Author's note: Wowza! While I was writing this 2 days ago, I realized that it's been exactly 2 years since I published Parallel (on June 6, 2022)! That's a crazy milestone for me, so thank you everyone who's stuck by this story as well as those who've stumbled upon it randomly :) I couldn't have done it without you! And here's a long chapter as a treat :D
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The Knights of Walpurgis?
Eve's first thought was That's kind of a stupid name. Thank god for Occlumency.
Her second thought was What the fuck what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck I am actually in one of the earliest Death Eater meetings I knew it I knew it I knew it I literally called it what the fuck what the fuck why are they called the Knights of Walpurgis what even is Walpurgis I'm scared oh my god oh my god
She wondered when they would eventually make the switch to be known as Death Eaters.
"Have a seat," implored Riddle simply, nodding towards one of the empty armchairs in front of his own. He watched Eve, eyes blazing, as she stood still for a moment before stepping past the unmoving row of Death Eaters—Knights—and gingerly taking a seat, as though she was treading on eggshells.
She might as well have been. There was a heavy sort of tension in the air, somehow only exacerbated by the only show of ease present in the room—Riddle, who was still lounged back casually in his chair, languid as though he was presiding in a world of his own, where time ran backwards and the snugness of other living creatures was of no matter to him (and he practically was). It was a clear, confusing contrast to the otherwise stillness and coldness of the room: the Knights stood dark and unmoving, like stone pillars, and the translucent lighting of the stained glass windows was starting to look disorienting and unnatural against the floor.
Eve's own eyes were starting to swim; the material of the armchair below her fingers was strangely icy despite being so close to the flames of the fireplace, and the rapid-fire thrum of adrenaline in her ears seemed to be preventing her from even trying to stare Riddle directly in the eyes.
"My Knights," Riddle gestured over to where they all stood silently, clearly unaware or uncaring of the taut rigidness around him. "They come from some of the most powerful, influential wizarding families in Britain, and they possess connections in magical institutions and governments all across the world. Nott. Lestrange. Mulciber. Rosier. Avery."
One by one, as their names were ticked off, the respective Knight bowed their covered head slightly.
Riddle, meanwhile, was watching Eve closely as he spoke, observing her reaction to the familiar names. She tried not to give any outward indication that they bothered her, her previous knowledge having primed herself for the moment well enough, although she couldn't help her gaze from fractionally sliding to Avery and Rosier quickly—
—though not quickly enough to avoid detection, as Riddle smiled widely, and the expression looked eerily misplaced against his features. "Yes. Rosier's family is originally from France, and most of them are still heavily involved with the departments in the French Ministry and the Beauxbatons Board of Governors. Meanwhile, Avery here is a descendant of the inventor of Felix Felicis, and as such provides me with an expansive index of connections in academia globally. They serve me well."
They serve me well. Eve shivered, trying to tame her racing heartbeat—the power dynamics were starting to shine through unapologetically, and she couldn't help but think about how she was going to interact with Avery and Rosier in regular settings again, knowing now that their tame personalities were apparently all play.
"Now, Laurence—why do you think I have intentionally gathered so much power in this room?"
It was a rhetorical question—Riddle didn't seem actually interested in what Eve replied, only placing a hand on his chin and tilting his head, as if pondering a question. "Perhaps because I simply wanted to. Or perhaps I didn't seek this power—it came to me. After all, those most naturally disposed towards ambition in their core most often are the ones who notice the potential of power around them and the failure of the incompetents who possess those resources."
Through the unadulterated fear and apprehension clouding her mind, Eve couldn't help but think that little spiel just sounded like a pile of rubbish. She wondered if this was what being indoctrinated into a cult with a crazy leader was like.
Riddle's voice broke through her thoughts. "Have you ever encountered a Muggle on your travels?"
This time, he waited, and Eve instinctively chose the answer she thought was most safe. "I can't say I have."
"Then you have been shielded—from crude exposure, and from enlightening knowledge. You see, we are not a simple school club." At those words, Riddle's features twisted mockingly. "The Knights of Walpurgis is a contemporary collective—a circle, if you may, of individuals with true, raw knowledge of the implications of the rising faux-competence wizarding society lends to Muggles and those of Muggle heritage. There has been a slow yet steady modern movement of assimilation for the sake of inclusion that has been gaining traction in all aspects of society, and we seem to be the only ones willing to acknowledge the detrimental outcomes for the wizarding world if the inferiority of Muggle blood mixing with pure blood is not combatted—in our marriages, in our government, in our education, in our lives."
Eve found that somewhere in the middle of Riddle's monologue, her original trepidation had swiftly transformed into disgust. He may have colored his words with sophisticated vocabulary and vague descriptions, but she was familiar with this spiel—it was the exact mantra that pure-blood supremacists preached to reason their prejudice as logic, to brainwash through blatant lies and excuses of the so-called inherent inferiority of not just Muggles, but Muggleborns and half-bloods alike.
How could Riddle even believe his own words? She didn't understand. He himself was a half-blood, and while maybe no one else knew it, he himself did. How could he stand there, building a regime contingent on the centuries-old ignorant discrimination fueled by pure-blood supremacy, with the knowledge that he himself was categorized in the latter category of inferior that he so despised?
Either Riddle genuinely believed the idiotic philosophy he was spewing despite his identity—or he saw himself as some sort of exception, an all-powerful, divine-like wizard who bypassed all the inferior traits of half-bloods, who was exempt from the lowliness he preached of those just like him.
With all that she knew about him—from the past, present, and future—Eve had no trouble believing the latter option and the possibility that Riddle's prided heritage or innate superiority complex (most likely both) lent him a pass in his own head against everything he believed in.
"The established goals of the Knights of Walpurgis thus focus on extermination of the weak sources in wizarding society and inferior links of non-pure blood populating positions of authority," continued Riddle. "To put it simply, those with non-magical blood are inherently minor in their magic—it is in their genes, yet the wizarding world is crumbling under this current authority, and nobody is batting an eye. The lack of measures and provisions in place preventing the continuation of such subpar leadership will be our downfall if nothing is done."
He then spread his hands, the movement terrifyingly similar to the action his future counterpart favored so much. "Look around. The power and resources in this single room outrule the entirety of a department in the Ministry. By starting now and making our way upwards, we can establish a new, flourishing era for the greater good of the wizarding world and ensure a better future for incoming generations."
Bullshit, Eve wanted to spat, thinking back to 1997 and tamping down a fresh wave of hatred towards Riddle and all the pain he would inflict in the future. As if you ever had incoming generations in mind.
Nevertheless, a sense of curiosity from his words overshadowed her anger.
For the greater good.
The phrase stirred up a sense of familiarity, and she couldn't help but frown, blurtling, "Like Grindelwald?"
