Beta: lil'hawkeye3 (the miracle worker)
'parseltongue'
An evidence to the fact that Anya was different to Tom was that he didn't apologize immediately after their fight. If Anya were anybody else, he would have convincingly begged for pardon without really meaning it and everything would have settled down.
But Anya was Anya, and because of that, the animosity was tangible in the Slytherin dungeons. It had all started at the next day after their confrontation. Their morning period was Potions with the Gryffindors, and when Anya sat herself soundly into the seat beside Harfang, the whole classroom had looked at her.
In contrast to the Transfiguration classroom, the classroom in the dungeons had very separated benches, in which the houses would never mix. Even if the Lions had accepted that their housemate had a tentative friendship with a snake, they were immediately suspicious of her sitting with one of them in the most reactive class of all. Anya raised her hands in the air, in the worldwide known gesture to say 'look, I'm not carrying a dangerous big weapon' – or in the case, a wand. Most glares subdued at that, but of course, Tom's was not one of those.
"What's up with you and Riddle?" Harfang asked, watching as Brianna and Dorea followed her to the same bench of Charlus and him. The former was still glued at Anya for saving her and the latter declared there was no fun in sticking around a bunch of guys.
"Nothing." But of course, her lie didn't travel far, as Tom and her were obviously competing to see who could earn more points for their house. Their answers and accomplishments fought against each other, and at the beginning of their second potions period, Slughorn didn't have to ask questions anymore, as they were in a heated debate over the uses of dragon blood – a rapid-fire of questions.
Unfortunately for their classmates, the argument continued to their Defence Against Dark Arts session that afternoon, and the poor Ravens didn't have a chance to answer anything in their Herbology class. At the end of the day, she finally admitted to Longbottom that there were troubles in Tom-yland, although she never revealed what exactly.
Friday was the beginning of what the school would nickname as the "Feud of Serpents" – not very original, in her opinion – in a few days. A few muggleborns had called it the "Salieri and Mozart rivalry," which in her opinion was much more interesting, but none of them could actually point out who was who.
It had been two weeks since the episode and although Anya was still furious, she took great pleasure in making Tom jealous. She actually had to compliment his roommates; she knew very well how his group must be suffering the effects of his moodiness.
They were at the Central Tower Courtyard, one of the most wooded gardens of the school, which in the fall, shined scarlet with its trees. Anya, Fang, Charlus, Maeve, Laws, Dora, Brianna and the two Hufflepuffs she had charmed during their Charms and Astronomy classes – Deodor Fronsac and Sean Catchlove – sat on a tablecloth the Badgers had found somewhere, probably in the same place they had grabbed all those foods – fruity pudding, mushroom tartlets, plum and almond tray bakes, hazelnut and chocolate cakes and pear pastries; teas, gillywater and pumpkin juice.
"We cannot tell you. It's supposed to be a house secret!" Sean explained when she asked one more time where they had found all those things. Anya found the two badgers cute, although they weren't exactly pretty boys – too babyish.
Her first meeting with them had been in Charms the following Monday after her discussion with Tom. She had sat at their table and grinned at their frozen expressions.
"Something wrong? Is there chocolate on my face?" She had asked, and their response was: "You're a Slytherin."
"Yep." She had agreed, showing the badge at her uniform.
"Why are you sitting with us?"
"Because the boys in my House are rude, idiotic fools. You aren't like them, are you? Because I hear Hufflepuff House breeds the most perfect kind of gentlemen." It had been quite entertaining to watch their faces change from humble to proud, and back to humble again.
"You know that I like to explore the school. And that now that I know this is a house secret, it's only a question of time before I find the kitchens around your common room." She pointed out, taking a bit of the tray bake. "This is good, by the way."
"I baked it." Deodor informed. "You know where the Hufflepuff Dorm is?"
"No. But I assume that it's near Professor Beery's suite and office; after all, he is your Head of House – it must be a rule, mustn't it?"
"You are a great baker, Fronsac." Harfang complimented, his face filthy with chocolate. "Do the chefs allow students to cook?"
"Only if you know how to cook. If you don't…you don't want to see an angry house-elf, I assure you." Sean cringed, as if he was recalling some gruesome event.
