And here I'm again with another chapter, hope you like it!

Beta: lil'hawkeye3

'I'm hissing in parseltongue'

It's said that one is shaped by the events during one's life. Tom had never been the same after the exorcism. There was something extremely humiliating about it, she knew – she had experienced it on her own flesh. The feeling of helplessness, the sensation of dirtiness... in a way, she supposed it was comparable to rape.

Four years between the whole incident and now had seen the boy mature in a man, and the man in a sociopath. Anya watched the development with regretful eyes, but an understanding of the situation that no child should have possessed. She also knew she had changed, yet things like that had always affected him more than her. It hadn't been the only time Mrs. Cole tried to free them of the demons that supposedly possessed their bodies, but the first time was the most gruesome.

To the orphans who had never been near the sea, like them, the English coasts were a disappointment. The grey sea that washed the shore resembled neither the pictures of côte d'azur nor the tropical shores that most of them had seen. But to the two magical children of the Wool's Orphanage, it was a blessing. Anya appreciated the depressing view of the bareness of the beach and immensity of the sea – it was soothing and calm, peaceful and in a sort of way, happy. The rock formations were greatly appreciated by the boy who, although he didn't have any adventurous spirit, enjoyed contemplating the deadly tips of the rocks. As soon as they arrived at the seaside, he had left to explore those, and of course dragged the girl with him. Mrs Cole didn't try to protect them; it would be better if they ended up dead, in her opinion.

They shared a similar opinion of her.

"If you want to jump, but fear is preventing you to do so, please tell me. I can push you." Anya informed Arawn with sarcasm, panting due the race to the top of the cliff. The boy was kneeling at the edge, his body leaning forward.

"Funny, and here I was, thinking that you would miss me if I jumped." He huffed in mock indignation, turning to look at her. "Come here, there is something I want to show you."

She sighed and walked to his side, sitting beside him. "Don't push me." She half-joked, Tom didn't waste his words in answering her comment; instead he preferred to hold her by her left arm. He pointed down, speaking: "There is no need to fear; I'll keep you safe. Can you see it?"

"'He is like some rock which stretches into the vast sea and which, exposed to the fury of the winds and beaten against the waves, endures all the violence.'" Anya quoted, ignoring his question.

"Virgil, The Aeneid. Easy. But I was talking about the cave." The boy answered automatically, annoyed.

"I see nothing. Can you pick something more interesting to do than point at rocks?"

"Make some effort. There, near the mosses. If you see it, I will do something more interesting."

Anya nodded, easily spotting the dark entrance her friend was talking about. Below them, the waves punished the rocks like a jailer whipping a condemned man; the sound of the sea was a rich symphony to her ears. The fresh breeze helped to ease the summer heat. "I see it."

"Seriously?"

"No." Tom groaned in irritation and she grinned at him. "I'm lying. I can see it, I'm not blind, Arawn. But I want my award."

"Thanks Satan." She laughed at that. The joke between the two had never ended, no, Anya had even adopted it. It still irked people's nerves after all those years, which showed how much shit lived in some people's brains. "Very well. 'Men go abroad to wonder at the heights of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of the rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motions of the stars, and they pass by themselves without wondering.' I want to explore the cave."

"I never thought that you would quote a saint, Arawn. Augustine of Hippo, Confessions. But we won't explore it." As soon as she said that, the wizard got up and walked away, just to kneel again near some more mosses. She watched as the boy moved, a bit surprised by the fact that he didn't utter any attempt to argue. "What are you doing?"

Her response was a hiss, a feminine hiss which was kind of familiar. 'What are you doing, human hatchling?' Great, now her roommate was training feminine falsettos, this wasn't exactly what she had expected of a psychopath.

Then she saw the thing curled around his neck. Tom had found a snake, an adder, if she recognized from the books. Oh fuck, now he would never stop of talking about snakes, the prat. 'What did you say, Anya?' He asked in his normal, masculine (if not a bit high-pitched, after all, he was still a tenor child). 'Nothing, you idiot."'

'A speaker!' He answered in that annoying voice.

'Nothing about the idiot? You are losing your sass, and different from you, I still know how to speak normal apparently. Now can you stop the falsetto? It's kind of annoying.'

'Which falsetto? The one you are doing, goodness Anya, this voice is disturbing. Don't you use it in my presence. And stop speaking if you want an answer for the idiot…don't you dare to call me it again.'

'Two speakers!'