That was a mistake. Riddle sneered immediately, his expression contorting into one of fury and disgust so quickly that Eve couldn't help but lean back in fear. "Grindelwald is weak and a fool. He lacks direction, frolicking around Europe with a lackluster goal and a half-hearted mantra. His regime will not last—I have accomplished tasks he would never dare to do, pursued things he would not dare to search for, and his complete failure to accumulate true power like I do will only drag him to defeat."
Eve knew he was referring to his Horcruxes in his last sentence. It was sick and twisted to be proud of the action of murdering to split his soul, and she fought hard to maintain her neutral expression.
Distantly, another foreign feeling was slowly seeping into her pores, spreading across her limbs and setting her brain on fire:
Disbelief.
She was in disbelief at what she was witnessing, what she was hearing—not just because of the pure madness and insanity of Riddle's words, but because of just how successful those views and his drive to pursue them would make his cause.
Riddle—Lord Voldemort—would succeed in what he'd wanted to build since he was a power-obsessed teenager. He would endure years of strategic decisions, recruitment of influenced young wizards and witches, and Dark magic carried out by him and those around him to achieve his ends. He would go on to gain control over the key magical institutions he was eyeing, infiltrating and dominating the Ministry and Hogwarts and enforcing his oppressive rule through sheer force, fear, and—power.
And here Eve was, sitting in a hidden room in the castle that would not even seem to be discovered half a century later, surrounded by the creator of that future and his first followers, watching it all unfold right before her eyes.
And said creator asked her a question:
"What are your thoughts?"
This was a crucial moment. Riddle had systematically expounded to her his true beliefs, his real ambitions regarding everything he was working for, and now she needed to react.
"I see your vision," Eve said slowly. She forced herself to calm down, Occluding slightly. "However—"
At this, Riddle's eyebrows rose dangerously.
Eve had decided back at the very beginning of conceiving Operation Riddle that if she ever came to the point where she was put in the position of presenting her own beliefs on the ideals of pure-blood supremacy, she wasn't going to lie. Living a lie in any other aspect in 1944 was one thing, but if she forced herself to pretend to lean into such ignorant ideals for the sake of assimilation or blending in, she might as well just be Crucioing herself. After living almost half her life through a stagnant war started because of those stupid beliefs, she refused to fake conformity in that aspect.
She had some power here, too.
"—I'd have to disagree with a few points in your ideology regarding those of mixed-blood heritage," Eve continued, voice shaky, "If we're to work together from now on, I don't want to lie to you about my own beliefs." She moved on quickly to the main part of her words. "I still want in on the deal you proposed—we may not see eye-to-eye in certain aspects, but I still believe we can be beneficial to one another. I'm tired of running; you're clearly more powerful and connected than you let on, and I want to live a life free of worry and exploitation. If you can truly protect me from Grindelwald and other threats, then I'll gladly stay by your side and help you further your ambitions."
She finished, heart hammering. She'd given her final verdict, wrapped in an olive branch, and now the ball was in Riddle's court. Either he finally sealed the deal, or. . . .
Riddle was silent for a moment, his face blissfully wiped of any emotion. The sight of unnerving; his ability and tendency to conceal his true thoughts and nature even within a space he ruled in held an unnatural edge to it, and as he tilted his head towards Eve again, she found herself wishing she was anywhere but here.
"Differing beliefs in the pursuit of a common goal is acceptable," he said slowly, and she felt herself slump slightly in relief. He's not going to torture me. "I agree with your sentiment, and I believe we can be of great use to each other. The abilities you claim to possess are phenomenal, and while you did make some impressive predictions regarding my nature earlier, you must understand how one must still take precautions."
Eve tried to keep her brow from furrowing as she watched Riddle then beckon Mulciber forward. He retrieved a small vial from his robes and handed it over to Riddle, who held almost reverently before offering it to Eve.
"I assume you're familiar with the properties of Veritaserum?"
Eve's heart sank.
He didn't believe her.
He was Tom Riddle, and of course he was smart and suspicious, and he didn't believe her, and now he was going to dose her with truth serum.
She didn't know how he'd even obtained Veritaserum, given its heavy restriction by the Ministry, but she was more worried about the dangers of being under the influence of Veritaserum in front of Riddle. He could ask her anything, and she could spill anything to him and completely destroy all of her credibility and identity that she'd built so far.
She could even tell him about the time travel. 1997. His true future as Voldemort.
But that was just paranoia. She hadn't given him any reason to ask a question that would cause her to even mention any of those factors, seeing as she'd directed all of his suspicions to her fake Seer backstory, which he clearly still felt iffy about if he wanted to test her with Veritaserum, so that was wonderful. There was no way he would even think about time travel, much less ask her anything even related to it.
She remembered a key component in a lesson on Veritaserum that the fake Moody gave them in fourth year—it was all about the phrasing of the question and subsequently finding a loophole.
Escape from answering truthfully to Veritaserum is possible, Fake Moody had barked, emphasizing that multiple times throughout the lecture. Its effects can be resisted if the drinker can find a logical loophole in their head and speak what they believe to be true. CONSTANT VIGILANCE!
Eve had always sort of found that last part mildly hilarious—not the "CONSTANT VIGILANCE," of course, but that the drinker stated what only they believed to be true, so their answers could be sincere but possibly false as a whole. She'd never understood the high seriousness attributed to Veritaserum in wizarding society when it was so fallible—after all, as long as one could reason to sizable lengths, they could avoid telling the truth in one way or another.
She eyed the tiny vial in Riddle's grasp—there were three drops of the serum inside at most. That gave Riddle only a few minutes to ask any questions, which meant she only had to resist for at most four or five questions, or—
Occlumency!
How could she have almost forgotten? Veritaserum could be resisted through Occlumency!
Not completely, of course—the drinker would still feel the truthful urges of the serum while Occluding, but the action would strongly decrease the overall pressure they felt based on the drinker's strength at Occlumency and hopefully give them enough time and clarity to work out an evasive loophole in their head.
Eve had learned that stray fact from an inconsequential conversation with Lupin in sixth-year, and now it didn't seem so inconsequential anymore, because—with a jerk—she then realized that Riddle didn't know she could Occlude.
Hope blossomed in her chest. With all the accusations and realizations Riddle had made regarding her, she'd just assumed that her entire cover of magical abilities had been blown—but while he had accused her about her dueling prowess and abilities to cast wandless magic and possibly nonverbal magic, he'd never brought up Occlumency. He hadn't realized that one fact, that she could Occlude, and Eve thanked her lucky stars for those months of practice with Harry that helped her perfect the action.
At this point, it was all down to luck and a tiny bit of skill—all she could do was Occlude, trust in the logic of her brain, and pray that Riddle's few questions would be phrased broadly enough for her to work out any loopholes when necessary.
