Hi there,

today's chapter is going to change perspectives to provide an insight into Elliott's head, before we jump back into Tom's for the ritual in the Chamber of Secrets …

xx

"What is it, Elliott? You're almost absent."

The Quidditch victory has long been celebrated, but Leonora is still holding my hand. On the lakeside, far away from everybody else, we're having a picnic just for us. And yet I can't quite enjoy any of it and catch myself staring bleakly at the water.

"Tell me," she encourages me.

"I guess I just don't know what's wrong with him," I hear myself say. "Tom is … he's always been a closed book, I'm aware of that … But something's not right. I know him, better than he thinks. Ever since he's back, he's been acting like it was the first day again."

"The first day? At Hogwarts?"

I nod, in obvious frustration.

"Talk about it! Get it off your chest, Ell."

I take a deep breath and pull her into my arms before I actually consider doing that. But then I just start, and I can barely stop talking …

Arriving at Hogwarts for the very first time, wide-eyed and with utmost euphoria – it is that feeling all eleven-year-old witches and wizards wait for, once they receive that famous letter. The boat ride feels like moving into another life. Into another world. And taking the stairs to the Great Hall for the first time, and seeing it, as mentioned in all the stories of the adults and former students, that forms fond memories forever.

And of course, like any new beginning, every first day at school also brings a rush of excitement. And even more so when you are being thrown into the Sorting Ceremony right away – an event defining an entire future.

All my family members had found their home in the dungeons of Slytherins. For generations, actually. And I was very sure I'd follow suit, even though my father would joke quite a bit about it.

"Elliott," he teased while still at Platform 9 3/4, "I'm sure you'll make a fine Hufflepuff –"

"I'll get into Slytherin, father, just like you!" I immediately protested – and now I get proven right.

The Sorting Hat does not hesitate. "Elliott Bryant, son of an old wizarding family, well, look at that … I knew your grandmother, a truly talented witch … You would be a good finder, young friend, I can tell as much. But your destiny lies in developing that talent where it is needed most – in Slytherin!"

I knew that this decision would be made, and yet I beam with pride as I look into the faces of the other first-years. On the very right of the Great Hall there is the Slytherin table, eyed suspiciously by so many present, but even on the first day, the snake's tangible unity reinforces my sorting.

There is Avery, congratulating and making room for me. Right next to Mulciber, who seems a bit simple-minded, but cordial nevertheless. Partridge, on the other hand, just strikes me as stupid, to be frank. While Nott, for his part, seems mostly nervous. Rosier winks at me, Black nods in all seriousness.
The girls all keep to themselves for now, some distance away. Rouvenia. Shiny dark hair and plenty of mischief – she, too, winks. Unlike Cassia and Sophronia. Just as pretty, but probably a bit mean as well …

Only one classmate in the sea of new faces at the Slytherin table gives me a riddle – and probably also the others.
Literally.

Tom Riddle.
As in enigma.
What kind of name is that?

He is silent, watchful, miles away from a smile, highly focused.
He gives the impression he doesn't want to be disturbed, even if he clearly also has nothing better to do than sit and watch the ceremony with us.

"I'm Elliott," I introduce myself, simply because … because it feels like we could possibly become friends anyway.

However I stop my attempts right there. He simply stares at me, replying, "Hello, Elliott."

Not 'I'm Tom, nice to meet you,' or 'How are you?' – just a cold stare, as if he could read every detail about me, every hidden thought in my eyes.

His aura is a mess. Serious and ill-tempered, he doesn't respond to any of our table talk, he barely touches any of the feast's dishes – and, what I find particularly strange – Dumbledore and he keep staring at each other in an enormously peculiar way. Both probably suspecting that every soul in the hall just misses it. Like two ghosts in the world of the living.
But, as the hat said, I sometimes see more than others. I find connections, sometimes I even surprise myself with that.

"Up, up, my dears," Slughorn calls us with him at the end of the evening, leading us all where our new home for years to come will be.

The night is brightly lit by the moon as we enter the common room in the dungeons, and it is beautiful. The rays of shimmering light reach down all the way to the bottom of the Black Lake. Through the huge windows set into the walls we peek into the shallows of the Grindylows' world. Truly magical.

"No one must ever know where House Slytherin is," Slughorn admonishes us, but … how redundant is that? The elite of the wizarding world keeps chatting about it in the open. Everyone knows that Slytherin's common room is in Hogwarts' dungeons.

"We won't tell anyone," Nott vows. And yet he looks so unsure of himself that one would almost guess he couldn't even keep a family secret.

"Watch the windows carefully," Slughorn chortles, "I've seen the giant squid many a time."

At these words, everyone immediately runs to a vacant window part just to stare into the Dark Lake's world.

Except for Tom Riddle.

He just watches us as if we were a bunch of naive children.

Killjoy …

"I've already researched everything I could find about the giant squid," Rouvenia informes us. "Rumour has it you can feed it toast."

