Author's note: Hello everyone, I hope you're doing well! First, I realised with much embarrassment this weekend that I made a big mistake with Nott's and Rosier's first names in the fourth chapter. I fixed it now and I apologise for the confusion! Basically Leonus Nott = bad guy, Alastair Rosier = Anna's friend (hope that's a bit clearer). Also, thank you so much for reading and following this story, it means a lot! Here is a new chapter (this time WITHOUT mistaking the names...) - Enjoy -
September 1941: Suffocatio
Annabel was repressing a giggle at the sight of her friend's face slightly verging on the green.
"Should we go ask for a bucket?" asked Elena jokingly to Margaret, a petite brown-haired girl who shared Annabel's and Elena's dorm. Violet and Eudora, two Ravenclaws their age merrily discussed the next year's schedule, stating they would be soon enough swamped with work because of the OWLs that'd take place next year.
Anna reached for the pack of Bertie Bott's flavoured beans, praying she would not have the misfortune to pick something gross. She carefully scrutinised the vivid colours, wisely choosing a white one. She crushed the candy between her molars and waited apprehensively for the taste to diffuse in her mouth.
"Coconut" she grinned proudly.
The others picked another sweet and Anna shook the pack in Margaret's direction. The girl refused with a disgusted frown, her hand covering her mouth as if she still hadn't recovered from the nauseating farm dirt flavour she had just picked.
"How was your summer Anna?" asked Eudora, her dark curls softly moving around her face in rhythm with the jolts of the Hogwarts Express which now drove above a bridge.
"You were with that blond boy from Slytherin?" asked eagerly Margaret, who seemed to suddenly feel better.
Anna nodded, smiling, and recounted her holidays near Loch Awe with Alastair's family. Margaret asked about the boy, that all knew she fancied and Anna relished watching the attention with which Margaret listened to her stories. She spoke of her evening escapades, of the beauty of the nightfalls, of the endless strolls inside the castles' ruins. She also narrated with great details how she had occupied herself during the long days she had spent at her parents' house, where she had had no one but the house-elf to keep her company.
However, Anna scrupulously avoided to disclose how she had spent the rest of her holidays trying to conceal her menses to Alastair's mom first, and then to her own, pretexting that "the water was too cold for swimming" after she had bled for the first time that summer. Anna felt her palms get sweaty as she recalled how she had woken up in the middle of the night, gripped by a cramp inside her lower belly and how she had crawled to the bathroom only to find a dark spot inside her underwear. Anna had decided that she would keep it hidden from her friends too, because the girl couldn't trust anyone. She knew damn too well what would ensure after she would reveal such change...
"What is wrong?" suddenly asked Margaret, her eyes turning to the door of their cabin that slid opened. In the frame stood Sophia Kristiansen, a red-haired girl from Norway that had been integrated to Anna's dorm a year before. Sophia belonged to the cohort of the many European students that had been lately admitted to Hogwarts, after a blood-thirsty Muggle leader invaded half of Europe, from what Anna had read in the Daily Prophet. Together with a hundred other European kids, Sophia had been relocated to Hogwarts until the political tension in the Muggle world would ease.
Sophia's eyes were red, as if she had cried and Anna felt gripped by a sudden anguish as the feelings of the girl resonated within her chest. She looked at the silk handkerchief the girl was holding.
The newcomer walked inside the cabin and sat down on the booth seat next to the other girls. Anna reached for the cloth that she slowly unfolded, noticing with stupor that the cloth was soiled. She stared at the brown stains tainting the immaculate fabric and shot an interrogative glance to the girl who bursted into tears.
"Who did that?" asked Margaret who opened Anna's hand to peek at the cloth.
"The Slytherin boys, they…"
The red-haired girl was sobbing so loud now that her words were barely intelligible. Yet, at the name of Nott, Anna felt her blood boil. She knew how much that cloth meant for the girl, a beautiful silk handkerchief she had inherited from her late mother.
Anna stood up in fury and stumped out of the compartment. She ignored the party of Ravenclaw that followed her down the aisle, too busy peeking in an infuriated way through the windows of each cabin, people looking back curiously. Finally, she found the culprit. She slammed the door open with rage and stepped within the cabin.
