Whoo, okay, so, it's been a very long time since my last update. I apologize tremendously, and while fully understanding it's not much of an excuse, I've been swamped in a number of things such as my job, summer reading and homework assignments, taking and obtaining SAT/ACT scores and sending them off, as well as researching college and career options for my future. Yay life.
On that note, I'll be going on vacation next week, which means I get some serious flight and airport hours on the trips to and from—and possibly a little in between, but don't get your hopes up since it's a cruise, hah—on both ends. So in short, updates will be more frequent. Review responses can be found at the bottom of this.
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Silveriat awoke the following Saturday to a familiar clickscratchscreech on her luminous window pane. Her eyes flew wide, pupils darting toward the noise, yet remained stock still in bed.
After all, she'd already been accepted into Hogwarts once, right?
Following a few cautious moments of silence, the girl slighted her head to the left, eyes peeking from behind suspicious lids at the sight they were drawn too. What greeted the pair of green glass spheres however, melted the tension from her body and allowed Silveriat to sit up comfortably as a sleepy smile grace rosy lips.
"Hullo there," she murmured quietly, as much to the handsome Snowy perched outside as to the dawn. With only a stumble or two, Silveriat made her way to the window and let the owl in, where it lingered anxiously for a few treats before depositing its letter and swooping away once more.
Silveriat ripped open the envelope without a second glance, pulling out a rather thin piece of parchment—wait no. What was this stuff? The blonde nearly did a double take, stopping to stare blankly at the odd material in front of her.
That's a little odd, she thought blearily while taking in the pristinely white substance. The material that the letter had been written on [It's from Tom! she thought, heart pounding rather harder than necessary at the thought] reminded her distinctly of the frosty, snow-covered nights that drenched London during the winter. The 'parchment' was smooth and pale, striped to the foot by much too straight horizontal lines and a single strip of vertical pink marking an edge cut evenly by three circular holes. She gaped for a moment longer, made a mental note to question Tom about it later, and promptly began to read.
Silveriat, the mudblood boy's handwriting was rather neat and concise. The blonde thought the penmanship seemed odd as well, but couldn't place a finger on what exactly struck her as different.
I've figured out this great bird of yours. He's interesting enough, but certainly not like my corn snake. Corn snake? Silveriat thought with confusion. She'd heard of Serpices and Tenting Snakes before, but never a corn snake. Do they eat corn, then? she wondered with a slight grin.
Mrs. Cole said I should thank you for the owl. She's the caretaker where I live, and seems to think he'll fly away and not come back when I send this. You'd better not be fooling me then, I hope.
Silveriat frowned at this, but not before noticing the undecipherable cross out immediately following 'caretaker'. The frown deepened.
I am well, and hope the same of you. Would you mind telling me anything about magic you know already?
Regards,
Tom
Silveriat's lip twitched upward. 'Anything' incidentally entailed a lot. More than enough for one letter's worth.
She couldn't help but grin wickedly.
The girl wasted no time at all in penning out her response, cat's eyes flashing with an earnestly excited glitter as she wrote.
Hullo Tom!
What, pray tell, is a corn snake? And how could they be special if even I've never heard of them? she wrote quickly, rushing to put her thoughts down as they came. Revelation hit her like the Hogwarts Express, and she smirked with satisfaction as she scribbled her next words.
They're rare, aren't they? What do they do that's interesting, then? If you like snakes, have you ever heard of the Northern Brown Serpice? Oh and, you're welcome for the owl, she continued, seemingly oblivious to the fact that Tom hadn't actually thanked her, Mother hopefully won't notice that I got more than one…
Magic. There's so much to it! I really couldn't put it into just one letter, so how about you keep writing and I'll do my best?
Silveriat
The girl very nearly threw her raven feather quill down, managing to splatter a few drips of ink everywhere as she nursed the cramp in her hand. Bright eyes roved across the letter, and she couldn't help but smile. Tom was... mysterious. For what threatened to be longer, Silveriat momentarily lost herself in recollection of their meeting at Diagon Alley.
Tom was a quick learner. By the end of the journey through the cobblestoned streets, the inky haired boy had adopted a professional's demeanor, glancing at the shops with an aloofness that impressed the girl as much as disappointed her. She'd wanted to show Tom everything, to lead the way through all the shops and watch his surprise grow with every twist.
Well, she was still leading him as they headed toward Ollivander's, but his calm and confident stride certainly didn't match the buoyant happiness she'd been expecting. Even as they approached the shop, rustically wooden among the brighter and cleaner stones of other buildings, Silveriat found herself hurrying along beside a sharply aware young man rather than the youthful and excited boy she'd been expecting. Tom pushed the door open for Silveriat like a gentleman and she felt a blush coloring pale cheeks despite herself. He's a muggle! the girl had reminded herself sharply.
Inside, Tom's neutral expression had only flickered marginally at the sheer aura of magical power surrounding them in the shop. It exuded from every corner shrouded in what was surely an unnatural shadow, and most powerfully yet from the barely visible outline of a door occupying the back wall.
"Well, well, well… Young Miss Raines! You look so very much like your mother, Katrina…" The wispy voice had taken Silveriat by surprise and she'd jumped with fright, turning to face its owner with a fearful expression on her face and a pounding heart. Tom, on the other hand, merely pivoted to view the man who'd spoken, though when Silveriat looked close enough she could detect a certain tightness about his eyes. "Now, who is the gentleman kind enough to accompany you?" Mr. Ollivander inquired softly, turning his silvered gaze upon Tom. The muggle boy stared right back up at the greying man, eyes cool and hard.
