NANO is over! And so is the first half of my Masters' second semester. Which means VACAY. And that means an UPDATE!
Here is the second half of the chapter that got too long lol. It's approximately 6.5k words so...
REVIEWERS:
MyBeewing - Hey! I hope this notif doesn't get too buried ;) I hope you find this chapter scream-worthy as well and that you're healthy and safe! Thank you for leaving your lovely comment, it made my day!
The morning just before Christmas, Billy ushered Eric and I to a street lined with small muggle stores.
"I didn't have enough to buy presents, but the milkman agreed to increase my routes by two streets and that finally paid off." He said sheepishly when I asked why he'd left the task until now.
"Should've listened to me and joined me up at the papers'." Eric muttered under his breath.
I glanced between the two boys, the sunken expressions on their faces finally dawning on me.
"How bad is it?" I asked Eric quietly as Billy entered one of the stores, a small pouch jangling in his hands.
Eric was quiet for a while, hands shoved into his pockets and teeth chewing on his chapped lips. His eyes strayed over the dreary lane front.
"It's gotten worse." He replied shortly. "There's an air raid almost every day, rations are slowing down; well, they mostly go to the families, and orphans well…we make do, I suppose. The worst I can tell you is shoes. We've all been sharing about the four pairs that we have at Wool's."
I glanced down to his dusty brown ones, worn and torn in some places - obviously a very old pair.
"It's good that a lot of us have gone on into the factories and stuff. There's a couple more coupons when we need them -"
Eric broke off when Billy reappeared, carefully keeping his sullen expression from the more optimistic boy.
"Found something?" I asked immediately.
"No…I'll try another one." He trailed his eyes thoughtfully to the other stores before entering another one.
In the end, Billy took almost an hour inside while we dutifully waited outside.
"At this point, Billy's going to be spending his entire pay on presents. I bet you he even got Riddle a gift - maybe even two, the fool." Eric kicked a frosted stone as we strolled up and down the street in wait.
"Why two?" I asked.
"One for Christmas and the other for his birthday at the end of the month."
My feet slowed, sending askance glances at Eric. "Riddle's birthday is on the 31st?" I didn't know why I was asking. What good was knowing his birthday going to do? "It feels strange, knowing the day he was born, or that he has one at all."
Eric snorted.
"Of course he's got a birthday. What, did you think he just sprung out his mum, fully grown?"
I raised my eyebrows.
To be very honest, that was unconsciously exactly what I had imagined. Tom Riddle had been unfathomable to me. It was only Dumbledore's prodding and Harry's memories that had painted a picture of a boy who had been swallowed by Voldemort.
But he had only been that - a boy who didn't matter, at least not in the face of what he had become.
The man who walked the hallways of Hogwarts, charming teachers, scoring exceptional marks and studying magic to its heights, depths and beyond - only solidified when I saw him myself.
I wondered if he felt that about himself as well. That he didn't exist - that he needed to become Voldemort to…matter.
"Rose?"
I looked around to see Eric standing beside Billy, a couple packages in brown paper in his arms.
"Shall we head back?"
I took one last look at the open street, nodding.
The common room of the orphanage wasn't as empty as it had been when I'd first arrived. The children who had been able to make it back from the 'factories' now cluttered around, murmuring about their experiences, asking about the ones who had stayed back.
As ever, there was a glaring exception.
"Do you want to exchange presents now? I don't know how you do it in that school, or the way you used to with your parents…" Billy asked, a little timid as he mentioned the fake dead parents of mine.
…well, one of them was alive, anyway.
I looked at the carefully cradled packages in his arms.
"How do you do it here?"
"We pile up the gifts under the tree on Christmas Eve, and then open them on Christmas morning. The younger ones sleep in so the day starts late anyway."
I smiled.
"I think we can celebrate it the Wool's way." I winked at the brawnier boy, patting Billy on the arm as he chuckled. "I'll get your gifts."
I took the stairs two at a time, entering my room to open the trunk. I had packed light, taking only what I needed for homework and a spare uniform to change into. The rest of my things were carefully locked away in the wardrobes in the Slytherin dorm.
