Disclaimer: As always...

Thank you for kind comments, especially the person who told me Tom is very stalker-ish! He certainly is...Laura just hasn't realised just yet...

Part Six

Slytherin Issues

"Riddle!"

"Riddle, are you out here?"

The light from the lantern held by Abraxas Malfoy shone on to the frosty grass in pools. It uplit the face of the tall Slytherin, with his sleek blond hair and pale, high cheekboned face.

Abraxas stood, one hand holding the lantern aloft, and the other slung lazily around Evan Rosier's older, Sixth year sister, Lucy Louisa.

Though she was in Hufflepuff, and could not seem to cast even the simplest of spells, Lucy Rosier had long, fluffy blonde hair, large, pale blue eyes, and somewhat over-developed breasts. These last were usually prominently displayed in low cut robes. This was, of course when she managed to keep said robes on; however, if the rumours were to be believed, this was one more task that Lucy Louisa failed at.

All these factors, whilst making me faintly nauseous, appeared to make her vastly appealing to the likes of Malfoy, and Vittorio Zabini, whom I had caught her "servicing" in the Arithmancy classroom after lights out, just a fortnight before.

I assumed she must have tired of Zabini's technique, though, as from where I stood, I could clearly see Malfoy's hand caressing her bottom under a canary yellow cloak carrying the Hufflepuff badge. The colour clashed horribly with her brassy hair.

On Abraxas' other side, her short blonde bob as platinum pale as her brother's slightly shorter hair, stood Apollonia Malfoy.

Bundled up in a voluminous black jumper, she kept glancing across at Abraxas and Lucy, her light eyebrows furrowed.

Unlike her brother, whose cloak was flung on over shirt sleeves, the first few buttons of which were inexplicably undone to reveal so much pale, hairless chest, she was wrapped up fit for the Arctic Circle, so much so that you could barely discern her face amidst the many layers.

Tagging nervously behind was Elijah Nott, small and skinny, he too wrapped up though, in a huge green jumper, and black cloak, his close-set beady eyes scanning the fields nervously, like the rodent he reminded me of.

I stepped out, from the cover of the beech tree, and muttered irritably,

"Lumos," wondering why none of the others had thought what seemed to me a rather simplistic idea.

"Ah, Riddle," called Abraxas, in his rather pompous drawl.

"Where have you been all this time?"

I eyed Malfoy coldly.

"I assume you are referring to my disinclination to celebrate your failure, Malfoy?"

Abraxas' handsome face looked surprised and somewhat wrong-footed. At his elbow, indeed, barely taller than it, his sister Apollonia glared at me indignantly.

"There was no need for that, Riddle." she said sharply.

"Really? Dear me, Polly, your family loyalty is quite charming." I sneered.

"I'm just saying….." began the pale, petite girl again.

"Shut up, Polly.' mumbled Abraxas, uncomfortably, removing his arm from inside Lucy Rosier's cloak, who scowled.

"We were looking for you, Tom." Lucy said, in her high nasal whine.

"That much is obvious." I pursed my lips and fixed Abraxas with a steely glare. "What do you want?"

"What are you doing out here anyway, Riddle? It's freezing." Malfoy blurted.

I raised one eyebrow imperiously, staring him out.

"Am I now to answer to you, Abraxas?" I asked, softly.

It was a threat, and I could tell that Malfoy took it as such, for he took a step or two backwards, and said, hurriedly, averting his gaze,

" Ah…….Professor Slughorn wanted a word about you staying here over the holidays, you're the only one you see, in our House…..and …well…er…"

Suddenly, Apollonia cut him off.

"Tell him about Dolohov, then, 'Brax'. Hurry up. We haven't got all nightI want to go in. " she complained.

"Besides" she added, and curled her lip at me, pointedly. " it isn't like we're in decent company."

I sneered straight back at her, thinking how I would love to teach Malfoy's know it all sister a lesson she wouldn't forget.

It would be very satisfying to use the Cruciatus on her until she was begging me to stop. The thought almost distracted me completely, for I began to think of Laura, and her own pure blood that she did not care about, that she had allowed to be besmirched by my filthy fingers, my dirty blood. At least, she said she didn't mind, but how could I tell for sure? I wondered if, even now, she was in her dormitory regretting everything, in the showers, the smell of carbolic soap pungent, scrubbing, skin red and raw. I realised I was biting my own lip.