"Toast?" Black shakes his head impatiently. "That kind of nonsense can only come from a witch."

"House Slytherin doesn't ever underestimate its witches, Mr Black," Slughorn is quick to remind him. "And dear Rouvenia is quite right. Ask the older students and steal a toast or two at breakfast …"

"I know everything about magical creatures," Rouvenia mumbles to Black, but otherwise, their conversation finds a sudden end because the dungeon door is frantically yanked open.

The caretaker runs over to us, thoroughly disgruntled, in his arms – oh.

Those are my mice …

"Who of you forgot their pets earlier?"

"Sir," I say, hurrying over to the man, "it must have been me …"

"A good finder, huh?"

I turn around in irritation and hear it for the second time, Riddle's voice. It just drips with cynicism.

"You ought to be, I guess, if you tend to lose even living creatures."

"Well," I sigh, receiving my mice from the caretaker again, "thank you very much, I'm sure I would have missed them in a minute anyways."

Slughorn nods happily and then starts a little chat with the caretaker on their way out.

The man is quirky, but nice. Certainly great at Potions, just a little odd.

I can't fall asleep, but soon enough I know exactly why – I forgot them again! They're still downstairs in the common room.

I could slap myself, I'm incredibly fond of my mice, two females, really cute and trusting, but the day was just too busy.

The best thing for me to do is go and get them. I sneak downstairs, trying not to wake anyone up. And I believe I don't, everybody continues to snore, but already as I take the stairs down to the common room again, my good mood vanishes.

Of course. Of course, he of all people is sitting there.
Killjoys neither need fun nor sleep, I guess.

But he is truly a bit eerie, I have to admit that. He just sits on the sofa with his back to the stairs, staring into the fireplace. It gets brighter and darker, green and blue, higher and smaller, and like little fireflies he let sparks dance around the room.

Scary.
And how does he do it? We haven't been to a single class yet …

However, my gaze immediately falls upon the mouse cage. Didn't I put it on one of the chest of drawers earlier? Why is it now on the sofa table?

My goodness, has he done something to them?

I speed up my steps, with but little noise again, yet Riddle grimly turns around.

"Why aren't you asleep?" I ask him, heading straight for the sofa table.

"Insomnia."

"You … have trouble sleeping?" I try to dig deeper.

He just nods like a stoic, and I guess his look is to let me know that I could just as well have saved my breath for that question.

"Did you move my mice?"

Out of nowhere, the flames in the fireplace grow significantly higher – and darker.

"Move your mice?" he hisses.

"Yeah, did you?" I repeat, inspecting the cage along with its inhabitants. No sign of anything … bad …

"They'd float," he curtly states.

I shake my head in wary disbelief. "They … what? Just like that?"

He shrugs. "It shouldn't confuse you that much given we are at a School of Witchcraft and Wizardry."

"Forget about it," I grumble and, out of an impulse, sit down on the sofa across from him. "You just brought them here and now you're acting like you're the model student who's already wingardium leviosaing things arou-"

I pause. Because he does it again. The cage is hovering a few inches above the table.

All right …

"That's … not bad," I hear myself say in awe, pointing to the fire. "And why are you doing that?"

"What about Insomnia didn't you understand?" he asks. Impatience must be his middle name …

"Fine," I sigh, rolling my eyes. "But … I'm here now, right? You could stop being spooky and just chat with me, couldn't you?"

He raises an eyebrow.
As if a normal conversation was completely out of the question for him.

But what is so complex about that? I'm tempted to think he grew up completely isolated and away from any kind of society if smalltalk is such a painful matter to him …

"What would you like to talk about?" he eventually asks me, his mimic oddly distant. "The fact that you forgot your pets twice?"

Ouch. Salt into the wound.

I groan. "I know, I know … It's just been an exciting day …" But then a fantastic idea crosses my mind. "Should we get them out?"

He tilts his head. "No?"

"Yes!" I grin and just open the cage to get them. "There's something healing about animals, maybe you'll be able to sleep after all!"

"I very much doubt that –"

He doesn't get any further as I just place one of the two mice into his hand.
He suddenly freezes, as if he's just seen Medusa … But the mouse does not mind. I sit down with mine right next to him and calmly stroke its fur.

Out of the corner of my eye I see him watching me.
Like an extraterrestrial being would watch a human with something completely mundane they just don't know yet. And he hesitates, I notice that too, but … I really have to pull myself together not to laugh when he soon just does as I do.

He is infinitely uncomfortable with it, I can tell from his face, but the mouse seems to like him.

"Snakes … eat mice," he says at some point, as if in thought.

"But we're not really snakes," I retort the first thing that comes to mind.

"We're in Slytherin. What else would we be?"

I'm puzzled for a moment. "You think we're evil just because we're in Slytherin? That's an awful prejudice, don't you know? My whole family was in Slytherin – and they're all decent people!"

"Good for you."

