Tom Riddle.
Tom Riddle.
Tom Riddle.
Tom Riddle.
The name couldn't stop echoing around the chambers of her mind.
It induced a sensation of vertigo, a lurching feeling in the pit of her stomach; it reverberated around her head and resounded through her eardrums, drawing up memories of a lightning-scarred boy clutching his forehead in pain, of silently-spoken horror stories: serpentine features, a skull-like face, and long, spindly fingers, wielders of a pale wand seen as the last object ever by too many.
She'd never felt fear like this before—not when she'd been pursued by Death Eaters through the dark corridors of the Ministry; not when she'd shattered her Time-Turner, her only prized possession, her lifeline; not when she'd found out that she'd somehow slipped through the fabrics of time and ended up over sixty years into the past; not when two Ministry officials had showed up at her house when she'd been two, and she'd heard her mom scream like she'd never done before.
It was just that: fear, paralyzing fear, fear that seemed almost fake with how powerful it felt. There was no other emotion; fear encompassed Eve, twisting and coiling around her like a snake, squeezing tight until her whole body felt suffocated by its pressure. She found that she suddenly couldn't breathe. The pulsing of her heart was the only thing she could hear; distantly, she made out voices, but she couldn't register any of it. Her ears felt like they'd been stuffed with wax.
Tom Riddle strode forward, coming to a stop by her chair. The scene seemed to play out in slow motion. He looked down at her, mouth opening to form inaudible words, before turning towards Dippet again. He stood there, right next to her, hand coming to rest casually against the back of her chair.
Eve stayed frozen, spine straight. From her peripheral vision, she could see the fabric of his robes, the slight movement of his body as he breathed. She felt like she'd been whisked back into a memory. This didn't feel real. It didn't feel real that she could just reach over, and her fingertips would brush against his robes, would be able to touch his hands, would be able to feel warm skin underneath her own.
She slightly tilted her head upwards. She saw a sharp, aristocratic nose sloped high, but it disappeared with a blink: snake-like nostrils took its place, flat slits against chalk-white skin, which was stretched tightly over a skeletal face. Brown—the kind of brown that was closer to black than itself—flickered, overcome by blood red, which rimmed thin slits—cat-like pupils, glinting unnaturally. The wavy black locks had vanished—instead, they'd transformed into a bald head, a map of purplish veins crawling all over it.
Eve blinked again, and her overactive imagination receded, revealing a tall, handsome Head Boy once more.
She'd just escaped from a time where Voldemort's influence pervaded society to another that, in essence, was exactly the same. She hadn't associated 1944 with him, would never have until a reference to his name inevitably popped up. She'd even talked to him—he'd been the attractive boy she'd bumped into who'd stuck in her mind minutes afterwards, she remembered, and suddenly she felt sick, because how could she have not seen it?
Voldemort—she'd never thought of him as a person in her mind. He was a concept, a thing, a manufactured individual—never a living, breathing human. No human could have consciously done what he'd done to the magical community. She'd assumed an objective, remote view of him—had never thought about him as a child, as a teenager, as someone who'd spent years growing and developing into the thing he'd eventually become.
After his experience in the Chamber of Secrets and in Pensieve memories, Harry had talked about teenage Voldemort; he'd gone into extensive details about his physical appearance, but Eve hadn't ever really registered his words into imagery. It had always been just talk to her, just meaningless adjectives that conjured up misty images in her mind—hazy, clouded conceptions of floating black waves and disjointed dark eyes, like dreams, like conjurations of absurd thoughts and illogical visions—like she was really only dreaming it all up, just as how she sometimes dreamed about flying underwear and giraffes with apples for eyes and quills for legs.
Now, right before her eyes, those black waves and dark eyes were fleshed out into reality, characteristics of an alive, breathing student—a seventeen-year-old respiring adolescent who wore the same robes as her and wore the same tie that she'd soon be donning and attended classes in the same large, stone castle that she'd be soon attending classes in. It felt like she'd fallen into an alternate universe—she almost couldn't comprehend it, couldn't fuse these two spheres of identity together into one.
"—iss Laurence? Miss Laurence?" Dippet's voice invaded Eve's eardrums.
She jolted, coming out of her momentary abstraction, realizing that she hadn't spoken a single word since the Head Boy had entered into the office. "Yes?" She shallowed her breath, feeling very conscious of the body standing next to her. She slid her hands under her thighs, flattening them and hiding their shakiness from view.
Dippet eyed her strangely from across the table. "I was saying that you will find a trunk up in your dormitory, which will include your uniform, schoolbooks—used, mind you—derived from old student donations, toiletries and other miscellaneous necessities, and a bag of monetary aid, courtesy of the Hogwarts student fund." He stopped, as if waiting for Eve to express her gratitude, but then coughed into his fist, continuing when she only stared at him wordlessly. "You have a wand, I presume?"
A monotonous nod. She didn't want to speak, didn't want any more of her voice to echo through the room and make everything real.
"Then that will be all. Any questions regarding the castle or classes can be asked to any one of our prefects or Heads." Dippet stood up, and Eve thought she heard joints cracking. He addressed the two students in front of him: "You both are free to leave now. If you require anything else, do not hesitate to ask."
Eve nodded again, forcing herself to whisper a small thanks under her breath as she stood along with him. Her knees shook, and she kept her stare fixed on a small spot on the ground.
"Miss Laurence." Dumbledore, from where he stood by Dippet's desk, smiled at Eve when she looked up at his sudden words. "A word about your choice to take N.E.W.T. Transfiguration, if I may." Without waiting for a reply, he turned, gliding back towards the corner of the room, a safe distance away from Dippet and Voldemort's—Riddle's—earshot.
Eve, recognizing the silent request to talk privately, jerkily shuffled out from between her chair and Dippet's guess, sparing no glance towards either the Headmaster or Riddle as she quickly made her way over. She made sure to keep a wide berth from Riddle as she passed him, getting chills as she did so. From behind her, she heard Dippet begin to make small talk: "So, Tom! I have not caught up with you in quite a while! How are your classes?"
"Miss Laurence," Dumbledore lowered his voice once she'd reached him. If he noticed her strange behavior, he didn't say anything. "Excuse my last-minute words, but I would like to ask for you to refrain from talking about your situation with me unless absolutely necessary." He looked down at her seriously. "I myself will only discuss anything related to it with you when I have updates regarding research. I think it is in the best interest for your safety to limit our talk about your situation to as little as possible."
"Y-yes—I understand, sir."
He looked over her head, seeming as though he had something more to say, before he inhaled slightly and smiled down at her, placing a hand on her shoulder comfortingly. "Go on now. I will see you tomorrow in class."
She didn't want to leave. She didn't want to leave with Riddle, to be in close proximity with that monster. She almost found herself spilling everything to Dumbledore right there and then: about Death Eaters, about Voldemort, about the acts that the boy behind her would one day commit to the wizarding world.
Still, she found herself saying monotonously, "You too, sir. Thank you," and turning around.
Instantly, her eyes met dark ones, their piercing quality visible even from feet away, and she froze. Riddle had his stare fixed upon her and Dumbledore with an indiscernible expression on his face, as if he'd been observing their conversation from afar. Upon being caught, however, he smoothly masked it with a charming smile, placing his hands demurely behind his back as he turned back to Dippet.
Eve felt the all-consuming fear still within her ignite even more, spreading across her limbs like wildfire.
"Come, Miss Laurence!" Dippet gestured for her with a wave of his hand. "What perfect timing—dinner is only a while away! Tom here will escort you to the Great Hall."
No, she didn't want Tom to escort her to the Great Hall. She wanted nothing more than to just squeeze her eyes shut, cover her ears with her hands, and shut the world out. That way, maybe she'd be able to escape this nightmare of a dream and wake up—preferably back in her time and in the Room of Requirement, upon a great velvety couch and surrounded by Gryffindor emblems.
Unfortunately, that wasn't possible. She swallowed, walking forward silently until she was only a few steps away from Riddle, though she kept a good distance between them.
"Ready?" he asked, his voice low and even. It made phantom ants crawl up her spine.
She nodded—she was doing a lot of that today—and stared down at the floor, letting her hair fall around her face to avoid eye contact with him. His dress shoes looked freshly-polished, shiny and clean from where they peeked out below his robes.
With two nods of farewell at Dippet and Dumbledore, Riddle strode forward, and she was forced to follow, terror further seeping into her bones with every step she took. As they passed the glass cabinets against the walls in front of the office, she glanced over at them. The reflection of a pale, hunched girl trailing behind a tall, handsome figure clad in black stared back at her. She looked away.
Riddle opened the door of the office before pausing, stepping back and holding it open for her to walk through first, flashing down at her another charismatic smile. "After you."
What a joke, she thought acidly, despite the increase of terror that flooded her system with the thought of stepping in front of Riddle and letting him behind her while she was unarmed. She needed security—her fingers itched to reach for her wand, which was inside of her robes.
