Thank you for reading! I don't own any of Harry Potter! Please let me know if you enjoy! Updates every Saturday!
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Mae pretended not to notice the pack of scurrying Slytherin boys led by Scorpius who rushed towards her, intent on grabbing Polly.
She had made it look like an accident, as if her favorite doll had simply slipped from her arms as she walked down the corridor.
Overcome with celebratory glee, Scorpius and his friends whispered to each other with arrogant smirks as he hurriedly hid Polly under his robes while they dashed back to their dormitory.
After they returned, ignorantly assuming they had remained undiscovered, Scorpius's three friends blinked as he removed the eerie doll from its concealment within his robes.
"...Now what are we supposed to do with it?" One boy asked.
"Wait for the Minister's daughter to cry like a child, of course." Scorpius smirked.
"...Then what?" Another boy questioned.
"...Then we'll destroy this silly thing….Then she'll really cry." Scorpius answered as he frowned at Polly.
"No we won't!" The third boy retorted.
Scorpius shot his disagreeing comrade a questioning glare.
"When Mae Riddle cries for her doll, I'm going to give it back to her." The third boy grinned, "Right after she agrees to share a Butterbeer with me in Hogsmeade."
"How pathetic are you to rely on extortion to find a date?" Scorpius snapped.
His rudeness disguised his fury that his friend had unknowingly stolen his idea.
"I don't think of it as extortion." The third boy shrugged, "...It's just a simple trade. The doll for an hour of her time, I think that's fair enough."
As the boys began to argue amongst themselves, Scorpius carelessly tossed Polly onto his bed.
No one looked over as the doll landed with a small thud, but the malice that glowed in her glass eyes as the sun set outside would have sent a shiver down any onlooker's spine.
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Mae remained separated from the rest of her house after Polly's abduction that day.
While she pretended to tend to her academic studies, she conducted a bit of her own research in the library before she finally reported to the Great Hall for dinner.
Scorpius and the other Slytherin boys blinked in disbelief as she sat at the table, perfectly calm while she ate her meal.
One of Scorpius's three accomplices leaned over and whispered in his ear, "Has she noticed by now? She has to have noticed, hasn't she?...Can I go ahead and ask her about the Butterbeer?"
Scorpius elbowed him sharply in the ribs before he called across the table to Mae, "...Where's your doll?"
Mae failed to look up from the old book she clutched in her free hand while she answered, "How should I know?"
Scorpius froze.
His eyes narrowed as suspicion coursed through his veins.
There was a disconcerting stillness in her voice that almost sounded like disguised gloating.
The sound elicited instinctive dread in all those who heard it.
"You are her Mummy, aren't you?" Scorpius mocked, "I thought all Mummies knew where their dollies were?"
His three friends snickered at the teasing while Mae took another bite of her food and swallowed.
"Polly often has her own adventures." She shrugged nonchalantly, "This castle is vast….I suppose she'll find me when she's finished."
As the other boys whispered their criticisms, Scorpius frowned.
Mae's posture was perfectly still and relaxed.
Her brow unfurrowed.
Her face calm.
When Scorpius left the Great Hall sometime later, he charged down the dungeon steps, rushed through Slytherin's common room, and went directly to his bed.
He needed to find that doll.
As a clammy sweat dampened his uniform and forced his hands to tremble, he began to understand the grievous error in judgement he had made.
Greed had led him to cruelty.
He had wanted Mae and seen the doll as a path to-
Scorpius's grey eyes widened as he stared down at his empty bed.
A silent gasp left his lips as he reached out and tousled the covers in a frantic search.
Where could it have gone?
He plainly remembered throwing it down on the bed and leaving it behind.
He grit his teeth as he remembered his house's ambitious traits.
His comrades wanted Mae for themselves.
They had taken the doll and hidden it!
They intended to overstep everything they had planned and reap the spoils of his idea for themselves!
Frantic and desperate, Scorpius began to rip every bed apart and look through every trunk in the room as he began his furious hunt for the ill-gotten object that had been stolen from him.
His companions eventually grew bored with their lazy wandering of the castle and drifted back to their dormitory to see if they could find where Scorpius had gone.
As they opened the door and walked into the room, their eyes widened.
Clothes had been strewn here and there.
The beds lay uncovered with their many sheets and blankets heaped on the floor.
School books and parchment littered the floor.
"Scorpius!" The first boy cried.
"What are you doing?" The second one asked.