Grabbing the wrapped bottles of butterbeer, I exited the room just as the door of the bathroom at the end of the hallway opened, revealing Riddle.
Both of us froze.
Riddle's eyes moved over the bottles I held, neatly labeled with Eric and Billy's names and his lips twisted a little, hand reaching back to shut the door with a snap. I just stood there, stunned that Voldemort used the bathroom, staring as he turned to climb up the stairs to his floor.
"Riddle?"
There's really no shutting you up, is there?
I watched his shoulders tense, before releasing in something akin to a resigned sigh.
"Yes, Miss Revel?" He barely looked back at me.
I stared silently up at his back, covered in another white shirt, the uniform tie around his neck the only thing to associate him with Wool's. The silence lasted long enough for him to actually face me, looking down with an impassive face that clearly hid an exasperated frown.
"Do you have something to say?"
"Why are you here, Riddle?"
There was a pause in which Riddle's mask of indifference came back. His eyebrows relaxed, lips straightened in a mild purse which was contemptuous and disapproving at the same time.
Without another word, he turned and stalked up the stairs.
Rude…
I waited for a few more moments, wondering if he'll stomp back down to say something at all. When it was evident the wait was in vain, I went back downstairs to add my gifts to the pile under the Tree.
As foretold by the boys, Christmas day began later than it would've done in Hogwarts. The noontime sun sent streaks along the grim gray walls of my room, the bed creaking as I sat up and rubbed at my eyes.
Despite being Christmas Eve, the orphanage had turned in for the night at its designated time, allowing some sleep-in for the ones who probably desperately needed it.
For me, it meant being able to sleep without any disturbing dreams at all and for that I was grateful. I shed the uniform pajamas, donning a fresh set from the two provided uniforms before taking a toothbrush to the bathroom.
By the time I came downstairs, meal time had already commenced. Instead of the dining room, people had carried their plates into the living room, grabbing gifts to their names and sitting down peacefully to rip into both the food and the present.
Carrying a plateful of rationed food - a touch better due to the festivities, including mince pies - I entered the lounge.
I found Eric and Billy sitting with Anne, chewing into their meals slowly, savoring it. They already had the bottles of butterbeer, wrapped in simple white paper from the Three Broomsticks, on their laps.
Miss Cole sat in the largest arm chair, chattering with Martha while near the fireplace, Dennis Bishop and Amy Benson sat in that strange stupor as ever. The rest of the children, older and younger, gave them a wide berth.
Beyond them, I managed to spy Riddle after all - looked like he hadn't managed to stay cooped up in his room after all. In a straight backed chair, his plate rested on his crossed knees, composed as ever while he bit into a mince pie.
I joined Billy, Anne and Eric after fetching a single package from under the tree; FROM BILLY AND ERIC scrawled tidily on it. It made my lips twitch.
"Let me guess, you didn't buy this yesterday." I said, sitting down next to Anne.
"We had no idea what to get you so we bought the first thing we thought of, we had the pence for it." Eric replied around a mouthful of mince, nodding at the bottles. "Cole probably thinks you got us fancy liquor from that school place."
"It's not liquor." I bit into a pie.
While it wasn't even close to the Hogwarts feast or even anything at home, it was good enough. At least it didn't taste as dreary as the breakfast of any other odd day at the orphanage.
Having gotten their breakfast way before me, all three were done quickly, opening their presents while I watched.
Anne got gloves, some small cotton rounds and a coupon for a pantomime, Eric and Billy both looked askance at the bottles of honeyed butterbeer before taking a swig at my coaxing.
"Oh," Billy said simply, expression changing from concerned to surprised approval. "This is actually good."
Billy and I turned to Eric who looked like he was swishing the liquid in his mouth. At length he swallowed before nodding.
"Sweet, buttery, I think I'll save the rest for the future. Does it spoil?"
"Nope, but I wouldn't keep it for too long." I returned to my meal as my eyes fell on Dennis and Amy.