"So, the chefs are house-elves. No wonder the food here is so good." Dorea commented. "I should have guessed it. Wipe your face, Longbottom, Ally may see you."
The Longbottom heir reddened and cleaned his cheeks with his handkerchief, making Laws laugh as she raised her head from her sketchbook. "You were right, Nastya, he is a lover-boy."
"We are only eleven. How can girls make everything about romance at eleven?" Charlus inquired.
"That's pretty easy – add love." Dorea smirked. "Or possessiveness in Nastya's case. I cannot believe you two are still not talking."
"He called me a prostitute, am I supposed to take that well?" She asked, making both Sean and Charlus choke on their drinks, and Deodor and Harfang sputter. Dorea just smirked, already aware of the facts, while Maeve and Brianna seemed to alternate the gobsmacked look between themselves and Laws looked pretty irate.
"I could kill him." The Ravenclaw witch offered.
"Yes, that's what you do when people offend you, Laws." Anya deadpanned.
"Why would he call you that? You are so gentle, caring and supporting." Maeve asked, her expression of disbelief over her book made Anya want to swoon.
"Thanks, Maeve, but you are the cute girl out of us. There is no reason, though, except him being him."
"What else did he say to you?" Brianna questioned with interest.
"Oh, it was just a fight. I'm getting my revenge slowly, you don't need to worry. Besides, we are boring our male company with this talk." She waved the girl's curiosity off, her nerves feeling Tom's eyes burning holes in her back from the opposite side of the courtyard. "Deodor, would you pour me some tea?"
"Sure, Nastya. Earl Grey, Oolong or Hibiscus?"
"Hibiscus. With a spoon of honey, if you please." She smiled as the boy offered her a cup of tea and took a sip of it. "Of the sweetest kind, indeed." She said, resting the saucer on the picnic blanket and resting her head on Harfang's lap. "Callidora won't get jealous, Fang, will she?" She asked with a smirk.
"I doubt it's something I find myself unable to explain, milady." He assured her with his own smirk.
"I can attest your relationship is purely platonic, if you feel the need, dear future cousin-in-law." Dorea suggested. "If you find me a husband, I don't want to end up as an old spinster." They only laughed, used now to Dorea's antics. Anya purred as she felt Harfang caressing her forehead – and with the corner of her she was amused by the fact that Tom was sulking and digging his nails on Orion's wrist.
"I finished it!" Laws announced, raising her pastel pencil of her sketchbook in satisfaction. Brianna took it out of her hands with yank. "Let me see this. Oi, this is only a portrait of Nastya, where are the rest of us?"
"Hello? I'm not a Hufflepuff – I'm lazy!"
"You know not all Hufflepuffs are hard-workers, don't you?" Sean asked. "But you would fit with us…this must have been hard to draw, it's beautiful." He complimented.
"You mean gorgeous, don't you?" Harfang opined, looking over Catchlove's shoulder.
"Prettier than the real thing, actually." Charlus stated solemnly.
"I heard that!" Anya called out.
"Take a look, then." The Potter scion told her, giving the sketch to her.
Beautiful – it was the only way of describing it. If she didn't know better, Anya would have thought that someone had taken a photo of her – with a better light than possible, and made her eyes glimmer like surreal emeralds. Her lips were poutier than the reality and the full-coloured picture seemed to gather all good features of her in a portrait. "Alright, this is awesome."
"Isn't it? I want to enrol in the International Academy of Magical Arts to learn how to paint moving portraits and things like that. But of course, that's after Hogwarts – for now I will stick to the Arts Class."
"Can you give me this one?" Anya asked. "It's beautiful. I can pay you."
"Of course, it's yours, no need of a payment. But I wanted to ask you if you could be my model, Nastya – you are very beautiful to draw. I can pay you."
"No, no; you can keep painting me this beautiful as long as you want, no payment required. It will be honour." Anya accepted, deciding that there was no way that the daughter of rich foreigners- who she pretended to be- would accept money for modelling.
"You can paint Riddle too, when he starts to talk to Nastya again – he is handsome." Brianna suggested, making the boys around her groan.
"No, no need. I like to draw women more than men." Laws refused.