She stepped past him quickly, eyes fixed straight ahead, refusing the possibility of even thanking him, no matter how much her ingrained moral urge of politeness fought against it. The close proximity she had to him as she walked past his chest made her want to sprint to the furthest corner of the castle, as far away from him as possible.
She heard from behind her the shuffling of his robes as he stepped through the threshold after her, and then there was the slam of the office door.
They were at the top of the circular stone staircase right outside of the Headmaster's office, the dimness of the hollowed room creating an ominous feel in the air. A singular window was present on the very top of the wall, nearly touching the ceiling, and it did nothing in terms of providing any sort of light.
The stairway was empty except for the two of them. Eve stood with her back facing Riddle for a moment, feeling panic rise in her throat. Her heartbeat thudded loudly in her ears, and she tried to block out the realization that she was trapped inside of a dark, enclosed space with Voldemort.
Dumbledore's just on the other side of the door, she reminded herself, and it was calming enough for her to summon back some of her Gryffindor bravery and turn around. She had to act, had to pretend; the worst thing she could subject herself to right now would be Voldemort feeling suspicious of her.
He was eyeing her with interest—it was well-concealed, but she knew what to look for. No doubt he put on a polite, charming exterior to portray to all his professors and classmates; it was no surprise Dippet seemed to love him.
In reality, however, she knew who he was, what he was, what he was capable of—and, although he had no idea of it, he wasn't fooling her at all.
"You're a new seventh-year," Riddle said as they made their way down the stairs. A statement, not a question.
Eve put her hand onto the rail next to her, steadying herself both physically and mentally. "Yes."
The slightest bit of something slid onto his face when she didn't elaborate like he'd clearly expected her to, though he kept his polite smile pasted on his face. "How come you enrolled into Hogwarts so late? It's not unheard of, but it's rare."
Here came the inevitable. "I used to be homeschooled, but . . . something unfortunate happened, and here I am." She looked away, steeling herself for a questioning session that would no doubt follow.
And it did. "Something unfortunate?" he prompted.
"Yeah. . . . My parents were murdered."
His eyes widened just the perfect amount to seem shocked, and waves of false sympathy radiated through his voice when he said, "I'm so sorry—I can't even imagine how that must feel. How could that have happened?"
As if—he'd literally committed patricide himself. After one of his sessions with Dumbledore, Harry had told Ron, Hermione, and Eve that Riddle had killed his own father in cold blood when he was sixteen.
This was a murderer in front of her, a seventeen-year-old killer.
He was persistent, she gave him that. And manipulative. She'd only been in his presence by herself for a minute, but she could recognize how he phrased his interrogation questions to seem as though they were innocent inquiries from a sympathetic outsider. Had she not possessed prior knowledge of his identity, she knew she'd have completely fallen for it (well, she already had earlier in the day. . . .).
Eve didn't appreciate the insincereness of his words, either—after all, her father really had been murdered. She had the sudden urge to just yell at him, to scream that the happenings of her life were none of his business, but there was no way in the world that was happening without her putting her own safety at risk. This was dangerous territory—she couldn't let on that she abhorred him and what he would become or knew any more about his person than he was providing to her. She needed to be just another girl, charmed by the polite and handsome Head Boy.
She rubbed at the sleeve of her robes, trying to appear saddened. "They . . . well, it was Grindelwald." She took a deep breath, purposely giving it a shaky quality, which really wasn't too hard to do in her current predicament. "We were vacationing in France over the summer, and his army ransacked the village we were staying in. They killed my mum and dad." She blinked quickly, looking back up at Riddle. "They used to homeschool me, but they're dead now."
"I'm sorry," he repeated, a commiserating expression on his face as he pressed his lips together guiltily. "I shouldn't have asked."
Eve only swallowed in reply, trying to mimic how someone on the brink of tears would try to swallow the lump in their throat.
They reached the bottom of the staircase, and Eve heard the distant rumbling of stone as the gargoyle statue outside rotated. The doorway out was slowly revealed, and Riddle once again gestured for her to exit first.
This time she thanked him quietly to keep up appearances, crossing through the doorway and ducking under the bronze wings of the large gargoyle statue outside. She placed her hand against its carved body as she passed by it, wishing it would come to life at this very moment. At least she wouldn't be alone with Riddle then.
Further beyond the gargoyle statue was the Gargoyle Corridor, which was—just her luck—completely empty. The large paned windows lining the corridor to the left exhibited a clear view of a darkening sky. Eve shivered when she thought of the last time she'd peeked through one of them, though she wasn't sure if she'd rather be stuck with a dementor or with Riddle right now.
She stared out the emptiness in front of her, heart pounding fast. Even if dinner was only a few minutes away, that meant a few minutes extra of being in close proximity to Riddle by herself. The corridor wasn't a very long one, but the end at the opposite side of it suddenly seemed to be an eternity away.
Without waiting for Riddle, she started forward silently, sticking by the edge of the corridor as she tried to inconspicuously stay away from him for as long as possible.
Black flooded her peripheral vision not even five seconds later, and she turned to see Riddle stepping up next to her, hands smoothing down the front of his black robes as his long legs easily caught up with her pace.
For who he really was (a monster), he really was attractive. No—that was an understatement. He was striking, like a painting Eve would never get bored of looking at. She surreptitiously observed his side profile from the corner of her eye. He looked like he'd jumped straight out of a romance novel. There was something about the distinction of his appearance—the dark hair, eyes, and attire against the pale skin. If the contrast were any more extreme, he could pass as a vampire. His height didn't hurt, either—he was easily six feet tall. Even with his robes on, she could see that he had a lean body type, right in the preferable middle between too lanky and too muscular.
She wondered if the single curl that fell loosely against his forehead was calculated. Knowing who he was, who he'd be, she didn't put it past him. He'd probably consulted some psychology textbook on how to make himself look flawed and approachable, yet still perfect—and it no doubt worked in his favor to craft a likable alter ego to showcase publicly.
Eve looked away, feeling disgusted with herself. How could she think of him as attractive? Even if it was based on objective observation, she still couldn't help but resent her own thoughts on the topic. This was Voldemort—young Voldemort, but Voldemort nonetheless—and here she was, walking next to him in a deserted corridor and thinking about how hot he was. She felt shame bubble up inside of her as a plethora of names bombarded the forefront of her mind: Harry. . . . Ginny. . . . Cedric. . . . Mr. Weasley. . . . Tom Riddle, Sr. . . . Lily and James Potter. . . . Moaning Myrtle. . . .
"Are you close with Professor Dumbledore?"
The abrupt question from Riddle snapped her out of her stupor. He was looking at her strangely, the shade of his eyes seeming darker than before.
"No." Eve tried to hide the unevenness of her voice. "Why do you ask?"
"I noticed you two talking quite secretively in Professor Dippet's office, and you left Professor Dumbledore's office earlier today, right before I bumped into you." Despite the casual tone of his voice, his eyes glinted unnaturally. He maintained eye contact with her. "I was just wondering how you'd become so close to him on only your first day here. Close enough to warrant a personal meeting with him."
Oh no. Eve knew from Harry that teenage Voldemort had been an extremely intelligent student and person as a whole, but she hadn't expected to come face-to-face with that cleverness so soon. Eve thought of herself to be relatively smart rationale-wise, and even she hadn't pieced together the fact that her and Riddle's corridor encounter earlier would result in Riddle figuring out that she'd been the "new development," as Dumbledore had so eloquently put it. She'd literally been the only one leaving that corridor when Riddle had entered! Eve felt a drop in her self-measured intellect.
His alert sharp-eyedness wasn't good. She had no idea how to respond to his question—she hadn't expected him to know about her personal meeting with Dumbledore at all.
"Um—no, we're not close." She swallowed, her heart beating fast. "Like you heard, he pulled me aside to talk about my decision to take N.E.W.T. Transfiguration—Transfiguration isn't my best subject, so he wanted to make sure I was making the right choice.
"As for personally meeting with him today," she continued, her brain overheating as it cycled through every single possible lie she could spit out. "It was . . . to help me get settled in. I, um—my situation is new to me. My parents' deaths are still fresh—they happened only a few days ago—I guess the French media outlets have been repressed by the government or something, because I haven't seen a single bit of coverage on it—so being put into Hogwarts—this new environment—so quick kind of overwhelmed me, and . . . I broke down crying." She inwardly cringed at the choppy explanation. Hopefully it sounded realistic to Riddle, because she was just babbling at this point. "It, uh—it took Dumbledore a whole hour to calm me down, but he was really nice and understanding about it."
Did that count as a white lie? Half of it was technically true—just in a different context.
Eve then gestured at her eyes and looked at Riddle, trying not to feel the irony of her next words: "I'm sure you noticed my red eyes when you bumped into me leaving his office." She rubbed at her neck in faux awkwardness. "God, that's embarrassing—I hope they didn't look too puffy."
Okay, her eyes hadn't even been red (anymore) when she'd left Dumbledore's office, but between gaslighting Riddle and blowing her own cover, she'd rather take the first option.
