Tom snapped the book shut, the corners of his mouth twisting with frustration. Nothing, again.
He looked out the high windows of the library, his long fingers smoothing over the cover absently, his eyes narrowed with the frustration of yet another unproductive search as he looked at the bleak expanse of sky, which was smothered with grey clouds dripping steady sheets of rain. The sunny spree at the start of term had waned as September bled into October, and it had been raining daily and steadily for the past week.
Astraya and Tom had managed to maintain a polite relationship in public, though neither of them resisted an opportunity to goad the other. As a result, they often found themselves the victims of irksome and sometimes comical accidents that they both instantly tried to hide or remedy, like a pot of ink spilling over the essay Astraya had spent two hours writing, or a pot of mooncalf dung getting mysteriously upturned over Tom's robes.
Thwarting each other's efforts in class was something they were especially fond of, though they both managed to keep their status as the brightest students in their year, and indeed, the school, in spite of their respective pranks. This pushed Tom to try even harder, angered by how easily Astraya had established herself as his academic competition. But she still scraped through; last week, he'd discreetly switched her infusion of wormwood with essence of valerian. He'd felt smug as he saw her frown in bafflement as her potion turned an unusual shade of green, but at the end of the lesson, she'd still managed to present Slughorn with a perfect sample of Invigoration Draught.
They hadn't had another confrontation since that Friday night, and Tom hadn't tried to provoke her into one. The next time they duelled, he vowed, he'd emerge the victor. He'd been reading his book diligently, and carried out the spells on his followers. His extracurricular studies, coupled with the homework piling up, had kept him from his other, private research. But he'd finished most of his homework early, and as soon as lessons had concluded that Friday, he'd set out for the library.
Ever since he'd come to Hogwarts, he'd tried in vain to find out more about his parentage; he knew one of his parents was magic, and all British magical children came to Hogwarts, so their must be some evidence of that somewhere. He'd been sure his father was the magical parent; after all, if his mother had been a witch, she wouldn't have died and left to be raised in a Muggle orphanage. So he'd searched for his father's name, Tom Riddle Sr., everywhere. He'd even asked some of the teachers if they remembered a student by that name. But they'd all shaken their heads and looked at him with an expression of pity that nearly had him reaching for his wand and cursing that look off their faces.
Finally, after wasting the most of three years on his futile quest, he'd admitted that it was his mother, after all, who had been the magical parent. His mouth still twisted when he thought of his folly. What kind of wizard would be called 'Tom' anyway? Such a common, plain, trivial name. He hated that it was his, that he, extraordinary as he was, carried the name of a filthy Muggle who couldn't even be bothered to raise him, if he knew about him at all.
Tom had subsequently turned in his research to his mother's side of the family, about which he knew nothing except that his grandfather was called 'Marvolo'. He'd started painstakingly reading the records of wizarding families and bloodlines, searching for that name, which actually sounded like a wizarding name: elitist and remote. It had been more than a year, but he still hadn't had a breakthrough.
A weaker, lesser person might have started to doubt that he had any wizarding heritage at all, but Tom was stronger than that. How can magical talent such as his be born from a filthy, common Muggle line? And then there was his ability to speak Parseltongue, the trademark of any descendant of Slytherin.
His black eyes sharpened with new purpose. He was a descendant of Slytherin; he was sure of it. But he'd never thought to look through books that detailed Slytherin's remaining descendants or showed how his bloodline had advanced through the years.
He leaned his back against the shelf, his fingers drumming in thought over the forgotten book in his hands. He turned and surveyed the rows of volumes in the History section critically. He doubted he'd find a single book here about Slytherin. He wasn't the most beloved of the Hogwarts founders, and often was little more than an afterthought to the remaining founders. Any work listing his achievements and remaining legacy and descendants wouldn't be kept here.
His gaze turned to the roped-off shelves at the back of the library. In a swift, decisive motion, he returned the book to its place, picked up his bag and walked out of the library, giving the librarian one of his most charming smiles as he passed.
It looked like it was time for another night-time trip to the Restricted Section.
Astraya blew out a slow, long exhale and leaned her head back against the headboard. She dropped her wand on the counterpane, the tip emitting the soft, white glow by which she'd been reading, and massaged her temples, stifling a yawn.
It was nearly midnight, and the dorm was silent except for the intermittent sleepy murmur and odd snore as the girls slept blissfully on. After a long week of tiring lessons, everyone had lapsed into sleep a mere hour after leaving the Great Hall. Astraya, however, had stayed awake, poring over the notes she'd made over the past few weeks.