"Oh, you shouldn't feel jealous of Tommy-boy, guys, itty bitty baby Tommy is just too jealous. Come here if you want him to really feel envious." She joked to the boys protests, kissing Harfang's and Deodor's cheeks loudly.
Apparently, Tom was quite predictable because as expected, he was seething in rage and probably causing lasting harm to a poor Mulciber – with whom Orion had smartly changed places, possibly on Lestrange's advice. At least someone else would know how difficult was to deal with a morose Tom.
"Riddle is going to kill us." The Gryffindor wizard groaned. "At least we will die with a kiss of a beautiful lady."
"Speaking of the devil, he is walking in our direction."
Anya felt the air around her pulling her up, and she groaned noticing that yes, Tom was using his wandless magic and no one else was noticing. Hesitantly, she got up in her feet and waving reassuringly to her group.
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At the other side of the courtyard, the Slytherin boys were experimenting a Riddle in his most-jealous-mode, an experience that was, in short, quite painful. Those words could also be used to summarize the previous two weeks, in which Riddle had more mood-changes than a PMS-ing girl. He would be the usually charming, witty and intelligent young man that they had grown used to; and suddenly he was sullen, headstrong and harsh.
Apparently, Nastya Donbyre was the kind of girl that dragged a man to madness. Or at least, a man fighting with her. Ragnar had to admit that the girl was good in her game of acting totally oblivious to Riddle – which seemed to irritate him quite a bit.
Too good. She wasn't even dealing with the consequences of the monster she was creating.
They had left the Library in order to not bother with Madam Litruth with their entrance ritual, which was smoking. After that, they had walked to the Central Tower Courtyard, in which most people that weren't actually knitting, gossiping or playing gobstones could be found – it was the prettiest garden in the school at autumn, after all.
"So, who has some Valerian around?" Rowle, a second-year, asked, taking out a pipe of his pockets. "Who of you has already smoked? Mulciber? Nott? No? I'm the only one grown-up here?" He questioned, wrapping the herb around his fingers before pushing it on the thing. "Try it, Lestrange."
"Well, I would be impressed with you, Demetrius. But Lady Hermia told me at Yule about your first time trying it last year. You are one year older, don't be an idiot." Ragnar said, taking the pipe of his hands and giving it a try. "I am kind of hoping that Valerian is the cheapest thing you can try because there must be something better than this, as it's similar to a load of dragon dung. Abraxas?"
"This smell will stick to our clothing, you know? And it reeks." The Malfoy heir spoke up, whiffing some smoke of it. "My father certainly smokes something better. Try it Dolohov."
It seemed that they had chosen to humiliate Rowle for trying to humiliate them. Tom smirked, oh, payback was a bitch.
Antonin tried it twice, even if he almost choked on the smoke for the first time. Headstrong, they called it. And as a challenge, he gave it to Tom. It was impossible to say that Tom wasn't expecting for that kind of ceremony – it was a tradition in muggles schools and maybe the human being was such a mess that even if men were magical, they were attracted to addicts.
Out of them, Tom knew he was the most used to smoking. He had tried his first cigarette around six, like most orphan boys did, and since that he always kept a pack in his pockets. He didn't smoke per se – actually he usually didn't smoke more than one or two cigarettes in a month – but there was something extremely satisfying in putting it out in the hands of someone; and marking one's palm with a burnt. So, he easily accepted the pipe and casually gave a whiff before offering it to Mulciber…
…who promptly choked on it. Frankly, there were some people in the world who were born as losers.
Nott seemed to agree with such observation, because with a snicker, he took the pipe out of Mucliber's hands and gave it a try. "Someday we will remember this as the worst thing we have smoked, won't we? Seriously, Rowle, you have been smoking this shit the whole year?"
Rosier took the pipe of the second year's hand and grimaced when trying, handing the thing to Avery in the quiet manner he always held when the subject wasn't magical creatures. Andros Avery was a very gullible boy who followed the lead of others, so no one could compliment him for his insult but at least it wasn't laughable as Mulciber.
When all of them had tried the Valerian, Tom took the pipe out of the others' hands and smashed it on the ground; in that moment his eyes met with his Anya's laughing of something one of those Hufflepuff boys had said.
Disgusting – those boys eating out of her hand like domesticated birds.