He was watching her with an indistinguishable look on his face, but an expression of pity slid on to replace it flawlessly when he met her eyes. He tilted his head towards the ground as he murmured, "I'm so sorry about your parents—that really is terrible. I didn't know it had happened so recently–forgive my insensitivity. I didn't mean to ask such a tactless question."
Eve wanted to punch him—now he was acting like the victim, like Eve's words had somehow villainised him. Was he expecting her to apologize to him now? To say something like no no no I didn't imply that at all! I'm so sorry, Tom—don't feel bad!
Well, that wasn't happening. Outwardly, she shook her head. "It's alright, Riddle. I understand."
He tilted his head up almost hesitantly, dark brows still furrowed in a look of concern and regret. "Are you sure?"
Eve grit her teeth and forced her what she hoped was a soft smile onto her face. "I'm sure, Riddle. Thank you for caring."
He straightened, letting out an almost imperceptible exhale, like he was letting out a breath of relief because he really did feel glad that his words hadn't hurt her.
God, he was good.
He then glanced over at her, giving her that classic charming smile, the singular curl that fell against his forehead slanting a bit from the angle that his head tilted at. "Call me Tom."
Tom.
"Okay. Tom."
The name tasted sour in her mouth—and suddenly the bitterness had spread throughout her entire body, setting it aflame with revulsion. A wave of nausea overtook her, churning in her stomach, and bile rose in her throat, bubbling.
They'd reached the end of the Gargoyle Corridor and were turning the corner, where a girl's bathroom just happened to be conveniently located.
Eve smiled up at Riddle. "Excuse me."
Then, without waiting for a reply, she ducked inside, rushing to the first stall within reach and throwing the door open, not even bothering to lock it properly before she doubled over the toilet inside and threw up.
—
The double doors of the Great Hall were propped open when they arrived, and students were just starting to trickle in.
If Muggles knew of the Great Hall's existence, Eve thought as she stared up into it from the entranceway, they'd place it at the very top of their Seven Wonders of the World list.
Four long tables extended from one end of the hall to the other, spaced evenly to fit symmetrically. Each was laid with shimmering golden plates and goblets. There was one flagged central pathway down the hall—two House tables flanking each side of it—that led to a raised platform at the other end of the hall: the professors' table. Royal blue drapes hung behind the table to create a backdrop, and large, golden-framed portraits adorned the walls, extending all throughout the hall. Thousands and thousands of candles floated in midair above, flickering slightly and illuminating the entire space with a golden glow.
Most splendid of all—there was no ceiling. At least, there looked to be none—instead of a solid roof above the hall, there was a black sky, fading further and further into the heavens. Against the walls, the archways, which curved inwards on either side to no doubt support the actual ceiling, looked to be disappearing into the blackness above, its architecture fading away into the atmosphere. The sky glittered with stars, which were dotted all over the inky canvas, and it felt as though Eve could just reach up, and she'd be swirled up and transported into a different world.
She didn't even have to fake her reaction to the Great Hall for Riddle to see. Something about how the presence of magic here felt so omnipresent, so magnificent, made her speechless every time she stepped foot into the hall, and it wasn't any exception now.
"The Slytherin table is the one to the left," spoke Riddle from where he stood by her side, pointing towards the middle-left table, "between the Hufflepuff and Gryffindor tables." He strode towards it, and Eve hesitated for a moment before following.
Her feet felt like they were sticking against the ground with every step she took, like even the floor didn't want her to make it to the table. Slytherin. Sitting at the Slytherin table would basically cement her officially as a Slytherin—a Slytherin! She wanted to laugh; it still hadn't sunk in yet.
The disappointed feeling didn't as much stem from her just not wanting to be in Slytherin as it did from her not being Sorted in Gryffindor. Slytherin was a fine house; Eve knew that—despite the unpleasantness of a few Slytherins (she thought of a particularly pointy blonde), she'd also met some very kind and friendly ones in her time, and she thought the stigma of the House producing only bad witches and wizards was ridiculous.
She'd just expected to be Sorted into Gryffindor, and her disappointment arose from the fact that that hadn't happened. Gryffindor was her home—had been her home for the past six years. It felt like she'd been misplaced, which only added to the overall feeling of foreignness from her entire predicament. She was already alone in a different time and assuming a different identity than her actual own. A switch from Gryffindor to Slytherin signaled yet another change, one that felt more significant to her than how the words merely sounded phonetically.
Riddle had stopped by the edge of the Slytherin table, far from the professors' table, and was waiting for Eve with a polite look on his handsome face. He gestured towards the bench in front of him. "This is where I sit for meals—you're free to join me if you'd like."
Eve knew that it wasn't an invitation. Dinner was a whole hour of time that he could utilize to his advantage and spend "getting to know her". She suspected that even if she refused outright, he'd still somehow find a way to bind her close to him until he felt satisfied with what he knew about her, the 'mysterious new seventh-year Slytherin.'
There was no escape.
Eve smiled at Riddle. "I'd love to, thank you." She shuffled her feet as she hovered by the table, trying to figure out where she was going to sit.
There was no way she was sitting on either side of him—that was for sure. Just thinking about being in such proximity to Riddle while they were eating made any appetite of hers immediately vanish. Choosing a spot not right next to his would just be awkward, so. . . .
She rounded around the edge of the table, coming up on the opposite side of Riddle. "I'll sit here." Then, she plopped down on the bench, directly opposite of him.
"Perfect," he replied smoothly, taking a seat himself. He adjusted his robes, lacing his hands together and placing them on the table in front of him. He then gave Eve an overly-concerned look, tilting his head slightly. "Are you feeling alright now?"
He'd waited for her when she'd been in the bathroom, throwing up. Eve had lied afterwards (naturally), blaming her upset stomach on their earlier talk of her parents' misfortunes.
"I'm so sorry," she'd blubbered, unintentional tears leaking out from the corner of her eyes. Throwing up had always made her eyes produce quite a few tears from the mere act of it. "It was just—just the talk of my parents' m-murders, it made me feel suddenly n-nauseous."
She didn't know if he bought it or not, but he sure acted like he did, having kept pausing every few seconds after to ask her if she was okay.
"Yeah, I'm fine now." She reassured him, clenching her teeth. Knowing that this was all an act he put up made it even more infuriating.
He only smiled in relief, regarding her silently from across the table. It was almost unnerving—was this his way of seducing girls? Ask them questions about themselves, act caring, and flash them charming smiles? It probably worked most of the time, too—the only reason Eve didn't fall for it was because she knew of his future identity of bloody Voldemort. Skeletal features and red eyes flashed across her mind, and she shivered.
She was already beginning to regret choosing a seat opposite of him. At least sitting next to him ensured that she'd only be able to see his face from her peripheral vision when she ate. Here, they both had a full view of each other, which meant that he'd be in front of her whenever she ate. She'd be eating with Voldemort as a backdrop.
More and more students were entering the Great Hall now, and the buzz of conversation around them was becoming louder. Gryffindor's table was already halfway full, and Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff weren't far behind. A large group of young Slytherins had taken a seat further down the table from Eve. She craned her head towards the entrance, trying to spot a specific Ravenclaw prefect.
"Who's this?"
A tall, brown-haired boy with thick brows and a chiseled face was approaching the table, the Slytherin patch on his robes flashing as he came closer. Behind him were three other boys, all sporting green-and-silver House patches and eyeing Eve with mixed expressions in varying degrees of interest and scrutiny.
The brown-haired boy slid into the spot next to Eve on the bench, his arm coming to rest casually on the table as he propped his head on his hand, turning sideways to face her. She could make out each of his individual eyelashes from his proximity to her.
"Who're you?" His other hand came up to run through his hair. "I've never seen you before."
"Uh—"
"Hey, you have no House patch. You new? I can show you around if—"
"Avery, stop bothering her," came a new voice. The speaker, a blonde, blue-eyed boy, took a seat on the other side of the brown-haired one—Avery.
"Just innocent talk." Avery dropped his hand and sighed dramatically, turning around to address the blonde. "You're no fun, Rosier."
During their exchange, another boy—one with long, wavy brown hair that curled around his neck—had sat down silently across from Eve, right next to Riddle. He raised the strap of his leather book bag over his head to take it off, and the name Adrian Mulciber flashed in the air, the letters etched onto the side of the strap.
On Riddle's other side, the fourth and last boy sat down at the table, greeting Riddle and ignoring everyone else. His hair wasn't dark enough to rival Riddle's midnight-black waves, but his eyes were inky enough to match. The sharpness of his jawline was pronounced when he tilted his head to look at Riddle, who'd just addressed him.
"Lestrange. Was Professor Slughorn in his office?"
Lestrange opened his mouth to reply eagerly, but Eve didn't hear what he said. The blood had drained from her cheeks, and she absently reached up to touch her face, sure that it was looking paler than Riddle's skin at the moment.
Avery? Rosier? Mulciber? Lestrange? Her head was spinning all of a sudden, the familiar surnames revolving around her brain.
"Harry, you said there were four teenage boys with Riddle and Slughorn in the memory?"
