Disclaimer: Fanfic! Not mine! I own nothing but a leaky cottage and some greedy cats.

Part Four

After The Match

The hospital wing was deserted as I pushed open the heavy oak doors. Only one bed was occupied, the furthest one from the doors, it was underneath the windows, a white curtain partially concealing its occupant.

Even so, I could make out a slight figure with long dark hair, untied and trailing over the edge of the bed to brush the gleaming white linoleum as it's owner slept.

Swiftly and silently, I made my way down the room.

She looked so beautiful asleep.

So beautiful, in fact, that I watched her for a while, just where I stood, watching her chest rise and fall.

The only thing to mar the picture before me was the dark, ugly bruise on her left temple.

I knew she must have taken a bludger to the head, and hard too, if she was still here.

She did not wake, as I watched her, not making a sound, and she only stirred slightly when I could not resist putting my hand out and ever so softly stroking my fingers down the uninjured side of her face.

Then I heard footsteps. Distant, but even so, I knew I had to be quick, and besides, if I was not, then Professor Binns would want to now why I was so late for History of Magic.

I drew my wand, and produced a bunch of the palest blue roses, the kind no gardener, I knew, could grow in the earth.

"I brought you flowers." I whispered to her sleeping form, placing them into the plain white pottery vase that stood on the nightstand.

And with that, I slipped noiselessly from the room.

That night, I would put the first part of my plan into action.

O O O O O

Slughorn's little soiree seemed to go on forever. It was eleven forty - five before I managed to make my excuses, and although it was Friday night, and students need not rise, the next day, at the customary weekday hour of seven – thirty, I had my own business to attend to.

Slipping between the sheets at midnight, fully clothed, I muttered a spell on my wand. This was a certain spell I had used many a time before, and would wake me and only me, at the time of my command. Tonight, that time was half – past three in the morning, and I had an appointment with Zabini's cloak.

As usual, Zabini did not wake. In the next dorm, he snored blithely all the while I was extracting his cloak, with my now expert fingers, from under his pillow. By the time Abraxas Malfoy had awoken and glanced sleepily around the dorm, I had donned the cloak and swept away, my destination, the Restricted Section.

I knew exactly what I was looking for.

Hauling the huge leather - bound volume down from its precarious shelf, I rubbed my sleeve across the front, clearing away thick dust and enabling me to read the words:

"Moste Potente Potions"

I smiled to myself and headed out of the library and down to the Dungeons.

I really could not have chosen a better night.

There was the full moon, essential to the success of my chosen potion, and it streamed in through the two tiny skylights at the furthest end of the room by Slughorn's desk.

As for Slughorn himself, I was secure in the knowledge that I would not suffer his interruption, for when I had finally left his room just a handful of hours ago, he was drunk as a Troll and scarcely coherent, thanks, no doubt, going to the Three Broomstick's finest Oak Matured Mead, no Muggle rationing here.

I was willing to wager that even as I rifled through his private store cupboard, he would be safely tucked away on the red velvet chaise longue in his office, snoring and dreaming of his next hand – picked favourite ascending the ranks to become Minister for Magic.

And I opened the book and began to check the ingredients for the potion I had come here this night to create.

Amortentia, the most powerful love potion of them all.

It was getting light by the time I left the Potions room that night, being careful to vanish all traces of my endeavours. But it had been worth it, for after hours of careful preparation and instructions followed…. not quite to the letter,I never did, for I added some of my own special ones.

Natural talent, I liked to call it, as did Slughorn.

I had not made any mistakes thus far. I was damned if I was going to make any now, on this most vital of occasions.

No. The potion was perfect, steam rising in perfect spirals and the scent………the scent was that of cut grass, the familiar heady perfume of the lilies of the valley, the smell of cold, fresh air ….and the sea.

Blended in with these however, so subtly they were barely detectable, were some other stranger smells….one tinged with iron, metallic, and the other a cold, almost musty smell that I found oddly comforting…reassuring…and I could not explain why.

