My dearest readers,

One more chapter for you - after a break, I suppose. This is me trying to get in university, wish me luck, I am going for Engineering. Once against thanks to my wonderful beta, lil'hawkeye3, and to all of you, beautiful people. Thanks to all of you who reviewed, followed and/or favorited - I will try to answer those reviews now.

This is a small chapter, but I hope you enjoy it.

Yours,

Riona.

Tom quietly created a trail of thoughts to follow as he untangled the mess Anya's elegant script had created in her notes over a certain Austrian. He was hiding in the Music Salon, simply because Professor Trocar could warn him long before Anya reached them – the perks of having a vampire ally.

He was hiding. He was very much aware that the Slytherin witch couldn't care less if Elizabeth Kneeler was killed by his money. Actually, she'd feel a vindictive glee after she was assured his actions would have no damaging consequences. But before that, she would be enraged with him for stealing her notes and putting them in risk. She didn't know that Kneeler had been abandoned in St. Mungos, and that when she died, as some mental deranged patients did, her muggle relatives had already been obliviated. It was the standard procedure the ministry followed when mudbloods died or suffered permanent injuries, mental included. They affirmed that it wasn't wise to keep muggles informed about their existence when they lost their liaison with the magical community. Nobody had given a shit about Kneeler's death; and no one would investigate further.

"You smell of blood," their music professor informed him.

"Who doesn't these days?" He noted, while staring at the words which told him that the Austrian wizard had lied when he had introduced himself as Dominik Meier. Tom didn't like the scent of this whole affair. Meier called his witch by the nickname he had given her, and yet Anya was researching his past on her own.

"And of the Arts," the vampire noted. "As a teacher, I'm supposed to denounce you... or to advise you at least."

Tom smirked. "Music is art, though, an art you teach." He countered, looking up from the old newspaper. "We have orders to delate you if you relapse to your nocturnal habits. But I still have to speak with someone about a little blonde butterfly."

They both chuckled, hardly threatened by the bickering. "Oh, she is so sweet, Tom! Her crimson juice is like nectar in my fangs and her person is so innocent in my arms. She wishes to be a minx, but she doesn't comprehend she is a dove with no wings."

"I hardly wish to be your confident, Lazarus. Now I have a riddle for you."

"Are you offering yourself?" The ancient creature inquired, snorting.

"You know this isn't what I'm talking about. Let's see...A man calls a woman in a very intimate manner. But this same woman doesn't address the man in a friendly way-"

"A platonic love." The professor guessed.

"-and investigates him behind his back."

"They are in a romantic relationship. He is polygamous. She suspects him. Unless this isn't a hypothetical situation. All females in this is school are oblivious or too knowing."

"He follows her everywhere."

"Whatever that Durmstrang student told you, you must know it was a provocation."

"I know. He is attracted to her."

"No. He waited for her to end a rehearsal one day. He doesn't scent of lust. Many do, but not him. But he seems to be...how do you humans say? A pursuer? "

"What kind of stalker has no attraction for the one he stalks?"

"The one who is more vicious than adoring."

][][][][][][][][][][]

One day to hunt, other to be hunted. The first time Anya had heard this wizarding proverb, it had been uttered by Deodor Fronsac. She had looked at him in confusion and he had explained that it was a saying that could be traced back the Witch Hunts, when wizards and witches would pursue and be pursued by muggles. She had never thought that things would turn so literal in her life.

She had just found Tom and was ready to demand an explanation about the shrunken head he had given her – which she had kept stunned, she had no wish to hear that annoying Ravenclaw, even as a corpse – when he began to quiz her on Meier. And immediately their roles had been reversed and she was the one avoiding him.

She was just finished with pruning the gigantic umbrella-flowers Professor Beery had tasked them to do in their second period that day. He had allowed her to leave earlier, and she had taken that opportunity, not fancying having to leave with everyone else, including Tom.

Anya caught the sight of a curly-dirty-blonde girl approaching her, the bottle-green eyes of the girl gleaming. "Nastya!" Delphine van Tovenaar called her. "Were you in class with Laws? I am looking for her, but Herbology ended early, did you see where she went?"

"Sorry, I left earlier than the rest." The girl gave her a large smile full of small teeth, and waved her hand in a dismissing way to Anya's apologising tone.

"Don't worry. You are more than enough." She grinned again, linking their arms together. "I was having Potions now…Freyja save me, but I hate the thing. You?"

"I don't loath it." She answered simply and that was true…Potions was just one more subject she did well in, and that could be helpful.

Anya scratched the collar a certain Hungarian had bought months ago. She had been wearing the jewellery everyday – it was a sort of a punishment, or a reminder that her actions weren't always harmless. Delphine followed her movements with the eyes, and a frown took over her face.

"I knew Fanni. We had never met before Durmstrang, but people always told us we were two sides of the same coin. And I don't think they were wrong. You shouldn't blame yourself, Nastya, because what I think I would do if I was Nastya…blame myself for my own death." She sighed.

"But perhaps, you find the blame more welcoming. If that so, I can't prevent you of it. Blame is ok, you know."

Anya nodded. "So, any reason behind your hate for Potions?"

"The smell!" The Danish girl shouted. "It's dreadful!"

Tom didn't search for her more that day, and neither in the following weeks; and that made Anya believe she had escaped from the issue. She was wrong, of course.

][][][][][][][][][][]

At the other side of the castle, down an abandoned dungeon the dreadful scent a potion's fumes hovered the air in tiny vortexes. He had all the ingredients to perform the complicated potion and he was very much aware he had the ability.

It was illegal potion to brew, but that hadn't stopped Ragnar of bringing Jobberknoll feathers from the cages at his house; nor Abraxans of sending him a sample of Devil's Breath, the samples of fat red toadstools and olibanium – all from his family apothecary. The leaves of lovage and the jars of dew could be found at his own potions kit, and Tom had used and abused it. He didn't have salpeter nor nux myristica, but those were to be added in some weeks.

Tom used a mixture of dew, armadillo bile and pomegranate juice as solvent. It was a difficult potion. That mixture should be kept in a warm temperature for seventeen hours before working adding the leaves of lovage, which should be cut in perfect spirals and added in size order. In that stage, the potion was to be heated until evaporation point – and then freeze. A week after that, he was to add a pound of fat red toadstools burnt in the smoke of olibanium – one every day, at the exact same time of seconds to the twilight (and because of that, he had to be aware of the precise time of sunset). The third week was the time of the nux myristica and the Devil's Breath, smashed together until turning into powder and rolled in salpeter – those ingredients should be left at the bottom of the cauldron which required some very specific instruments. The Jobberknoll feathers were the last thing, included a day before the ending of moon cycle – a cycle they had spent drowned in centaur's milk.

The Veritaserum Potion wasn't easy, yet he would do it.

Tom is the Devil under Anya's skin, I know.

Have a nice life, my dears, I don't know when I will update, but I suppose I will.

See ya