Chapter Five

I checked the time after I woke and it proved to be inhumanly early. Barely six o'clock. Yet, I couldn't sleep, and had had a good night's worth of bad dreams, so I got dressed and got out of the tower in which I felt so much an outsider. True, the other Gryffindors had showed no hostility, nor had they been particularly friendly, exactly the same reaction I got from my classmates of my previous life. Had my personality changed so little? I wasn't just a normal person now. I was Lord Voldemort's daughter. The Great-and-Evil Dark Lord of the wizarding world whose name was never mentioned. Shouldn't that make me somewhat special? But no. I faded into the background just as easily as I had always done. I didn't know whether to be glad or disappointed.

And then there was this Gryffindor issue.

It was scary, exciting, and troubling. Scary, because I didn't know how the Malfoys would react, exciting, because this offered up a whole new perspective for my life, and troubling, because this meant I would have to choose again, when I thought that the choice had already been made at the moment of my birth. Having to choose was a hard thing too.

I had, while thinking, wandered from the top of the castle down to the ground floor. The door of the castle was only some steps away, and on a whim, I walked over, pushed it open, and walked out. The sky was a greyish colour outside, the sun not being up yet to give its golden glow. Pre-dawn Hogwarts was soothingly quiet, as I sat down by the lake and hugged my knees to my chest.

Yes, choices, I had been thinking about choices. I had never chosen to be my father's daughter, but I had accepted it after so many years of it being fact, and had, deep down, accepted that I would be a dark witch, a not-good person, like he would have wanted, like Lucius expected. After the darkness of this childhood, I had all but given up on the world, believed that goodness was bound to lose. So my father was dead. Lucius seemed to take it for fact that he would one day return, and carefully constructed his every action in his absence so that he would not be seen as a traitor when he one day returned.

So, what about me? Since yesterday evening, I had no longer been Lacole Riddle, daughter of the Dark Lord, but also Lacole Riddle, first-year Gryffindor. I had asked to come to Hogwarts, mostly out of curiousity and boredom. I had not expected it to change my perspective of the world, to bring me a chance of saying no to fate. I don't know. Did I still have enough confidence in the world to rebel?

"It is rather early to be out, isn't it?" A low voice interrupted my thoughts.

I started, looked up. The man standing over me was tall, imposing, and vaguely familiar.

"I thought it was, but now there's two of us," I replied.

The man smiled a little, and sat down beside me.

"I rather pride myself on my good memory, but I don't seem to remember who you are."

"That isn't very surprising, considering I only arrived here yesterday evening." I knew he was asking for my name, but at that moment I really didn't want to utter the damned name that made things so difficult for me.

"But I find it rather surprising, to be frank, that you have already found reason to be troubled, within such a short time."

I looked at him. Judging by his age, he was likely a professor, but I didn't remember which he was. Did he really just notice me sitting here thinking by coincidence? Or did he know something?

"Judging by my experiences, troubles don't always spread themselves out over time. In fact, they rather seem to enjoy all coming together, in a short time."

"That's true," the man said, appraising me as I had just done him, "but, judging by my experiences…Hogwarts has always been the place to sooth troubles and give new hope, rather than cause them."

I said nothing, mulling over the words. The man glanced at me, and checked the time.

"It's seven. Breakfast should be starting now. Perhaps you will find things fall into perspective a little easier when you have something in your stomach," he suggested.

"Maybe later," I refused.

He shrugged, and stood up, heading back to the castle. After a few moments, I couldn't help but call after him.

"What's your name?" I asked.

He paused and looked back at me.

"I'm sure you'll soon come to know me by a different name…but I sometimes call myself the Half-Blood Prince."

Half-Blood Prince. A strange name for a person to give himself, and I had an inkling that it wasn't a name he went around telling everybody, so I didn't know why he would tell me. I was a little wary about it-caution being something I had learnt over the course of this life-but I could think of no bad meaning for the words he had spoken to me, so I steeled myself not to bother. Yes, maybe the Half-Blood Prince was right. There was nothing I could do to keep myself from being a Gryffindor, so I might as well see what happened. I hardly had to become a honourable Gryffindor right this moment. Worrying about it was a bit stupid.

I stood, and retraced the Half-Blood Prince's steps back to the castle. Breakfast had started, but it was still early, and most people were still sleeping in. Gryffindors in perticular seemed to value their beauty sleep, so I basically had the whole Gryffindor table to myself. I saw the Prince up at the teacher's table, and when I caught his eye, I gave him a nod and a smile. Say no to pessimism. That was my first goal of the year.