They had finished their meals, it seemed, sitting stock still. Their laps contained one gift each and yet, their eyes and hands weren't busy devouring the package. If anything, they looked intensely focused on something else entirely.
Following their gaze, I landed on Riddle. He was done eating by now, the spoon dropped to the bowl. He too had one gift on his lap, the one Cole gave all the children who'd been there from the day they were born. Being the newest, I hadn't received anything from her or anyone else but Billy and Eric.
He wasn't opening the gift just like Dennis and Amy, simply looking at the box in his hands with the strangest look. I spied his usual derision towards anything muggle and yet…there was something else, something I couldn't quite place my finger on.
I wondered if it was a positive or a negative emotion.
He was still alone, nobody approaching him or speaking to him in the larger space. While he was almost always surrounded at school, he rarely spoke to them if he didn't need to - but the isolation here…it didn't seem as chosen, rather inflicted.
I returned my eyes to the pair by the fireplace. Just as my eyes flicked over to them, Dennis Bishop turned his head - those eerily unseeing eyes focusing on me with a curse-like precision.
I dropped my eyes immediately, embarrassed at having been caught looking. Pushing my plate away, I picked up the present I'd got, catching the end of the paper and ripping it off.
The brown paper hid a simple wooden box, a latch holding it closed. Sliding the tiny clasp back, I pried it open to reveal a rounded wooden hilt.
"It's a folding knife." Eric explained, taking the hilt and sliding the black blade out. He flipped it, holding the wooden flat end for me to take back. "Just thought you should have this, if you ever need it."
I stayed quiet, studying the sharpened edge of the knife. It was a basic present, not useful for anything that I couldn't do with my wand and a severing charm.
However, holding the knife, fingers wrapped tightly around the end, radiating such security at the moment all I could do was solemnly look up at the expectant faces of my first friends at this time.
"Thank you so much. I'll always keep it on me."
As the sky darkened and the clock hands dragged towards the end of the day, people slowly began to separate to celebrate their own way.
Miss Cole retired with her radio and I was sure, liquor, drinking herself into a stupor. The older children went to the small pantomime at the end of the street with Anne, while Martha took the smaller ones caroling - hoping to make up at least some of the expenditure made by the orphanage.
Christmas dinner was done the same way as breakfast, served in large pots in the kitchen. One could serve themselves a plate and eat in the common area.
This time, the area was empty except Eric, Billy and I. Dennis and Amy had silently filled their plates and left the kitchen…and Riddle hadn't come for food at all.
"Is there something wrong with Dennis and Amy?" I asked, unable to look at the two boys. However, in my periphery, I saw them exchange glances. They didn't seem too surprised by the question.
"No one knows." Billy muttered finally.
"Oh we know," Eric scoffed. "It was Riddle."
Riddle again?
I looked up curiously as Billy frowned at Eric. "We don't know, Eric." He insisted.
Eric rolled his eyes, turning to look at me seriously. "They've been like that for seven years now. Just…unseeing, strange…a bunch of freaks now. And we know that Riddle had something to do with it. Just like Billy's rabbit,"
"Billy's rabbit?"
Eric gave said boy a very pointed look. Billy sighed.
"Kids are allowed pets until the age of fifteen in here. I had a rabbit…rescued it when I was five. I…we argued…one day and the next day, my rabbit…Bugsy, we found him hanging from the rafters in the attic. But, we were kids, there's really no way that Riddle could've done it. I know he's a little…intimidating and yes, he's scary in his own way. But just because he has become a strange person in that school - doesn't mean that he hung my rabbit…or did something to Amy and Dennis. I mean, you go there too and you're fine."
What a pathetic comparison…
While there was no doubt in my mind that Riddle was extremely capable of doing both the things he was being accused of - he was a child then. Did he really intend to do harm? Or was it accidental magic?
"I -"
"Next Billy's going to say the Nazis grow daisies in the places they kill people." Eric harshed, getting to his feet with his unfinished plate. "I'm going to head out."
"Eric," Billy began consolingly but the taller boy had already stomped out.
We heard clinks and then the slam of the front door, sitting in stunned silence.