"Yeah, four—one was called Avery; another was a Lestrange. I remember that Slughorn called them out for late Potions essays, I think. . . ."
"Wow. . . . So Voldemort really had already started recruiting Death Eaters in school."
"Yeah. . . . I reckon they really worshiped him or something. The second memory that Dumbledore showed me—the one where Voldemort comes back to Hogwarts for the Defense professor position—in it, memory-Dumbledore mentioned that he knew of a few people loyally traveling with Voldemort. I think the names were Nott and Rosier? Oh—there was Dolohov too. And Mulciber. Definitely Death Eaters."
Avery, Rosier, Mulciber, and Lestrange.
She was surrounded by Voldemort's first Death Eaters.
The realization made her goosebumps erupt across her skin. She sat stiffly, her heart beating rapidly as she stared down at the table in front of her. It was one thing to be in close proximity to Voldemort (and the shock of that phenomenon was just starting to subside a bit), but to be encircled by him and his followers? She felt like prey, confined overhead by a convocation of eagles.
She observed them, eyes darting around discreetly. What a crowd. Every single one of them was attractive—and Eve didn't just throw that word around. Riddle had collected them like stones—he'd surrounded himself with shiny, polished rocks. There he sat in the center, the collector, the figurative glow of his followers contributing to the overall blinding one of his own.
"So, you didn't answer me. Who're you?"
Eve's head shot up at Avery's words. His body was tilted towards her, his eyes focused on her face as he grinned at her.
He didn't look like a future Death Eater.
"Oh—I-I'm Eve. Eve Laurence. Yeah, I'm new."
"A seventh-year?" he prompted and, when she nodded, he laughed loudly. "Wow, I haven't seen that in a while." He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "Did Riddle here get called to teach you the ropes? I bet ol' Dippet dumped all the responsibilities onto his shoulders again."
Lestrange, who'd been in mid-sentence with Riddle, paused and turned around, sneering at Avery. "You talk too much, Avery."
Avery ignored him, electing instead to smile flirtily at Eve, who was shocked at the casual way he'd addressed Riddle. Weren't they all supposed to bow down at his feet? "Anyways, pleasure. I'm Edmund Avery, but you can just call me Avery—everyone does." He leaned backwards, exposing Rosier sitting on his other side. "This is Harper Rosier." Surprisingly, Rosier raised his hand and gave Eve a friendly smile. "That's Adrian Mulciber—" Mulciber just looked up at her, giving her the barest of nods "—and the wet blanket talking to Riddle is Dorian Lestrange."
"Quit your inane chatter," Lestrange barked, swiveling his head again to glare at Avery, who only laughed.
He turned back to Eve, tilting his head. "What's with the gray in your hair?" he asked, eyeing the strands. His hand came up to twirl the gray hair on the right side of her face. "I like it."
From the corner of her eye, Eve saw Lestrange and Riddle halt their conversation, pausing to hear her answer. Rosier leaned over Avery's shoulder, and even Mulciber raised his head. She gulped, mind blank of a lie to say. It seemed like her gray hair was going to be more of an interesting aspect of her than she'd wished.
Luckily, she was temporarily saved from answering by the sudden arrival of another person.
"Thank MERLIN for a new girl!" The newcomer planted herself to Eve's right, swiping dark blonde hair out of her face as she sighed loudly in relief, slamming her hands down onto the table. "Carina is driving me up the fucking wall! I swear to Merlin, that bitch—"
"Kate Sinclair, do not finish that sentence!"
Another blonde girl was marching up towards the table, her hands clenched in fists. Even with the furious expression currently twisting her face, she was extremely pretty. Her light blonde hair was styled in a blowout look and cut with bangs, and she had full, heart-shaped lips, which were currently curled into a snarl.
"—thinks the world revolves around her! She steals my diamond necklace without asking, wears it to the Slug Club party last night, breaks it, and doesn't even apologize when I catch her about to fling it into the lake!"
"It's just a necklace!" Carina screamed, her hair flying around her reddening face. "Oh my gosh, you're such a drama queen! You're pathetic, trying to make everyone pity you when we all know you can just buy another one with one snap of your fingers!"
As Kate raged back at her, shattering Eve's eardrums in the process, Avery leaned over, cupping a hand to Eve's left ear.
"Carina Greengrass and Kate Sinclair," he whispered, smirking as he observed the fight in front of them. "Classic. This is the usual."
"Do they hate each other or something?" Eve whispered back, confused as to what the dynamic between the two shouting girls was and forgetting that she was talking to a future Death Eater for a second. She eyed the enraged Carina—a relative of Daphne Greengrass, then.
Avery rolled his eyes. "Laurie, everybody knows that Greengrass is jealous of Sinclair. It's too bad—if Greengrass wasn't such a . . . well, for lack of a better word, bitch, she'd be a real catch."
Eve looked up, eyes swiveling back and forth as she watched Carina and Kate go at each other, her mind barely even registering her having been called Laurie by Avery. Somehow, the two girls' argument had shifted to screams about how Carina had "nothing going for her in life" and how Kate "always sticks her nose where it doesn't belong."
Then, right between Kate's accusation of Carina being a "skank bitch" (Eve had no idea girls cussed this much in the 1940s—or maybe it was just Kate), Eve caught a flash of familiar gray-blue eyes and brown waves over Riddle's head.
Logan was standing near the entrance of the Great Hall, his eyes scanning over the crowd of students inside as if he was looking for someone.
His eyes roamed around the hall, down the Gryffindor and Ravenclaw tables (Eve saw his shoulders slump slightly when he came up empty from Ravenclaw), and swept right over the Slytherin table and onto the Hufflepuffs, before he doubled back and stared at Eve, who was surrounded by a sea of Slytherins. Even from a distance, she could see the surprise in his eyes.
She raised a hand and waved weakly. Hi.
Slytherin? he mouthed, raising an eyebrow at her. She nodded, and he pasted a disappointed expression onto his face. Cool. Too bad, though. Hoped it'd be Ravenclaw.
Yeah, she mouthed back. Me too.
He shrugged as if to say oh well, before giving her one last wave and turning away to speak to a short Asian girl who'd appeared by his side. He laughed at something she said and, together, they made their way over to the Ravenclaw table.
Eve felt an ache in her heart as she watched him go. Forget Gryffindor—she'd give anything at this point to be in Ravenclaw. At least she had a friend there. She didn't even know why she'd been Sorted into Slytherin—she wasn't super ambitious or resourceful, and she'd never really thought of herself as cunning. Now, she was stuck with Voldemort, his future Death Eaters, and bickering rich girls—although Avery didn't seem too bad (if not a bit too talkative), and Rosier seemed okay. Carina and Kate were still arguing, she didn't have a good read on Mulciber (who she hadn't even heard speak one word yet), and Lestrange was clearly a sycophant. And, of course, Riddle was Riddle.
She turned back around, sighing.
"You know him?"
Eve raised her head at the sudden question. From across the table, Riddle was watching her, his dark eyes piercing as he waited for an answer to his question.
"Uh, Logan? Yeah," she answered, feeling a weird feeling of defensiveness for the Ravenclaw prefect settle in her chest. "He gave me a small tour of the castle and got me familiarized with everything."
Riddle nodded slowly in acknowledgement. "Well, if you have any other questions, don't hesitate to ask me."
Like hell I will. "Okay, thank you."
She looked around, eager to cut off the conversation with him. Kate and Carina had settled down (though they were still glaring daggers at each other across the table), the latter having taken a seat next to Lestrange and the former having stayed next to Eve. Avery and Rosier were engaged in some sort of arm wrestle, though Rosier looked like he'd been coerced into it. Mulciber was just staring blankly at a random spot in the distance, as though he was contemplating the meaning of life.
The Great Hall was mostly full now. It was bursting with lively chatter from eager, hungry students, and a few professors also were seated at the front of the hall, conversing quietly amongst themselves. Dippet hadn't arrived yet, though.
"Hey. What's your name?"
Eve turned at the question, which had come from her right. Kate was looking at her, waiting for an answer.
She observed Kate's profile—with her heavy-lidded eyes, large pearl earrings, and smooth, shoulder-length hair, she had the look of a celebrity that Lavender would for sure idolize. Even in standard uniform, she emitted that old-money, fashionable air.
"Eve," Eve replied. And, just to be polite, she reciprocated the question, despite already knowing the answer from Avery. "And yours?"
"Kate, but that's not important." Kate fully turned her body towards Eve, leaning towards her. "You are a seventh-year, right? She grasped Eve's hands tightly between her own, a desperate expression on her face. "Please tell me you are. I need new company—it's only the fourth day of school, but being cooped up with that brat is already driving me insane." She said the word brat extra loudly.
From across the table, Carina's head snapped up, but everyone was immediately saved from another altercation between the two girls when Lestrange called her name, diverting her attention away towards something else.
Kate snickered under her breath, tilting her head towards Eve's to whisper, "I just said that to piss her off." She then straightened, brushing her hair off her shoulder and sticking her hand out. "Okay, proper introductions now. I'm Kate Sinclair." She leveled Eve with a mock-serious look, waiting for her hand to be shaken.