I knew, though, that sometime, somewhere, I had smelt that smell before. Perhaps when I was very young.

I raised my wand with my left hand over the cauldron to perform the final, vital stage of the potion.

Without this, it would not work the way I needed it to, so it was vital that I got it right.

Wincing, I reached up with my other hand, and pulled out a few strands of my hair. I held them over the cauldron; they hung, long and jet black, and finally, muttering the incantation to activate the potions powers, I dropped them into the cauldron.

Success would be mine.

O O O O O

The following day, predictably, I awoke late, the indistinct winter sun weak, but nonetheless, climbing higher in a pale grey sky. Perhaps it would snow again today.

It was the fourteenth of December, and the year was drawing to a close.

All around me, in the corridors and in surreptitious classroom whispers, the other students excitedly swapped stories of holiday plans.

Even the Mudbloods, at least, the ones who lived in the country and were allowed home, seemed excited, despite the Muggle state of open warfare.

I doubted that I would have been allowed to return to the Orphanage even had I wanted to. In one of the Matron's cold and infrequent letters, borne purely of duty rather than any particular concern for my welfare, Mrs Cole had informed me that most of the younger children had been evacuated, had left London to be taken care of by the charitable folk of the English countryside.

One of them had even decided to adopt young Amy Benson permanently, to help her on her farm. How delightful.

I sneered to nobody in particular, chuckling lowly to myself as I read the Matron's ill-educated scrawl. I was sure Amy Benson would be very very happy indeed to never have to see bad, nasty Tom Riddle again.

Just as well, for her really, if a little disappointing for me. Amy would be just fourteen now, but already I had been thinking of the fun I could have had with her when she was a couple of years older. I knew she would have kept quiet, she always did.

She had, after all, never told a soul about the time I took her and Dennis into the cave. Not that she really had a choice about that, all things considered.

And she had certainly never told about the other times, the times I had gone to her room when I had gone home for the summer, at night, when the corridors were cold and dark.

Her fear was almost tangible. I could almost taste it, touch it, radiating from within her, this blonde, pretty young girl, and then I'd be pushing her, hard, against the stone wall in her thin, cheap nightgown, my hand over her mouth, though I knew she would never dare scream.

It was intoxicating, the feeling of absolute control. I liked it. Besides,it made the other things..the darker feelings that haunted me..go away, for a little while. .

I wondered lazily if the woman who had given Amy a home lived by the sea. The sound of the waves, I knew, would keep her awake at night. She would think of me….for all the wrong reasons. Wonderful.

I fell back into a dream filled sleep…..and by the time I finally rose, rubbed the sleep out of my eyes, threw on robes, and went up the steps leading to the common room, and out of the portrait hole, the sky was darkening outside.

Tomorrow was to be the last Quidditch match of the season, before the Holidays officially began on the following Monday. The Hogwarts Express would leave for London, leaving me behind, leaving me here, my real home.

The only one I had ever had.

Sunday dawned, flat, and grey. I awoke before the others in my dormitory, having slept so late the previous day, to the surprise of my housemates, and Professor Slughorn, who had decided that I must be ill and had sent me, after tea the previous night, to the hospital wing, for a checkup. I let him send me, despite the excitement in the pit of my stomach, anticipation…I couldn't wait for the results of my plan, I knew they would be worthwhile.

But better still, if Slughorn thought I was ill, he would be even less likely to discover the real reason I was so tired, not that I thought he would anyway, I was never so careless as to leave evidence.

But even so, it was nice to have even better cover than I thought for my nighttime activities.

And besides, I realized, I was going to the Hospital wing.

When I arrived , though, and reported to Madam Warham, the end bed by the window was smooth, white and empty, and the night table too was bare.

She must have recovered then, enough to return to Ravenclaw's dorms. I wondered if she had taken the roses with her. Something I had given her. Did she know it had been me? I certainly didn't realize, in any case, that I would think on it, or care. I did, though, and that bothered me, like something new that didn't quite fit.