"He really doesn't like Riddle, does he?" I asked quietly.
"He has it especially bad. I don't know why, but they've never gotten along. It was worse when we were children - and then Riddle went to your school and…" Billy trailed off but it was enough.
I got up too, running water over the plates and the bowls to cleanse the grime off and bid Billy a soft goodnight. I didn't suppose there was much to do for the rest of Christmas.
I didn't know if I even wanted to come back next time.
Was it really Riddle's fault that Dennis and Amy didn't speak anymore? While theoretically, it made sense, a child's magic could not be quantified or qualified.
Mum had always spoken of childhood magic as having no areas of morality - because a child needed to learn the difference between good or bad to prescribe moral to their magic. After all, she loved recounting how I had been a nasty child with my magic, my tantrums apparently shaking the foundations of the house sometimes until I was soothed.
In time, I had settled.
Had Riddle even had time for that?
Who cares? It's Voldemort you're thinking of, the voice similar to Ron's snapped at me as I moved through the lifeless orphanage. However, when I reached the first landing, the murmured conversation from one of the open rooms made me pause.
It was the two of them, I saw, peeking in. Dennis and Amy were sitting on the floor of the tiny room, backs against the wall as they muttered to each other. They didn't look at one another but it had to be each other they spoke to.
Bad idea, bad idea, bad idea…
"Um," I said, announcing myself as awkwardly as I felt to even be doing this. They were muggles who had possibly lost their minds the way the Longbottoms had. If Riddle had indeed done something to them then they needed magical help, not some witch who had no idea what she was even doing.
Amy was the first to look at me, eyes still unseeing, as if she stared straight through me.
"Hi, I'm the new girl?"
"We know who you are." Dennis said, his face turned straight before he too looked over. "What do you want?"
I stared quietly. Seconds passed, before the older boy and girl turned around to stare off again. There was one very obvious way one could see what had happened.
While legilimency was not something taught at Hogwarts, it wasn't exactly out of bounds for any magical being. If Tom Riddle could do it, so could I.
I focused somewhere around Amy's temple, slowly broadening my mind until I felt my consciousness bleed out of me. Intangible but present, I felt the touches of their psyches close, allowing it to brush on them.
It must have not been as subtle as Riddle's because although I felt flashes of emotions - numbness, oppression and a simmering anger that rivaled mine on my better days, there were no images to accompany them.
Dennis was a much better candidate. For him there were no emotions, instead only images surfaced - trapped behind a glass that remained unfeeling as his partner remained unseeing.
A huge cavern came first, too tall to see and then there were loads of green light - nothing that looked like the Killing curse. It was milder and only illuminated one person - Riddle.
And then there was a blank.
I dropped my gaze just as Amy flinched, her eyes turning to me in suspicion - but I was already out her door.
If I was going to practice legilimency on them - it would have to be when they were asleep.
The first high pitched wail that split through the night barely managed to rouse me. I lay groggily on the thin bed, wondering what felt so pressing. By the time I recognized that the sound was an actuality, the blaring had become deafening.
I pressed my palms flat against my ears, cringing away from the sound.
The window shook, the walls thrummed with whatever it was that was coming while I balled up on the bed against the wall, waiting for it to finish.
However, it only seemed to be the beginning. Sounds of glass shattering, distant booms and that dreadful banshee-like wail kept on until I had to crawl off the bed and under the desk. Blood thudded within my ears, almost painful in my veins as if trying to supply clear thoughts through the haze of alarm and panic.
What was this? Was this what the muggle wars were like?
While the Battle of Hogwarts had been horrifying, creatures of terror pouring out of the Forbidden forest to join Voldemort and people had been dying left and right, there was…no helplessness - not when I had a wand on me.
Here…
I blindly grabbed at the sheets of the bed, clawing to get to my wand under my pillow. If I had my wand I'd be safe. I could send a Patronus, I could apparate, I could make a portkey…I could conjure shields…I'd be safe…
The booms were getting closer, the orphanage shook harder, hard enough to make my hands tremble, teeth jangling against each other.