Despite feeling overwhelmed from being continuously flung at with twists and turns and the fact that it hadn't even been five hours, and she'd time traveled and met teenage Voldemort and his Death Eaters, Eve couldn't help but laugh. Kate reminded her of Ginny. She quickly pushed that thought away, clearing her throat and playing along. "I'm Eve Laurence." She shook Kate's hand. "It's nice to meet you."
"And you. Sorry if I came across as crazy just now, throwing curse words left and right—I admit it wasn't my finest moment." Kate waved her hands around casually. "I promise I'm not always like that."
"Oh, don't worry about it. To be honest, it was pretty great." Eve grinned, then lowered her voice, curious. "But what's the deal with you and Carina?" Then, she hastily added, "If you don't mind me asking?"
Kate rolled her eyes. "Don't even get me started. She's—"
Exactly what Carina was Eve never got to hear. Instead, Kate was interrupted by a loud "KATIE!" yelled from the front of the Great Hall.
Though the Great Hall was jam-packed with students at this point, a few last minute ones were still rushing through the double doors. Amongst them were three tall students—two boys and a girl—who were heading straight for the Slytherin table.
The girl, who'd been the one to yell, reached them first. Brown curls flowed over her shoulders, and a splatter of freckles adorned her dark skin, flecked lightly across her nose and cheeks. She had a large grin on her face as she looked at Kate, flopping down next to her and dramatically throwing her arms around the suddenly-disgruntled girl.
"Oh Katie, how I've missed you since a few hours ago!"
"Katie?" Eve looked at Kate, bemused. "Is that your nickname?"
"No," Kate growled, pushing the curly-haired girl's arms off of her. "Sophie here just thinks she's sooooo funny."
The curly-haired girl—Sophie—shrugged, tossing a curl over her shoulder. "I've been calling her that since first year. She secretly loves it."
"I do not secretly love it." Kate whirled towards Eve, who'd just opened her mouth. "Would you like it if I called you Evie?"
Eve immediately shut her mouth. "Okay, definitely do not call me that."
"See?"
"See what?"
The two boys who'd been behind Sophie had finally caught up to her. They both slid onto the bench across from her, and Eve was able to get a good look at their faces.
It was like looking at day and night. The one on the right had extremely pale hair of a blonde color that was nearly bordering white. It was long and slicked back at the top, though a few gelled strands had gotten loose and were brushing against his eyebrows. He had a tall, masculine nose—though it was slightly crooked at the bridge, as though it'd been broken and then healed poorly—and broad shoulders.
His companion to the left was the exact opposite. Glossy, jet-black hair—with a windswept quality to them—fell around a smooth, angular face. Eyebrows of the same black hue framed dark eyes, and high cheekbones were prominent just below. He looked like he belonged to royalty.
It took a few seconds for Eve to register that the black-haired boy had been talking to Kate. The conversation had moved on, though, with the pale blond now complaining about "Beery's bloody Wormwood essay" and how he had "no time for Quidditch" to the others as he rummaged through a very stuffed book bag. Eve noticed that Sophie and the black-haired boy sported similarly-overflowing bookbags that they'd yet to take off their shoulders.
"Okay, wait wait wait!" Kate held up her hands, cutting the blonde off mid-sentence. "Sorry to interrupt, but I need to introduce you all." She turned to Eve and held a hand in the air right under Eve's face, the palm facing upwards, as though she was presenting a class project. "This is Eve Laurence, a new seventh-year Slytherin." She then pointed at the blonde boy, black-haired boy, and Sophie, rattling off their names in order. "That's Abraxas Malfoy, that's Alphard Black, and this is Sophie Hale—though I already said her name, so you know that."
A Malfoy? Eve was immediately on guard. She stared at the pale blonde color of Abraxas's hair, which was the exact same shade as Draco Malfoy's. The similarities ended there, though: Abraxas was much stockier and broader than his lean and pointy future relative.
If this is 1944, then . . . he must be the grandfather of that ferret.
And Alphard Black! She knew that name—Harry had mentioned it before. He was Sirius's uncle, the one who'd left him money! Eve eyed Alphard's raven locks and angular features—the resemblance to his nephew was uncanny. A wave of sadness suddenly struck her chest—now that she saw it, she couldn't unsee it. It was almost like looking at a living, breathing Sirius again.
"Wow, fun." Abraxas pointed a spoon at her. "I don't think we've had a new transfer Slytherin since . . . third year, was it? Gilbert Finn? And that bloke transferred out not even a year later."
Alphard shrugged. "He was a weirdo."
"If only others could transfer out too," muttered Kate, her eyes shooting lasers in the general direction of Carina. "Merlin, I hate that bint."
From Kate's right, Sophie sighed. "Kate, let it go. For the millionth time—she's not worth it. She does everything just to rile you up and get attention because she's jealous." She brightened. "How about you redirect this energy that you put into this rivalry into doing schoolwork with us in the library instead?"
There was a moment of silence, with Kate staring at Sophie for a long second. "Um, no."
Sophie rolled her eyes. "Oh, come on. I invite you whenever Abraxas, Alphard, and I go to the library to study, and you refuse every single time."
"Yeah, can't help it if you got waves of perfume wafting around in your head instead of brains," Abraxas piped up from across the table.
Kate threw a fork at him.
"GAH—I was just joking!"
Sophie smiled at Eve, blissfully ignoring the threats Kate was now hurling at Abraxas. "Eve, you're welcome to join if you'd like. It's just a small study group with us three. We usually just go to the library before dinner to study and catch up on homework." She gestured to the overflowing book bag by her feet, sighing. "As you can see, there's already a lot of that in seventh year. "
"Oh—I'd love to!" Eve didn't have to be asked twice. She used to go to the library daily with Hermione (and Ron and Harry occasionally) to do homework together anyway, so maybe this would offer her some semblance of normalcy and familiarity. "Is it like a formal study group? Or do you just kind of go and just . . . well, study?" She internally winced at the awkward wording.
From across the table, Abraxas shook his head, removing a fork stuck in the fabric of his robes and adding it to the pile of utensils in front of him, all thrown at him by Kate. "Nah, don't worry, it's really informal. We're just a group of friends who do our school work together and try our best to raise our grades. Well. . . ." He grumbled, looking half-annoyed and half-miserable. "I do. Those two bookworms—" he jabbed his thumb towards Sophie and Alphard "—have grades that literally shoot through the roof. They don't even need to study—I swear they just come because they pity me. I make myself go study with them because my father's forcing me to raise my grades. If I don't, he's threatened to pull me from the Quidditch team."
"What position are you?" asked Eve, interested. Maybe Seeker like Draco? Even though the git had bought his way into that position. . . .
"I'm—"
"Oh, don't ask him that!" Kate interrupted, flailing her arms in the air. "He's a Chaser, but if you even mention Quidditch slightly to him he'll go on a tangent and won't shut up about the sport for the next hour."
"Yeah, he's a Quidditch fanatic—in fourth year, he tried to do a backwards flip on his broom in midair and broke his nose," Alphard guffawed. "He insisted on fixing it himself in the honor of Quidditch, and now look at it." He pointed at the crooked bridge of Abraxas's nose, chortling. "He's too stubborn to get it mended properly."
"Lay off," Abraxas muttered. "It makes me look manly anyways."
"Oh, Dippet's finally here." Sophie jerked her chin up at the professors' table, and they all turned to look. The wizened Headmaster, who had made his way to the center behind the professors' table, had gotten to his feet and was casting what looked to be a Sonorus at his throat. He then coughed, and the sound reverberated around the hall, bouncing off the walls and silencing the chattering tables of students below.
"Erm—yes, hello everybody." Dippet looked uncomfortable with the room silent and the eyes of thousands of his students trained solely on him. "I apologize for the interruption before the meal, but an impromptu announcement is to be made."
"I wonder what," Kate whispered to Eve, who'd suddenly froze in her seat, a dawning feeling of horror settling over her. No way. . . .
"We have a new student who has joined us here at Hogwarts today."
"Oh no," Eve moaned, turning her head left and right in an attempt to find a covert way to escape. To her right, a similar look of horror slid its way onto Kate's face and, to her left, Avery looked simply delighted.
"She is in seventh year and has been Sorted into Slytherin."
Eve contemplated slinking down under the table and never coming back out.
"In this time of turmoil, please join me in welcoming Eva Laurence!" Then, the blasted old wizard did something with his wand, and the stars above all migrated across the sky, merging into one above the Slytherin table and shining a bright spotlight right down onto Eve.
The army of eyes that had been trained on Dippet turned to follow the stars, and every single student (and professor) in the Great Hall stared at Eve.
She wanted to sink down and melt right into her seat.
To make it worse, Dippet then started clapping awkwardly, and the student body slowly followed, until the entire hall was filled with the sound of stilted claps. Across from her, Abraxas and Alphard were huddled together, shoulders shaking as their attempts to smother their laughter failed spectacularly.