She found herself slowly getting accustomed to lessons and homework, settling into school life gradually but smoothly. The teachers already adored her, as she excelled in nearly every lesson, and was catching up fast in those she didn't. The Slytherins had begun to warm up to her, though some of them still remained reticent because of her strange relationship with Riddle.
A calculating look swept over her features as she thought of him. Their prank war had started out amusing, but it had grown tiresome. It put her on edge that Riddle hadn't made a serious move yet, as if he was a volcano building up pressure slowly so that when it finally erupted, the eruption would be that much more deadly.
She looked at the sheets of parchment, crammed with writing, and sighed again. Apparently, Hogwarts was riddled with even more mysteries and hidden rooms than she had thought. Unfortunately, most of these sounded like mere myths to her, even with her discovery of that astounding room on the seventh floor.
She wanted to get to know this castle, visit its every nook and cranny, discover all its secrets. She was growing fond of it, rather because sometimes it felt like its own world, separate from everything outside, everything she wanted to run from.
She started to pick up the sheets, folding them into one tidy sheaf. Her eyelids were getting heavy, and she had to blink rapidly to banish the drowsiness, not entirely succeeding. Yawning again, she unfurled her legs and left her bed, going to where her trunk sat at the foot of it. Astraya lifted the lid and placed the sheaf of parchment on the topmost layer of clothes. The light flaring from the tip of her wand flashed on something metallic in her trunk.
Her eyebrows knotting together in bafflement, she picked up the object, a long chain threaded through some sort of metalwork. She held it up to the light.
Her heart paused abruptly, then began thudding erratically, slamming into her ribs with such force it was as if it was trying to escape. Her hand shook so badly her wand fell limply to the floor, the light falling uselessly on the rug and leaving the necklace in near-darkness. But she didn't need any light to see it. She knew that symbol as well as her own face. Even now, she could see it in the dark, hanging tauntingly from the chain.
Her fingers curled around it, the nails biting into her palm. She felt a sudden sting of bile in her throat. Someone had left it there for her. She was sure of it. Someone knew her past, and wanted to remind her of it? But who?
She stilled as cold dread overtook her. Could Riddle have found out? No, there was no way. Even if he had dug into her background behind her back, he wouldn't have found anything that could link her to that symbol. Besides, boys couldn't enter the girls' dormitories. She knew that from her recent readings on the castle.
So it had to be one of the girls. She looked around the room, her eyes lingering on each bed before moving to the next. But even that didn't make sense; there was no way for any of them to find out either.
Her lungs were having trouble drawing in enough air, so that every time she inhaled, a rasping sound came out. She needed to get rid of that thing, she thought desperately. She needed to destroy it, needed it out of her sight.
She scrambled to her feet, then yanked the door open, and tore down the corridor to the common room. It was a measure of how unsettled and distressed she was that she didn't stop to check whether Riddle and his gang were still there. Mercifully, the common room was empty, the only sound being the lapping of waves against the windows and the weak crackles of the dying fire in the hearth.
Trying to keep her fingers from trembling, she held the necklace over the fire, and pointed at it with her wand, saying shakily, "Reducto."
Nothing happened.
Ignoring the nagging suspicion at the back of her mind, she tried again. "Deletrius."
It stayed as it was, swinging slightly from her fingers, seeming to mock her.
Her voice grew louder and more panicked as she tried more spells, each one stronger than the last, yet each seemed to have no more effect than the one before it.
Her blood roaring in her ears, she stared at the necklace blankly. Whoever sent this had riddled it with protection charms and spells, as if sending her a message. Her past, no matter how much she tried to run away from it or ignore it, would always be there, and she could no more destroy it than she could destroy her own self.
Closing her hand once more around that condemning symbol, she scampered to the door and raced out of the dungeons, her slippered feet making dull thuds against the floor as she reached the large oak doors and flung one open, slipping out into the cool night.
Tom felt pleasantly tired as he climbed the Grand Staircase, his breath still coming in rapid, indrawn pants that were slowly easing into a normal pace. He'd had a long session with Mulciber, Nott and Avery in one of the abandoned dungeon rooms. He'd duelled all three at simultaneously, yet it had not even been a challenge, which was precisely why he'd decided to give them a long supplementary lesson that night. Rosier and Lestrange had enough skill and natural talent for duels and the Dark Arts, though their dispositions were as different as night and day. These three, however, needed more work. Besides, even if they didn't provide the challenge he was craving, it still gave him the perfect opportunity to practise the new spells he'd learnt.