O O O O O

But here I was now, making my way down to the Quidditch pitch, and muttering a charm to keep the rain and the mud from seeping through the multitude of cracks and holes in my secondhand boots.

The match had already begun. The shriek of a whistle reverberated across the pitch, and I watched from afar as fourteen blue and green blurs rose into the sky, amidst yelling and catcalling from the stands below.

Laura was no longer in the Hospital wing, so I knew that one of the blue streaks in the distance must be her, and sure enough, as I came closer, I noticed the weak winter sun glint on a flash of silver, on dark streaming hair. I was sure she would insist on playing, and I was right, though from where I stood, she seemed to be keeping a very close eye on the bludgers this time.

Laura flew, gripping her Nimbus two fifty with one hand and the Quaffle in the other, heading for the Slytherin goalhoops. Leaning forward, she flung out her arm and the Quaffle with it.

"Ames has the Quaffle for Ravenclaw…..she passes to White…White goes for the goal………and Ravenclaw score!" announced Peter Alyon, the Gryffindor commentator from his station on the podium. Cheers and stamping went up from the blue and silver clad supporters, and I saw Lucretia White showing off to the crowd.Laura had flown across the other side of the pitch. She hadn't seen me.

Quidditch. I had loathed and detested it as long as I had been at Hogwarts, having no desire to play with the "team spirit" that Professor Dumbledore in particular, was so fond of advocating. But I couldn't help smiling in spite of myself, as I reached the Slytherin stand at last, where the vehement booing had only just died away, and took the bench-seat next to Antonin Dolohov.

Dolohov was the most die hard Quidditch supporter that one could be when one could not so much as leave the ground on a broomstick without sustaining grievious bodily injuries.

On this occasion, though, he looked more ridiculous than he usually did, having charmed his face a bright, Slytherin green, and his eyebrows, I could only presume were both supposed to be silver.

Only Dolohov, not noted for Charms brilliance, (or indeed, any brilliance whatsoever) had only succeeded in charming the right brow silver. The left one seemed to have sprouted to several times it's usual thickness, and turned a violent shade of puce, and Dolohov was trying to conceal this blunder with his hand over one side of his face at all times.

At the moment of the failed Slytherin save by Timothy Holliland, though, his hand dropped into his lap, and as I sat down beside him , I was treated to full view of his latest ridiculous mishap. But although I curled my lip at him, smirking, and muttering "Fool.", he fixed me with a baleful look, no doubt hoping that I would fix his idiotic mistake.

I looked away from him in disgust, letting him know that he could stay like that, despite his pleas.

And my eyes, well, somehow, they drifted back to the pitch, where Laura was in mid-air above the rest, trying to refasten one of her boots that had come loose.That was the moment when I saw her look up, and her eyes swept the stadium, the Slytherin seats in particular.

For one wild moment, her eyes locked on mine and we stared at each other, neither looking away quickly, as one might if they had accidentally caught somebody's eye.

Then the whistle blew, and she had pulled her broom around fast, the moment gone.

Slytherin lost that day. Despite the fact that Abraxas Malfoy caught the Golden Snitch from under Ravenclaw seeker Nancy Thurblack's nose, Ravenclaw had already scored five hundred and fifty to Slytherin's three hundred. This left them a clear hundred points ahead.

So, the match was over, and as the spectators in green trudged, defeated, back through the mud to the castle, the Ravenclaw team and their supporters were cheering and shouting, heading back no doubt to the party that would ensue in Ravenclaw tower that night.

Laura, though, appeared to be lagging behind, and I knew that this was my chance. If only I could catch her eye.

I lagged behind as well, making an irritable gesture at Dolohov as he attempted to follow me, no doubt to bore me with more supplications to 'sort him out'. I nearly did, though not the way he had intended, and eventually he sloped off to join Abraxas, who was boasting about his capture of the snitch so loudly, one would think their team had not, in fact, been the losing side. How typical of Malfoy.

