Author's note: Hi lovely people, here is a new chapter! Thank you so much for favouriting and following this story, it means so so much. Feel free to leave a comment as well, I'm happy with everything, even just one word to let me know whether you like it!
! Long note at the end of the chapter: please read it !
June 1943 - Rumour has it...
"…the taxus baccata, is commonly found in Europe but is none the less extremely toxic. Each year, dozens of children poison themselves with yew berries. The seeds of the yew fruits are unsafe but so are the leaves…"
A refreshing breeze blew through the branches of the conifer, causing needles to drop all around the small group of Fifth Years that had gathered next to the hollow trunk of the tree.
Annabel breathed in, enjoying the quietude of the forest. She raised her hand to pick the few needles that got stuck in her friend's hair, who turned around and gave her a gentle smile.
She examined her surroundings pensively, noticing the low number of pupils that had shown up to class that day. She was not that surprised. After all, that one lesson was only mandatory for those who intended to take the Herbology NEWT exam, and that discipline was by far not the most popular. She knew most found the art of taking care of plants rather vague and tedious, and the two-years herbarium-project the students had to present in order to qualify for the exam radically discouraged even the most hard-working students. Who would truly want to spend their next two summers strolling along fields and forests to collect plants?
"The aconitum napellus, also known as monkshood or wolfsbane, is also terribly dangerous. It is harmful to humans and animals by both ingestion and touch, so bear in mind to always wear gloves whenever you are handling such plant" pursued their Herbology teacher as she lead the students further into the forest near a small clearing.
Annabel stared at the still greenish buds before she opened her notebook to briefly note the information Mrs Buckthorn was giving them about the plant's bloom time. She peeked around her, observing the few Slytherins that stood aside, seemingly lost among the bigger number of blue and silvers. She realised that she barely knew their names, for none of them belonged to Riddle and his gang, who were the ones she was mostly acquainted with, at least because of their notorious reputation. Such thought reminded her of the prefect's absence, which was odd, for as far as she knew, Tom Riddle had never missed a class, and he had also shared his intention to take the Herbology NEWT exam. Yet, he never turned up at the green house that morning, and after delaying their excursion to a few minutes, Mrs Buckthorn said they could not afford to wait any longer.
The professor made her way towards the clearing where a stream was pleasantly gurgling. Annabel followed the others, stepping over the water but the stones around the bank were slippery. The girl slid, grasping the closest thing she could reach: a green and reddish stem about thirteen feet tall with white blooms at its top that looked like a cloud.
She steadied herself once on the other side of the small river when her hand began to itch. Annabel inspected her palm, which was now covered in a watery and colourless liquid. The teacher turned around, looking alternatively at the plant's broken stem and at the girl's hand that turned red at an impressive speed.
"Put your hand in the water, quickly" shouted the professor.
She grabbed the girl's wrist with her gloved hand and plunged it hastily inside the stream. She untied the kerchief wrapped around her wrist, that she used to wipe her damp forehead every now and then. She removed Annabel's hand from the water to inspect the extent of the damage: the skin had begun to blister in a nasty swelling. The professor wrapped the fabric around the girl's hand before she shouted to the students who stood, bewildered, around them:
"I need someone to bring Miss Selwyn to the infirmary urgently"
"It's just a rash, I'll be fi-" replied Annabel who tried to step away from the professor but Mrs Buckthorn cooly interrupted her.
"You touched the sap of a giant hogweed… In contact with the light, this can cause a third-degree burn. You need to go to the infirmary immediately!" she retorted with a tone that would tolerate no further objection and Sophia volunteered right away, stating she would walk her friend back to the castle.
The teacher nodded, sending them off before she turned to the others, declaring that, at least, this was a good lesson learned for their curriculum about toxic plants:
"Always. wear. gloves."
—
Annabel was holding the wrist of her banded hand in the other, fighting against the urge to remove the fabric and glance at the wound. She was far from being a wuss when it came to pain, her late grandfather had made sure of that, but her skin was unpleasantly itchy, to the point that she almost wished for her hand to be cut off instead. With a disorganised gesture that revealed her discomfort, she reached for the glass of water the nurse's assistant had handed her right after she had arrived.
"The school matron will take care of you in no time" had smiled the kind-looking lady reassuringly, but it was more than twenty minutes now that the two girls were sitting in the infirmary's waiting room, with no one to take care of her.
