Carrying her shrunken presents in a bag that Narcissa had provided (as Snape wouldn't let her stay the night with the rest of the group for a sleepover), she moved through the house and put away her new items carefully, laying them in places she could get to them easily.
Taking out the tiny shrunken present from Draco, she wandlessly unshrunk it- blinking when she found it was a large garment bag. Inside was a long blue-white dress that almost looked to be made of ice crystals with a low dipping back and a slit up the side. A small note was tucked in the collar.
Lena,
Madame Zabini, Lady Greengrass, and my mother all came together to plot and decided on this dress.
You will need it this year for Hogwarts and it's lined with extensive charms to fit should you grow or something- though I can't tell you why you will need it and you shouldn't show anyone but Severus until the event actually happens.
Draco
P.S. it really emphasizes the title of 'Ice Queen', doesn't it?
Smiling widely, she hung the dress up in her closet and then looked at the last remaining item: the ring. Lena touched it lightly, feeling the warmth through her hand, and wondered how old this Riddle would be.
"What did Draco give you?"
In a moment of panic, she hid the ring in her shirt pocket, turning with a grin and making showy jazz-hands at the dress. "Ta-dah!" She could feel the ring pulse slightly in her pocket but ignored it. "Draco said I'll need it for next year at Hogwarts for some reason and that Blaise, Draco, and Daphne's moms all decided that I needed this exact dress."
Snape rolled his eyes, eyeing the dress, before turning on his heel. "Aren't we making you a cake?"
She bounded after him with an excited grin as she'd never made her own birthday cake before. "We sure are!"
Laying down to bed, Lena looked to where she'd put the ring on her bedside table and sighed as she reached for it, putting it on.
With the same falling feeling that she'd felt when entering the diadem's mindscape, she found herself standing at the doors of what looked to be a large dining room made from polished marble, a long mahogany table stretching the expanse of the room with a boy about the age of the Diary sitting at the head staring out the long windows on the right side of the room.
Lena got the impression he hadn't seen her, so clad in the black leggings and tank top she had been dressed in, she padded to the seat to the boy's right so she could sit down. Pulling out a seat and ignoring when his eyes snapped to her, she took a seat and crossed her legs. "Hey, Riddle."
"Who-" The boy's eyes were bewildered, looking at her as if he didn't know where to start.
"My name's Lena. I've already met the diary and diadem, though you might not know about the diadem, as he definitely looked older than you." She smiled slightly, tilting her head. "If I may ask… where are we?"
Riddle blinked slowly. "My father's Manor."
She raised an eyebrow. "The same father you killed? Interesting." Looking out across the room, she studied the opulent house. "Different setting for a murder than I expected… but I guess I can appreciate the aesthetics."
"You're… strange." The boy looked at her with a frown. "What year is it?"
"1994. My fourteenth birthday was just a few days or so ago... What about you?"
Getting a strangely far-away look to his eyes, the boy zoned out for a few minutes and then blinked at her as if coming out of a memory, his eyes curious. "I am-... I was 15. It feels like it's been an eternity..." Putting his head in his chin, somehow looking elegant as he did so, the boy watched her with gleaming eyes. "So then, tell me about this new world, Lena."
Her name rolled off his tongue as if he owned it and she swallowed before giving the boy a half-smile. Explaining the world as it was, she then explained about other Riddles and how she'd destroyed them, not to mention Voldemort being a big bag of dicks. Then as the eyes watching her turned dark with murderous intent, she talked about her job at the bakery and now the job at the library until he stopped looking like he was going to punch something.
"-since Draco Malfoy insisted, I got to have my birthday with him, which is where I acquired your ring and-"
"I didn't give the ring to Abraxas."
Lena blinked at the interruption. "What?"
Riddle frowned. "Abraxas Malfoy. I didn't give the ring to him. No one was supposed to know where the ring was but-…" The boy seemed to understand something all of a sudden, eyes shining as he leaned back in his chair, seeming more at ease now. "Ah. Never mind. Lapse of memory… So you are a Slytherin?"
"The Queen, in fact." She raised her hand, wiggling her fingers to show off the Slytherin heirship ring.
"Ah."