"What about Dolohov, Abraxas?" I snapped, tasting a little blood in my mouth. "Surely not something else to do with the fool's feeble attempts at special effects?"

"Er….if you mean his Quidditch get up, then…yeah" muttered Malfoy.

"It's priceless, honestly, Riddle. Much worse than earlier." sniggered Nott, joining in.

"You're going to love it. But not as good as this though, look!"

With a flourish, Elijah Nott pulled a broomstick out from under his cloak. A broomstick that I recognized at once, the newest model, with it's shining gold letters on the handle.

I recognized it, because it was Laura's cherished Nimbus Two Fifty, the sixteenth birthday gift she had received from her father less than three months before.

"Where did you get that?" I asked sharply.

"Found it." he replied, casually. "Left on the pitch. And guess what else? I know whose it is!"

"It's that new Ravenclaw girl's!" squawked Lucy Rosier.

"The one with all the straggly hair. It's her fault you lost the match. Smash it, 'Brax'." she added spitefully "That'll teach her a lesson, she's always showing off on that broom."

To my utter horror, and before I could stop him, Abraxas Malfoy had wrenched the broom from Nott's grasp, and swung it backwards over his shoulder. It made contact with the trunk of the Beech, and splintered in two with a sickening crack.

Malfoy, and Nott guffawed loudly while Lucy Louisa giggled.

Only Apollonia gasped and said,

" You shouldn't have done that. She helped me with my Magical Creatures essay in the Library last week. She's quite nice. And," she added, glancing again at me

" She's a pureblood."

There was nothing I could do in front of them. I would deal with this, I told myself, just not now. It was nothing to do with them.

I pulled my cloak around myself without another word, and swept back towards the castle, vowing inwardly that Malfoy and the Rosier bitch would pay.

O O O O O

Nott and the Malfoy twins caught up with me as I was going down the stone steps to the dorm. I could hear a groaning, wailing noise as I drew closer to the door.

Pulling out my wand, I brandished it at the doorway. The door blasted open, slamming back against the wall with such force that the stairs shook, and Dolohov, who had been sitting on his bed hiding his face in his hands, looked up in spite of himself.

The charm that had got stuck on his eyebrow seemed to have spread across his face, and, although he seemed to have been able to remove most of the green colour, now his entire face was covered with bizarre, mauve fuzz. The fuzz appeared to be creeping down one side of his neck, as well, and by the look on his face, it was a painful progress.

"Why didn't you go to Slughorn?" I enquired, in a bored tone.

"He begged us not to." Apollonia said. "He'd be in fearful trouble anyway, for messing around with unauthorized charms."

"Wherever did you find such charms?" I asked, with heavy sarcasm, though I knew the answer.

"I looked in your books," whined Dolohov from under his hands. "But the charms in them are hard, Riddle, and I couldn't do the last part right."

I laughed sourly.

"Why am I not surprised, Dolohov? Perhaps that will teach you to leave such things to the better wizard." I sneered.

"Can you fix me, Riddle? Please…it hurts, and I can't go home tomorrow like this, my mother……she'd be so upset."

"Poor Mama," I spat. "And of course Ican fix it. If I choose to. Though, perhaps making you suffer will encourage you to keep out of my property?" Sparks flew from my wand and I slammed my free hand down on Dolohov's nightstand to emphasize the point. Dolohov jumped about a foot in the air and whimpered.

"Please, Riddle, I won't, never again, I promise….just fix me, please fix me…"

I still had my wand drawn, and I tapped it in the palm of my right hand, pretending to consider.

"All right, Antonin," I agreed, smirking. "I'll fix you. But I warn you….this may hurt……. a little."

O O O O O

Later on, when Dolohov had finished shrieking, Nott and Mulciber had finished drinking their secret supply of Firewhisky and collapsed in a drunken stupor, and Evan Rosier had finished threatening to hex Abraxas Malfoy "For touching my sister!" (obviously quite unaware that most of the Seventh year boys had done far more than merely touch her), all was quiet in the dormitory.

No one at all noticed somebody steal across the grounds towards a large Beech tree, and gather up the pieces of a broken broomstick with gold letters on the handle.

By the morning, I had fixed that too.

Slipping silently back to the Slytherin dorm, I curled up in my bed ,and slept more peacefully than I had in many long nights.

To be continued...

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