"I can't believe he just did that!" Kate hissed furiously amidst the clapping, while Sophie looked over her shoulder at Eve sympathetically. "He got your name wrong too! How does he get Eve wrong?"
"He didn't tell me he was going to introduce me to the entire school," Eve whispered, mortified. She was sure her entire face was the color of a tomato. "Is this what usually happens to new students?"
"No! I've never seen this happen before! Maybe because you're a seventh-year and it's rare? I don't know! And what does 'in this time of turmoil' even mean?"
Eve suspected Dippet felt forced to give her some sort of special welcome because of her 'background circumstances,' which she supposed was a nice sentiment, but that just now was way too much.
Thankfully, the clapping around them was dying down, and the chatter of students was rising once more. At least nobody seemed too interested in the announcement.
From the front of the hall, Dippet stood, shifting awkwardly. He looked like he had more to say, but a resigned look came over his face when the volume of the students below kept increasing. He simply sat back down and, after adjusting his robes slightly, raised his wand, giving it one flourish in the air.
Immediately, the golden plates in front of Eve filled up with food, and her embarrassment was instantly forgotten. Piles of deliciousness greeted her vision—beef stroganoff, banoffee pie, roast beef, treacle tart, sausages, roast chicken, pork chops and lamb chops, sausages, bacon and steak, boiled potatoes, roast potatoes, fries, Yorkshire pudding, peas, carrots, gravy, and more foods she didn't even know the names of.
The mixed aromas of the dishes wafted over her, causing her stomach to rumble, and she could've cried right there and then—not just from the sight of the various dishes in front of her, but from the feeling of completeness inside of her that she hadn't felt in a very long time.
The last time she'd been able to enjoy the Hogwarts food at mealtimes. . . . When had that been? Sixth year? With the last few months she'd spent in 1997 filled with perpetual consternation, mealtimes had felt like chores than anything else. To be able to sit here, free of worry and fear (at least not as much as before), was a feeling Eve didn't know she'd missed until she was experiencing it again.
As she stuffed potatoes into her mouth, she observed her surroundings—and noticed something strange.
"Hey, Kate?"
Kate swallowed a mouthful of carrots. "Yeah?"
"How come Abraxas and Alphard aren't sitting with Riddle and his fol—uh, friends?" Indeed, the two had chosen to sit quite a bit away from the Head Boy, the space between them and Riddle's gang not too wide but significant enough to signal a noticeable discrepancy.
Kate eyed her weirdly. "Well, they aren't friends." She shrugged, spooning some peas into her mouth and chewing. "I mean, I get why you asked—Abraxas and Alphard do look like they'd belong with Riddle and them, don't they? They're both tall, objectively attractive, pure-bloods, and rich. But the two have never really gotten along with Riddle—I mean, they exchange pleasantries with him when they have to, but, other than that, the two of them keep their distance. They almost seem to dislike him."
"Oh." Eve frowned, processing Kate's words. Alphard was understandable—based on the story about him leaving Sirius money, she didn't think of him to be the type of person to support Riddle's ideals or follow him. But Abraxas? He was a Malfoy—everyone knew of them as one of the most prominent families that supported Voldemort.
Although, Abraxas did seem far from that archetype. . . . Eve watched the blonde use his spoon to fling a pea at Sophie. So far, he'd proved to be nothing like his unpleasant, blood-prejudiced grandson. She couldn't see him as a future Death Eater at all, but then again—if there was one lesson Eve could take away from Riddle, who was currently in front of her, listening politely to something Carina was going on and on about, it was that not everything at surface-level was always true.
Maybe Abraxas really does support Riddle and puts on a facade to mask it up for whatever reason?
But then Eve saw that Abraxas was now inconspicuously launching peas down the table at other Slytherins and grinning whenever they hit their targets, and she immediately crushed that theory. Okay, definitely not.
But then what happened with Lucius Malfoy? If Abraxas wasn't so keen on Riddle, how come his son came to inherit such different beliefs? And what about Rosier and Avery? Rosier, who'd been pleasant enough, and Avery, who'd only joked around with her so far? They seemed like the furthest from future Death Eaters that people could be.
Eve's confusion must've shown on her face, because Kate shrugged. "It's weird, right? I don't really know why, either—I mean, Riddle's a great guy." She lowered her voice, tone suddenly solemn. "Nobody really talks about it, but in our fifth year, a girl was murdered here. Riddle caught the murderer—it was another student! Can you believe that? Nobody really knows exactly what happened except for the professors, but Merlin—if Riddle hadn't caught the murderer, who knows which of us would be dead right now too?"
Of course—Myrtle's murder. It took all of Eve's willpower to not shout out to Kate about how wrong she was about it, about how wrong everybody was about it. Riddle wasn't a savior or a saint—he'd killed Myrtle, and he'd framed the murder onto an innocent young Hagrid, who he'd ended up getting expelled and depriving of a proper education that should've never been taken away. Riddle had everybody fooled—he was so clever in the most twisted way possible, and it made Eve's blood boil.
Eve knew from prior research (in her fourth year, she and the Weasley twins had been trying to figure out Binns's real age) that a deceased individual's ghost didn't appear immediately after their death, as the process of death itself was one that took many years. In this moment, however, she wished that wasn't the case—she wished Myrtle's ghost existed right now so that she could have some sort of interaction with Riddle. What would Riddle think if he saw Myrtle's ghost? Would he feel any sense of remorse for the first death he'd ever caused, one that would set off a succession of more murders that would lead to his eventual rise as Voldemort in the distant future? Would he feel regret for having taken an innocent life, and then having capitalized on it further to fuel his very first Horcrux?
It took a moment for Eve to realize that Kate was back to talking about the dynamic between Riddle, Abraxas, and Alphard. "—weird, don't you think? They just don't really interact with Riddle's crowd, ever—I mean, they aren't too bad, right? Rosier's fine, I swear Mulciber's mute—I've heard him probably talk twice throughout my entire six years at Hogwarts so far—and Lestrange is an arse-kissing tosser. If he and Carina were to date, it would be a match made in heaven." Kate shuddered at the suggestion. "Oh, and then there's Avery, who's just annoying."
At the mention of his name, Avery whirled away mid-conversation from Rosier and towards Eve and Kate. He grinned and wiggled his eyebrows. "Gossiping about me, Sinclair?"
"In your dreams," Kate shot back.
Avery exaggeratedly placed his hands over his heart. "You wound me."
"Good."
"So. . . . Did you finish the Herbology essay?"
"Why are you asking me?"
"Oh, right, I forgot you're a slacker too. I was gonna ask to copy."
"Excuse me? Just because I elect to spend my free time prioritizing my passions and friends and actually living life does not mean I fall into the same slacker category as you, you lazy simpleton!"
"Lazy simpleton?" Avery scoffed. "Oh, please. The essay's due tomorrow anyway, so I guess we're both fucked."
"What's the essay topic?" Eve interrupted. She was curious about how exactly the 1944 seventh-year curriculum matched up to that of 1997—based on what she'd seen of the N.E.W.T. Transfiguration essays about Gamp's Law that Dumbledore had been grading, it seemed to be somewhat similar, but she wanted to prepare herself just in case there were going to be any unwanted academic curve balls thrown her way.
Not that it even matters if I do well academically here, Eve thought. But if she was really going to commit to building a temporary fake life here, she might as well go all out.
She'd meant to direct the question towards Avery and Kate, but instead—
"Floo."
It took Eve a moment to realize that it was Riddle who'd answered from across the table.
"The Floo plant that Floo powder is extracted from," he clarified. "Professor Beery wants us to write an essay on it before actually attempting to extract actual Floo powder from Floo in class."
Eve raised an eyebrow. "We're going to do that?" The curriculum was different, then.
Riddle nodded. "Frankly, I'm not sure why, since the Herbology N.E.W.T. doesn't cover the topics of Floo or Floo powder."
"You're right," said Rosier, popping his head over Avery's shoulder to join the conversation. He frowned. "That is weird."
Riddle grinned, and the expression looked somewhat unnerving on his face. "I always did suspect that Beery had an illegal side gig going on where he sold off plants and concoctions from his classes. I guess he wants to get some Floo powder out of us this time."
Did Riddle just crack a joke? Eve simply stared as Kate pointed at Riddle excitedly. "I literally brought that same idea up to Sophie before! Isn't that man so suspicious? He has crazy mood swings in class, too—one minute he'll be yelling at the top of his lungs, and then he'll sip his coffee and become some sort of spiritual yoga teacher!"
"I think he puts something into his coffee," Rosier suggested.
"You know—" Avery snapped his fingers. "I swear I saw him sprinkle something inside his mug one time."
"Really? Are you lying again?"
"Why do you always think that. . . ."
"Anyways," Riddle continued from across the table, addressing Kate as Avery and Rosier broke off into their own discussion about Avery's honesty streak. "Sinclair, I could help you with your essay if you would like."
