Chapter 2: Plans
Disclaimer: I don't own anything!
I got myself lots of enemies last night. First, I couldn't fall asleep. I was crying really bad, choking out angry words every once in a while, cursing at mini-Voldemort. Then there were the nightmares.
First, it was like in my second year. I watched myself writing blood messages, opening the chamber of secrets, Tom Riddle whispering into my ear. It was one of the worst moments of my life, setting the basilisk on muggleborns.
Then it was the last night. Harry being tortured by Lord Voldemort. Harry's own face was papery and white, his eyes half-closed, his hands shivering. But above all, I heard Hermione's voice echoing, "You said it. That's how they knew!"
What had I said? But as it kept repeating in my mind, I felt the effects of the cloak. Weighing me down, making me fall, which caused Harry's death.
But before my vision blacked out completely, I saw Harry's glazed over eyes, his body limp. I wanted to scream, to punch someone, to rip someone's hair out, but I was powerless.
A jet of green light came hurtling towards me, and the brightness in the world disappeared.
I awoke, covered in sweat in the middle of the night, and apparently I'd been moving around and screaming, because none of the girls seemed to be asleep.
I, myself, tried to fall back asleep, but the truth was, I couldn't, and the awful night-gowns weren't helping. So I got up, and left the girls' dorm.
I walked down the stairs to where the single couch was. There was fire in the fireplace. Was someone there? I was starting to walk up the stairs, but a long creak from the old wood caught the attention of the person on the couch.
"What are you doing?" It was a smooth male voice.
My heart raced, "Err… I couldn't fall asleep, so, I wanted to come down."
The boy turned. I wanted to scream when I saw who it was. Tom Riddle.
"Crying about our parents, are we?" he asked. Some people might have heard it as concern, but I could detect the slight snarl in his voice.
"No." I snapped irately.
He studied me closely, and I became nervous. Was he going to kill me now?
"I suggest you leave now, I don't like it when people invade my privacy." Riddle said.
"Well, it's not like you own the couch." I muttered.
"You obviously don't know the first thing about this orphanage." Riddle kept his calm voice, but there was obviously an underlying threat.
I glared at him, meeting his hard gaze.
"I don't care about your rules, and I'm not scared of you like everyone else is either." I spat.
That was a lie. I was very much afraid of Riddle.
"This is a warning. Leave now, and you may remain unharmed." Riddle hissed.
I huffed, "I'm leaving because I can't stand you!"
With that, I stormed back upstairs, probably waking everyone who'd just fallen asleep back up.
Now, all the girls and Riddle probably hated me. Great, more enemies is all I need. I thought annoyed, but I didn't care.
I managed to fall asleep for a few hours, probably, before I awoke. Everyone else had already gone from the room, which meant, as usual, that I'd slept in too late. I wondered how the girls had all gotten up so early with the racket I'd caused last night.
I also remembered my conversation with Riddle. He's probably going to kill me now, I thought.
Slipping on my uniform, I rushed downstairs to eat breakfast. So far, the past had sucked. Perhaps, today I would get better luck.
I found my only friend, Lisa, and settled for the undercooked eggs.
"Sleep well last night?" Lisa asked.
"Not really, you?"
"Me either." She replied.
We were both silent for a moment.
"I bumped into Tom last night." I finally broke the silence.
"Did he threaten to kill you?" She asked.
"Pretty much." I admitted.
"He can do some pretty bad things. You don't want him on your bad side." Lisa warned.
"Is anyone on his good side?" I wondered aloud.
"No. Not at the orphanage at least. He might have friends at that special school of his." I heard some resentment in Lisa's voice.
"Oh," I said, but the gears in my mind started turning. Tom was schooling Hogwarts right now… for some reason, this seemed important to me, though I wasn't sure why.
"His school is for creeps, creeps like him who do dirty tricks and do mean things to other people." Lisa continued.
Definitely Hogwarts.
"He goes back every year, though I heard that this was his last year. He's not coming back after that, which is good for the rest of us."
I wasn't really paying attention to Lisa. All I knew was that I needed help, and that Dumbledore always said, "Help is always given at Hogwarts to those who ask for it".
Perhaps I was sent to the past for a reason. Perhaps I was sent through time to change the future. Slowly, a plan began to form in my mind. It was a crappy one, but it would do.
"Lisa," I said, interrupting her rant, "Do you by any chance have a paper and pen that I could use?"
"Yeah – wait, what are you going to do?" Lisa asked suspiciously.
"You'll see." I said, standing up, and I took the two items from my friend.
Tom's POV.
The new girl unsettled me. She didn't seem like much at first glance, but I could feel a magical aura that came from her. It was unusually strong as well.
She was also foolishly unafraid of me. I frowned as I recalled the events of the previous night. It made me angry thinking about it. How dare this girl insult me, the heir of Slytherin?