"Can you explain this?"
Her voice was only a whisper, hissing as she raised the cloth she was gripping. She looked at the bunch of knob heads. Like rats, Slytherins lived in packs. She glared at the half-dozen boys pressed against each others on the two booth seats.
She set her eyes on Nott and her hands were jerking in hatred. The boy was eating a chocolate frog, disgusting stains of chocolate decorating the corner of his mouth. He laughed at the sight of the handkerchief, his mouth full.
Mulciber, a sturdy fifth year that used to stick to Riddle like glue waved his wand and the piece of fabric slipped away from Anna's hand and flew all the way to him.
"Give that back" she snapped.
"Give that back" mimicked Nott in a higher-pitched voice which made the other Slytherins laugh.
Mulciber and Nott grinned as she stepped inside the cabin, her wand in hand threateningly, preparing herself to retrieve the handkerchief, even by force if she had to. Rage was disfiguring the girl's face and she pointed her wand to Nott, ready to make that boy regret his foul behaviour.
"Stupe-"
"Expelliarmus"
Before she could do anything, her wand flew high away from her hand and moved near the dark-haired boy who was sitting in the corner. She watched his long fingers grab the handle of her wand. Outraged, her hand turned into a fist and she glared at Riddle. Just you wait, she thought, and Riddle lazily moved his eyes off of his book and shot her an irked look before he returned to his reading, as if she was nothing but a nuisance for their peaceful ride to the castle. The Ravenclaw turned her glance back to Nott who reached for the handkerchief that lied on Mulciber's knees.
"What are you going to do now, birdie? By the way, thanks for bringing me my napkin back" he laughed, his voice hoarse as he lifted the fabric to his face and wiped the corner of this mouth with Sophia's handkerchief, which triggered a hearty laugh from Mulciber.
Within a split second, Nott's smirked was wiped off of his face and he winced, bringing his palms to his throat. He pulled on his tie, opened with shaky hands the first button of his shirt in order to palpate the rim of his neck all the while making brief, raspy sounds. His eyes widened as he struggled to find his breath.
"He- Help" he whispered, turning an alarmed glance to Mulciber and grabbed hold onto the boy's robe.
Nott now sounded like a throttled pig, contorting on his seat. The Slytherins around him watched the scene without moving, their eyes wide.
"She's choking him" whispered Lestrange, shooting an alarmed glance at the blond boy sitting near the door.
"Stop it Anna" he pleaded, his eyes fixing Nott with horror. "Anna you're going to hurt him"
Rosier stood up and the girl felt his grip on her forearm but her rage was overpowering and she pushed him away.
"What is happening here?"
The voice from the Head Girl boomed from down the aisle and a tall Gryffindor girl cleared herself a way through the pack of students that had started to gather around Anna and the girls from her dorm.
"Anapneo" shouted the Head Girl, her wand aiming at Nott.
"You two" she snapped, pointing a finger at Rosier and Lestrange.
"Bring him to the infirmary's wagon" she declared with authority.
She made way for Alastair and Cillian who had placed Nott's arms around each of their neck, and casted a spell to help them carry the boy's body that they dragged down the aisle.
"You…" she said firmly, turning to Anna. "Follow me"
Anna stood still, her eyes still fixing where Nott had been just earlier and it took more than a few calls from the Head Girl for her to be shaken out of her torpor.
She glanced at Tom Riddle who shot her a forbidden look before he handed her back her wand. She grabbed it, feeling on the brink of throwing up and followed the Gryffindor towards to the Prefects' cabin.
—
"What she did there was fairly impressive"
A dozen pupils were sitting in a half-circle near the chimney, watching the flames licking at the wooden logs. As a rehearsed choreography, all faces turned to the one who just spoke before shooting avid glances at the dark-haired boy who was standing.