"You have anything more?" He asked, his teeth gritted.
"I had pixie dust." Dolohov offered. "But we obviously don't have a pipe anymore."
"Are you a wizard or a muggle?" Tom inquired, conjuring a pipe with his wand and handing it to Dolohov.
"We are wizards – of the type that actually needs classes to know how to do magic and that in his second month of studying magic cannot conjure a pipe effortlessly. Is that actually rare?" Ragnar questioned.
"Well, whose fault is this?" He said, taking his conjured pipe out of Dolohov's hands and puffing it several times, watching annoyed as a certain emerald-eyed witch laid her head on Longbottom's lap. Orion moaned in pain in the moment his nails dug in the Black's skin leaving a trail of blood.
"The system that only allows us to be magically-educated after our eleventh birthday, perhaps?" Abraxas opined. "Orion, if you don't want to be permanently maimed you should change places with Mulciber." Ragnar advised.
Tom Riddle didn't really care which arm he was holding as long as he could imagine that it wasn't an arm the thing he had in hands, but the neck of those who accompanied his female counterpart.
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Tom walked in front of her, trailing their path through the Central Tower and the Terrace of First Building. The terrace was a balcony that lead to a path under the Stone Bridge that nobody seemed to use. 'What the hell are you thinking flirting around like a scarlet woman?'
'I'm eleven, Tom, there's no way I can be called a courtesan – if we won't mention child prostitution. I'm not even a woman, I suppose if you were to call me scarlet girl, or child…' She pointed out, irritated with the way his nails in her skin would leave marks.
'It doesn't matter – they were all over you!' He snapped ferociously.
'Soitenly, Tom. They still have to hit puberty – they are just pushovers. Don't fret over it, it's just your urge to monopolize me speaking, and its voice is obnoxious.'
If she was in any other situation, Anya would have found the pulsating vein on his temple even funnier than the blood rushing to his head in anger, but as he reached her neck with those furious hands and pushed her against the balustrade she couldn't control the transient feeling of fear that took over her mind.
Of course, when that moment was over, she watched calmly as Tom kept a tight grasp on her neck; without actually asphyxiating her, only preventing her from leaving. "You are mine! I named you! I saved you!" He shouted, beyond reason. "If you are going to avoid me, I will make sure nobody else talks with you either." He declared, more quietly, more deadly – his grip increasing. She reached his hands, trying to release herself , yet the wizard was stronger.
"'An object in possession seldom retains the same charm that it had in pursuit,' Arawn. Why would I want myself to be yours when I shine more without being possessed? And most important, why would you want it?" She asked.
'Don't come to me with beautiful quotes only because they were written by old philosophers! You swore you would never leave me!'
'Technically, he was called 'the young', but if want something of my own authorship, let me tell you that I don't belong to anybody aside myself, and unless you find a slavery curse, I won't be owned by anyone!' She shrieked, wishing for her magic to take her to near the wall.
It was a convenient moment to remember that her magical teleportation was called apparation in the Wizarding World and that it was impossible to apparate in Hogwarts. The witch swore internally, knowing that swearing externally would be unwise considering Tom's obsession with property.
She gasped, feeling the pressure on her throat increase to the point of suffocation as her counterpart struggled to control himself. 'Tom, release me.' She ordered to his deafness.
He let his left hand out of her neck - but that wasn't a sign of him following her command, but he grabbing her right hand, which had been trying to reach her wand at her pockets. "Aahh...ry-we...en." She tried to call out his nickname, her voice tried to make out, but it was more a whisper of a screech than anything; "-ee...ez".
The feeling of choking was a vortex of helplessness in which one's mouth opened and closed, trying to drawn some air to one's lungs. Being choked wasn't extremely painful, yet, it worse than being stabbed. When Tom finally released her, all she could do was pant for almost two whole minutes.
Tom didn't bend down to help her, or apologized, and although Anya could easily detect the regret in his eyes – mixture of it with pride, in a way she knew he wouldn't – she didn't feel like pardoning him anymore. "Hyacintho Ignis" she said, conjuring bluebell flames. "Oppugno."