I raised my wand over my head, wildly casting about for something that could be helpful.
I didn't want to die like this, not sitting under a desk with these despicable sirens - not when I hadn't done anything that could help me get back to my family.
I couldn't die…
"What in the name of Merlin do you think you're doing?"
In the multitudes of sounds accosting my senses, somehow the bang of the door to the room slamming open failed to make an impression.
Tom Riddle stood in the shuddering doorway, both hands grasping the wooden framework as he glared furiously down at where I cowered.
I gaped at him, stupefied.
Riddle marched into the room just as another boom wracked through the air, much too close this time.
"Get away from there, Revel; get up!" His hand wrapped tightly around my wrist, tight enough to stop circulation if he wanted to.
In that moment, his onyx dark eyes flared similar to the way Voldemort's had, only there was no malicious mirth. He seemed genuinely angry.
Yanking on my hand, he hurriedly ushered me down the groaning stairs and out the open front door of the orphanage.
"What…what was that?"
"Air raid, Revel, surely you know the way the muggles wage wars."
I ignored his harsh reply, turning to stare at the orphanage over my shoulder, looking grotesque and abandoned.
"Where are the rest?" My lips were frozen, it was hard to speak without stuttering.
"They left." Riddle turned a corner and then we were in an alleyway. He dropped my hand as if it scalded him, stepping a few strides away to breathe hard, running a hand through his hair.
"The orphanage evacuated when the siren first began. They have a hidden shelter every few streets." A boom punctuated his statement. "It will be suicide going to look for one right now. This is the best we can do for now; which brings me to…" He turned to where I stood still, watching him with wide eyes, liquid pooling under my lashes from keeping my breath and pulse steady.
"Why were you not there?"
"I was asleep. I…I didn't realize…" I trailed off when Riddle scoffed.
"You did not realize how dangerous living in the muggle world is? I thought your father was a muggleborn." He said coldly.
I snapped my eyes up at him, glaring as hard as I could manage through the trickles of dazed panic that still lingered in my chest. "Don't talk of my father, Riddle."
"No?" His face was now cruel, eyes sparking with pleasure. "What good is it, sparing the lack of education he imparted to you? Had you died in that orphanage - when I realized you hadn't managed to stumble your useless way out,"
"No one told you to come back for me!" I screeched, loud enough to be heard over the metallic rips somewhere farther away. "I bet you did it to look good anyway, so you could play the hero -"
My back slammed against the rough brick wall, the uneven edges digging into my flesh.
Riddle's hands were at my shoulders, holding me back, too close to my throat and his face inches from mine, his handsome features twisted.
He was going to kill me.
"You ungrateful little -"
Just as another boom, much much farther away now - something exploded out from within me. Fiery heat gurgled in my veins, flashing outwards in a jagged display of accidental magic.
Whatever it was, it hit Riddle squarely - tossing him away from me.
He landed on his feet, of course, barely ruffled but successfully enraged. His hand plunged within his pocket just as I raised my own wand.
The first curse I cast reverberated off of his shield charm, not even denting his magic as he eyed me through the protective curtain.
"Miss Revel -"
He had killed me.
"Confringo!" The golden blast of the curse again hit the charm protecting Riddle, deflecting off and hitting the brick wall surrounding the alley. Shards of exploded bricks and concrete showered on us.
I raised my wand again, waving it until the brick pieces rose in the air.
"Oppug-"
"Stop."
The jinx died on my tongue, whirling around to see Dumbledore standing at the entrance of the alleyway, his wand drawn but resting at his side.
"Stop, Miss Revel. That's quite enough." He strode forward till he stood between me and Riddle.
Instead of looking grateful that Dumbledore was here, Riddle retained his enraged expression, not dropping his shield.
The professor glanced once at me, looking over the way my wand arm dropped and the breath escaped my lungs, panting as I tried to gather my composure. He looked back at Riddle.
"You can drop the Shield, Tom. She won't hurt you."
I caught Riddle glance at me, appraisingly before he wordlessly dissolved the charm. "She is panicking, professor."
"So she is…can you hear me, Rose?"