"I have nothing to hide," Eve verbalized, meeting Riddle's gaze as she took the vial from his hand and raised it to her lips, tilting it before she could panic and Occluding just as the first drop of the liquid hit her tongue.
Immediately, her surroundings seemed to fade and blur out seamlessly, the background sound in her ears smoothing out into a distant buzz. Riddle's face in front of her became misty, but when he spoke, it was sharp and clear, like his voice was wrapping around her eardrums and infiltrating into the very thought banks of her brain.
"Are you a Seer?"
Well, Eve thought, forcing herself to focus through the haziness of her Occlumency and the strange, indescribable feeling of the Veritaserum's effects poking at the walls of her mind, trying to get through. Perhaps she shouldn't have straight up said she was a Seer to Riddle—she needed to slightly twist that narrative.
I mean, I am a Seer in a way. If Riddle had phrased his question as "Are you a real Seer, that would've been more complicated. But "a Seer". . . . Now, that's more open to interpretation—and right now, I'm going to base my answer on my own interpretation.
"I have Seer abilities," she heard herself saying. "Although I may not possess the true Seer ability of predicting prophecies through an Inner Eye, I do have the ability to receive knowledge of the future."
Not a lie, technically.
Riddle seemed satisfied with that answer, immediately pressing forward: "And does your knowledge of the future lean further towards knowledge of certain individuals' futures instead of future events as a whole?"
One could say that. "Yes."
"And that knowledge is uncontrollably arbitrary, coming to you randomly?"
At times, random facts she knew about people, like Riddle (he would become bald) and Abraxas (he would become Draco Malfoy's grandfather), came to her randomly without her meaning to think about them, like intrusive thoughts. "Yes. They just come to my head."
"Are your Seer-like abilities heightened with longer physical proximity to a person?"
This was the tricky one. Although Eve wasn't surprised that he'd asked a question along those lines, she'd hoped he wouldn't—after all, that was the key part of her lie that, if believed by Riddle, would give him a reason to keep her close to him and allow her to investigate his Horcruxes easier.
Eve felt her resolve crack slightly before Occluding fully again. Beads of sweat trickled down the back of her neck as she fought every molecule in her body against her mouth forming the shape of the word No, her mind racing to find any sort of loophole.
I suppose the longer I spend with someone, the more inclined I am to bring any knowledge I have of their future self to the forefront of my brain. Despite the occasional random thoughts that I acknowledged with my reasoning to the last question, there's overall no reason for me to think about—for example—Alphard's eventual removal from the Black family if I'm not even in his presence, just like how occupying thoughts of Riddle's future as Voldemort are usually minimized when I'm physically away from him.
That had to be good enough.
"Y-yes."
And then it was over just as Eve uttered the word. She felt the Veritaserum effects washing away, leaving her mind, and she let her Occluded walls down just as fast before Riddle or any of the Knights could suspect anything, breathing a sigh of relief as she did so.
Her vision now clear and sharp again, she watched as Riddle leaned back in his chair, his interrogation over and a distinctively victorious expression on his face. "Wonderful. Thank you for your cooperation."
Not like I had a choice, she thought.
"I would very much like to have you by my side," Riddle continued, and Eve took that as his agreement to the initial deal. She wasn't quick to let out a sigh of relief, though, as he was still talking.
"But, before all else, I want to emphasize a very simple rule," said Riddle, his imposing voice taking on a sharp edge. "In this space, I am addressed with respect. I am a Lord and will be addressed with my rightful title. Failure to do so—" He stopped himself. "Well."
He pointed his wand past Eve's arm.
"Crucio."
Anguished screams immediately filled the room, echoing off of the tall ceiling and reverberating around the space. Eve flinched, refusing to turn and watch—the pure agony in the screams made it so that she couldn't even decipher which Knight Riddle was torturing. She'd seen and heard her fair share of Crucios from the Carrow twins, but they never ceased to make her recoil regardless.
"Now," continued Riddle calmly, stowing his wand away as though nothing had happened and turning back to Eve, "You are not a Knight. As such, I don't expect you to follow such formalities. I do expect you to uphold your end of the deal and provide me with timely, accurate descriptions of all visions relevant to me and my cause now that you've proven you can." He fixed his gaze on Eve. "Are you willing?"
She gave a miniscule jerk of her head.
"Good. I want you to make an Unbreakable Vow."
Eve froze.
An Unbreakable Vow.
That was very serious. She felt panic immediately begin to swim through her veins. Not only would she be effectively placing her own life on the line, but if the wording of the Vow's conditions were even slightly too detailed or off-subject, then saying I do to the Vow could completely jeopardize her and force her into a lifetime of following the wrong conditions and completing unwanted, dangerous tasks—and this time, there was no Occluding or loophole to save her.
However, this time, she did have the choice of saying I don't.
"And what would the conditions of the Vow entail?" Eve asked out loud, that thought emboldening her—if she detected that the conditions of the Vow were worded too broadly or inaccurately or in a sense that they could be detrimental to her, then she at least had the ability to refuse to follow through, though what would occur after would most likely not be pretty. She cast that thought aside quickly.
"Everything we've already discussed and agreed to," said Riddle, his gaze narrowing dangerously, as if sensing her doubt and daring her to back out. "It's simply a formality to ensure you that you truly mean to uphold your end of the bargain and lend your loyalty to me." He paused. "And, of course, if you refuse, I will be forced to Obliviate you of all your memories regarding this evening."
Eve gulped. Obliviate was probably the kindest thing he could do to her.
She already knew that there was no other option. The seriousness of what she'd gotten herself into was sinking in faster and faster, and her relief from her Veritaserum success earlier had long faded—she was inevitably trapped.
"Then I agree to make a Vow," she said, and she hated that there was a slight tremble to her voice.
"Perfect." Riddle didn't miss a beat, rising smoothly from his seat and extending his hand forward. "Lestrange, would you do the honors?"
"O-of course, My Lord." Lestrange rushed forward reverently, and Eve almost wanted to gag at the sycophantic glaze of his voice as she forced her limbs to move, standing up and grasping Riddle's hand.
His palm was cool to touch.
Lestrange situated himself to the side of Riddle and Eve, raising his wand upwards so that it hovered directly over their joined hands. Despite the thickness of the dark hood covering his face, his voice was clear when he spoke:
"Do you, Tom Riddle, Vow to uphold your end of the deal to protect Eve Laurence against threats to her safety and unique abilities as a witch, especially against the threat of Grindelwald?"
"I do."
Eve watched in a morbid, detached sense of fascination as a flame of red streamed out of the tip of Lestrange's wand, illuminating the darkness around them, and curled itself around her and Riddle's clasped fists, tickling her wrist in a sensation that felt as though it was being brushed by icy-hot fire.