The flames attacked the boy imperiously, and Anya smirked at the sight of the beautiful flames marking his cheek and arms. "Erinaceus" she jinxed before he could react, transfiguring him in a sea urchin with tiny spikes all over his body – the book in which she had first read about the spell said it was quite uncomfortable.
Still irate, she huffed, leaving him behind.
[][][][
Tom stared at the morning imprint of Volks Orakle, a newspaper of the Magical Germany. He didn't know a lot of German, but he recognized enough expressions to understand the message of the article: muggles were filth and they should be subjugated by the all-powerful wizards for something he was keen to translate as The Greater Good.
Tom bristled – it was sheer ignorance to believe that muggles were so weak like that- they were filthy, yes, but they were also merciless killers, not a flock of sheep.
"You disagree, Riddle?" Antonin Dolohov, the one who had brought the newspaper, inquired.
"I know that those muggles need to be controlled. But it would be reckless of us to continue categorizing them as weaklings. They are not powerful as us, fact, but they are countless, and they have developed deadly weapons in the past years." He explained while elegantly cutting a forkful of roast pork.
"What do you mean?" Orion questioned, selecting a few plates to his lunch.
"You will of course remember the Great War of the Muggles that happened during the 10's." All of his housemates nodded, having heard of it from their parents. The ministry hd forbidden all wizards of fighting in it, although only blood-traitors wanted to do it; however this war was greatly used by blood-purists as the main example of how muggles were animals. "They have made big advances in the warfare field since them, and may I add that their weapons were already quite deadly before – very similar to the Killing Curse, actually. They have aircrafts, which are very similar to a broomstick, however allow the pilot is able to shoot and kill easily while driving them. They have submarines, which are aquatic vessels that operate underwater for hours."
"Are you going to say that your mother was muggle now, Riddle? Merlin's beard, I had no idea you were such a filthy muggle-lover. Are you going to board their boats and navigate down the Thames while dancing with that filth?" Dolohov laughed, but nobody else did – all still too thoughtful over Tom's speech.
Tom glared at him, and the other wizard knew that if eyes could kill, he would be dead. Dolohov gulped. "My point is, Dolohov, muggles shouldn't be underestimated, even though they have weaker bodies. You would do well to remember that."
"Now, will you call your muggle friends here and ask them to kill me?" The boy snorted, and the tension in the air seemed to thicken. "You can't even keep control over your Puff-loving whore; I suppose the only ones you can control are some weak beasts, aren't they?"
A loud thump echoed through the Great Hall, and heads turned to see the glass that had exploded in Antonin's hands at the same time he was pushed out of the table by a very opportunistic wind. The irate looks of Abraxas's and Tom's faces were terrifying – the first one outraged that one could call a lady a whore and the second outraged at everything else.
"Dolohov, leave." Ragnar ordered. Anya and her assemble, which had just reached the Great Hall watched with interest as Antonin's face went through several shades of red until it reached purple. She understood what was happening when Tom pushed him once more – even though nobody else could point out it was him who had done it.
The boy finally grabbed his newspaper and stormed out the Hall. If she had fought with Tom three weeks before, she would have reached him and calmed him with ease. But as they weren't speaking, she simply ignored the scene and sat as far as she could from him. And as she wasn't there to calm him, Tom stormed out of the chamber minutes after his roommate, enraged.
Anya only hoped he remembered Dolohov was the godson of the Head of a pureblood house, and hence, he couldn't kill him.
[][][][
A week after the lunch incident, everyone was excited to the Halloween feast of tonight. It was a Monday, and their last class before lunch was Herbology. Tom watched jealously as Anya sat with her Ravenclaw friends and roommates.
To the luck of his housemates' arms, Anya's friends in Ravenclaw consisted of only girls, and because of that, Tom was able to contain his urge to dig his nails on others' flesh.
Anya greeted Maeve and Laws as Dorea sat at her side; the pureblood was enraged with Brianna, who had apparently gotten over Anya's rescue of hers and was now sitting very close to Riddle. Because of that, there was one seat open at Anya's left. The emerald-eyed girl flashed the other witch a smile and invited the only remaining student to sit with them – a bushy haired blonde girl with lots of freckles on her cute babyish face.
"Elizabeth, isn't it? Elizabeth Kneeler. I'm Nastya, well, Anastasia actually, and this is Dora. I suppose you know Laws and Maeve."