'Stop it!' Both of them shouted in the same moment the falsetto spoke. Three voices? Now Anya knew she was getting crazy, she was hearing the echo of their voices with a different timbre.

"The third voice…is the snake? Snakes speak English. No, they don't. We speak the snake language? This is ridiculous!" Tom shouted and for the first time she noticed that they weren't really speaking English.

'Oh, shit. We speak Snake Language, and it's not like you and the rest of the animals, we really speak with snakes. That's pretty weird, shouldn't we have bifurcated tongue or something like that to be able to do it?' She ignored Tom's repression of her swearing, he did it more than her… just because he thought it was unladylike it didn't mean she would stop. 'Don't let Mrs Cole know. She will think we are the children of Nanash...' she made a face to him, remembering the first second name he had thought to her, and he smiled sheepishly '... with the Devil. Well, we have some abilities more powerful than speaking with snakes, I guess.'

'I was right at trying to name you after a snake!' He beamed at her and before she could retort his attention was already in another place. 'Now, lady snake. You are a female, right? You are the first snake I meet so I'm not sure.'

'Call me Nara, hatchlings. I'm a female.'

'Glad to meet you, Nara. I'm Tom and this is Anya. I have some questions, maybe you could answer me?' The fifty-five inches serpent with light-coloured scales and a darker dorsal seemed to agree with that, her head nodding in a very strange way. 'First of all, do all snakes speak the same language? And if I were to ask you a favour, what would most ask in return? Are species welcoming as you? Have you ever meet another, how have you called it…another speaker?'

'The Serpent Language is spoken by all snakes. As speakers you will always be welcomed and all serpents will hear you. I've never met another speaker, and it is unheard of one since long ago. Still, all snakes know of the power of those who speak with them even before their eggs hatch.' A voice interrupted their conversation, an unwelcomed one.

"Hey, Dennis, the two freaks are speaking with a snake!" Amy Benson, a nine years old girl with a pretty face and tiny teeth called her friend – Dennis Bishop, a ten years boy with brunette hair and always dirty face.

"They are crazy! Crazy as stupid schitzos! Don't listen to them, Amy, the Beelzebub gave them life. Mrs Cole already said that! They love it." As the boy reached them and pushed Anya onto the ground, Tom got up. "Isn't it true, you butch? Admit it, Riddle, you wish your whore was a man, you fag." Anya wiped the blood of her lips, moaning from the feeling of dirt on the wound she had made where she had bitten her lips.

"Dennis!" The younger girl floated in the air above the sea, her feet swinging in the air. Tom smirked at that, and Anya couldn't stop the relief that took over her as she made sure that the girl wasn't the only one of their attacker floating. The picture they made should be quite terrifying: two children floating in the air above a cliff, and two other children suspending them – and a snake curled around the second boy's shoulders.

"Low him to the cave, I want to have a talk with them."

"How exactly to you expect us to go down there, Arawn?"

"I trust you with my life. It will be very convenient to you do the same."

"I do. But what if the cave has an exit?"

"It won't."

"How do you know?"

"Wishful thinking." He explained, lowering the girl down to the cave with an ease that most children would never develop. Anya shuddered, knowing that if she didn't lower the boy, Tom would. She was bit more hesitant about risking her own life. They have been levitating each other since the year before, but it wasn't more than some inches above the ground. Once Tom had floated her over a treetop, and she had lowered him from trees twice. It was easier than making her fly, but it still required control.

But doing it with Dennis was easy than she had imagined. He had almost hit a rock at the entrance of the cave, but she didn't care much about his health. She had only to imagine the movement he was supposed to describe that her magic would follow. She knew she was getting better at it, she still remembered the first time Tom had suggested them to try to float each other. Anya had been scared and dropped Tom twice. But he had pardoned her fast, he always forgave her.

The boy stared at her. "You can levitate me first, just don't slam me at the cliff's wall and everything will be ok. I will lower you from there then."

Anya nodded and wished for her magic to raise him on the air, watching as his feet left the ground and his body went forwards. 'It's kind of fun, floating over a cliff and not falling.' He joked, but Nara seemed to disagree. The girl chuckled as the serpent ranted about snakes being born to crawl and not to fly. Tom's body slowly went down, the boy making funny faces to her that could have been very distractive if her magic wasn't as focused as it was supposed to be.

Then she heard a thump and she sighed in relief. Now she wasn't supposed to do nothing, at least. "Are you alright?" She shouted as she heard another thump.

"Yes. I just had to put our friend to sleep. Everything it's alright. You did great. Are you ready?"