"And do you, Eve Laurence, Vow to uphold your end of the deal and inform Tom Riddle of all relevant insights and visions you gain pertaining to the future of himself and his cause?"
Eve barely held in a sigh of relief. Relevance was subjective, and Lestrange hadn't mentioned anything about truthfulness or the extent of exactly how much she was expected to inform Riddle regarding his future, which meant that she could still lie and feed him information based on what she saw fit as relevant—objectively truthful or not, significant or not.
"I do."
The flame of red snaked upwards, burning red, tying itself like a ribbon over their hands before glistening skyward and disappearing with a faint whoosh of air, sealing Eve's fate like a promise gone to heaven and trapping them in the dark once more.
—
The weekend passed in a blur.
On Saturday morning, when the weather outside was gloomy and drizzly with rain, it seemed as though every single student had the same idea of cramming into the library to shield against the terrible weather and study their arses off—including Eve, who bumped into Logan, Yoora, and Jacob on her way over. They ended up all studying together in a less-crowded corner of the library for their first Defense quiz on Tuesday; unsurprisingly, all three Ravenclaws were immensely terrific study partners, smart and eager to share their intriguing takes on a variety of theoretical Defense subjects—although Logan still refused to let any details loose about whatever secret event the prefects were planning no matter how much Eve pestered him.
During mealtimes, she immersed herself in the avid, constantly-evolving and extremely random conversations around her, mostly all courtesy of Abraxas's astounding ability to change subjects at light speed. Both evenings she accompanied the blonde, along with Kate, Sophie, and Alphard, to the Quidditch pitch, watching him practice flying for the nearing tryouts and alternating with Alphard in throwing Bludgers at him for dodging practice ("No!" Abraxas had screeched when Eve, unknowing, had almost passed the Bludger in her hand to an inconspicuous Kate with outstretched hands and a gleefully-devious expression on her face by the side of the pitch. "That madwoman lobs those Bludgers at me like she means to send me to St. Mungo's!").
Despite the chilly September weather, Eve stayed an extra while longer at the pitch on Sunday, when Grace showed up with a crowd of red-donning classmates to practice right after Abraxas. She'd met Grace's Gryffindor friends, a bizarre mixture of all different ages and types of people, and—to her shock—had her hand shaken by an Augusta Banks, a fourth-year Gryffindor with a severe expression and round face that was a mirror image of a younger Neville, and was also introduced to a cheerful, extremely-freckled sixth-year by the name of Leonnard Weasley, who she assumed could only be one of Ron's distant relatives by his obvious surname and mane of fiery red hair.
Meanwhile, Eve had no idea how to navigate her newfound sense of camaraderie with Riddle.
No, camaraderie wasn't the right word—what was the right word? Sense of something, whatever their new dynamic could be labeled as—she didn't even know, hence her complete inability to function normally around him.
Things were different now. She was in on it all—she knew Riddle's true Jekyll-and-Hyde nature, and he knew that she knew. His true beliefs, an overview of his true motives and philosophy—he'd made her privy to it all, and now they were at a stalemate, players of a vast chessboard, waiting for the next move to be made regarding their little deal.
The problem was, Eve didn't know who's turn it was. Did he expect her to act buddy-buddy with him now? She didn't know whether she should skirt around Riddle like he was the plague or act like they were bosom buddies when he was in the vicinity—so she settled on a weird compromise of the two, greeting him neutrally whenever they crossed paths, and he seemed none the more bothered.
But was it still wrong for her to keep expecting him to do something? When she passed him in the hallways, or sat near him at mealtimes, or saw him in the common room, she kept waiting for something—for him to nudge her, for him to give her a look, for him to pull her aside and try to force her look into the future or something, as un-Riddle-like as that would be.
But she got nothing—Riddle acted just as he did before with her, making small talk when necessary and overall portraying his facade of the perfect Head Boy flawlessly in her presence as if nothing ever happened, as if he hadn't taken her to a secret room and enlightened her on his pure-blood supremacy beliefs and motives for his future regime as Voldemort (she was only glad he hadn't told her that he went by Voldemort—if Riddle forced her to call him by that title, she would've genuinely just Avada'ed herself right there and then) before administering Veritaserum on her and making an Unbreakable Vow with her to utilize her faked clairvoyance in exchange for his power and resources accumulated in his circle of sycophants and beyond.
Was he testing her? Eve felt like she was going crazy—the only indication of the shift in dynamic was the fact that Riddle began addressing her publicly as Miss Laurence again, and even that seemed counterintuitive, implying even more formal boundaries.
Even Avery and Rosier acted more or less the same around her. While she didn't talk to the latter as much as the former, she didn't detect anything amiss when Rosier asked her about Charms homework Saturday morning, or when Avery made a joke about the Bloody Baron to her during lunch on Sunday.
Clearly, Riddle had commanded the Knights to maintain regular behavior around her to avoid suspicion, a notion that should've made her conversations with Rosier and Avery feel somewhat inauthentic and fake but only made her feel relieved—she was just glad they hadn't completely stopped talking to her or something. A part of her still believed in the goodness of the two—especially Avery, who she'd grown fond of over the last two weeks and who she still couldn't see as a Death Eater, despite witnessing his presence in the Dark Room (as she'd taken to labeling the hidden meeting room of the Knights in her head).
When Monday rolled around, the whole Great Hall seemed abuzz with energy at breakfast. Slytherin's Quidditch tryouts would be back-to-back with Gryffindor's today, and it seemed as though Ravenclaw's and Hufflepuff's would be later in the evening.
Abraxas was—as expected—a maniacal mess, upending the maple syrup jar on the Slytherin table five times as he alternated between shouting field tactics to an annoyed-looking Urquhart, lamenting about his lack of practice (he'd been practicing daily for the past two weeks), and scarfing down whole cod filets for energy. Alphard had to physically hold him down to prevent him from drinking the coffee in his cup—a good deed that benefited everyone.
They had a bet going on how many times Abraxas would say "It's over," and by the end of breakfast, the count was at forty-six, and Eve was ten Galleons richer.
"Calm down, mate!" Alphard exclaimed as they walked down towards the Quidditch pitch, after breakfast was over and Eve had quickly gone over to the Gryffindor table to wish an equally-nervous Grace good luck on her tryouts. He clapped a green-looking Abraxas on the back. "You'll make it—Urquhart too."
There was a sizable crowd already gathered at the center of the pitch, with Slytherin students of all different years clutching broomsticks and looking a variety of excited and ready-to-barf. Eve spied Urquhart in the horde, as well as Mulciber and a few other people she recognized from seeing around the common room and her classes.
They exchanged their last few words of encouragement with Abraxas before making their way to the stands and joining the rather-large crowd of spectators already there.