They sat in silence for a long moment before she stood and stretched. "I have work in the morning, so I'll have to go, but I'll put the ring on when-"
"Leave it on." Riddle's voice was rushed, looking a bit ruffled as he stood, a desperate look in his eyes. "Please. I've been alone for so long…"
Reaching over, she took the boy's hand. "I would, but I have to go to work and get groceries. Though I'll try to talk when I can?"
He gripped onto her hand tighter, tugging lightly as if a kid tugging their friend's sleeve to get attention. "I won't pull you into the ring if you allow me access to your mindscape. Then I can see what's going on around you and maybe even understand this futuristic world. Lena, I was born in the 1920s. Please... help me understand?"
"...Alright." She knew it was a bit manipulative and that she wasn't to trust him fully, but she'd let him into the very outer parts of her mind so he could see the world. Pulling her hand away, she nodded and left the darkened marble dining room, waking to her own body.
Focusing on her own outer mind shields, she lowered them, feeling something like a dark mist slip inside.
"Hello, Lena."
The smoke seemed to want in further, hitting a barrier and she gave a soft snort, voice a whisper in the darkness. "Sorry, Riddle. You can have a share of my basic senses and speak to me… but I'm not as stupid to trust another with my mind, much less a spirit I've seen possess people."
"...I guess that is fair."
"I have to sleep. Goodnight."
A soft sigh. "Goodnight, Lena."
Her wand vibrated on her bedside table, the soft sound enough to wake her and she yawned as she sat up and slid out of the bed. Moving to the closet, she pulled out a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, slipping her leggings off.
"Oh- that- good morning?"
Remembering the boy was probably really old fashioned, she huffed amusedly but turned away so she could continue dressing. When she was done she grabbed her backpack and made for the door to her room, stilling when she smelled something burning.
"Severus! Sev-" Running into the kitchen to find the man scowling at a pan of burnt eggs, she sighed. "I told you to stay away from my kitchen! What were you even doing?"
Snape moved from the pan, watching her scrape the burnt eggs in the trash with a deep frown. "I wanted to make you breakfast. For your birthday."
"Sweet, but the rules still hold- no going in the kitchen without me. You're terrible at cooking without magic." Sighing, she poured the rest of the eggs in the pan, adding some cheese and finely chopped ham so she could quickly make an omelet. Moving the finished product to a plate, she handed it to him. "Here. I have to go, I have work, but I'll get groceries on the way home."
Turning off the stove, she moved out the door, practically running to the bus station.
"Your father?"
Lena shook her head, thinking her response back to Riddle clearly. Severus Snape is the Potions Professor at Hogwarts and my godfather. Just recently a family came barging into my life, claiming me their long-lost daughter, so to avoid them, I'm staying with Severus.
"Why avoid them?"
Because that family... is the holier-than-thou Potter family.
A pause, the bus pulling up and she got on, finding a seat in the corner of the front.
"You are the other Potter child? The sister of the one that defeated the other part of me?"
Lena grimaced just slightly. Apparently, yes.
Getting to work without much talk from the voice in her head other than to ask about things he probably didn't understand, she then continued on most of her shift without the boy's mental interruptions.
However, when she was a few hours from closing, he seemed to have gotten over his mood.
"How then are you sure that you are not the one that defeated my other self, rather than the other child? Because as you told me yourself, the other Potter seems a bit too normal to have defeated me."
She raised an eyebrow, even knowing he couldn't see her. You're just upset a child defeated you. Don't try to put this on me.
Riddle huffed. "Yes, fine- but you seem a fair bit stronger and more magically powerful… So? How do you know?"
"I don't." Saying it out loud just made that thought so much worse and the boy seemed to understand that, keeping quiet the rest of the day.
A huff of complete frustration.
"This is ridiculous. You're cheating." Snape frowned at her deeply, but the effect was both ruined by the fact that he had his hair braided with a blanket draped around his shoulders and the fact he was sitting on the ground cross-legged, frowning at the plastic game board.
Lena took a long sip of the hot chocolate that was warming her hands- as they were outside in the grassy backyard on a picnic blanket, the faint light of the house illuminating their game. "Get over yourself. It's a game of 'Guess Who'."
"But you are cheating... aren't you?"
Yeah. He keeps picking either one of five guys or one of the dark-haired women. I just watch where his eyes drift to and then guess loosely based around that… It seems he has a type.