The voices seemed to be coming through a thick glass wall, or from underwater. I was submerged, the noises dimming until they fell away completely. I took a deep shuddering breath and closed my eyes.
The hard surfaces behind my back had transformed into a much softer cradle. There were no jagged edges digging into my bones, no sharp fringes cutting into my flesh. An odd serenity flooded through my senses, flushing away the prior sensation of drowning, of the inability to claw at my lungs for air.
There was a peaceful silence around me now, the booms that had spiked my blood with pulsing fear absent.
Nothing flashed ominously behind my eyelids.
And then my eyes were opening, slow and only mostly aware.
The wall in front of my eyes was gray, some streaks peeling here and there. Streaks of pale sunlight lined these walls, dreary as ever.
Somewhere closer to my head, a presence lingered, and I flinched immediately when I registered it.
"Good morning, Miss Revel, how do you feel?"
Dumbledore…
I tried to raise my head, the serene lull fighting against the need to jump up and make sure I was safe.
My head throbbed as it attempted to fight the calming drought that had likely been administered to me. Blood swirled in my skull, nausea roiling my stomach, making me drop back to the bed.
I groaned in futility.
A warm hand encased my shoulder, turning me to lie on my back again, the thin pillow meagerly cradling my head.
"You must rest, dear. You have been sleeping for ten hours, I had to give you a calming drought and a dreamless sleep potion. The potions need to be flushed out of your system fully before you are able to be properly coherent."
I groaned again.
A mixture of calming and dreamless sleep droughts…well, that would explain the unnatural grogginess, the sluggishness of my blood.
Few potions in the world could be ingested in combinations with no consequences. While it was rare to poison oneself if you knew what you were doing - magical potions were only meant to do one thing at a time.
It wasn't prudent to keep taking different potions for different reasons - unless done under magi-medical supervision.
It would take a while to get my bearings back.
"What happened?" I asked, my voice oddly deep and slow.
"There was a…bombing, yesternight - or should I say rather early in the morning. The orphanage and buildings nearby were evacuated and people rushed to various shelters. From what I learned from Mr. Riddle - he realized that you had not followed the rest of the children as they were being led away by Miss Cole and her helpers. He returned to fetch you and found you in a somewhat alarming state. Mr. Riddle says he managed to lead the two of you into a relatively untouched alleyway and then you attacked him when he…admittedly provoked you."
Dumbledore crossed his legs as he fixed me with a sharp look.
"I wouldn't say you were delirious. You were aware enough to cast proper spells but Mr. Riddle did say you released a blast of accidental magic - and you were definitely disturbed when I found you. You lost consciousness soon after so we brought you back to the orphanage."
I lay there, processing the story I had intaken. So Riddle had admitted that he'd been provoking me…
"He was talking about my father…saying stuff about how the 'education' he provided was lacking - I don't even remember what else but - he pushed me against a wall and that's why I…I don't know I lashed out with magic, I guess. He pulled out his wand and all I could think of…he was going to kill me again and I couldn't let him - so I cursed him first. He had a shield up."
I stopped, swallowing through a painfully dry throat.
Dumbledore got up off the chair and passed me a glass of water that tasted metallic on my tongue, doing nothing to sate my thirst.
"In the present circumstances, I believe it's safe to say that you were in no sane state to objectively understand your actions - and you are indisposed to do so now. But Roselle, I will urge you to recuperate in privacy before you are allowed to see anyone but me. Mr. Riddle believes the story we concocted for you - but he will still ask questions. The orphanage has been reinstated and I have spoken to Miss Cole to allow you some space and time."
"Why does it matter if Riddle asks questions?" I asked bitterly, trying hard not to snap.
"It is not unnatural, especially seeing as he risked his own life to come back for you, Rose. He would say he is owed some answers. But you must not see him, especially not when you are as weak as you are. Mr. Riddle has…unorthodox ways of finding answers."
So Dumbledore knew about the legilimency. I gazed at him, trying to mull over the meaning of his words.
"Something happened, didn't it? What are you not telling me?"