"He will get in, right?" asked Eve worriedly, the information of the Vow between Abraxas and Urquhart still very much present at the forefront of her head as she watched Abraxas exchange a few words with a tall, burly-looking student who was most likely the Captain, Winky Crockett.
"He will," said Alphard confidently, his dark eyes roving over the crowd of Slytherins on the pitch. "So will Urquhart, and—oh, there's Little Crockett, Crockett's younger brother. I reckon he'll get Seeker, he's good—though sore losers will try to pin it on nepotism."
The sound of a whistle suddenly pierced the air, marking the beginning of the tryouts, and the murmurs from the crowd immediately quieted down. Eve shifted in her seat, inconspicuously craning her neck.
No sight of Riddle anywhere. She'd expected that, given his apparent distaste for Quidditch.
The first few tryouts were nothing spectacular. One boy, trying for a Beater position, smacked a Bludger so hard it whistled past the heads of multiple students on the stands and miraculously didn't hit anyone, while another accidentally whacked a Bludger with the wrong end of his bat and nearly sent it into the ground. One student trying out for Chaser kept dropping the Quaffle onto another boy in the stands, though Eve wondered if it was truly by accident by the way both boys kept laughing.
Mulciber and Urquhart's tryouts were solid, with the former—trying out for Beater as well—smacking a wayward Bludger with such precision that it shot through one of the hoops at the end of the pitch and the latter scoring ten goals back-to-back with the Quaffle in under three minutes. A thin, tweedy-looking Slytherin who zoomed around super fast and immediately reminded Eve of Harry on the pitch caught the Snitch in under a minute ("That's Little Crockett," Alphard whispered), and she watched as the other students in the line waiting to tryout for Seeker shook off disgruntled looks as the boy landed victoriously back on the ground.
Finally, it was Abraxas's turn. Eve watched from a distance as the blonde mounted his broom, a look of determination crossing his features as he kicked off with a Quaffle under his arm.
As she watched Abraxas fly and score eight goals in succession at rapid speed, Eve could only feel impressed. "You'd never guess he was practically throwing up from nerves earlier," she observed, watching Abraxas lob the Quaffle past a player and into a hoop to make it now nine goals in succession.
"Yeah, he's just dramatic." Kate shrugged. "I don't think he was actually even nervous—he just gets so energetic to pump himself up."
"He'll definitely get the position," assured Sophie. She furrowed her brows. "I'm pretty sure he scored seven goals in his tryout last year, and he still got it."
At the end of all the tryouts, they made their way back down to the pitch, crowding and congratulating Abraxas, who was beaming widely, on his performance.
"That wasn't so bad!" he exclaimed brightly, waving his broom in the air and nearly stabbing a nearby Slytherin in the face. "I think I did okay!"
Kate rolled her eyes. "Oh, stop acting so humble. You knew you'd do good."
"—results posted in the common room soon," Eve heard Winky Crockett saying, and she watched Abraxas give them a quick goodbye before zooming over to the Captain at lightning speed like a puppy to inquire about letterman jackets.
"That damn energetic bloke," came a low voice, and she whirled around. Urquhart was standing behind her and glaring at Abraxas with a mixed expression of fondness and exasperation, his brown hair still mussed up from his tryout earlier and his broom clutched loosely in his gloved left hand. "Made me want to poke his eye out everytime he woke me up at the ass crack of dawn to practice the past two weeks."
"Uh—at least you probably won't be dying?" Eve offered weakly, unsure where exactly he'd come from and what to say. She'd never spoken to him before.
"I suppose," Urquhart mused, as though that was the last thing on his mind. His gaze then shifted onto her face, and he shook his head. "Sorry—we haven't been properly introduced yet. You're the new girl—Eva? I've seen you around."
Eve thought back to Dippet's welcome speech for her at the beginning of the month and barely suppressed a scowl at the blasted old man. "Eve. Nice to meet you. You're—uh, Anthony?"
Urquhart waved his hand. "Just call me Urquhart. No one really calls me by my first name, so it just sounds weird."
"Ah, okay." He wildly reminded her of Theo Nott.
Kate and Sophie dragged her away before she could make any more conversation with Urquhart, and with the Quidditch craze having now died down, they spent the rest of the day in-between a mixture of eating, completing homework, completing more homework, lamenting about said homework, and finally sleeping.
Luckily, the Defense quiz on Tuesday covered most of the material Eve had studied with Logan, Yoora, and Jacob, and they all exchanged thumbs-ups before Eve was ushered out of the class by Sophie, who'd heard a rumor about newborn owls in the Owlery and wanted to rush to see.
"I heard they're tiny!" Sophie squealed, clasping her hands together. Eve had learned that she seemed to have a soft spot for animals.
"I wonder if they'll be up for sale," mused Kate, and at the dirty look Sophie shot her, she shrugged defensively. "What? Ever since Glinda died over summer, I've been needing a new owl to send my mail!"
"You can send mail through the Hogsmeade Post Office," Eve offered, before quickly remembering that she wasn't supposed to know anything about Hogsmeade. "Uh—I mean, if they have a post office. I don't know if they do."
"They do, but—ugh. I just miss having my own owl. My old owl, Glinda, was a gift from my grandmother. She was this beautiful tawny oil with the silkiest feathers you could imagine. If it wasn't biologically-impossible, then I swear Glinda was descended from silkworms—"
"Eve Laurence?"
A small Slytherin girl had tapped on Eve's shoulder and was currently looking extremely intimidated by having three seventh-years stare at her. She quickly held out a sealed letter towards Eve, who accepted it curiously. "Um—Professor Dumbledore wants to see you in his office."
"Oh!" Eve accepted the letter curiously. "Thank you."
As the girl scurried away, Eve ripped open the seal, pulling out a small card from the envelope. Together, she, Kate, and Sophie bent their heads to read it together:
Miss Laurence—
I hope you have had no problem acclimating to Hogwarts and your new environment here. Please come up to my office when you have time.
Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore
"Did he really have to sign his entire full name?" asked Kate, looking aghast as her eyes swiveled across Dumbledore's signature. "How does he even sign any Ministry documents?"
"I wonder what he wants to see you for," Sophie questioned.
Eve only shrugged casually. "I have no idea. Probably to see how I've been doing these past two weeks like he wrote." She hoisted her bookbag on her shoulder quickly and gave her two friends apologetic waves. "I guess I've gotta go—let me know how cute the baby owls are later!"
I actually have some idea, she thought to herself as she raced along the corridor and turned into the Turris Magnus tower, passing by her Defense classroom again on the way. No doubt Dumbledore had news on how his research regarding her predicament was going—though she didn't have much optimism, seeing as his letter hadn't conveyed any real sense of urgency. As much as she didn't want to, she guessed that his update for her would be that he didn't have any updates.