"Figures. You're such a Slytherin." Riddle sounded almost proud of her.
Her smile was wider than normal, something warm in her chest other than the hot chocolate, but she ignored it for the sake of teasing Snape. "It's not like it's poker with Sirius Black's head on the line."
The potions master's lip quirked up, but it was gone in a second, back to scowling at his game board. "Oh, I'd more than happy to lose that game."
"I know." She watched him struggle for a long moment, hiding a smile around the edge of her mug.
With a growl of irritation, the man flipped all the tiny tabs closed and stood, blanket like a cape. "I give up. It's time for bed."
Lena raised an eyebrow at the man, putting the game away and standing with her blanket, mug, and board game in hand. "Is it really?..." Her voice was musing as she walked past him. "And here I was under the implications you were nocturnal. Good job on setting a limit for yourself."
"Sometimes I wonder if you're really fourteen, or if you're just some demon in disguise here to torture me." The man grumbled as he took off his blanket and then snagged the one around her shoulders as she walked past, folding them as she put the board game under the coffee table in a basket and set her mug in the sink.
"I have my money on the demon idea."
"Oh, I'm definitely a demon- just a fourteen-year-old one." Her grin was toothy as she started up the stairs to the bathroom they shared across the hall from both rooms. "And isn't that worse?"
Snape muttered something inaudible, leaning against the wall as she started to brush her teeth in front of the sink. After a pause, he tilted his head just slightly as if he'd picked up her unconscious mannerisms. "You really don't like the idea of the Potters, do you? Why?"
Shrugging, she spit out the foamy toothpaste, rinsing her mouth out and moving to sit on the closed lid of the toilet as the older man stepped forward to brush his teeth. "I don't like the idea of being made into something I'm not. I'm not a hero or really even a good person and the only reason I would be is if it was in my interest to be. I've lived for so long living by adapting and changing based on what situation I'm put in so that I can survive… and I'm never going to fit into the mold that they want of a perfect little girl that they can wipe clean and start over with." She looked down at her hands, sighing softly. "I've seen too much of the cruelty life brings to ever go back to being that girl."
A hand settled on her head and she looked up to where Snape's eyes were unusually fond, even as he had a bit of toothpaste goop on his chin. "I will never try to tell you who you need to be." He smirked slightly, he turned back to the sink, filling a cup of water to rinse his mouth out. "I would be insane to do that, as I probably wouldn't wake up the next morning."
"No, you'd wake up. I would poison your coffee. You probably wouldn't even taste it, with the sludge you drink."
"Go to bed, demon."
Rolling her eyes, she moved to the hall, getting to her room and then pausing in the doorway. "Goodnight."
The sound of water running shut off. "Night."
"You're fond of him."
Getting her stuff ready for work in the morning, she flicked her wand (that only sometimes worked) to set the timer for the morning, setting a second on the actual alarm clock just in case her wand was determined to be stubborn.
She curled up under the covers. He's like me. A bit lonely, misunderstood, and tired. As such… we get along because we're made from the same general cloth.
"I see." Riddle gave a soft huffing laugh at the way her eyes were already slipping closed. "Go to bed, dear."
Humming softly in response, she closed her eyes. Goodnight, Tom.
"Sweet dreams, Lena."
"Lena…" Snape's tone of voice was hesitant, telling her something was wrong. She looked up from where she was laying on her bed reading to find the man standing in her doorway. "I know you've been keeping up with the other Slytherins, but have they told you about the newspapers?"
Sitting up and putting her book to the side, she carefully took hold of the wizarding newspaper he handed her, blinking at where the title was staring back at her.
"Lost Potter Found! Is Helena Potter the real Chosen One?"
On the front page was a picture of her in Hogwarts robes wearing a slight smile, though her eyes were smiling more than her face.
Reading through the article that was all about her time at Hogwarts so far, her friendship with Albus Dumbledore, a few mentions from anonymous sources about her time at the orphanage, her heirship to Slytherin, and speculation about her being the 'Chosen One' instead of Charles Potter.
Told you.