"No, but do it anyway!" Now, she thought, maybe teleportation would be better. As she shouted that, she felt her feet leaving the rocks. It was a weird sensation, levitating. The breeze seemed stronger when nothing held you to the ground, and she noticed that the rocks seemed deadlier when just a wishful magic sustained you. It was completely madness, but it was also freeing.

The feeling of being able to do whatever one wanted. The wrong knowledge of being able to flee from wherever you were. It was just a false sensation, but as flying went against the rational thinking – and against the rules of magic, if she remembered well – the human mind went against reason. She laughed at the thought; something supposed to be a thing went against the very same thing.

Her body dropped a bit and she felt joy. The feeling of sinking on the air was incredible and a bit familiar, she had dreamt of it, she remembered. The thrill of falling many feet in the air. The adrenaline of flying. It was like daydreaming, but better than Freud would ever had imagined.

"Faster, Arawn!" She heard him laugh as she approached the entrance and she did a ballet flit in front of him as she landed. "And I thought you feared flying."

"'Once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return.' I want to go again."

"No, and I have never heard this one."

"Da Vinci wrote on Codex on the Flight of Birds. Please?"

"Where did you find this book? It wasn't in any library." She nodded in agreement, but spoke nothing else. She didn't really know where she had read the book, or from where she had caught it, she just knew she had. "Very well, I guess we will have to go up, anyway. Now, can we bring our attention back to our dear friends?" He asked, gesturing to behind himself. Anya turned to see the two children splattered on the floor, Amy moaning in pain and Dennis unconscious.

Nara slide down his shoulders and wrapped her body around the girl. "Any ideas?" She asked, surveying the cave with her eyes. It was dark blue tunnel with salt crystals everywhere. Not that scary but enough to unsettle most. Stalagmites and stalactites followed the whole path, in a sort of way that gave an enchanted aura to the place. It was quite beautiful, the crystals made everything much more magical than it actually was. "It's kind of beautiful here, I must say. It's a pity that our friends are in such a state, they would love." She continued with irony.

"There is a chamber following this tunnel, Nara went for a walk as I levitated you." He informed here. "It must be even prettier. We can float these two behind us."

That day had taught a lesson to Anya. She still remembered it. The cave was even more beautiful than the image she would have from a cave, but very similar too. The crystals around it where amazing, they reflected a blueish light on the lake of crystal clear water. The sound of the water dripping from the ceiling was soothing, and even the screams of the orphans couldn't disturb the peacefulness of the place – its enchantment.

But that day, Anya didn't learn that things were more beautiful in reality than in imagination. Which be an untruthful thing to learn, she supposed.

She learnt that Tom Marvolo Riddle knew how to choose his torturing places. And that he made good use of them.

[][

They had decided to give themselves a show as Christmas's gift – Anya had desired to watch the Shakespeare's play A Winter's Tale, but when Tom had showed her the tickets to the Nutcracker at The Old Vic, she had given in. Besides, his eleventh birthday would be in seven days; he deserved it.

They had stolen a petroleum velvet dress for her, with some black ribbons to her hair and black slippers; Tom wore a black fur coat which had been sewed by order and paid with stolen money. At ten, both of them looked older than most children of their age; the baby-fat in their faces was never something very noticeable – the diet of an orphan kept all of them slender - but it had almost vanished for now. They could easily pass as the children of some politician or industrial, in their thirteens – enough age to explain their lack of parents.

The ballet was beautiful; the scenery colourful and dreamlike, portraying a world more nonsensical than her dreams, yet immensely gorgeous. The primidone, a girl named Margot Fonteyn, was incredible, more graceful than a petal and lighter than the air; and a charming pointe work.

They had bought a private box near the stage; and Anya took pleasure in leaning onto the border of it and watching the bodies dancing as snowflakes falling from the sky – in harmony and perfectly synchronized. Tom would easily follow the conductor's hand movements – and he did through the whole ballet.

The story wasn't the best – a girl who received a nutcracker from her godfather as Christmas's gift; the nutcracker turns to be the leader of an army of gingerbread soldier who fought against mice and their Tsar. They would then travel to a land of sweets and honour her, who had helped them in defeat the mice. She knew, however, that Tom enjoyed it, probably because of the irony of the girl who took the disliked toy was the one to live the greatest adventure – or maybe because of the royalty, he liked everything that was considered high-class.

They were in the middle of the ballet when she noticed he had gotten bored. "Well, it's beautiful, isn't it?" She asked, trying to avoid his unease.