There was a pause in which I felt certain Dumbledore would change the subject. Thankfully he only sat back down.
"Rose, the reason why I was able to find the two of you…was not due to your casting of underage magic. It was Tom's protego that I managed to trace. There has been no tracing of the spells that you cast."
I opened my mouth, gaped, tried to form words and then closed my mouth.
"As of now, Tom has been led to believe that it was your first burst of magic that brought me there -"
"But I thought I was fifteen again, I should have the Trace back on, right?"
Dumbledore was silent for a long while.
"I have a…theory, as to why the Trace would no longer work on you. It is muddled, nowhere near legitimate but it is my best guess…"
I waited impatiently.
"You were killed, then brought back to life - how, nobody knows…perhaps it's magic that was concocted in the future,"
"It wasn't."
"But I have no understanding of what happened to you, besides you had been seventeen already when you passed…reverting back to an age that - you say I - thought best for you would not bring back a government mandated Trace back onto your blood."
Dumbledore sighed grimly and in that moment he struck me as exhausted.
"What Tom did, was a worthy deed," Was it me, or did he look genuinely surprised, "However, I would still recommend not letting him into this particular secret." There was no twinkle in his eyes this time.
Dumbledore patted my hand before getting to his feet again, and this time I could tell he was gearing to leave - tightening the cloak around his neck.
"Why did he come back?" I asked quietly.
It was meant to be rhetoric, asking more for my benefit than his.
"Perhaps in time, you could ask him."
There was a harsh crack and then the professor was gone.
It took a whole day for the potions to flush out my system, in which I spent the day with only water as my companion and meals. The next day, I managed to sit up, blearily staring out the window to see some of the structures that had toppled during the bombing.
Miss Cole took Dumbledore's warning seriously - she had Anne get me soups that she quietly placed on the desk and departed just as silently.
I wondered if they thought I was a freak for being unable to evacuate with them.
It was that particular fear that kept me in the room, happy to sleep if only to escape the new images that had been added to my repertoire of nightmare fodder.
In the two days that I had been confined to the room, Eric and Billy kept their distance, so when there was a brisk knock on the door, I was glad to bid the knocker enter.
My hopeful smile wiped away when instead of the bulky Eric or the slighter Billy, the figure that entered the room was tall, regal and exuding authority.
I froze on the bed with - ironically - Slughorn's potions' homework on my lap, torn between scorn at the show of control or the softer, questionable emotion of subduing at the fact that he had indeed come back to get me out of the orphanage.
No matter what his reasons were - he'd come back.
He had no reason to.
He didn't even like me that much.
He had made that very clear even as he pulled me out of the building.
So why did he come back at all?
And why was he here now?
He stood in the center of the tiny room, hands crossed over his chest instead of behind his back.
There was silence.
"Riddle," I finally greeted, tilting my head before returning to slowly scrawl on the parchment without causing any tears.
"Miss Revel," he returned. "How do you feel now?"
I pursed my lips against the habitual reply of demanding why he cared, keeping my eyes fixed on the parchment.
"I'm fine now. How are you?" I paused, chancing a look up at him. "I didn't…hurt you, did I?"
There was that eyebrow raise.
"Despite your best efforts - you did not manage to harm me."
I nodded to myself, gulping and returning to the homework. "Good. I shouldn't have attacked you right after you came to get me."
"Is that your way of saying you ought to have picked a better time for attacking me?"
I frowned up at him. "If you had picked a better time to insult my father,"
"I didn't intend to insult him. I was merely stating facts." He said flatly.
"Doesn't make it less insulting," I muttered to myself.
Riddle's lips twitched.
Was he actually amused?
"They weren't my best efforts, by the way." I said, hoping to wipe away that smug tilt of his lips.
"No?"
"No."
Riddle paused and this time there was no hiding his - miraculous, ridiculous - mirth.
"I look forward to seeing you at your best then."
By the time it was the day for me - and Riddle - to return to Hogwarts, much of the side-effects of the potions had faded away.