Sure enough, when Eve knocked on the door of Dumbledore's office, swinging it open once she heard a clear "Come in!" from within, the first view that greeted her eyes was the solemn expression on the professor's face from where he sat at his desk, an empty armchair already conjured next to it.
"Hi, Professor," she greeted, stepping through the threshold and setting her bookbag down by the door. "No breakthroughs, huh?" No point in trying to beat around the bush.
Dumbledore sighed, clearly thinking along the same lines. "Hello, Miss Laurence. Unfortunately, no." He gestured at the empty armchair next to him, the motion causing the fabric of the gray robes he was wearing the shift. "Please have a seat."
After Eve had situated herself gingerly into the chair and was staring up at him expectantly, he exhaled again, looking sincerely somber. His auburn hair seemed less lively than it had been when she'd seen him in class earlier in the day, and Eve was suddenly struck by how tired Dumbledore really looked up close.
She never really thought about it in class, when she was usually too busy trying to follow Dumbledore's instructions on how to transfigure one thing into another, but she supposed that there must be fairly a lot going on in his personal life too. Given the limited knowledge she knew of Dumbledore's history with Grindelwald, she guessed that the dark wizard's continuous reign over Europe wasn't doing wonders for his relaxation—on top of that, he had the general responsibilities of being a Hogwarts professor as well as Eve's whole time travel situation to deal with.
And, of course, she supposed just being Dumbledore himself invited a whole lot of tasks and stress in general.
"I apologize for not having checked in on and updated you earlier," Dumbledore started, folding his hands in his lap. "I wanted to be able to relay good news to you the next time I called you into my office, but alas—fate has not been cooperative."
"That's alright, Professor," said Eve, nevertheless tamping down a small stream of disappointment at his verbal confirmation of her earlier conjecture. It looked like she was still going to be stuck here for the time being. "I've been trying to do some research of my own on the side, but I haven't found anything remotely helpful that could send me home."
Dumbledore didn't seem surprised. "I am glad you are taking initiative of your own, and I assure you that I will continue to try my best to find a way to reverse your situation and send you back to your time." He adjusted his half-moon spectacles, looking troubled. "However, your predicament is truly difficult—I have mostly been trying to reach out to my relevant connections, most of whom are Unspeakables in the Ministry's Department of Mysteries or academic researchers situated in different locations of the globe. Despite my efforts, communication has been slow; either because of the distance, or because of the limitations of Unspeakables, who—as you most likely know—are restricted from speaking of their work."
Eve nodded. She knew that Unspeakables weren't even allowed to tell anyone what exact subject in the Department of Mysteries they studied, so Dumbledore could probably only assume that any Unspeakable he was in contact with studied the concept of time, and not love, or thoughts, or death.
"Furthermore," Dumbledore continued, "there is only so much of your situation that I can divulge to a third-party as a theoretical predicament before they inevitably get suspicious due to the high level of specificity and uniqueness regarding it. Naturally, I have been attempting to conduct my own research as well, but it has not yielded any relevant results as of now."
"I understand."
And she did—after all, that was what stumped her in her own research too (alongside the fear of bumping into Riddle in the library). It wasn't like she could just find an answer to her problem in a general book about time travel, or a textbook chapter on Pensieves, or a research article on Time-Turners—her situation combined all three, plus a thousand other factors, and the peculiar distinctiveness of it all just made it seem impossible to even find any sort of lead on how to find a way back to 1997.
Eve made sure to paste a look of determination on her face as she straightened towards Dumbledore. "Even if I've found nothing yet, I'm still going to continue trying. There must be something out there that can lead me somewhere."
At that, Dumbledore nodded. "I concur. You will be the first to know if I even slightly suspect a possible breakthrough. I simply am worried about how you have been faring in 1944 as a whole—it seems as though finding a solution will have to take more time than expected, and I would like to make sure you are comfortable staying in your current position here."
"Oh! I've actually been doing really well," Eve said, and she meant it. "Classes are going well, and I've made a few friends here. I like it a lot."
Dumbledore seemed genuinely happy at her words. "I am truly glad to hear that, Miss Laurence. I have noticed that you are getting along with the likes of Mr. Malfoy, Mr. Black, Miss Sinclair, and Miss Hale during class time and mealtimes—they are a good crowd." He then paused slightly. "And you are on good terms with Mr. Riddle?"
Eve was very aware of Dumbledore's suspicions of Riddle during Riddle's school years from Harry's own anecdotes back in her time, and she felt almost guilty as she nodded casually, downplaying her answer. "Yeah—Riddle's nice. I don't talk to him that much, but since he's Head Boy, I guess he has a duty to make sure I'm getting accustomed to the school, so we've chatted a bit."
That was an obvious understatement, but the last thing she needed was Dumbledore getting any inkling about Operation Riddle.
Dumbledore seemed satisfied with her answer, though his posture still retained some of its previous tenseness. "That is good to hear. I simply mean to warn you once more—cautiously obscure your true past. One can never be too careful."
—
The day after her meeting with Dumbledore, Eve holed herself in the Room of Requirement all afternoon and researched.
Dumbledore's words had lent her plenty of food for thought and only further emphasized how important it was for her to be proactive with her own research. If Albus Dumbledore was having trouble finding a solution, then Eve couldn't just keep spending her time frolicking around with Death Eaters and watching Quidditch tryouts.
And then the idea had hit her—the Room of Requirement! Of course! How had she not thought about it earlier? The Room could provide her with any book or resource she needed for her research (it perhaps had an even more extensive collection of possibly-useful texts than the library), and she wouldn't have to worry about stumbling into Riddle and causing his suspicions to go haywire again.
Unsurprisingly, she left the Room with no information of relevance regarding her situation and an only further burning determination to not give up—though she had read up on the meaning of Walpurgis purely out of curiosity ("Give me anything on the Knights of Walpurgis") and discovered that it seemed to reference Walpurgis Night, the evening of April 30th in legend when witches and demons gathered together.
That knowledge had only resulted in an eyeroll—how typical of Riddle.
Throughout the rest of the week, in between the blur of research and studying and homework that only seemed to be increasing more and more as the days went on, Eve still couldn't help but expect Riddle to do something, for him to do anything other than stilted greetings in the halls. It didn't come, but at least her busywork helped keep her agitation at bay and gave her something to direct her stress and focus on—after all, most everything Riddle did was intentional, and she supposed it wasn't like he could just go up to her and demand her to read his future right now.