Tom kept his eyes down, indifferent to the many eyes that were watching him as he opened his hand around the bone of the contention with the Ravenclaws. He felt the fabric slide between his fingers, fluid like water, beautiful if it wasn't for the stains of chocolate Nott had wiped off of his mouth just earlier. The boy had been kept under observation at the nurse's office, to make sure his windpipe hadn't been further damaged by the girl's spell. In all the frenzy that followed the argument, they had forgotten the handkerchief.
He reached for his wand inside the inner pocket of his robe, aiming at the cloth that he was holding.
"Scourgify" he whispered, his voice low and the cloth immediately turned spotless, white again like a new day of snow.
"You are saying that this girl casted a spell without her wand?" questioned Dolohov, eager to learn more about the scene he had missed.
"Tom disarmed her right before she could stupefy Leonus" nodded Mulciber.
"And she casted that spell without a word? That's quite unprecedented for a fourth year" considered Dolhov while he scratched his three-days-old beard.
The dark-haired boy unfolded the cloth and raised it before his eyes, ignoring the blathering of the boys around him. He stared at the intricate pattern of heather embroidered in the middle of the cloth, but his mind was elsewhere, far from the Norwegian flora.
He recalled their recent tribulations, how that girl that he had recognised as his former potion partner had almost killed Nott in the middle of the Hogwarts' Express earlier that day. He barely knew her but he must recognise that what she had done was remarkable. He knew Annabel Sybil Selwyn was an accomplished student, always in the top five in the yearly ranking of Hogwarts' pupils. What he hadn't expected, though, was that this girl would be able to cast dark charms nonverbally and wandlessly, something many accomplished wizards were not even close to master...
Tom remembered the fury that had radiated from each and every cell of her being as she had entered their cabin, rage disfiguring her features that he imagined usually soft. He had felt her wrath the very second she had stepped in, it was oozing from her soul. He had disarmed her, to protect Leonus, and more than her formidable fighting skills, what had struck him was that pull that had stemmed from deep inside his guts when he had caught her glance.
"Should we recruit her?" suggested Dolohov, shooting a quizzical gaze at the standing boy, interrupting his train of thought.
"We can't recruit her, she's a Ravenclaw" interjected Lestrange.
Tom stopped himself from rolling his eyes. Lestrange was sometimes horribly incompetent at seeing the bigger picture. He brought the cloth to his nose and his nostrils flared, his lips pursing in abhorrence. The cloth smelled like Muggles.
"It doesn't matter, we need people. Powerful people"
"What are you suggesting?" whispered the girl named Walburga Black, her stern glance fixing Dolohov.
"Well, she has assets… Her family is one of the wealthiest of Great Britain and she has connections, an influential network. The Selwyns are reported being connected to Simone Salvin, the great enchantress. Even though there is nothing that proves such assumption is correct, many believe it, especially the old folks who sit at the Ministry"
"She does indeed have a extraordinary lineage" whispered Walburga.
Tom shoved the handkerchief in the inside pocket of his robe and looked at the fireplace, his back turned to his devotees. He thought about Dolohov's arguments, acknowledging they were convincing. He had heard rumours about the girl, her grandfather more particularly, supposedly the most radical president the International Confederation of Wizards ever had. He had heard the wizard had tried everything in his power to restrict the rights of the Muggle-borns, and Tom strongly believed that lately, Hogwarts would greatly benefit from a new Al Agrab Shafiq.
Tom was staring at the glowing embers inside the hearth and he put both his hands on the chimney, domineering the small crowd behind him.
"There is one person who is being very quite tonight, one person who appears to know more about that girl than anyone else here... Surely his opinion is worth listening to. Don't you think, Alastair?" he asked in soft voice.
The blond boy shot him a wary glance but answered obediently.
"I will tell you anything you wish to know"
The dark-haired boy lifted his head, closed his eyes. He inhaled as he asked.
"Do you think we can recruit her?"
"It seems nearly impossible"
"Why?"
"She is…"
"Preachy?" interjected Lestrange with an ironic chuckle.
"Stubborn" replied Rosier, keeping his eyes on the dark-haired boy's back. "Stubborn and terribly impatient, Tom"
Tom's lips jerked in a frightful smile.
"Well, I, on the other hand, am very very patient"