Slughorn's walrus-like physique outlined the dungeon's doorway as he entered, goblet in hand and waddled to his desk at the front of the potions classroom.
A small shrug of disrespect could be heard, but only by the few who were sitting close to him, as it escaped the thin, haughty lips of Tom Riddle.
"Good morning—good morning class!" the professor's nose was looking particularly red.
"Good morning Professor Slughorn," the class replied monotonously.
"And what a glorious morning it is," he grinned, his sweeping mustache widened as if it was being stretched across his face. With a flick of his wand, the drapes flew back from the windows and sunlight poured out, causing the students to flinch and squint from the morning ray's assault on their eyes.
"Wake up and get your minds ready to work," with another wand flick chalk began scribbling out notes on the board while everyone instinctively pulled out parchment and quills to copy it down.
"Today we are going to be working on a very important draught," he took one last swig of whatever contents resided in his goblet, and slamming it back on his desk top, he began again, "the draught of verity, and yes Mr. Riddle, it as the name would suggest, and as you are correctly thinking, the draught is indeed merely a milder form of veritaserum," Slughorn had invariably volunteered the information that Tom was ready to supply, but he refused to lower his hand until Professor Slughorn agreed to recognize him. Slughorn raised his eyebrows, and in doing so, Tom continued.
"Yes sir, but could this possibly be a prerequisite to veritaserum?" he asked suggestively.
Slughorn grinned slightly with a knowing look, "I should have read you better in knowing that you should ask, but I'm afraid the answer is no. We're studying it as a prerequisite to next year. That is of course if you supply the necessary grades—as I am confident that you will—you can enroll yourself in my advanced potions class where we will be learning more about it…So my next question is, does anyone know what the actual difference is between the draught of verity and veritaserum, aside from the obvious?" he stood, his hands, struggling to clasp one another behind the large expanse of his back, and waited for a moment.
Tom lazily raised his slender arm, "Yes Mr. Riddle?" Slughorn asked, still facing the board.
"Veritaserum makes the drinker divulge any secret, no matter how important it is to that person. It can be extracted without any hindrance, whereas the draught of verity, not being as potent, allows you to extract secrets that are not closely guarded by the drinker. While the draught of verity is considered obsolete by today's standards, it was the best available in 1926 when it was invented by Whitacker Windlock, a former Potions Master of Hogwarts himself, who did not invent it's successor until 1935."
"Well done Professor Riddle," Slughorn praised in a jesting tone; a small grin fell upon Tom's comely features. The class responded with a mixture of admiration and annoyance at the eloquent young prefect.
"I hope you were paying attention, because that was your introduction to our lesson…"
Slughorn's incessant praise was lost on Evelyn, who sat in the very back, whispering last night's events to Margaret, "and there were these people, who—I guess were hiding in the forest…I don't really know what they were doing, but one of them used an unforgivable curse on—
"Evelyn," Margaret uttered accompanied by the slanting of a thin eyebrow at her friend in disbelief, in the way that a well- knowing mother would at the suspicion of her lying child.
"You think I would make this up?" her whisper now elevating into her own voice.
"So you left the unicorn?" Margaret changed the subject to assuage Evelyn's growing defensiveness.
"Oh!" she exclaimed in surprise, "I did leave it there!" she felt a pang of guilt and ruefulness for forgetting it.
"Maybe it'll still be there…you really should call it to the attention of the Headmaster…that's serious."
"You're right. As soon as I get the chance, I'm taking it to Dippet--
"Maybe Miss Westwood can tell us how this potion is to be brewed as she seems to be so intent on talking this morning." Evelyn's blonde head snapped upwards and once again the entire class was staring at her. Her eyes searched around the room, trying to figure out just which potion they were learning about. Margaret quickly came to her aid by scribbling 'draught of verity' at the top of her parchment.
"You mean the draught of verity," Evelyn questioned more than answered, "yes…well…the first step is…you cut up lacewing flies. Then…you…get ten unsucculated leeches and put them into the cauldron—but not before you boil the mucus of flobberworms and mix it with water at…a hundred—no a hundred and ten degrees. It should set for…" Evelyn glanced at Margaret's paper, but it offered no help this time, "forty-five minutes. Then you should stir it five times clockwise and then eight times counter clockwise."
Slughorn almost seemed surprised at her answer as he took out his monocle and wiped it with a handkerchief before placing it back into his eye, "That was astoundingly the most unfortunate waste of my time that has ever been administered."
Evelyn frowned.