After he'd decided they'd had enough, he'd put them to rights and sent them on their way, and walked leisurely out of the dungeons. Now, as he reached the landing of the first floor, he turned with purpose to the left corridor, where the stairwell lay. It was about time to go to the library and begin his night-time research.
Just as he reached the corridor, where the wall would block his view of the Entrance Hall, he heard the sound of feet padding across the floor, the soft sound echoing in the empty space. His body tensed with alertness. Keeping himself in the shadows clinging to the walls, he glanced into the Entrance Hall in time to see a mass of black curls bobbing out the door and into the night. It wasn't more than a glimpse, but, somehow, he knew.
Astraya.
Excitement sizzling in his veins, he descended the staircase with swift yet quiet steps. He barely made a sound as he walked to the large oak doors. This was an ideal coincidence; she was clearly up to something, slipping out after hours and with that urgency. If he followed her carefully, he would no doubt find what it was, which would not only give him some leverage over her, but it might even help him to uncover some of those secrets she guarded so zealously. Secrets which, he admitted, he was not any closer to finding out.
Rosier's father had yet to send a reply, though Tom knew he was very engrossed in his work at the Ministry, and rarely took interest in his son, or his daughter, Druella, who had yet to attend Hogwarts. It was likely that the letter had got lost in the stacks of papers pertaining to his work, and been forgotten. In the meantime, since Tom was determined to be more cautious in his next attempt, he was still at a loss of what to make of Astraya Sader, except that she was an unusually talented witch who was concerned with some big incident that may have involved the Ministry, which Blackwood had referenced on the Saturday after their duel.
Now, he followed her as she strode across the dark grounds. It had stopped raining, giving way to a cool, clear night, with the almost-full moon glowing brilliantly on the surface of the Black Lake, but the ground was spongy and wet, making it difficult to walk quickly, as she was trying to do, or stealthily, as he was trying to do. But still he made only the quietest of sounds as he trailed after her, keeping a safe distance between them, close enough to keep her in his line of sight, but far enough for her not to realise she was being followed.
She paused only when she reached the edge of the Forbidden Forest, looking up briefly at the tangled treetops, a blanket of bark and twisted branches which prevented the moonlight from penetrating to the forest floor, leaving the forest cloaked in mysterious shadows. Then she plunged into the thicket, stepping carefully over the roots jutting out of the soil crookedly, like the tangled tentacles of an octopus.
His interest intensified as he followed her into the forest. She didn't wander far enough to reach the true heart of the forest, where overlarge spiders crawled between the gnarled roots, foxes and werewolves darted between the thick shrubbery, their eyes glinting eerily in the dark, and centaurs roamed on their strong, equine legs. She walked for over ten yards into the thicket, her steps careful and measured, before she stopped and pulled out her wand.
He noticed, as she muttered some sort of spell he couldn't hear, that she was clutching something in her other hand – a chain, maybe a necklace…
Finished with her spell, she crouched and placed the necklace in a sunken patch of soil, where the roots were laced around it, forming a cradle. She stepped back and held out her wand, and a jet of fire erupted from the tip. It streaked purposely towards the necklace, its brilliant light casting a haze of orange in the dark. The flames gushed from the tip in a controlled flow, then flared on the ground like an inferno as they devoured the chain, no doubt turning it into a mass of molten metal.
Tom watched this with narrowed eyes that honed in on certain details in a hawk-like manner: the tension in Astraya's shoulders, the tightness with which her hand gripped her wand, the set of her jaw as she looked at the blaze she'd created, her eyes unnaturally green in the light, their gaze fierce and distant, as if seeing something else in the flames.
Tom waited until she extinguished the fire. He was sure it hadn't been a normal fire. The flames had been too powerful, so hot he could feel their heat from where he stood, though Astraya had controlled them admirably. He wondered how none of the Forest's inhabitants had been disturbed by it, then realised Astraya's earlier spell probably took care of that.
Twirling his wand in his fingers in case she tried anything, he stepped out from behind the thick trunk of the tree he'd been hiding behind and said in a casual voice, "I didn't know you were so passionate about setting fire to things, Sader."