"Why does it take so long?" mumbled Sophia as she squirmed on her seat with great impatience.
Annabel was grateful for her friend's concern, but seeing her so anxious made her actually feel worse. She concealed a wince from the stinging feeling that spread from her palm before she smiled with a great deal of efforts:
"I'll be fine. You should go back"
"Don't be silly, you know I won't leave you alone"
"I mean it. You'll miss the rest of the class… Who's going to share their notes with me if not you?" she added, repressing a moan.
She saw Sophia glance at the front door for a split second before she shook her head again.
"I'll wait"
"I'll be all right. It barely hurts anymore and they said the nurse will be here any time soon. I'm really, totally fine" she lied with a fabricated smile.
"I swear" she added as a last attempt only to see Sophia press her lips together. Yet, the girl stood up and walked to the chestnut-haired girl. She wrapped one arm around her shoulders, kissed her cheekbone.
"I'll let you know what the rules for the herbarium are" she promised as she headed towards the door.
"Thank you" mouthed Anna before she reached for the glass of water again, the cool liquid soothing her throat, still doing nothing to ease the throbbing ache of her hand.
A few minutes later instead of the matron came the nurse's assistant again, leading her inside the main room. She made her sit on one of the beds near the entrance, asking the reason for her coming.
"I accidentally seized the stem of a poisonous plant in class"
The woman gave her a kind smile as she reached for her hand, removing the rolled fabric that revealed a nasty blister, the skin all puffed up, yellowish and red.
"Giant hogweed?" she asked perceptively before she stood up and fumbled in the apothecary cabinet that stood against the wall. She briefly ground some herbs in a hardwood bowl and casted a few spells before she added something that looked like some vaseline to the mixture.
"So you're taking the NEWT exam of Herbology I suppose?" asked the witch with a perceptive glance as she transferred the concoction inside a brown glass jar. "Such accidents happen every year" she explained before she sat on a stool in front of the Ravenclaw and held her hand, softly rubbing the balm inside the girl's palm.
"Three times a day for three days and your skin will be like new" she added with a gentle smile when a thud interrupted the lady's care.
Both women glanced at the other end of the room where the back door slammed opened.
A little procession, the school's matron leading the way, entered the infirmary. More than the distraught whispers and hurried footsteps, it was the sight of what two men in practical clothing were carrying, that made Annabel's blood curdle: a stretcher covered with a white sheet, under which unmistakably lied a body.
—
Tom finally reached the infirmary and climbed the flight of stairs that led to the back entrance. He turned around to look at the girl who was sobbing uncontrollably. He opened the door and clenched his teeth, waiting for her to enter but she stayed rooted to the spot. He became suddenly aware of the presence of the teaching staff, that stared at them through the half-opened door, and he did his best to conceal his impatience as he seized the girl's arm and gently pulled her within the room.
"Mr Riddle found Miss Hornby and Miss Waren in the female bathroom this morning" declared Slughorn the moment they stepped inside.
"I asked him to bring Miss Hornby, to see if she needed any immediate care"
"Perhaps it is incongruous of me to ask, but what was Mr Riddle doing in the female bathroom?" asked Dumbledore with a raised eyebrow.
All eyes turned to him as he composed his best apologetic look.
"I was leaving Professor Merrythought's office after I had a talk with her this morning. It is when I walked past the girl's lavoratory that I heard someone scream behind the door... When I came in, Miss Waren was lying on the bathroom floor" he politely added, his voice breaking at just the right time.
"I… It was n… not me" sputtered the teenage girl who covered her face with her hands and wailed even louder, her shoulders quivering as the school's matron called for her assistant to administer the girl some tranquilliser. The younger nurse broke through the small crowd and wrapped her arm around the girl's shoulders, leading her to the other side of the room where another Ravenclaw was sitting on a bed, her grey eyes wide at the sight of the corpse.
—
"Are you pained by the girl's death?"
The sound of their footsteps echoed in the castle's corridors as the prefect was walking the girl back to her dorm on Dippet's request. It was not twelve yet that Tom already felt like more than twenty-four hours had passed since he woke up that very morning. He blamed the heat, combined with his staying up late to revise for his OWL exams. Or was it that girl's death, finally consecrating weeks of hard labour with the Basilisk that made him so splendidly exhausted?
"I did not know her" he shrugged. From the corner of his eyes, he saw Annabel shooting him a quizzical glance.
"Are you?"