A soft hiss was heard behind me. I turned to see a garter snake who must have sense my agitation.
I was about to tell it to leave in parseltongue when suddenly I remembered the insufferable girl. A plan started to formulate in my mind. A smirk started to creep up my face. The girl would pay for her misdeeds.
Is anything the matter? The snake hissed.
Yes, go get the rest of your friends over here. I have a little job for all of you. I told the small snake in parseltongue.
The snake slithered off without another word. Now all I needed was for one of those cowardly muggle girls to direct me to the girl's bed.
Alice's POV.
Dear Dipputty,
My name is Alice. I used to go to Beauxbatons. Then my parents died because of the war. I would like to transfer to Hogwarts. I am 17. I hope you understand. It would be great if we could meet someplace soon to talk about me transferring sometime soon.
Hope you understand!
Alison (Alice)
It was pretty simple, but it would do. I was about to put my original last name, Grey, but I decided against it. Perhaps a pureblood name?
I took my pureblood mother's name instead. Dupont.
I added it to the letter. I got ready to send it when I realized I was missing an owl.
"Oh shit." I muttered aloud.
"Language." A voice behind me said.
I spun around to see my new friend, Lisa.
"Uh, hey." I said a little too quickly.
"Did you finish what you were doing earlier?" She asked.
"Yeah." I said.
"What were you doing?" She asked.
Come up with an excuse! Fast!
"Erm… I was just drawing and I messed up on the drawing." I said nonchalantly. Lying skills, anyone?
"Oh… could I see it?" Lisa asked.
"NO!" I cried out.
Lisa gave me a strange look, "Why not?"
"It's really weird. I don't really want anyone to see it." I winced. Even I couldn't make that sound convincing.
Lisa raised an eyebrow.
"I'll draw another one and show you. This one was really messed up." I promised.
"Okay…" She muttered uncertainly.
She walked out of the room, and I started to think about where I would be able to get an owl.
I came up with an idea. It wasn't a great one though. One word: Transfiguration. A subject I'd never paid attention in. If I set my heart to it, I could probably do a pretty good job. But transforming a rat into an owl, was Hermione level magic and maybe higher, which meant, naturally, I would fail at it. But what other choice did I have?
So now you're wondering, where will you get a rat?
Already got that solved! The bathroom. You can find practically any small critter in there.
I held my breath as I entered the room, my eyes immediately started burning. Not even a minute into the search, I found a small rat.
"Petrificus totalus!" I muttered.
I picked up the frozen mammal, performing the transformation spell. I must have been thinking about how horrible Peter Pettigrew was while doing it, because the rat's fur developed multicolored polka-dots all over its fur and a pink moustache, which made it look like a partying chicken-pox victim who loves makeup.
The second time, it worked a little better. I imagined that the rat's fur transformed into feathers, its front paws into wings and back paws into talons, his body growing larger… soon, I had a frozen rat-owl in front of me. Not the best transformation, not good enough to satisfy professor McGonagall, but it would do. I unfroze it to put the letter in its beak.
The animal scurried away immediately.
"Wait! Come back!" I yelled.
The 'owl' banged itself into all four corners of the room, trying to escape.
"You're going to hurt yourself, you bloody idiot!" I growled.
"Accio mouse-owl!" I muttered.
The deformed owl screeched as it was pulled towards me. "Gotcha!" I smiled triumphantly.
Ever so the owl squirmed in my hands. I allowed it to step on my forearm, petting its head.
But the owl did something completely unexpected. It swooped its head down towards my hand and bit my finger. Hard.
"Ouch!" I exclaimed, letting the devilish creature go. I inspected my bleeding finger.
"Episkey!" I said loudly, waving the wand at my wound. Instead of knitting the wound up, blood only seemed to leak out faster. I gritted my teething, silently cursing at whomever invented the so called healing spell.
I knew that I was bad with animals, but I wasn't expecting it from the owl. Once a hippogriff nearly trampled me in Care of magical creatures' class, though that was probably because I scared it.
Either way, I got too carried away by the whole owl biting me thing to realize that there was a bigger problem: I still didn't have an owl.
I groaned. If it took me this long to figure out each step, I was never going to get to Hogwarts. Seriously, I couldn't even get a stupid owl, and I was broke.
So, I did the next thing I thought of, and it wasn't great.
No, I can't do this. You're going to laugh at me. It's that stupid. And it's not even courageous either. But I was out of options.
"Oh, here goes nothing." I muttered as I apparated to Diagon Alley, hoping not to get splinched.
A/N: Yay! Second real chappie! I hope you guys like it. But really, please write a review! Imperius! Write a review with all of your thoughts about this story! I'm starting this new story, but it's a Percy Jackson one, so if you like PJO, like I do, then check it out. It's coming out on Memorial day!