During dinner on Friday, while Eve was mid-chew into a turkey leg, Peeves swooped into the Great Hall with a bucket of Dungbombs that seemed to have been suspiciously enchanted with an Extension Charm and flew around the hall, dumping never-ending Dungbombs all over students until the entire hall was covered entirely with the odored stink bombs, warranting the entire Great Hall to be evacuated and students to all be ordered to return to their dormitories. As the crowd of students rushing out swept Eve into the Entrance Hall, she watched as a panicked-looking Slughorn hung a large sign with the words "CAUTION: HAZARDOUS MATERIAL WITHIN" onto one of the swords of a suit of armor outside the Great Hall before charging back inside, and she was fondly reminded of her own little Dungbomb stint during the troll incidence in her first year.
Now, past all the chaos and hordes of students running from the fumes, Eve, Sophie, Alphard, and Kate were currently all situated at a small table by the fireplace in the Slytherin Common Room, attempting (and failing spectacularly) to study silently, especially since the horrendous odor from the Dungbombs had somehow seeped into the common room as well within the last ten minutes.
"Oh, I can't focus!" complained Sophie after a whole minute of silence, looking up from her Transfiguration textbook and making a face at the rancid smell in the air. "I wonder where Peeves even got all those Dungbombs! They're actually pretty expensive."
"He can go shove them all up his arse," Kate muttered darkly, looking disgruntled as she held her nose and slumped forward on the table, nearly upending Alphard's pile of Charms notes and causing him to scowl up at her. "I barely got to eat any of my lamb chops."
Eve wordlessly offered the half-eaten turkey leg still in her hand from dinner to Kate, who didn't hesitate to grab it.
"Bless you, Eve."
There was a sudden commotion by the entrance of the Common Room, and all four of them looked up just in time to see Abraxas burst inside, toppling two first-years in the process as he made an immediate beeline for their table, hair disheveled and tie askew.
"I know where the Gryffindor Common Room is," he blurted, eyes gleaming mischievous as he practically pranced around the table. "I know I said I needed to go pee when I ditched you guys during the evacuation, but I lied! During all that chaos, I tucked my tie under my shirt and followed a Gryffindor!"
"That's literally stalking," said Kate.
Abraxas ignored her, bouncing on his feet eagerly. "It's in the Faculty Tower! You go up three floors from the Grand Staircase and pass this creepy statue of a witch with one eye, and then down one of the corridors there's a portrait of a fat lady wearing a toga or something, and you give her the password, which is Carp dime, and then she swings open and you climb through the portrait hole!"
"Carp dime?" Sophie frowned in confusion. "What kind of password is that?"
Eve blinked. "Do you mean Carpe diem?"
Abraxas snapped his fingers excitedly. "Yes! That!" He plopped himself down on the empty chair between Eve and Alphard, leaning forward. "So what's the plan?"
It took approximately five seconds for them to abandon the schoolbooks in front of them and begin vehemently discussing Phase I plans for their Seventh-Year Mission, as Abraxas had coined their passion project last time.
"So we officially know the locations of the Gryffindor and Ravenclaw Common Rooms from Abraxas's and Eve's detective work," Alphard summed up, drumming his fingers on the side of his chair. "Which one do we hit first?"
"Egg the Gryffindors," voted Kate immediately.
"How about we find Hufflepuff's first? So we know all three locations," suggested Eve, thinking about the demolition of her poor Gryffindor Common Room that was bound to happen soon.
Sophie frowned, twisting a coil of dark hair between her fingers. "How would we figure that out?"
"I can ask my brother," Alphard offered. A contemplative expression slid onto his angular face. "He probably knows something about Hufflepuff's location since he's always out and about exploring the castle. In fact, I barely see him in the common room at all."
Eve blinked. "You have a brother?" That was news to her—she hadn't even gotten around to thinking about the siblings and family members of her friends and classmates here; after all, she hadn't really had many interactions with anyone other than students in her year throughout the past two weeks.
Alphard nodded. "Cygnus. He's a fifth-year in Slytherin right now, along with Orion, my second cousin. They're close, and I know they like to explore the castle together." He nodded his head towards two young kids in the opposite corner of the room, both with his exact facial structure and hair color, and frowned. "They're young, but they have some beliefs that I personally don't agree with, so I'm not very close with them, nor with my older sister, Walburga, and Orion's older sister, Lucretia, who both graduated Hogwarts two years ago." He shrugged. "They all mostly keep to themselves, so I don't see any of them that much anyway, unless I visit home."
Orion Black will go on to marry Walburga Black, Sirius and Regulus's parents. Eve avoided making a face.
"There actually are a lot of related family members in Slytherin," said Abraxas. He furrowed his brow. "Let me think—Rosier has a younger sister named Druella in second year, and Carina has a sister named Charlene in third year."
Druella Rosier and Cygnus Black will marry, Eve realized, and their children will be Andromeda, Narcissa, and Bellatrix Black.
So that meant one of Rosier's sister's daughters would marry Abraxas's future son and produce a little blonde git named Draco Malfoy. And another one of her daughters would marry a Lestrange—who, Eve calculated, thinking back to Rodolphus Lestrange's relative age, was most likely Dorian Lestrange's son.
The timeline was finally starting to hit her, and she thought of Augustus Nott. If she was calculating right, then he wasn't just Theo Nott's relative, as she'd broadly assumed previously, but his elderly father.
Her head hurt.
At the swamped expression that was no doubt on Eve's face, Kate smirked. "Yeah. My mother's maiden name is Selwyn. Most of our families are of the Sacred Twenty-Eight—the list of the so-called truly pure-blood families." Her grin faded slightly into something mocking. "I personally think it's stupid—we were raised around pretty extreme pure-blood supremacist beliefs. Our families are all very close, and we've mostly known each other since childhood from high society functions and balls."
Eve listened, intrigue taking over any sense of overwhelmedness. Sure, back in 1997, that prejudice still existed, but wizarding society as a whole was somewhat more liberal, and indexes like the Sacred Twenty-Eight were taken less seriously. Although she grew up around people like Draco Malfoy, she'd never heard first-hand how growing up in that level of society in a time like this was like.
For the first time, she wondered what would happen to these people she called friends. She'd never been aware of Kate or Sophie's existences back in 1997, and she had no recollection of Draco ever mentioning his grandparents. The only one she had some knowledge of was Alphard.
Eve turned to Sophie. "You too?" She didn't remember knowing anyone with the name Hale.
Sophie shook her head "No, thank goodness. I'm a half-blood—my mum's a Muggle, and my dad works in the Department of Magical Transportation. My two younger brothers—twins—are eight, so they're still home." She smiled. "We're far from any family in the Sacred Twenty-Eight."
"But it's not an all-exclusive, cold sort of thing, though," explained Abraxas, "although people try to make it to be. Families like the Weasleys and Longbottoms are a part of the Twenty-Eight." He grimaced. "Hell, even the Slughorn family is on the list."