Scowling, she clenched her hands on the paper, letting it burn to ashes in her hands. "How dare they? I had a peaceful life! I had everything and I gave them everything too!" Standing, she paced her room. "When I find out who told-"
"You didn't exactly hide it with your two confrontations in the Great Hall." Snape watched her with a blank face. "As for the other stuff-"
"I know you're a Death Eater. I saw your arm when you were having that nightmare last year."
They stared at each other.
Snape shook his head. "That wasn't what I was going to say, but yes, I am- well- was... However, I was going to say that not only have both the Malfoys and Potters both came out and said they would be taking you to the Quidditch World Cup. I had gotten you tickets in the… less fancy part of the stadium for your birthday, but I understand if you chose to go with Draco instead."
"I'll write Draco then." She moved to the door, pausing by his side to smirk at the man. "If they want to take me because I'm hot news, then they can take both of us and we'll sell the tickets you got for double the money."
The man's startled laugh followed her down the hall.
"You really are a Slytherin."
You say that like you're surprised.
Narcissa Malfoy greeted Severus with a kiss to each cheek, before turning to her with a soft smile. "Miss Farland. I'm so glad you and Severus can go with Lucius and Draco."
"It's Lena, please. Miss Farland was the woman Jack showed me pictures of older than myself." Holding out her hand, she smiled when the woman took it.
"Narcissa or Aunt Cissy would work then," the woman beamed, "as we're technically related by blood. Second or third cousins, in fact, I think."
Lena looked to where Draco strolled in, sending him a toothy grin. "Remind me not to marry you then, Draco." When the boy gaped at her, she chuckled. "Apparently we're something of cousins though byproduct of my sperm or egg donor."
The boy raised an eyebrow, huffing softly. "You're like my younger, scarier sister."
"I like the addition of scary. I'll take it."
Snape snorted softly from behind her, placing a hand on her shoulder and looking to the elder Malfoy. "Lucius… shall we?"
The platinum blonde (that was honestly how she imagined Thranduil looking in The Hobbit) was staring at her ring in horror. Not at the Slytherin heirship ring, but the golden ring that was sitting on her left ring finger.
"A sign of marriage… are you proposing, Lena?"
Quiet, you.
Clasping her hands behind her back to slip the ring off and instead slide it on her left middle finger, she tilted her head at the blonde man. "A problem, Mr. Malfoy?"
"He is scared of me, as he very well should be. I remember putting a fairly harmful curse on this ring and he must have felt it when he got close… but I suspect your heirship ring brushed it aside as if it was nothing."
Now you tell me?
"Apologies."
Riddle didn't sound all that apologetic.
Lucius Malfoy seemed to shake out of his haze, nodding stiffly. "The tent is already set up, but the portkey will only take us to the edge of the field." He held out a thin book. "It works on password." His voice was slightly patronizing as he looked at her.
She let her lip curled up slightly in a wordless snarl as she grabbed hold. "I've portkeyed a few times before- not to worry."
"I hate portkeys." Draco smiled at her, grabbing hold. "Though I'm excited to see the others. I hear that Blaise even knows Victor Krum from Bulgaria! He's the Seeker and I hear he's amazing! Not even out of Durmstrang yet and he's flying professionally!"
Glancing to the boy's bracelet, she smiled, pointing at where 'He will like you. And if he is rude to you, Lena will hurt him' was scrawled in her writing.
The boy shook his head, voice a mutter. "So violent."
"It's a talent." She grinned at Snape, who huffed- Before the feeling of being compressed, put in a blender, and then flattened by a steamroller took them over and left them standing on the edge of a sea of tents.
Blinking a few times to clear the spots of her vision, she looked to where Snape was scowling- probably at the noise. "I thought you wanted to come?"
Snape looked down his hooked nose at her. "I never said that. I only said I had gotten you tickets. You would have needed a chaperone after all."
"Yeah. Right… Because I'm so irresponsible. Maybe you should think about who cooks your meals." Rolling her eyes, she took Draco's arm and started to walk away. "Come on Dray. Let's go find some trouble."
The boy snickered. "You are trouble."
"Fair point." She then gave the boy a grin. "Then how about we make some trouble?"
Lena had found three underground gambling rings and been kicked out of two of them before Draco dragged her to a large black tent, the inside like a whole house with stairs to what looked like a second floor.