"If you are finished making a mockery of the art that is Potion making, I'll divide all of you into groups." And with that last insult, he began walking around to each table, putting together students who would benefit each other.
"Miss Westwood, I think it might serve you well to work with Mr. Riddle on this assignment," even though it was presented as a suggestion, she knew it was to be interpreted as an order. Evelyn gave the Ravenclaw prefect an anxious look as she gingerly gathered up her cauldron and supplies to move to his table.
Tom did not acknowledge her as he seemed to be in his own little world, scratching away on parchment.
"Hi, I'm Evelyn," she introduced herself meekly, "uhm…I think you pulled my hair out the last time we met," she joked, hoping to lighten the thick atmosphere that seemed to surround them.
"Hardly," though he really could not justify his actions even to himself, of what had come over him to do such a thing. Evelyn sat down, placing her cauldron on the table top and opening her book.
"You won't be needing those," Tom articulated with an air of superiority as he kept his eyes focused on the instructions before him. Evelyn was taken aback at being ordered around by someone she had just met. She found this annoying to such an extent that she felt it warranted a snotty--but silent--reenactment of it.
"And I would be most appreciative if you would cease from doing that." Her eyes narrowed in astonishment; she could have sworn he had been looking at his parchment the entire time, "Here," he handed her the lacewing, "cut this up."
Even though she had previously been annoyed at him for doing it before, she did not think twice about acquiescing to his demands. The faint scratching noise of Tom's quill halted as his eyes flashed upwards to monitor her handy work. As her wrist carefully moved up and down, he couldn't help but notice faint red lines, extending outward on her pale forearms exhibited by her rolled up sleeves.
"What happened to your arm?" he asked as he had seemingly dropped the conceited attitude.
"Nothing," she quickly answered, pushing her sleeves down, "it's just a few cat scratches. My dorm mate's stupid cat thinks my bed is her home…and she gets mad whenever I try to pry her off," Evelyn congratulated herself for being so smooth.
"Oh, I see," he feigned belief in the ill-concocted story but refused to give up.
Tom stared intently at Evelyn's forehead as she busied herself once again with the mutilation of the lacewing. 'Where were you last night?' Tom kept repeating in his own mind over and over again while uninhibitedly staring at her. A few moments passed when she became aware of his lack of manners, "Excuse me?" she interrupted him, unwittingly throwing him off by the obtrusive sound of her voice, "is there something I can help you with? Or do you have a particular interest in my hair line?"
"I wasn't looking at your hair line," his cold, grey eyes flared at hers, "I was observing the manner in which you are destroying our supplies," he gestured to the dissected lacewing.
"Well why don't you just do everything yourself!" she half-shouted with an edge of impatience creeping into her voice while throwing the knife across the table, after the fact, thanking Merlin that no one actually saw it.
Evelyn sat there for the rest of class—sulking while Tom in fact did finish their draught all by himself. He occasionally glanced up at her.
"What?" Evelyn spat the question at him as she caught his grey-eyed gaze fleetingly across the table.
"I'm rather wary of getting the tip of my nose chopped off…just checking to make sure anymore weapons aren't coming my way," he remarked superciliously. In lieu of a retort, she amused herself with the thought of accidentally chopping off a different part of him—maybe then he wouldn't feel the need to be so ego-inflated.
"Time is up," declared Slughorn as he waddled back to the front of the classroom, "everyone turn in a sample of your draughts to my front desk."
Tom filled a small vial with their—more accurately, his—draught and placed it, almost sanctimoniously, in front of everyone else's. Supremely annoyed at his sabotaged interrogation and the fact that Evelyn had acted so childishly, Tom decided to leave her with one last comment before they departed, "Do you always act this incompetent?" he asked the question that was, in his mind, rhetorical.
"Do you always try legilimency on people you first meet?"
Evelyn reveled in the fact that for once, Thomas Marvolo Riddle, was at a loss for words.
A/N: I've looked at the stats for the last two chapters and a lot of people have at least continued on to the 2nd chapter, but didn't review. I know this is completely common, but I'm beeeeeeeeeeegggggging (on my hands and knees) to please review, because I can't really know if anyone is actually interested or if they're just reading on to the next chapters and thinking to themselves, "ugh..this is horrible." So please, it'll only take a few seconds, good, bad, whatever…all criticism/review is welcome. On a side note – a major turn of events in my life has sort of prevented me from writing in what seems like an entire year, so I'm really trying to get back into the swing of things, so reviews and criticism would be incredibly helpful right now.
Stay classy,
Aiden I.