"It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness." He said, motioning her to sit on his lap. This would be a very strange sight to anyone as there were several seats empty around them. As they were alone, Anya simply compiled his wishes. "Liev Tolstói, the Kreutzer Sonata. But you know what they say about dance: 'together with reading, these two amusements will never harm the world.'" She felt his hands entangling in her hair, as he braided her raven hair with the dark ribbons.

"You are quoting Voltaire at the Dictionnaire philosophique. He was wrong, by the way, the Russian Tsar of twenty years ago would have said so, at least. And probably, Marie Antoinette would disagree as well." He whispered to her.

"Well, if you try to please all, you will please none."

"Truth. Merry Christmas, by the way, Anya."

"I thought we worshipped the Devil."

[][

Anya made sure the white scar on her forehead was covered by her bangs. She didn't know exactly where she had acquired such injury, but she knew it had been a long time ago. The scar wasn't very visible, yet something told her that it was indispensable that she prevented anyone of seeing it that day.

Tom watched as she combed her hair and tied it in a fishtail braid. He knew she was a bit agitated, which would normally mean that something would happen. "You are hiding things again.

"I thought I had permission to hide things." She answered nonchalantly. "You do it and I'm not bothered by it, hence the same could happen in exchange, shouldn't it?"

"I would prefer if you didn't." He stated, shivering because of the cold morning of January. "I'm having my first period and I don't know how to deal with it?" She said, warming both of their bodies with her wish.

"You are not. Don't lie to me, Anya."

"You are persistent, aren't you, Arawn?" She huffed in annoyance. "Well, differently from you, I've chores to perform. I've no idea what are you talking about, and because of that I cannot tell 'the supposed truth'…what can I do that will make you settle down?"

"Don't talk to anyone else today."

"I have chores to do today. I'm pretty sure Mrs. Cole will get upset when I refuse to answer 'Yes, madam' to her." She pointed out. "Besides, I might need to speak on your behalf if you get in a fight, again."

He pondered over which thing he could ask for her for a moment, making Anya regret offering him the opportunity. Tom wasn't the most reasonable guy in the world, and sometimes he could be extremely preposterous. "Very well, promise you will never leave me."

Well, that was better than she thought. A promise, she wouldn't hesitate to promise things to most of people, but to Tom…he took her promises seriously, mostly, too much serious. But instead of refusing, she said: "Easy, where else I would go?"

Yet, as expected, he didn't take it. "Just promise."

"Alright, I swear. I will never leave you, Arawn."

London at the winter was similar to London at the summer – the same greyness, dirty place where everyone from everywhere of the British Empire seemed to gather – with the temperature difference. That was what Albus Dumbledore concluded some hours later, as he arrived in the Wool's Orphanage.

He calmly listened Mrs. Cole rambling, waiting for her to finish as a gentleman should. She was ordering her helper, Martha, and speaking about some of the children. He took his time analyzing the place. It wasn't the worst play to live, he supposed, but definitely not the best either. The walls were dirty, and the furniture old and plain. Much less for two magical children. It was interesting that two wizarding children were reunited in a muggle orphanage, fascinating almost.

Just one of them was already eleven; the other would be in May. Yet, he had chosen that date to introduce both of them to the magical world, as he supposed that two magical children living in the same house would irremediably exchange information.

"Good afternoon." He said, as the matron finally looked at him. He ignored her gaping and proceeded to present himself. "My name is Albus Dumbledore. I sent you a letter requesting an appointment and you very kindly invited me here today."

After some time he finally convinced the woman about his intentions there, and that the two children had a place in his school. As they both drank some gin, her much more than him, he asked for the story of the children.

"I remember it clear as anything, because I'd just started here myself. New Year's Eve and bitter cold, raining, you know. Nasty night. And this girl, not much older than I was myself at the time, came staggering up the front steps. Well, she wasn't the first. We took her in, and she had the baby within the hour. And she was dead in another hour."

"Did she say anything before she died?" The wizard asked. "Anything about the boy's father, for instance?"

"Now, as it happens, she did," said Mrs. Cole, who he was quick to understand that took a liking at speaking about the others' lives as many did. "I remember she said to me, 'I hope he looks like his papa,' and I won't lie, she was right to hope it, because she was no beauty - and then she told me he was to be named Tom, for his father, and Marvolo, for her father - yes, I know, funny name, isn't it? We wondered whether she came from a circus - and she said the boy's surname was to be Riddle. And she died soon after that without another word." She smacked her lips after taking another sip of gin.

