown had settled itself into his handsome features.
A/N: DUN DUN DUUUH.
Wow, sorry for my plot being like: ...
OBVIOUS CLICHE PLOT IS OBVIOUS.
And so the angst begins...Kukukukukukuuu.
OMG LOLOLOLOL REVEIEW. (Fail.)