Eve thought back to her brief meetings with Augusta Banks and Leonnard Weasley, who she'd both seen walking in the hallway the other day and waved at. The familial interconnectedness of everything was decidedly insane.
She supposed the extent of her time travel was truly, finally making itself known to her, with the realization that she could waltz outside the castle walls right now and maybe bump into Dumbledore's sister, or a young Minerva McGonagall, or Harry's grandparents, or her grandparents, a thought she wasn't sure how to even process.
Eve realized the conversation around her was still happening.
"—filled with narrow-minded people," Alphard was saying. "It's really just unnecessarily exclusive and messy."
"That's true," Kate concurred. "For example, no one really knows what happened to the last of the Gaunts, but it doesn't stop people from spreading rumors at functions anyway."
Eve stiffened immediately. "Gaunts?"
"Just another Twenty-Eight family," said Kate offhandedly, waving her hand casually. "Weird people, from what I've heard. They were never much in the high society spotlight in the first place, but from what I heard last, the final male heir was living in poverty when he was incarcerated in Azkaban for murder a year ago."
Kate then moved on to gossiping about the Bulstrodes, but Eve couldn't help her mind from wandering to a small shack in Little Hangleton, the knowledge that she'd in fact just taken Charms earlier in the day with the real last of the Gaunts searing into her brain just how meticulous Tom Riddle could really be.
—
Finally, the moment Eve had been waiting for occurred on Sunday afternoon.
She was in the middle of reading the announcement regarding the first Hogsmeade trip of the year happening next week that was posted on the bulletin board in the Common Room when a tall shadow fell over her, and a chill ran through her body along with the thought of This is it.
Eve turned—and, sure enough, Riddle was practically standing over her, his figure looming as his dark eyes roved over the bulletin board, as though casually reading it as well.
Eve knew better.
His eyes shifted down to her. "Miss Laurence."
"Riddle."
"Planning to head down to Hogsmeade next week?"
"Of course—I've never been. I'm excited." The basic small talk killed her.
Riddle nodded, but something in his gaze made him seem almost distracted. "Would you like to go on a walk?" he asked, ignoring how two younger Slytherin girls passing by began to giggle incessantly at those words and cast exuberant eyes at Eve and Riddle.
She gulped, mind already running circles around what he could possibly want to talk about. "Sure."
They made somewhat stilted conversation on mundane topics like classes and homework and—god forbid—the weather as they ascended up the stairs into the Entrance Hall, the routine and path now horribly familiar to Eve. She didn't necessarily know where they were going, but she breathed a sigh of relief when Riddle veered left at the top of the Grand Staircase, walking the opposite way of the Dark Room and instead heading in the direction of the hollowed stairwell that led to the Astronomy Tower.
Her hunch was correct—they climbed up the stairs, spiraling taller and taller in the narrow tower, until they came face to face with a heavy set of iron doors at the very top, the threshold separating them from the open air of the tip of the tower.
Eve still had absolutely no idea why they'd come here out of all places, but she was about to tell Riddle that the Astronomy Tower was locked when classes weren't in session anyway—until he pulled out his wand from his robes and raised it towards the iron door, flicking once. It swung open.
"Head Boy privileges," he remarked simply, stepping forward.
"Lucky," Eve muttered under her breath, nevertheless following him and wrapping her robes tighter around herself as the chill of the wind quickly permeated the fabric, seeping through her sleeves and sending a quick—but not entirely unwelcome—shiver down her spine.
Riddle had situated himself past the large, rotating model of Earth in the center of the tower and was instead leaning against one of the tall pillars that encircled the area to form the ornate ceiling above them. He was watching Eve expectantly, so she had no choice but to step forward and join him, leaning against the iron railing by the edge and feeling the wind kiss her cheeks.
"I come here to think sometimes," Riddle said after a moment, gazing past the railing, and Eve barely refrained herself from letting her surprise show on her face. She did the same—in fact, the past few Astronomy classes she'd had in the last two weeks felt like they'd been her only reprieve from everything happening in her life. There was something inexplicably magical about the Astronomy Tower—truly magical, more so than any other location of Hogwarts, Eve thought—and, despite her limited visits, it was possibly her favorite location in the castle.
The fact that Riddle possibly felt the same, possibly felt that same sort of magical aura encompassing the tower that she did, made her wonder what really went on inside his head here. It never struck her that Voldemort could be contemplative, but she was beginning to second-guess that.
Side-by-side, they stared out over the tower, elbows propped on the railing, and Eve found that the winded ball of stress in her stomach—perpetually present—felt like it was almost melting slowly despite her current physical proximity to one Voldemort. She supposed that was the magic of the Astronomy Tower at play.
She distantly wondered what someone would think if they stumbled on her and Riddle without any knowledge of the context. The current scene around them sure was picturesque—they were alone in the tower, surrounded by arched stone pillars and crenulated ramparts and various astronomy models circling the ornate spirals of the model in the center. Beyond the railing, the sun was just starting to set on the horizon, the resulting orange-pink glow of the sky illuminating the grounds below, casting warmth onto the castle grounds below like a draped blanket. The Black Lake glistened in the distance, its water sparkling and lapping softly in a tranquil lullaby against the nearby trees of the forest and the rolling hills, their silhouettes green against the sky. Bird songs echoed in the distance, and Eve watched as two young students chased each other with laughter far below her on the grass of castle grounds.
She was elbow-to-elbow with Riddle, and although she wasn't actually physically touching him by any means, Eve was painfully aware of her proximity to him. She fought back the urge to laugh sardonically—the scene didn't seem like a psychopathic murderer future Dark Lord and a time-traveled girl trying to kill him standing next to each other.
Eve took the proximity as an opportune moment to discreetly observe Riddle's profile. Up close, his face seemed narrower from this vantage point—places that were usually cushioned with pockets of baby fat on other boys his age were hollower on his face, more sculpted, like someone had taken their time to intricately carve out his features to perfection. His brow bone was a product that she knew models for Witch Weekly would kill for; his skin was unblemished and pale and smooth even up close, a stark contrast against his dark features—his hair, which was actually longer than she'd thought at first, seemed only shorter by how he styled it to preserve the wave pattern, though a few loose strands curved around his neck and ears nicely, along with the curl falling against his forehead. Although covered by his robes, his shoulders were broad in a lean sort of sense; she didn't doubt that his physique was probably impressive, although she had no recollection of ever seeing or hearing about Riddle's method of physical fitness.
Eve wouldn't describe herself as shallow, but for the millionth time, she wondered how someone who looked so unreal could be such a monster.
Riddle turned to her, as if sensing her gaze. Here, so up close, she could make out each individual eyelash on his face, the glow of the fading sunlight casting soft shadows against his skin.
"What do you know about the Elder Wand?"