She shook her head ever so slightly.
"I am stunned of course, but I would not say I'm afflicted. She is not the first dead person I see" she admitted, surprisingly indifferent.
"Yet she was a Ravenclaw"
She bit her lower lip as if she hesitated to pursue, shamefaced.
"It sounds awful to phrase it like that now that she passed away but… I did not like her. Not that I wished for her to die of course" she quickly added, as if she feared that Tom would suspect her, which he found caustic.
"She was very dramatic, bathing in her own misery each time someone made a comment that she found hurtful… Call me heartless but I am mainly concerned about the school's shut down" stated Annabel with a flat voice as they reached the Ravenclaw tower.
"What did you just say?" he raised an eyebrow, his pace slowed, suddenly concerned by the girl's unexpected presumption.
"They will close the school… My parents wrote me about it last week. Both the Parent-Teacher Association and the Ministry have been putting pressure on Dippet to close Hogwarts ever since the last petrified case. But now, a death? They cannot afford to put the life of any more student on the line…" she hypothesised before she heaved a loud sigh.
"Somehow it is incredible that they kept the school running for so long despite the accidents… Dippet can consider himself lucky that the parents of the affected kids have little leverage in the wizarding world" she pursued.
"Are you implying that they were all Muggle-born?" he asked, his brow furrowed.
She nodded and he was astonished to learn that she had noticed the pattern behind his clandestine ploy… It alarmed him all at once, for if she was smart, others were too, and Tom suddenly wondered whether the teaching staff had drawn similar conclusions about the victims' origin.
"Imagine the absolute scandal if one of the casualties had been one of the pureblood and wealthy kids? If it would have been a Lestrange or a Malfoy?"
"Or a Selwyn"
"Or a Selwyn" she hummed pensively as she stared at the floor, reflecting on his words that sounded like an accusation but for which she seemed in no way vexed, which surprised him, for he remembered that she used to openly display her anger against whoever dared to hint at her superior background.
Tom pensively watched a group of Ravenclaw walk past them as he mulled over her words. Closing Hogwarts? It sounded so surreal, so unlikely. Of course her arguments made sense, so much so that he was shocked that he had not thought about it himself, but could they seriously consider closing the school?
"Do you know who it is? The culprit" she asked, jolting the prefect out of his thoughts.
Of course he knew, but this fact, that he previously cherished, now tasted bittersweet. How could he be such an idiot to think that he could get out of this scheme untouched, that there would be no consequences to his little games?
He saw her raise her eyebrows in curiosity and he simply shook his head.
"Of course not. Do you?"
To his consternation, she bit her lower lip hesitantly.
"Those are only speculations but… It's about that boy, the half-giant from Gryffindor"
"Rubeus Hagrid?" he asked and she casted him an amazed glance, like if she was awed by his natural ability at remembering everyone's name in school.
"What about him?"
She lowered her voice, as if walls had ears.
"No human-being have the power to petrify people, right? Well, that boy appears to have a certain fondness for magical creatures…"
"How do you know?"
"I used to be detained at the library, remember? I know what half of the school is secretly interested in... That boy kept borrowing books about the strangest creatures"
Tom inhaled, suddenly feverish.
"Besides…"
Her voice was only a whisper.
"Rumour has it that he has been sneaking multiple times inside the Forbidden Forest"
.
.
.
Author's note (again, sorry):
The next chapter includes some smut. The next one is technically not very important for the story but more will follow later that are important for the development of the characters' relationship and persona. No rape/non-con though, a bit of dubious consent but trigger warning with always be added at the beginning of each chapter!
I know ffnet's policy regarding explicit content so I'd rather ask once and for all, so it's a done deal between us:
Is there anyone of you who would be offended by some explicit content in the coming chapters?
If so, please PM me. I would try to find a suitable alternative... If I don't get any message asking me not to post, I'll just add a trigger warning at the beginning of the chapter and cross my fingers that the fic won't be deleted...
This fic is not a pwp... Twenty-two chapters even without a kiss probably shows it is not. Yet, reading a fanfiction should be a pleasant experience for everyone so that's why I'm asking. For another fic that included a lot of smut, I did cut aaaall the scenes just to stick to the rules of ffnet, but it took me a LOT of time to try to make the scenes coherent, and in the end it was still not that good (not because of the non-smut, but because I had to change many references and hints in other chapters and so on and that just drove me insaaaane...)