The dizziness that had made it hard to walk still surged when waking up but aside from that, actively moving around helped more and more of the potions to get out of my body. I vaguely wondered if Riddle was up for another round - just for something to fuel the adrenaline.
The first visit back to Wools' had ended on a horrible note, and as much as I liked Eric and Billy - I really didn't know if I wanted to - or could - come back again.
Even Dumbledore might refuse.
I sighed, diligently going back to packing the meager items I had brought from Hogwarts back into the trunk.
Clasping the latches shut, I heaved it off the bed, shoving it till it lay ready to take away the next morning.
A new year…
I glanced out the window - counting the structures that still remained at the end of 1942.
How many of them would still remain as the world moved into 1943…?
I had been here for four months now - and had only been able to accomplish a duel with Voldemort that barely deserved to be called as such. He had stood there with a simple shield charm, warding off my delusional spellwork.
And had the audacity to indirectly mock and challenge me…
I was certain he was biding his time to do exactly that as we landed foot in Hogwarts again, the evil arse.
Shaking my head, I went to the desk, fetching any spare quills or parchment that might have been left behind when I caught it at the very back of the desk drawer.
A slim black leather book, I pulled it out and frowned at it. It wasn't mine, and didn't look like something anyone had left it here.
I flipped it open, revealing pristine ivory blank pages, the inscription empty and the back reading VAUXHALL STATIONARY in peeling gold script.
A muggle diary…
Perhaps Miss Cole had left it here, perhaps she hoped I'd put it to use but I had completely overlooked it, the book shoved to the back of the drawer by the things I'd put in it.
I closed the book, tapping my nails on it until a singular thought came to me.
An impulse yet again, but this time around, I didn't feel as concerned or ashamed of it as I had been in regards to some of my previous decisions.
I tightened my hold on the diary and exited the room.
The second floor landing was a lot less crowded than the one on the first.
While Miss Cole, Martha and Anne resided on the ground floor with many of the older children, the smaller were on the first floor - along with the room I had been given.
The second floor somehow seemed cut away from the rest of the life of the orphanage. It made sense that Riddle had a room here, with a few other odd rooms that housed some other older boys - Eric included.
I peered into some of the open rooms before pressing my ear to the ones that were closed, huffing in impatience.
Where would a prospective evil overlord reside to be alone?
I crossed my arms.
Where would they put a boy they thought was the evil incarnate?
Slowly, I turned to face the final closed door, right by the farthest window, at the base of the attic stairwell. My steps were steady, taking me over until I stood in front of the closed door, a hand coming up to scatter knocks across it.
Silence…
A few seconds passed…
I raised my hand again when the door opened, the person behind it thankfully the one I wanted to see.
Riddle blinked down at me in mild shock. "Miss Revel?"
"Hi," I muttered, the hand holding the diary swinging behind my back. "Uh…happy birthday, Riddle." I shoved the diary at him.
Riddle's eyebrows had shot straight up, looking puzzled as he grabbed the diary out of my hand and turned it over to look at it. "A diary?"
"Well, I don't expect you to write all your little flowery thoughts in it…but I don't have anything else to give you and I didn't want to not give you anything because - well, you did save my life…I guess."
I stared at him, studying the minute change of expression that passed his otherwise deadpan face. When he finally met my eyes with that intensity that preceded his legilimency, I cleared my throat and looked away.
"Thank you." His soft voice had my head whipping right up, forgetting all about curbing his eye contact. He wasn't even looking at me, eyes fixed right on the little black book.
"Right." I said weakly, to cover up the awkward silence. "Riddle?"
He kept staring down but I knew he was listening.
"Why did you come here?"
And then again, there was that silence, heavy and unbearable. I sighed, turning away to leave.
"To keep an eye on you."
Guys, when I tell you that I screamed writing this! Especially the scene when he first sees her after the incident.
ANYWHOO
What were your thoughts?
I want to just disclaim that I obviously have no idea of what the London Blitz was like and research can never equal to experience but I hope to have done enough justice to the scene. I couldn't find any record of a bombing during the Christmas time in 1942 but I'm claiming writer's freedom here.
Do let me know what you think!