He is so obnoxious …

But he is also making friends with my mouse right now.

"She likes you," I hear myself say.

A little surprised, he looks at me. "You take her again," he demands, almost frantically handing me the animal.

"Enough love for today?" I ask with a wink.

"Enough company, too," he shoots back. "Go to sleep."

"What if I don't want to?"

"Then at least be quiet."

Talking about being obnoxious! "Has anyone ever told you that you're no fun at all?"

"No," he almost growls. "Few people dare to tell me anything."

"Well, I don't have a problem with both," I assert. "You're no fun. There. Now you know. I could teach you, though."

"Teach me what?"

If looks could kill …

"Teach you to be more fun."

"Don't worry, I'll let you know as soon as I'm in dire need of a clown."

I sigh. "Will be seven long years with a cynic like you around."

"Time is relative," he says, staring off into space.

"You know what?" I yawn. "Whatever. Good luck with your insomnia. I'm back to sleep."

I'm about to head back to the stairs when he says, "The mice, Elliott. You're forgetting them again."

Damn, he's right.

I hurry back to the cage, smiling at him – in annoyance, that is – then I leave him to his brooding again.

Two weeks later, I wonder why a mouse seems so big.
And three weeks later, a squeak wakes me up. And a nasty suspicion …

Everyone is asleep. Dead silence – except for the squeaking.

I rush to the cage, but my fears are immediately confirmed.

Mice babies.

This is not good …

And above all, it is completely impossible!

I had come to Hogwarts with two female mice – and here they are, starting a huge family?

I'm getting hot and cold. If the caretaker finds out about this, I'll be expelled right away. After not even three weeks!

Oh, no panic, no panic, I think, this can be fixed, I just need to separate them now and – no, I'm panicking!

Where do I get another cage? How do I fix this?

First I have to sort my thoughts. I grab the cage and sneak down the stairs to the common room. Just like three weeks ago.

And that's when it hits me.
Riddle.

He must have something to do with it – and there he is again, sitting on the old sofa in front of the fireplace, in the middle of the night.

"Riddle," I whisper so loudly that I could basically speak normal as well, "what have you done?"

He turns around and stares at me like I was completely mad.

"What?" he acidly asks.

"You did … Well, what did you do?"

He has no clue what I'm getting at. "You'll have to be a bit more specific."

"I … I don't know either," I whine and sit down next to him on the couch, merely pointing at the cage.

"What the hell," Riddle murmurs after a glance. Then he seems to find this all quite funny. "Guess you forgot a lot lately. That the two should've been separated, for instance …"

"No, not really." I take a deep breath. "They were said to be two females. I swear they told me they were."

He raises his brows and looks back at the cage. "Don't think so. But now what?" He sounds genuinely amused. "What are you going to do with that family? Snake food after all?"

"No!" Mortified, I shake my head. "We can't do that!"

"In theory, we –"

"They're cute!" I protest. "Can't you see that?"

"Who knows about it?"

"What?"

"Who knows?"

"Just you and me. Why?"

"You've got ten mice now. Soon more if you don't intervene."

"But what am I supposed to do? Sell them?"

Briefly we both ponder, then it occurs to us that my sarcasm was actually not that bad of an idea. Riddle nods soon enough.

"Ten galleons a mouse?"

"Why not," he says. "Have fun selling them."

"Oh no!" Indignantly, I shake my head. "No way, we're in this together! You did this!"

"What? How would I have done that?"

"I don't know," I admit. "But you can't leave me alone with this now!"

"You really are helpless, aren't you?"

"I don't care what you think," I retort, rolling my eyes. "Are you going to help me or not?"

He thinks about it for an annoyingly long time, then he finally nods.

"Maybe in return, you'll find something for me one of these days …"

"That's it," I say under my breath. "Find something …"

"What?" Leonora asks, all perplexed as I sit up frantically.

"I owe it to him to find the reason!"

"What reason?"

"There must be some reason why he hasn't been here for three weeks. There's a reason why he doesn't want to talk about what happened and there's a reason why Harper's fighting with him. I just have to find it, that reason!"

"You think he wasn't … away from Hogwarts because of dragon pox?"

I can't help but grin. "You believed that? Really?"

She bites her lips and shrugs. "That's why I helped him with some runes the other day –"

I'm alarmed at once. "What runes?"

"Well – he wanted to know the meaning of five runes. I mentioned that I was taking Ancient Runes and I thought we were just chatting –"

"When was that?"

"During … the Quidditch match …"

Shaking my head, I bury my face in my hands for a moment. "Tom, Tom, what are you up to … Leo, he already knew from me that you were into runes. Whatever he told you was probably just to get some information."

She gulps. "It sounded really convincing, his story … I'm sorry! I messed up …"

"No, no, the things he says always sounds convincing, and you were just trying to help." I plant a kiss on her lips. "But are you going to help me help him now? What exactly did he want to know?"