Madame Zabini greeted them with a grin, seeming to slip out from the shadows themselves. "Ah, Lena, Draco... how nice to see you. Theodore and Blaise should be in the sitting room playing chess."
"Thanks, Safrina." She smiled at the woman, letting Draco guide her away.
"How are you on a first-name basis with our moms?" The blond scowled. "If I called her that she would have skinned me and fed her to her lion."
Lena smirked. Note to Self: Get Madame Zabini to let me feed someone to her lion.
"How are you and Dumbledore friends again?"
We ice skated together and the rest was history.
"Lena?"
Blinking at where Theo and Blaise were staring at her, she tilted her head. "Hello."
"You okay?" Blaise put his hand to her forehead as if checking her temperature. "You spaced out there for a second."
Note to Self: Ignore the voice in your head.
"I resent that."
I might just take the ring off until the actual game.
"...If you have to."
Lena smiled at the two boys, moving to twist the gold ring off her finger, slipping it into her sports bra so it was warm against the skin of her chest in a reminder it was safe. "I'm perfectly healthy, not to worry. Just lost my train of thought for a moment debating if Madame Zucchini would let me feed someone to her lion."
"It would give Leo indigestion," Blaise smirked and moved to lay across an armchair, "so I doubt it."
"You named your lion 'Leo'?" Lena snorted, sitting down in an armchair. "I feel as if that shouldn't offend me, but it does."
The boy just shrugged, looking to Draco with a smirk. "How's your prediction of the match?" Then the Italian boy winked to her when Theo and Draco set about to half explaining, half arguing about what they thought would happen.
After having to deal with three years listening to her friends talk about the sport and going to every game to support her team, Lena knew a fair bit about Quidditch, so she wasn't opposed to it. However the people…
Apparently Lupin and Black had come with Charles Potter and also gotten tickets to the top booth, the two men eyeing their group (and her) but they paid more attention to the game when it started than anything so she was (reluctantly) fine with it.
Though her favorite part had to be when the Veela came out and turned everyone but her group, the Bulgarian Minister, and her to blubbering messes. Turning to the Minister, who was behind her, she put a translation charm on herself and smiled good-naturedly. "I assume it must be amusing to go to different countries and make them act like fools."
The man spoke in Bulgarian, even as her charm translated it to English with a thick Slavic accent. "Even this minister drools. Pathetic."
"He's not wrong." Riddle sounded smug.
"Oh, most definitely." She grinned slightly, checking to make sure the British Minister was still unaware of her, before leaning back slightly. "Even though I knew he was incompetent, I thought that he would be able to use a simple Auror's charm to translate foreign languages."
"Or you are just smart, as you surround yourself with strong wizards and witches..." A hand was extended to her. "Minister Oblansk."
Taking the hand, she smirked. "Lena Farland. A pleasure to meet you… Though I might as well be saying 'I'm sorry', as I have been told by my... analysts that you're in this game to lose, even with Krum."
The hand around hers tightened slightly, the Minister grinning. "Oh? And what do you bet on this?"
"How about the silver ring I'm wearing?"
Draco and Theo looked at her as if she was insane, but she ignored them.
"You are insane. I'm calling it now."
It takes one to know one.
Oblansk grinned wider as he looked at where the Slytherin Heirship sat on her finger. "Then I will offer much the same. Should you win, I will offer you the ring of my family… and have you meet my team."
"Deal." Shaking hands, she turned back to where all of her party was watching her- half in horror and half in amusement. She just pointed to Draco's bracelet.
You are trusted greatly and all your long-winded rants are listened to.
This didn't seem to reassure Draco nor Theo, who both looked at her with wide eyes, Draco's voice a hissed whisper. "You just made a deal with the man whose family basically controls Bulgaria! He's practically a dictator!"
"I've met more intimidating." She mused under her breath, thinking of the older Riddle's crimson eyes that seemed to stare into her soul. Sitting back in her chair and crossing a leg over the other, she sent the boys a look. "But I do hope you're right."
"Why did you do that?"
I was bored. And don't you dare tell me you wouldn't have done something equally as ridiculous if you were in my place.
"...still, the Slytherin Heirship?"
I trust Draco and Theodore. They haven't been wrong yet.
