Disclaimer: Fanfiction, anything you recognize is not mine, although as this is a prequel of a kind, there are, of course, some characters and places that are the product of my imagination.

Summary: While a war rages in the Muggle world, Tom Riddle, Hogwarts prefect, model student, and secret Dark Wizard, finds his own way.

A promise, an underground organisation…and a very strange girl indeed……….. there were some secrets not even Albus Dumbledore

ever guessed. Canon-friendly prequel.Tom/OFC

Ravens and Unicorns

"Nothing I have seen in the world has supported

your famous pronouncement that love is more powerful

than my kind of magic."

Prologue

I think of her, occasionally.

Not often, just occasionally, though less and less as the years go by.

I am so much older now. There is no purpose to be served by these occasional forays into the past, these self-indulgent

trips down memory lane, other than the mental exercise, or perhaps torture, of seeing if I can still remember what she looked like, what her voice sounded like.

Sometimes it is clearer than others, sometimes I wonder if she really does visit me, does she damn my wretched soul for my actions? I don't plan to ever meet her again, where she has gone, it is somewhere I never intend to go…but still…. I wonder.

If they could journey back into my past, through my eyes, this is what they would see. Love? They say I don't know, but they are wrong.

This is who she was and this…..this is what I did

November, 1942.

The corridor was dank and bleak, made more so by the fact it was the middle of November.

Outside, the snow lay flat, white on frozen ground, while the students inside Hogwarts castle wrapped up in thick cloaks and warm scarves, dreaming of Christmas and looking forward to the return of the summer sunshine even the Muggle War could not penetrate.

In his circular office, Professor Armando Dippet tapped his fingers on his desk in an uncharacteristically impatient gesture, and looked over at his Deputy with a furrowed brow.

The new student was late.

Somewhere not too far away, a girl wandered down that damp, bleak corridor, seemingly walking in circles and wondering vaguely if she would ever find her way around the place. She had arrived at the new school early this morning, but instead of the tedious assembly she'd expected, she had been summoned to see the Headmaster, one Professor Armando Dippet, in his office.

Her appearance was something some less than kind people might call chaotic. Indeed, she looked worried and dishevelled, as if she'd come a long way. Her black cloak with its silver clasp was slipping off of one shoulder and the laces on her right boot were trailing around her ankles. A crumpled, pointed hat was clutched in her left hand, and in the other she held a heavy bag, as she searched for the Professor's office.

To her relief, a tall, sandy haired boy was passing. He had stopped and looked at her and finally said:

"I suppose you're new?"

"Yes." said the girl, pausing to look him over.

"How do I get to the Headmaster's office?"

The boy stood up very straight, and she could see he wore a blue badge with a picture of an eagle, in gold, over his black robes.

"Dippet? I'll take you there myself." he said, importantly, leading the way down a small flight of steps and across a landing.

"By the way, my name's Tisker. William Tisker. Quidditch Team Captain, and expert, if I say it myself. And here's the office." He said, with a flourish.

He smiled, flashing even, very white teeth and a rather conceited expression, and thanking him, the new girl turned away to climb the spiral staircase up to Professor Dippet's office.

"Bloody funny time of year to start a new school." mused William Tisker, as he walked away.

O O O O O

After a stern monologue, watched in silence by his younger, auburn-haired deputy, and occasionally supplemented by the portraits of his predecessors that adorned the walls, Dippet had produced an old, tattered hat from a nearby shelf. He rose to his feet, taking step towards his new student.

"It is customary," proclaimed Dippet, gravely, "to have every new student sorted into their houses before the assembled school at the beginning of every new school year. However," he continued, pacing around the chair the girl was sitting on, her little finger in the corner of her mouth, looking thoughtfully at the Headmaster,

"However, since the….. circumstances ( he paused) in which you join us here do not allow this, I will personally oversee your Sorting now,"

"Albus," he motioned to the auburn- haired wizard on his right hand side, "If you would."

The girl was still looking at the Headmaster with an expression of both puzzlement and awe as the Deputy Headmaster stood to her left and placed the old hat onto her head.

O O O O O

Not ten minutes later, she had said a polite farewell to the two Professors, after fervently (at least, she hoped she had sounded at least passably sincere) assuring Professor Dippet that of course she would try harder at Hogwarts, and that she would take the word of the teachers and the prefects as law….

Especially the Prefects, she grinned inwardly, thinking of the tall, handsome, dark boy she had seen walking in the grounds alone as she had arrived with her father that morning.

The boy had not seen her, but she had noticed he wore a shining silver 'P' on his dark green tie, and his black hair was neatly parted and combed to one side, as was the fashion in both Muggle and Wizarding worlds.

She'd watched him all the way up to the front steps, until she felt her father's eyes upon her, and quickly averted her gaze under his disapproving one. And when she looked back, the boy with the black hair had gone.

Hopefully though, she thought, there would be many more opportunities.

Professor Flitwick, Head of Ravenclaw, was tiny, young and jolly. Steering the girl from underneath her elbow, he pushed a small package containing the standard issue FifthYear house badges, tie and scarf into her hand, and instructed her to bend down so that he could whisper the password into her ear that would gain her entrance to Ravenclaw Tower, where she would find her common room and dormitory.

Then, with a squeaky "Good luck, my dear!" he had pressed a timetable into her other hand, and was gone.

The girl looked down at what her new Head of House had given her. Blue, like that blond boy's, not green, like the tall, handsome prefect, but never mind.

It was just as she'd thought it would be, anyway.

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