"Oh my god." Kate perked up. She smacked Avery's shoulder when he too straightened up eagerly at the opportunity, sending him dejectedly back into conversation with Rosier. "Would you actually?"
"Of course."
Kate clasped her hands together. "Riddle, you're my savior."
Riddle laughed, and Eve felt like she'd been transported to some alternate universe. Riddle could laugh? And he had a pleasant laugh?
Then Eve's mind flashed back to what she'd been thinking about regarding Myrtle's murder, and the thought immediately evaporated to be replaced by the desire to use her fork to poke Riddle's eye out.
She supposed that in order for Riddle to project a perfect, welcoming persona, he did have to laugh and joke around with his classmates. Adding as many positive credentials to his portfolio was what made him the Riddle everyone knew and loved after all—not only was he handsome, and smart, and kind, and hard-working, and humble, but he was funny and easy to talk to as well.
It was scary how well Riddle had crafted his alter-ego and displayed it to those around him. The more Eve witnessed his fake personality, the more she wondered—Isn't it tiring? Hiding how you really are; putting up a facade in the day just to be who you really are at night? After all, Riddle's Jekyll-and-Hyde nature was what would fool everyone and ultimately lead to the downfall of the entire wizarding world.
"Oh hey, Eve," came Kate's voice, drawing Eve out of her disturbing thoughts. Kate was looking at her curiously. "I've been meaning to ask—is your hair naturally gray in the front? I've never seen anything like it."
Eve swallowed. Time to pull out whatever acting skills she had.
"Yeah, it is, actually," she lied, twisting the gray strands around and eying them. "I was born with it—the doctor's don't have an explanation." She shrugged, keeping her demeanor nonchalant. "It's obviously genetic, though, since my mum had gray in the front at a young age too."
She looked up at Kate again, and was a bit startled to see that most of the people around her were paying attention to what she was saying. Rosier, Avery, Lestrange, Carina, and—Eve felt slight goosebumps erupt on her skin—Riddle were all watching her from one side of the table, while Sophie, and Alphard were doing so from the other. Even Abraxas had paused his pea attacks to listen in.
"That's really cool," Sophie remarked, eyeing Eve's gray hair and smiling at her as Kate nodded vigorously in agreement.
"So how come you came to Hogwarts?" asked Rosier, a look of genuine curiosity visible in his bright blue eyes. "We don't usually get new seventh years coming in on the fourth day of school. He paused. "Well, we've never gotten a new seventh year on the fourth day of school. For Slytherin, at least."
"Oh, just . . . something unfortunate happened," said Eve, echoing the words she'd said to Riddle when he'd asked her the same question. She looked down at her plate, the amount of eyes on her making her feel a bit awkward. "Uh, my parents were murdered."
She heard small gasps come from Kate and Sophie.
"How'd they get murdered?"
"Oi!" Kate glared at Lestrange, who'd voiced the blunt question and was now staring expectantly at Eve. "Why the fuck are you asking for the details?"
"It's okay," Eve quickly reassured the fuming Kate, placing her hand on the dark-blonde's arm. "I don't mind." Better to just put it all out there, anyway—the new, mysterious student with mysteriously murdered parents was not the reputation she wanted to build. Detailing her fake backstory would rip down that veil of mystery, and she was banking on the hope that any interest in her from within the student body would fade away in less than a week. After all, what she was trying to avoid the most was attention and suspicion.
"We carelessly went on vacation in France this past summer," Eve started, swallowing very noticeably. "We didn't think about Grindelwald—we didn't think he'd attack France." She made her exhale shaky. "Um, we—we were wrong. His army came to the village we were staying in, and my parents. . . . They were killed. Last week."
Nobody spoke. Eve felt Kate's hand rubbing comforting circles on her back, and suddenly she felt an avalanche of guilt within herself. Here she was, using what was most likely the true story of countless Grindelwald victims out there to her own advantage.
"Yeah—I-I played dead, and I survived. I was homeschooled by my parents before that, so I obviously had to enroll into an actual school after everything that happened. Even now, it's hard when I think about it. Just half an hour ago, I was a mess—" she deliberately avoided eye contact with Riddle '—but it's alright now. I just have to accept it and move on."
Inwardly, she registered the irony of how her words could refer to two situations: her fake backstory and her real predicament.
There was silence following her explanation. She looked up. Riddle had that infuriating look of pity pasted on his face, though it was genuinely mirrored by Abraxas and Alphard a few seats away. Kate and Sophie's downcast eyebrows conveyed their sympathy, and both Rosier and Mulciber were looking somber (or maybe that was just how Mulciber always looked). Even Avery had a solemn expression on his face.
"So, are you a pure-blood?"
The abrupt question from Carina pierced the silence. The blonde girl sat back, hand casually running through her long hair as she arched an eyebrow at Eve.
It was a simple question, but Eve was suddenly incensed—anything relating to pure-blood supremacy made her feel so, and Carina's question obviously had such undertones.
She remembered Dumbledore's warning from earlier:
"Best to identify as a pure-blood if anyone is to ask. A half-blood—as you are—is perfectly fine, but. . . . For your safety, identifying as a pure-blood would draw less attention to you in the long run."
No, I'm a half-blood.
If she said that, what would happen? Would they immediately stop talking to her? Would they sneer in disgust and cast her away? Eve wasn't dense—this was the 1940s. She knew that pure-blood supremacy ran a bit wilder and was much more widespread during this time. Still, it didn't make it any more justifiable.
Eve pushed down the urge to look over at a certain wavy-haired Head Boy, one who she knew secretly shared the same blood status as her. Instead, she stared right back at Carina, mimicking her arched eyebrows. "I am, though I don't see how that's relevant."
"I've never heard of the name Laurence as a British pure-blood family name," said Carina accusingly.
"That's because it's not British," Eve retorted, reveling in the look of surprise and uncertainty that graced Carina's face at those words. "My parents are American—they worked as international diplomats for MACUSA." The lies were rolling smoothly off her tongue. "They moved to Britain for their work and had me here, but my surname is an American pure-blood one. So no, I don't think you've heard of it."
She couldn't lie—she was enjoying the look on Carina's face now, which made her look like a gaping fish. The girl crossed her arms silently and glared at Eve.
Nobody spoke. Then:
"Eve, do you want some Yorkshire pudding?" Sophie offered loudly, holding up the dish.
Eve took a deep breath before turning and smiling. "Yes, please."
It was smooth sailing from there. With introductions of herself out of the way, the rest of dinner saw Eve eating good food; laughing at Avery's flirtatious jokes; getting to know Kate, Sophie, Abraxas, and Alphard more; successfully avoiding conversation with Riddle; and even conversing a bit with Rosier. If she'd closed her eyes, she could've pretended as though everything was normal: she was at school, eating dinner and having fun with friends.
Almost normal.
—
The Slytherin Common Room was unlike anything Eve had ever seen.
It was huge—much larger than the Gryffindor Common Room. Several shades of green were present throughout the room, found in the greenish light of the round lamps hung in the air by chains and the green fabric of many chairs throughout. The high-domed ceiling curved into a half sphere at the very top, leading downwards to tall glass windows bordered by archaically-carved stone walls. Through the glass, only murky darkness could be seen—it was water from the Black Lake, as the room was in the dungeons. Multiple grand chandeliers dropped from the ceiling, hanging low above the carpeted floor. A crackling fireplace was installed into one wall, its elaborate mantle adorned with a portrait of a big green serpent, and black leather sofas were set in front of it. Large tapestries of famous Medieval Slytherins were scattered around the room, decorating the walls. To the side in the back, an entrance in the wall revealed the bottom of a dark stone staircase, which no doubt led to the dormitories.
Eve stared up from the common room entrance in awe as she pulled her robes around herself tightly, the chill of the room piercing through the black fabric.
"Pretty cool, huh?" Kate smirked, brushing past her. "Our common room is the only one in the dungeons, right under the lake."
"Sometimes the Giant Squid will pass by the windows," Sophie added from where she stood by the fireplace, hands outstretched towards the warmth of the fire. She pulled away. "Come on—we'll show you our dorm."
After dinner had ended, Kate and Sophie had decided to bring Eve to the Slytherin Common Room to get her acquainted with what was to be her home for the next year. They'd bid goodbye to Alphard and Abraxas, who'd gone back to the library, and Eve had given a stilted wave to Riddle (and much less forced ones to Avery and Rosier). Lestrange and Carina had immediately gone off somewhere together ("They're definitely fucking," Kate had whispered to her), and Mulciber had just silently disappeared.
Now, in the common room, Eve quickly followed Sophie and Kate, her head twisting left and right as she made her way across the room, trying to take in the new environment. She passed a wooden table at which a few younger students sat, playing Wizard's Chess, and couldn't stop herself from automatically seeing Ron and Harry playing it instead, seated by the fireplace in the Gryffindor Common Room as she and Hermione sat on red velvet sofas nearby, reading. She quickly shook the image out of her mind.