"Well, we named him just as she'd said, it seemed so important to the poor girl, but no Tom nor Marvolo nor any kind of Riddle ever came looking for him, nor any family at all, so he stayed in the orphanage and he's been here ever since."

"And the girl? There is something about her being left at the gates?"

"In fact, she was. I found her at the gates of this orphanage while I was cradling Tom. It's outrageous how some people think that an orphanage is the perfect place to left unwanted babies and go. The boy came up with a name for her, Anastasia Donbyre. Weird, isn't it? Well, I don't know how, but now even our registers recognize her as it. Nobody ever came claiming her either, but most orphans suffer the same fate. There is nothing more about her, though she is quite beautiful, both of them are."

After that, the woman hesitated a bit before relaying some more information about the two children's oddments. The boy seemed to be a bully, with some highly disturbing habits but impressive skills. The girl was quieter than him, not as dangerous as the boy, but to Abigail Cole, she was sometimes depressing, sometimes enchanting – never normal. After that, she led Dumbledore to the pair's room.

Dumbledore observed the two children. They were sat at the same bed, side by side, and he noticed that they could only sat there, as there was only one bed, one stool and one wardrobe at the small room. Both of them held books, the girl held a grey-green book called "The Hobbit", by J.R.R. Tolkien and the boy a book called "Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde" by Robert Louis Stevenson that he recognized as a novel of the nineteenth century.

Both children were beautiful. The boy had dark wavy hair and blue hooded eyes, his face had the shape of a heart, with high cheekbones. He was taller than most boys of his eyes and although his clothes obviously lacked quality, his posture was better than that of most pureblood heirs. The girl had long, soft hair that reached her that reached her hips and wore a simple wool dress and old shoes.

"How do you do?" Dumbledore asked, holding out his hand to the two. When the boy did nothing to take his hand and just stared at it in disgust, the girl easily accepted it, shaking his hand. The man drew up the stool and sat in front of them, as if they were patients and he was the doctor. "I am Professor Dumbledore."

"Professor?" Riddle interjected, his eyes accusing. "You mean a 'doctor'. So, Doctor Dumbledore, what are you here for? Must I assume that she thought it was the time for me to be analyzed by specialists?" He continued, his eyes looking to the door through which Mrs. Cole had just left.

"No, no." The older wizard denied, a calm smile on his lips.

"If Arawn's skills at deducing have failed, Mr. Dumbledore, can you explain why exactly you are here? A professor, you say. But what kind of professor visits an orphanage? You have no wish to adopt us, that is very much obvious about you, at least." The girl took over, her smile matching his own, but hers much more false. "The question is: Who are you?"

"I have told you. My name is Professor Dumbledore and I work at a school called Hogwarts. I have come to offer you a place at my school - your new school, if you would like to come."

"I'm sorry, Mr. Dumbledore. But I fail to see why a professor would offer we a place in a school, there are many others orphans. And mainly, I fail to see what kind of madman would call a school Hogwarts. You are from the asylum- this can be the only reason for Mrs. Cole to be so welcoming of you." Riddle argued and Dumbledore had to concede – most of muggle parents also questioned the name of the school.

"I am not from the asylum," said Dumbledore patiently. "I am a teacher and I shall tell you about Hogwarts. Of course, if you would rather not come to the school, nobody will force you…"

"I'd like to see them try," Riddle interrupted with a sneer.

"Hogwarts," Dumbledore went on, as though he had not heard Riddle's last words, "is a school for people with special abilities…"

"I doubt she accepted this explanation" The boy pointed out.

"There is no need for her to know. Hogwarts is not a school for mad people; it isn't an asylum as you say. It is a school of magic."

"Magic."

"Yes, have your ever done something out of normal? Out of most people can do?"

"Magic is believing in yourself, if you can do that, you can make anything happen, Arawn." The girl added. "Haven't I already told you this?"

Dumbledore nodded in appreciation of the girl's phrase, but it was Tom who responded. "Goethe told me this before you did, actually. What can we do is it called magic?"

"What can you do?"

"All sorts of things," he said with some kind of pride. "I can make things move without touching them, I can make animals do what I want them to do, without training them. I can make bad incidents happen to those that annoy me, I can make them hurt."

"I can levitate the objects I wish to; I can change part of my appearance. I can change colors and sizes of things. I can warm myself when I feel cold. I can appear in places I want to." Anya continued in the same peace.