As I mingled with the crowd, I saw her prop her broom against the refreshment table and look into the empty jugs disconsolately. I slid through the crowd quickly to join her as casually as I could. I was pretending to tidy the empty paper cups and juice jugs away, using my wand to stack them all up on top of each other, when she looked up and saw me.

"Nice to see you." she said, grinning so that I wouldn't miss the meaning.

I raised an eyebrow. "I'm glad you think so." I answered. "I must say that is was very generous of you to give that shot to White. You could have done it yourself."

She smiled again, showing the chipped tooth on the right-hand side.

"Maybe that's why you don't play Quidditch."

"I'm not very fond of team sports." I answered.

"A pity," she remarked "You'd have been good as a Chaser, being so tall."

She peered hopefully into another cup.

"Allow me," I said, pointing my wand at one of the unused jugs. Silently, it began to refill. I closed my fingers on the phial in my robes. Now or never.

"Tricky.." she said, admiringly as she watched. "Very tricky. You know, you aren't supposed to be able to do that until Seventh Year."

I shrugged, arranging my features into what I hoped was a modest expression. She didn't notice what else I added to the glass before I handed it over. She had turned back to William Tisker, who was calling her name and gesturing back towards the castle.

"I'll be there a bit later, Willam" Laura said.

I didn't like the familiarity with which she addressed him. He looked at me standing with her, as well, and sneered slightly. I stared straight back at him over her shoulder, stopping quickly when she turned back to me, and took my arm.

"Would you care to walk with me awhile, Mr Riddle?" she enquired.

"I rather think I would." I replied.

As we walked, the crowd dispersed in the opposite direction, back up the hill in a constant swell of voices, talking and shouting, some still singing. All were fading fast as the throng of students and staff headed back to the castle. The cold was beginning to set in for the night.

I looked at Laura, walking beside me. We didn't say anything for a while, just walked together, the rising wind blowing her blue Quidditch robes and my cloak. Some leftover leaves from the long-since departed Autumn blew around our feet.The sun hung low in the darkening sky. I wondered if it would snow soon.

Laura seemed to be deep in thought. She was still holding the paper cup I had handed her, still undrunk, I noticed, with a certain disappointment. Still, didn't Ravenclaws think hard all the time? I should know, after all. I very nearly was one.

I wondered, if in all the History of Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry, the Sorting Hat had actually let a student choose their house for themselves.

I had felt foolish, sitting on the stool before all the other students, the Professors. My name was one of the last they called, indeed, there were only two other students left waiting when my name was read out. Professor Dumbledore, Deputy Headmaster, stood, with the scroll of parchment in his hand, calling out names in alphabetical order…. Alyon, de Brettan, Burns, Cottingley, Crabbe, then onto Malfoy, and Malfoy , these last being the twins Abraxas and Apollonia, then, Myrtle Miles the Mudblood, until he had reached Rafael, Rees, and,

"Riddle, Tom Marvolo."

As I had sat down, I noticed Dumbledore looking at me, intently, out of the corner of my eye, just before I heard that voice…a voice that only I could hear, a voice that was inside my own head, yet was not mine.

"Interesting, very, very interesting indeed. Wondered if I would ever even get another one of YOU, in fact. Thought you were all gone…

"Hmm, so… what is it to be then? Fearless, there's no doubt, very Gryffindor…but also…. Ravenclaw perhaps?….Definitely use your head….don't you? Very inventive, that spell with the rabbit, and wandless too, if a tad brutal."

"He had it coming to him," I had said, before I realized I had spoken aloud, the hall looking puzzled, all except Dumbledore, whose expression, though still, was hawk-like, as though he was listening far more intently than he wished it to appear.

A stab of resentment had shot through me, before the voice spoke again.

"Ah, yes, young Riddle. A rare treat, to look inside your mind."

It paused, most likely for dramatic effect, and I began to feel angrier still….

"So I'll thank you for the pleasure by letting you choose."

"Choose?"

"Choose, Master Riddle."

I made my choice. I made the right choice.

I folded my other hand into my pocket to keep out the cold and we walked on.

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