"What have you done?" The third one snapped.
"You lot!" Scorpius snarled accusingly as he glanced over at his friends and clenched his jaw, "Accio doesn't work, Lumos showed me it's nowhere in the dark corners under our beds……Where have you taken it?!"
No one had taken Polly.
Polly had left Scorpius's bed of her own accord and chosen instead to prop herself against the wall behind the door, safely concealed from Scorpius's sight.
Although, she grew tired of hide and seek as she listened to the one infected by her madness berate his friends.
Hopeful to start a new game with the boys, the porcelain of Polly's small body began to twist and swell.
Taller and taller she grew, until her glass eyes popped and her painted lips cracked.
As she rose to tower over the unsuspecting Slytherin boys, behind Scorpius's three friends, his gray eyes bulged as he watched the porcelain crack to reveal the grotesque matter that made up what could have been called her skin.
"We haven't taken anything!" The first boy snapped.
"What's the matter with you?!" The second boy demanded.
"Where did you put the doll?!" The third one asked, "You want the date, don't you?! Duel me outside tomorrow after class and win it squarely, you coward!"
The last bits of porcelain that concealed Polly's nightmarish, featureless face splintered off its rotted surface as the many layers of teeth emerged from her wide mouth.
Scorpius had never seen or read of such a terror in all his short life.
Frozen with fear, unable to speak or scream a word of warning to his friends, he raised a trembling hand while his lips parted to let out a feeble squeak.
Confused, his three friends glanced behind themselves to see what had captivated his attention.
The wails of horror that left their throats were quickly drowned out by Polly's inhuman screech.
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If the shrieks hadn't caught the Slytherin prefects' attention, the heavy thuds that followed would have soon after, each one powerful enough to shake the castle walls.
Polly enjoyed playing with her new friends as she swiped her arms with hooked, porcelain talons on each finger, this way and that, this way and that, hoping to skewer at least one boy and have a good look at his insides.
Shouts of terror echoed through the room while spell after spell and curse after curse was hurled at Slytherin's unexpected nemesis.
The fifth year boys and their defending prefects proved useless against the rampaging fiend.
It wasn't until Professor Snape was finally informed of the horrifying event that Polly was finally subdued.
As the doll reverted back to its original form, without a single flaw in its porcelain or rip in its dress, Scorpius, the prefects, and the three fifth year boys glanced from the doll to their Professor with wide eyes.
"P-Professor Snape!" Scorpius sputtered, "T-That was a…..a dark curse! You threw a dark curse at that…..at that-"
"-Yes, Mr. Malfoy. You may very well learn one day that dark magic is most easily vanquished by a more superior form of said magic." Severus quipped. His dark eyes narrowed as he gazed at Scorpius and snapped, "Whether that lesson is imparted upon you here, at this school, or in the real world during an unsavory duel……that remains to be seen."
As Severus left the room in long strides with his black robes flowing behind him, he clutched Polly in his arms and left the fifth year boys whispering in his wake.
Severus had no time for gossip.
He needed to speak with Mae Riddle and her parents immediatley.
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Dumbledore was promptly informed of what had happened.
Mae was summoned to his office, where she faced questioning while her parents watched.
Severus found it curious that she burst into tears the instant her father arrived.
"Really, Dumbledore!" Tom scoffed as he comforted Mae by gently patting her back, "This is ridiculous! She's just a child!"
His sobbing daughter had folded herself on her knees to lay on his shoulder while she worked through her ragged sobs.
Harriet frowned as she nodded at the headmaster, "We apologize for all this trouble……I hardly think the punishment should be quite one sided…..If Mae's telling the truth, Dumbledore, and she was bullied-"
"Of course I'm telling the truth!" Mae shrieked at Harriet as she raised her head from Tom's shoulder.
Harriet blinked as everyone in the room looked on in shock while Mae verbally whipped her, "What kind of mother are you, anyway?! You've always been awful to me!"
Before Harriet could respond, Mae flopped onto Tom and sobbed twice as hard as she had previously while he frowned at the two professors.
"Surely, gentlemen, we can reach an accord." He nodded.
Harriet frowned at her daughter as she shifted in her seat.
She had been warned teenagers were often troublesome, but Mae's words had genuinely cut her heart.
Since her birth, Harriet had done everyhing in her power to make Mae feel loved and cared for.
Harriet bit her lip as she thought.
What else did her daughter want her to do?