She went stiff, as if placed under a Body-Bind Curse, then whirled around, curls flying wildly around her face. Her eyes were comically wide as she took him in. Sweat glistened on her forehead from the heat of the fire.
Hiding his gleeful satisfaction from his voice, he continued, "A bit late for a night-time stroll, isn't it?"
Recovering from her shock, she regarded him with a thin-lipped glare, but her voice was cool and slightly acerbic when she spoke. "A bit far for your prefect patrol, isn't it?"
He didn't react to her subtle threat. He was out of bounds, and it was after curfew, even for a prefect, but so was she. Besides, they'd both done enough illegal acts to know that if either of them went down, he could easily take the other down with him.
He approached her slowly, rolling his wand nonchalantly between his fingers. He looked at the cradle of roots; the necklace had indeed melted into a misshapen mass of metal.
"Why did you burn it?" he asked, keeping his curiosity mild, though his eyes had that hungry light that appeared when he was excited.
She shrugged a shoulder. "It was satisfying." The acid was more evident now.
Conscious of his wand, ready in his hands, he eyed her appraisingly.
She didn't miss the look in his eyes. "You want to try this again, Riddle? Liked the feel of defeat, did you?"
His eyes got a dangerous, flinty look in them. "I told you that wouldn't happen again."
She snorted, and turned away.
He felt a spike of anger but squashed it. He couldn't afford losing this opportunity to his temper. She was clearly unsettled tonight. If he played it well, he'd figure out why, and maybe ferret out some of her secrets in the process.
His gaze slowly turned to the pool of molten metal that had begun to cool into a shapeless lump. There was no way to tell what it had originally looked like. But if the fire Astraya used had indeed been Dark, then there might be a way…
Swooping to the forest floor, he snatched it off the ground and thrust it in his pocket, then hurried after Astraya.
Astraya held in an aggravated sigh as she felt Riddle come up beside her. Of all the times he had to begin paying attention to her again when he'd been fine with ignoring her the last few weeks, this was the worst.
"Why are you suddenly so interested in me again? Did you finally get bored of your pranks, or did my last one push you over the edge?" Yesterday during Herbology, Astraya had 'accidentally' knocked over her pot of mooncalf dung all over Riddle's pristine, black robes. She'd been half convinced that he was going to pull out his wand and murder her on the spot, probably in a slow, excruciating way.
A muscle ticked in his jaw, but he managed to stay composed. A faint twinge of concern underlaid his voice. "I just wondered what had distressed you like this. You only become this unsettled when your past is brought up."
"Drop that concerned tone. It's like hearing a snake bark." She kept her face turned forwards as she trudged across the field to the castle. If it weren't for the circumstances she might have appreciated the glorious sight of it at night. The moonlight gilded its many turrets with a silvery sheen as they stretched towards the midnight sky. The grim image of its stark silhouette was relieved by the moonlight flickering teasingly over the surface of the lake nearby. It seemed like a kingdom, a realm removed from the world around them.
Riddle had gone quiet as if taking it in too, and when she glanced sideways at him, she saw that he was watching the castle with a possessive, hungry gleam in his eyes. He looked formidable like the castle, the stark outline of his cheekbones sharpened by the shadows, his black hair glinting as the moonlight flickered over the ordered locks.
"Why the Forbidden Forest?" he asked, and his curiosity and excitement was palpable now. "You could have burnt it inside a fireplace."
She gave him a hostile look. "I don't know why you think I'd answer any of your questions."
He shrugged. "It was worth a try." He gave her a fake smile. "Besides, I could always make you answer them."
She hated it that he was in control and composed while she was so thrown off balance. Her brows lowered and drew together. "Go away, Riddle. It's too late for me to deal with your threats." Trying to even the scales, she gave him a blithe smile of her own. "Especially since you can't seem to follow through any of them."
That made his expression darken. They'd reached the main doors now, and Astraya opened them and stepped inside, not bothering to hold them open for Riddle. He caught the door just as it was about to close in his face. He opened his mouth to say something, but his gaze darted to something behind her, and he stopped. She turned to see what had caught his attention, finding nothing but dying torchlight and shadows. She was about to turn back again when the shadows along the walls shifted, and quiet footsteps sounded in the empty hall.
Her eyes widened as a tall figure emerged, his magenta robes sweeping behind him. His blue eyes were piercing even in the dark.
Her eyes darted around for Riddle, but he wasn't there. She glimpsed a faint ripple in the air nearby, as if something had moved. She gritted her teeth.
That bastard.