Where Malfoy Manor's food was dainty, Hogwarts' was rich, the kind of food that would make people shamelessly fat. After getting my thoughts straightened out, I had a pretty good appetite, and ate quite a lot. By the time the rest of the Gryffindor first years came down to breakfast, I'd finished eating and was sipping tea. The only reason I wasn't buried in a book as well was that I couldn't possibly move Lucius' library to Hogwarts, and the textbooks I did have I had already read and were ridiculously simple.

"Blimey, you're up early," Fred (I think it was Fred) yawned, sitting down beside me.

I glanced at him, and my eyebrows furrowed. I don't think he was quite awake.

"Fred, your shirt is done up wrong."

He looked down, appeared very surprised that his buttons were all in the wrong holes, and started pulling them open to redo them, even forgetting to lie that he was George. I looked down at my tea and tried to keep the pain off my face. He might be a little kid who didn't know what puberty was, but I wasn't-not really. And dressing at the table was seriously not nice. Lucius was right at least in that the Weasleys didn't know much about manners.

"I'm thinking you should hurry up, you know," I said to my tea, "after all, it's quarter to…so you have exactly fifteen minutes do that shirt up properly, put your tie on, put your robe on, eat your breakfast, and get to…ah, Transfiguration."

"Damn, man, don't put it like that!" Fred groaned, fighting with his tie. It was so amazingly painful to watch that even I lost my cool.

"Oh, for God's sake," I muttered, taking over and quickly tying the tie round his neck, "There. And we're not speaking of this."

I percieved his gratitude from the look he gave me, which was the only way he had left to show it, since he had immediately busied himself with stuffing food into his mouth so fast that I was worried he was going to choke. Fortunately, he seemed to be quite experienced with this way of eating, and got everything done in ten minutes flat. Grabbing another stack of toast, he let out a huge belch and jumped to his feet.

"C'mon, Lacole, we'll have to sprint!"

I rolled my eyes, but still, hitched my bag and ran with him, getting to Transfiguration in the nick of time. It was actually rather fun, which surprised me. I'd not found anything much fun in a long time. Yes, actually…actually I didn't need to wait for Fred, or to help him. It probably wasn't even wise. So why had I done it? It had been a long time since I'd done anything on a whim too. I was rather…happy. Oh. Maybe the Prince really was right. Maybe Hogwarts really was the place to bring new hopes…supersticious as that sounds.

George was already waiting in Transfiguration, grinning from ear to ear in a way that made me extremely suspicious. He and Fred exchanged a high five, and Fred handed him the stack of toast that he had brought. Fred sat down beside George, and I sat down beside Fred. They started whispering in a way only they could understand-and once again I saw a great ability in the way George munched toast and whispered at high speeds all at the same time.

I really didn't pay much attention to that first lesson of Transfiguration, to be honest, though to my credit, my needle was very nice. Neither Fred nor George were so lucky-they got told off by the famously strict Professor McGonagall that very first lesson. They deserved it, too. From what I heard, George had been off making a pact with the school poltergiest, marking the beginning of a reign of terror that everyone who had been at Hogwarts while Fred and George were there would remember.

Lucius had been right about Hogwarts being too easy for me. Although I had read many, many books about magic, I'd always had this gut feeling that I wouldn't actually be able to do it. Maybe it was because I always felt that my previous world was the true world, in a sense, and this rather like a dream. I'd never quite changed my perspective of myself to a witch. But I was wrong-my father's genes apparently did count for something apparently, and every spell I attempted came to me easily. To be honest, after finding that everything worked so well, I was itching to try some harder spells…even some dark arts. But I didn't. It felt as if if I did that, I would be taking a step in that direction, when in truth I still wasn't sure which way I wanted to go.

Although I slept much better after that first day, I'd formed the habit of rising early, and would always take the stroll down to the lake each morning. More often than not, the Prince would drop by, and we'd exchange a few words. I found him to be a sharp, intelligent man, and he was definitely going up on my ladder of respect. I knew that it would be the easiest thing to find out his real name, but I didn't want to. It was the not knowing that was interesting, really.

Because of my timetable, it was on the last day of the first week that I learnt who the Prince was. I learnt it at the moment that Professor Severus Snape swept into the Potions classroom with a forbidding look on his face. I regretted learning it, because from then on he wouldn't be just the Prince anymore. And after another moment, I regretted it even more, because I remembered something else. I had heard the name Severus Snape before, long ago. I had once heard it from my father's mouth. Severus Snape was a death eater. I should have known that everything had a reason, that all good things had to end.