"My name is Tom, sir," he said, voice lowered respectfully as he answered the question for Silveriat. The blonde smiled awkwardly and fished for something to add, finally coming up with,
"We were just getting our school supplies together, Mr. Ollivander." She could have slapped herself silly. Tom smirked and threw the embarrassed girl a sideways glance before taking over once again.
"We were wondering, sir, if you might assist us in getting our wands?" Silveriat couldn't help but envy Tom's smooth demeanor, but the girl's cheeks still felt warm from her previous failure and decided to keep her mouth closed. Ollivander seemed to ignore this, but his attention had turned to Tom and the man studied the boy closely it was as if Merlin himself had risen from the dead to deem Tom his personal apprentice.
A spike of awe-mangled jealousy run up Silveriat's spine.
"Of course, of course… if you'd wouldn't mind stepping over here for me, please?" Silveriat stepped forward at once following the request, working hard to inject as much grace into the movement she possibly could. Tom walked nonchalantly behind her, eyes wandering intently around the shop before landing back on his companion. He smirked.
Ollivander summoned two measuring tapes with a flick of his own wand (a handsome and deeply red one) both of which began winding themselves about odd parts of the eleven-year-olds' bodies. Silveriat's began with the length of her forearm and progressed to steadily more minute lengths such as the space between two fold of her ear. A fleeting smile crossed Ollivander's face as he caught her scrunching both nose and brow.
"Yes, all helpful measurements, believe it or not, Miss Raines. Which is your wand arm now, if you don't mind letting me know?"
"My right, sir," she responded immediately, shying up as she noticed Tom's intent gaze settling on her curiously.
"What about you, Mr. ...?" Ollivander asked, nodding to Silveriat once before turning to Tom.
"Riddle," he provided shortly. "My right as well, sir," he added on carefully, grey eyes flashing to Silveriat and back like lightning as he spoke.
"Excellent, excellent… If you will excuse me for a moment…" With that, the aging man swept away into the back, disappearing among the shelves and shelves of narrow boxes pervading most of the floor space in the shop.
Following the span of tense silence drawn between her and Tom, Silveriat had been subjected to much, in her opinion, foolish wand waving until the 'right' wand chose her as its master. The feeling had left her stunned- as soon as the dark wood of the instrument has touched her hand, an indescribable feeling of warmth and power had filled her veins to the brim. With an indicative flick, the young girl had sent a shower of brilliant silver sparks shattering across the gloom. Ollivander had beamed with a knowing look of approval, and Silveriat had been quite shocked to discover the grin plastered across her face after the event.
The girl found herself grinning, and abandoned the letter on her desk in favor of finding the slick black box in her cauldron and pulling the beautiful dark wood out to admire. She'd been awarded with a gorgeous ebony wand, cored stringently to a majestic phoenix feather. The feather, Ollivander had noted, had been shed from a very young bird—although whatever that was supposed to mean Silveriat had no inkling. The girl licked the front of her teeth with her tongue thoughtfully. She had been 'considered', as Ollivander has put it, by a black walnut wand, but the core of dragon heart had simply not quite matched up with her.
Tom's wand, on the other hand, had found him quickly—just in a matter of two or three trials with the failed 'suitors'. A ghostly white thing, his wand had been comprised of Yew and, to her surprise, phoenix feather as well. She smirked. They were opposites in every sense of the word, yet sharing something internally. With a longing sigh, Silveriat set her wand down and waltzed back to the mahogany desk to send off the letter. Start of term just could not come soon enough for her.
Frustration—Thank you! I appreciate the support, and do actually intend to keep this up…No matter how long it takes! Finishing a story is one of the harder things for me personally. I'm great with starts, but I simply lose muse about two chapters in. I've done better with this than most others, and it's on the right track to keep going!
xXCookieCrumbsXx—Thanks a whole lot! I do maybe kindasorta pride myself with the clever chapter names for now. ;)
xXbutterflykissesXx—Haha, cute for now, but just wait til' she gets a little older! Thanks for the compliment on character development—I'm trying to make her seem as 'real' as possible without being boring. Believable, you know?
Elephante—Thank you! Improvement is what we're all aiming for, huh? :] Glad you liked it.
Frustration—Thanks for reviewing again, and well, you're kinda close, but not completely correct. 'Bottle' is actually a term used in British slang to mean mettle or courage. Basically, in American terms, you might see it to mean 'guts'… "That girl's got some guts!" :P Glad you liked the detail too, I worry a little bit about including too much sometimes.
ebonbon—YES! I was so proud of that, I showed it to my boyfriend and pretty much his entire family too. xD
ebonbon—Thanks! I think I'm starting to base Silveriat's emotions for Tom a little off someone I myself used to know at one point… You'll see more development on that later on as well.
bloopitybloop—Best review ever. :D Hehe.
xXblapXx— 3 Okay!
MyLordKovv—Thanks for the offer! I might take you up on that. I'll be sure to put more action in it as well. This chapter is… more interesting in my opinion than the last ones, but I had to cut it short because what needs to happen next would make it too long. Stay patient for me please!
BlandImagination—Can I hear a bell for the winner? Congrats. Way to uh, do your research. ;)
Bolin—Pabuuuuuu 333 THANK YOU FOR AMAZING COMPLIMENT.
Azura Soul Reaver—Thank you! Hopefully you'll continue to enjoy it as the plot progresses! :]
Alice2Epic—You got it! Actually, it was this review that prompted me to hurry up and finish this three quarters of the way complete chapter and post it! :P