"I always knew I was different." Tom ended.

"Well, you are quite right." Dumbledore said, the smile had vanished from his lips, but his eyes were studying the two children in front of him. "You, Tom Marvolo Riddle, are a wizard. And you, Anastasia Lynda Donbyre, are a witch."

"Are you a wizard too?"

"Yes, I am."

"Prove it," said Riddle at once, in a commanding tone that wasn't the same he had been using until now.

Dumbledore raised his eyebrows. "If, as I take it, you are accepting your place at Hogwarts…"

"Of course we are!"

"Then you will address me as 'Professor' or 'sir.'"

As the boy flushed, the girl smiled peacefully to him. "I'm sorry, sir, for our eagerness. But proves are very important to us. Trust is something valuable, and because of that, it cannot be easily given."

With a flick of the stick that she assumed to be a wand, the wardrobe burst in flames. Tom immediately got up to retrieve his things – he liked to steal all things he could; and she wasn't that better. Small trinkets, most of them, but also clothing, books and food. She would have rushed to the wardrobe, but somehow, she had the feeling all her belongings were safe.

It was a purely instinctive belief still, she trusted it. Hours later, she would reach the conclusion that logic could have told her this if they had more time – how frequently a teacher burnt his students' belongings, after all? Nevertheless, they could have thought of that – they hadn't, but they could. As it had happened, it was just a giant Deja-vu – the whole teacher appearance that's it. A long white-beard, for some reason, popped out in her mind and half-moon spectacles. Even the name Hogwarts sounded familiar.

Hogwarts, Hogwarts, hoggy warty Hogwarts, teach us something please…

She had been right. The man extinguished the fire quickly, leaving an unburnt wardrobe behind, with their belonging intact likewise. Still, knowing that the books she had taken out the library and stolen; her few pieces of clothing and the small stock of food she always had could have been burnt; it wasn't that funny. If the fire was real, if the incantation was wrong, the flames could have consumed all their possessions. She didn't really care for the small trinkets Tom had stolen – her two gifts were all that matter and they were secure on her necklace – a pearl and a crystal from the cave. Yet, it didn't make her image of the man in front of her better.

She ignored Dumbledore as he gave a moral lesson on Tom, and explained about the Hogwarts fund. They would steal, anyway, and Tom would be the one concerned with the money, as he never let those decisions to her. "You are coming with us?" Tom asked Dumbledore on the Diagon Alley matter.

"Certainly, if you..."

"There is no need, sir. We are quite used to doing things on our own." She interrupted. "But if you could please explain how to get there…"

Dumbledore then proceeded to explain how to arrive at the Diagon Alley and soon, they encountered Tom's name issue. "You dislike the name 'Tom'?"

"There are a lot of Toms," muttered the younger wizard. Then, as though he could not suppress the question, as though it burst from him in spite of himself, he asked, "Was my father a wizard? He was called Tom Riddle too, they've told me."

"I'm afraid I don't know," was the old man's response, in a gentle voice.

"My mother can't have been magic, or she wouldn't have died," the boy concluded, more to himself than Dumbledore. The way of thinking didn't surprise Anya, he had shared it a long time ago with her. "It must've been him. So, when I've got all my stuff, when do I come to this Hogwarts?"

Not much later, Dumbledore left them alone and in his place, he left the promise of a magical world. During that time, neither of them spoke of their flying abilities. Or about the fact that they were both parselmouths; it hadn't seem to be recommended. Yet, Tom glared at her.

"You knew he was coming. You had been walking on eggshells through the whole day."

"I admit now that I had a sixth sense telling me something would happen today. I had a dream with it, actually, but I didn't know it would really happen."

"Has something similar happened before?"

"Nothing so precise. Sometimes, I get the impression something will happen, or that I already know a place or other. The cave, for example. You know the first time we went to King's Cross? I stood there between platforms 9 and 10, and I knew there was something else. I had the impression everything started there. And if Dumbledore is telling the truth, maybe I was right. And I feel he was telling the truth. Is that weird?"

"I suppose that considering that magic is real, it cannot be impossible. It sounds as if you can predict the future in some sort of way, we should go to Diagon Alley and look for some books about it. Don't worry, Anya. Everything will be alright." He assured her, and even if the girl could see the greed shinning in his eyes as he wrapped his arms around her, Anya chose to ignore it.

After all, she knew with whom she was dealing with, trust could be something valuable, but she trusted her knowledge about the ground she walked on. She trusted her observations on Tom.

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