"Kearney, Cadogan." The girl nodded to her roommates before sitting at Anya's side without acknowledging her. Anya tried to ignore the fact the girl seemed to purposely avoid her, almost glued to Laws at her left side, yet with large gap between Elizabeth and herself.
"Now class, will you tell me what is this?" Professor Beery asked, as he held a plant whose main stem was a disproportionate purple bulb with leaves at the top. "Ms. Donbyre, Mr. Riddle, perhaps?" The Head of Hufflepuff asked good-naturedly. Herbert Beery was one of the first teachers to get used to their bickering, and Anya suspected he found it entertaining even. It wasn't what you would expect of the head of the house of friendship, but according to him, disagreements made ties stronger.
"As you wish, sir. The plant you are holding is Bouncing Bulb, which jumps around if not restrained. Young bulbs can be easy to handle, but when it reaches maturity, it can be the size of a doorway-" Anya answered.
"-and weight around seventy pounds. They can be aggressive if they feel threatened and may attack. A simple Knockback Jinx can handle a youngling, however to the matures, the incendio spell may be more useful-" Tom continued.
"-because they are quite strong. They are an ingredient to the Pompion Potion, which turns the drinker's head into a pumpkin, and are classified as-"
"-locomotive plants." Tom finished, looking in challenge at her. They had never had a reconciliation talk in that month, and to Anya, despite all her social-advances, it had been rather tiresome to bear all that coldness toward him. She refused to apologize, though, because she had no reasons to do so. He had tried to choke her in their fight in the middle of the month for goodness's sake!
"Bravo as always, Mr. Riddle, Ms. Donbyre. I believe ten points to Slytherin are in order. Now, today we are going to repot this beautiful violet bulbs, but you should be careful, because they are a bit feisty."
Anya exchanged a meaningful look with Dorea and minutes later, the two Slytherins had to concede the plant was impossibly jumpy. Most Ravenclaws were trying to stop the plants with their hands, as applied students, but Anya decided immediate measures were more than necessary. Grabbing her wand the girl immobilized her bulb with a smirk, making sure nobody else was looking.
"That's cheating!" Dorea protested at her ear.
"Well, we are Slytherins, aren't we?" She grinned as she watched the witch to copy her wand movements and freeze her own bulb.
Having repotted her plant easily after that, Anya decided a little of inter-house cooperation was always good for one's reputation. Elizabeth Kneeler was looking at her with suspicious, but she only returned it with an assuring smile. The half-blood only seemed to get more on edge; her eyes looked tiredly to where her bulb on the desk, which was jumping in circles in a jovial manner. As her cheek had a huge smudge on it, Anya offered the girl a handkerchief, which admittedly was too frilly to be effective – and maybe because of this the Raven jumped back and denied it with her head.
Sensing that the girl really didn't want to talk with her, but with enough will to one last attempt, Anya approached her. "If we work together, we might pinfold-"
"Leave me alone, you freak!" The girl shrieked, pushing her hand away and bumping her other hand into pot with a tentacle plant. "Don't touch me!"
Anya felt the pot shattering in contact with her neck flesh, but the worse of it was when the tentacles of the plant wrapped themselves around her neck, in experience very similar to what she had experienced two weeks before at a certain terrace – but harder, faster and stronger.
She felt to her knees as she felt the air leaving her lungs. The orphaned witch could see Dora and Laws trying to free her from the plant grasp only to have their hands trapped by it as well. She could hear the voice of Professor Beery tried to reach them from the other side of the greenhouse, and she knew why he was so alarmed. The blonde bitch had thrown a Devil's Snare at her! At her neck – it only needed some seconds to kill.
Fire wouldn't save herself – too dangerous. And being immobile – easier said than done. She cried out when she felt the plant squeezing her neck and the shards sinking deeply on her skin. That was real – it wasn't Tom trying to prove himself.
And then it wasn't real anymore. Anya opened her eyes and stared at a bundle of dark hair and a knife. Dark blue hooded eyes sighed in relief as he banished the conjured knife. Tom. Thanks Merlin.
"Accio shards" The boy summoned.
And then the bleeding started again, more and more. Without stop.
"Take her to the Hospital Wing!"
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