The Prince had always been nice. But Professor Snape was not pleasant, especially to Gryffindors. I had heard much of him from Fred and George, who knew a bit of everything because of their elder brothers. I surprised myself with how angry I was at learning who the Prince was. When Snape stood behind me, checking out my Potion, I ignored him dutifully. Nor did he try to speak to me.

"Good, Miss Riddle," he murmured, before swooping on his next unfortunate victim.

Left alone, my wand froze in my cauldron. I couldn't remember how many stirs I had given it. I actually felt tears prick at my eyes. Why…why did I care this much? So he was just one more person who had a reason for getting close to me. Shouldn't I have expected that? I should have long since learnt that everybody had a motive. Was it because he had given me hope? Oh God, why did it hurt? Did I…I think…I think I actually fancy the Half-Blood Prince.

My potion turned out to be an excellent example of gunk. Professor Snape said very little. Thankfully, that is. Feeling very confused, at the end of the class I quickly grabbed my bag and sprinted away, not quite sure where I was going. I was stopped, quite suddenly.

The three boys surrounding me were my boatmates from Day One. I wasn't quite sure what they wanted from me and I really wasn't in the mood to deal with it. Usually, I found these little games of wit interesting, but not today.

"Yes?" I said curtly when they insisted on blocking my way.

"You're a liar," Adrian Pucey declared with an expression of extreme satisfaction.

"What?" I said incredulously.

"I said you're a liar! You can't possibly be Lucius Malfoy's neice!"

"But I'm quite afraid I am," I muttered, trying to push past him. He shoved me, and I overbalanced. I threw out a hand against the wall to steady myself, and the other hand went straight for my wand.

Whatever Adrian Pucey thought he was doing, he had terrible timing. I was extremely pissed off now. He didn't seem much better off.

"You're a Gryffindor!" He spat at me, saying the word as if it was 'worthless piece of dung'.

Gryffindor. Right. I'll show you how fucking Gryffindor I am.

Still leaning against the wall, I slowly looked at him through a curtain of my dark hair. He was pointing his wand at me, but didn't seem to be able to think of a suitable curse. Tough luck, buddy. You had your chance.

I pushed myself off the wall and slashed my wand down, screaming, "Sectumsempra!"

Adrian Pucey was way too slow to move. The spell caught him on the right arm and he gave a blood-curding scream. Blood splattered everywhere. Looking terrified, Warrington and Flint fled. I stared at Pucey, crumpled on the ground in a pool of blood, and knew that I'd gone way too far. It was at that moment that I heard a voice behind me, and I whirled round with my wand raised, to see-

Snape. The Prince.

At the moment, he was ignoring my existence, his wand levelled at Pucey as he let out a low mutter that I couldn't quite catch, and to my disbelief, Pucey's wound was healing itself. And that was totally impossible, because the curse that I had just used was the one that my father had described to me in his library when I was four years old, and he had told me that it had no counter-curse.

Snape healed Pucey, and then he uttered a spell I had not expected-he memory wiped Pucey. Oh, I see. He wanted to stay on my good side. But it was hardly because of me.

"Lacole," he said to me, the first time that he had used my first name, "You should not have done that."

As if. I looked down and said nothing, my heart thudding erratically. And I could still feel the intense pleasure that came with dark magic running through my veins.

"What's the matter?" Snape asked.

Oh, you have the nerve to ask that? I couldn't help myself.

"I know you're a death eater, so you can stop fucking pretending! You're just getting close to me because of my blood!" I blurted out foolishly. I really had no idea whether it was Hogwarts or Gryffindor in particular that was making me foolish and hotheaded.

Snape looked at me.

"That's only partially true," he said, calm as always. "I was indeed, once a death eater. But I bear no ill will for your mother in particular. If we have become close, that is because we gain mutual pleasure from our aquaintance. It certainly is not because your mother is Bellatrix Lestrange."

There was something strange about that statement. What did my mother have to do with it? I'd all but forgotten about her. Oh. I realized suddenly how very stupid I had been.

On realizing that he had been a death eater, I had automatically assumed that he knew who my father was, forgetting completely how carefully my paraniod father had guarded the secret of my existence. All he knew was my mother's name, and that would give him no particular reason to want to befriend me. So that would mean that our 'aquaintance' as he put it, was entirely normal. I was getting as paranoid as my father. I was rather embarrassed, and felt quite disgusted with myself for losing my cool.

But, really…this was great. Yes. I'd been too rash.

Everything was going to turn out fine.

Also newly picked up. I want to focus on The Road Not Taken, though, so I don't think this will be updated again anytime soon. However, if I am given plot bunnies, that might change. Reviews much appreciated.