Thirty minutes into the game when Ireland was winning 130 to 10, she just smirked as the boys lost their collective minds cheering and whooping for Ireland- even if Blaise and Theo had originally supported Bulgaria.
When the game had ended with just a 10 point win for Ireland, even with Victor Krum having caught the snitch, she turned back to Minister Oblansk. "A good game."
"Ve fought bravely." His voice was in English with both the translation and without, Fudge sputtering angrily at the man he'd been trying to talk to this whole time. The Minister took off his gold ring with a small rectangular Bulgarian flag on it, holding out his hand.
Lena let him take her hand and slide the ring on her right pinky finger, dipping her head in thanks.
The Minister smiled. "I owe a meeting with my team?"
Draco looked as if he was going to hyperventilate, the other two boys grinning as well when she nodded. "As my House's previous Quiddich Captain left, he has suggested I play Seeker this next year, so I would very much like to meet Mr. Krum as his dives look very fun but dangerous. Exactly my type."
"Nuisance," Snape growled behind her, Madame Zabini smiling behind her hand.
"Yes! Yes, come come!" The man laughed, putting a hand on the middle of her back, steering her away.
"You should cut his hands off for touching you."
Lena couldn't help the slight smile on her lips. Now who is being insane?
When Riddle responded, he sounded petulant. "...I don't like him."
"My friends! I come with guests!" The Minister entered a tent with her at his side but Blaise's hand was in front of her eyes before she could see anything.
"Blaise?"
The boy sounded as if he wanted to punch something, and by his dark tone, the Bulgarian Minister was first on his list. "If the game just ended and we are in the Bulgarian Changing Rooms..."
Lena could feel a slight flush rising to her cheeks, scowling when she heard the Minister laughing. "Very funny, Minister, but I will wait outside." Closing her eyes and letting Blaise turn her around, she smiled gratefully at the boy once outside the tent. "Thanks, Zucchini. I was a bit…"
"Spaced out?" The boy smiled slightly, but it was concerned as he pulled her aside from where Draco was talking the other's ears off. "Does this have to do with the ring from Draco's father and the diadem last year?"
"Perhaps."
"I suggest… killing the Minister. Both Ministers, if you want."
She rolled her eyes, looking to Blaise with a long-suffering look. "Though this one is apparently a bit homicidal at the moment, he's usually pretty tame. And I suspect the homicide is because of an issue with authority."
"I am the authority."
You're just proving my point, dearest.
Blaise raised an eyebrow but nodded slowly. "I trust you will know if it gets to be… too much."
"Not to worry. I will." She patted his shoulder, looking to the Bulgarian Minister when he emerged from the tent with a single raised eyebrow. "Minister. Are your players acceptable for polite society?"
"Yes yes! Go in! Go!" The man waved her into the tent, Draco bounding in after her with stars in his eyes.
Looking at the group of Quidditch players of ages from 17 to mid-30s, she offered up a half-smile and renewed her translation spell. "Hello. I'm Lena. It really was a wonderful game to watch, as I'm sure all my friends will be jealous I got to meet you all!" She sunk back into the mask of the fourteen-year-old girl that she'd perfected overtime at the library with anyone she could practice on.
One of the two females who were coiled with muscles scowled and crossed her arms, speaking in Bulgarian. "What a spoiled little girl, running around and demanding our time from-"
"Nice to meet you, Lena of Slytherin and friend of Bulgaria." The deep voice of Victor Krum cut over the woman, his sharp eyes glancing at her rings. Standing, he moved to her, still speaking the rough Slavic language. "Do not pay heed to my teammates, as they cannot see past their loss."
She waved her hand, smiling. "No matter. I know my House's team gets such a way too when losing, though I find some chocolate helps." Taking a chocolate bar from her bag, she threw it to the woman, who caught it with a scowl. Winking, Lena grinned toothily. "One of the ingredients in that chocolate bar is the same chemical your brain produces when it's in love… hence why it helps against both bad moods and dementors."
The woman blinked, nodding and opening the chocolate bar, the group starting to argue about splitting it and the tent froze when Lena nailed the guy trying to steal the woman's chocolate in the head with another chocolate bar.
"Stop fighting. I do have more if you refuse to share."
The Quidditch team broke into laughter at the stunned look on the face of the man she'd hit, and her group was then welcomed easily.