"It's me, Kate, Carina, and you in our dorm," Sophie explained as they entered the doorway to the stone staircase by the side of the common room. They began to climb the stairs. "Carina isn't too terrible, but she has her moments. Just breathe in deep and try to ignore her. She'll eventually get bored and go bother someone else."
"Or she'll steal your belongings and break them," Kate muttered under her breath.
"Other than that, I don't really know what else I need to tell you." Sophie paused at the top step, thinking. "Oh—watch out for the Bloody Baron. He lurks in the Common Room sometimes and scares students for fun."
Eve raised her eyebrows at the prospect. She reached the top of the stairs, and the three of them turned to the left, walking down a dark corridor and passing doors on each side. Their footsteps echoed in the silence.
"Alright, here we are." Sophie stopped at a door further into the corridor, pressing down onto the door handle and pushing. She entered the room and held the door open for Kate and Eve to follow. "Welcome to our dorm!"
The contrast between the Slytherin dorms and the Gryffindor dorms wasn't as pronounced as the one between the two Houses' common rooms, other than the fact that the color green instead of red was plastered everywhere. Four four-poster beds, with trunks in front of them, were placed in a half circle around the back of the circular room, spaced next to each other evenly. They sported silk sheets and were hung with emerald curtains, the hue matching that of the oriental rug on the floor below. Next to each bed was a nightstand, a wardrobe built into the wall, and a paned window. Candles flickered from their holders on the walls. In the corner of the room, by the entrance, was another door, which presumably led to the bathroom.
"Is this one mine?" Eve asked, crossing the room and pointing at the bed furthest to the left. Out of all the other ones, it was the one that looked the neatest and most unslept in.
"Yup." Kate nodded in confirmation, coming over and flopping down onto the bed right next to Eve's. "Sophie's is next to mine, and Carina's is next to hers." She eyed Eve. "You're lucky—you get to be the furthest away from that bint. Sometimes I have to cast Silencio at her in the middle of the night because she snores too loud."
"Did Dippet send up your schedule?" Sophie asked from across the room, hanging her robes onto a small hook by the doorway. She then made her way over, gingerly climbing onto her bed and sitting cross-legged on it.
"Yeah." Eve held up a piece of parchment from where she was kneeling by the foot of her bed, digging through the trunk that was set there. Dippet hadn't been lying—a Slytherin uniform (complete with new robes, socks, a skirt, a green-and-silver tie, dress shoes, an Oxford shirt, and even some silk green pajamas) was folded neatly inside the trunk, along with a bag of unopened toiletries, a stack of slightly-battered schoolbooks, a canvas book bag, some ink and quills and parchment, and a small pouch of coins.
She closed the top of the trunk, stood up, and spread her arms, sprawling onto her bed. The green silk of the sheets was smooth and cool to touch.
"N.E.W.T. Charms, N.E.W.T. Transfiguration, N.E.W.T. Defense Against the Dark Arts, N.E.W.T. Potions, N.E.W.T. Herbology, Astronomy, Arithmancy, History of Magic, and Ancient Runes," Eve recited, reading over her schedule.
Sophie looked impressed, while Kate groaned and rolled across her bed. "Not you too," she complained. "Please don't abandon me for the library everyday."
"I would never." Eve extended her schedule forward. "How many classes do I share with you two?"
"Let's see." Sophie clambered off her bed and ran over, getting onto Eve's. Kate did the same, and they were soon crowding around the piece of parchment she held in her hand.
"Ooh!" Sophie exclaimed. "We have a lot together! Charms, Transfiguration, Defense Against the Dark Arts, Potions, and Ancient Runes!" She made a face. "I could never take N.E.W.T. Herbology—I swear, every plant within a mile radius from me dies."
Meanwhile, Kate was looking at Eve's schedule with horror on her face. "Five N.E.W.T.s? You're as insane as Sophie and Alphard!"
"You know, I'm kind of regretting taking N.E.W.T. History of Magic," said Sophie, frowning as she leaned back and sank into the pillows on Eve's bed. "History's interesting, but . . . well, Binns. He is so boring—the other day, I fell asleep in class! The first time I've ever fallen asleep in any class ever!"
"Amateur," Kate snickered, leaning against a bedpost and hugging a pillow to her chest. "The non-N.E.W.T. History of Magic class is basically a free-for-all—you know, just yesterday, Wendy Green blew a spitball through Binns, and he didn't even notice!"
Eve burst out laughing. "What?"
"Yeah! We all kept score—she managed to get twenty through him before class ended!"
"Oh, Merlin—you should've seen the other day in Potions, Eve. Arnold Abbott accidentally dropped a Fizzing Whizzbee into his Calming Draught, and it exploded in his face. His girlfriend thought he'd died—she was crying all over the place—but then he got up calmly and started to levitate off the floor! For the next twenty minutes, he was just calmly floating around the classroom. I think I pissed myself laughing."
"His girlfriend broke up with him the next day too! It was a whole public spectacle; they were going at each other right in the Great Hall during breakfast!"
"What? Why?"
"Said she didn't want to date the guy who'd be known as the Floater Boater! I don't even know where she got that from. . . ."
Talking with Kate and Sophie was . . . easy. It was so easy—the hours passed with the blink of an eye as they chatted into the night, and Eve felt as though she'd known them all her life. The conversation and laughs never paused—they conversed about classes, classmates, professors, school gossip, future aspirations, current events (Eve mostly listened in on that one), themselves (Eve learned that Sophie had two older brothers, that Kate hated broccoli but loved asparagus, and that both girls had once harbored a secret crush on Gilbert Finn, the 'weird' transfer Slytherin from third year that Abraxas had mentioned during dinner), and a bunch of random topics (at one point, they spent a whole twenty minutes pondering about socks).
In the middle of it all, they'd taken turns showering, and they were all now sprawled lazily across their respective beds, clad in their silk green pajamas.
"Merlin—it's eleven o'clock already!" Sophie sprang up from where she'd been lying comfortably on her bed, cutting off Kate's explanation about her theory that the portrait of the warlock in the library was secretly dating the portrait next to him, which was of a frizzy-haired witch. "We should probably go to sleep—it'll be Eve's first day tomorrow. She can't be late."
Not even seconds after Sophie finished her sentence, the door to their dormitory opened, and Carina entered. Even with the dimness of the room, her messy hair, rumpled clothes, and slightly-smeared lipstick were visible from where she stood by the entrance. Eve didn't even have to look over to know that Kate was smirking widely.
Carina glanced over at the three of them, merely sniffed haughtily, and entered the bathroom, no doubt going in for a shower. Kate giggled
"Alright, I'm going to sleep." Sophie leaned over, yawning, and tugged her blanket over her body. She flicked her wand, and the lights of the room turned off, flooding Eve's vision with black. "See you both tomorrow morning."
"Yeah, you too!" came Kate's voice in the dark.
"Goodnight." Eve snuggled into her own blanket, sinking into the warmth of her bedsheets.
"Sleep tight!"
"Goodnight."
—
An hour later, Eve was still wide awake.
Her body was sleepy, but her mind was running laps. She shifted under her blanket, staring up at the canopy of her bed, which reflected a silvery-white from the moonlight that was shining in through the window.
The silence of the darkened room allowed her to finally think. She'd hadn't really had the chance to think the entire day—between shattering her Time Turner, time traveling over fifty years into the past, getting shoved under the guidance of teenage Voldemort, and meeting the first-ever Death Eaters, she hadn't really been able to just stop and process everything, having been too overwhelmed to really do any thinking at all.
Her chances of finding a safe way to return back to her time were small—she knew that. Which meant that she had a very long time in this time, at least until Dumbledore discovered said way for her to return—that is, if it even existed. Of course, she was still going to research herself—if it wasn't confirmed, Eve wasn't going to accept that there was no solution. But, she accepted it as an almost-futile effort and that she'd basically been condemned to living in this time, at least for quite a while.
Was she really going to live day-by-day here, under the same roof as Voldemort and his Death Eaters, while she knew of the future that would inevitably come? She couldn't stop herself from seeing midnight-black waves and dark eyes with a snake-like glint. Images flashed through her head: Daily Prophet headlines of another dead family, killed off by the wielder of a pale, bone-like wand. A friend, with raven hair and round glasses, given the curse of a lightning scar and losing everything too early. A castle, once bright and alive, transformed into a living hell. Lively, breathing friends, reduced to corpses or shells of their former selves.
She'd been too overwhelmed during the day to feel any real anger, but now . . . to solve a problem, the best thing to do would be to cut it at its root, right?
She had the golden opportunity, had the root of the problem right at her fingertips. Like with her Time Turner, she possessed an invaluable resource here—knowledge. She possessed knowledge of the future destruction and deaths upon strangers and loved ones that would happen if she let fate continue in the way that it was going. But, if she didn't use that knowledge, and then the inevitable tragedies happened . . . wouldn't they happen because of her?
Interference—prevention—wasn't always the ideal option, but this was a special case: the lives of her family and friends, of the future's already-dead and soon-to-be-dead—they rested in her hands. She'd already lost everything to him—she had nothing more to lose.
She was going to kill Tom Riddle.
