Hi all,
welcome to flashback 1 of 3, marked as (F) in the chapter title.
I hope you have fun with it :)
xx Dalia
"The Carrows?" Avery gives an impatient wave with his hand. "No way ... I'm saying the Burkes had something to do with it."
"The Burkes? No." Nott shakes his head – far too vigorously – as he's picking his breakfast pie apart. "They sell anything that isn't nailed down, but … no, never did they have a hand in it."
It's a rather heated discussion about the Pure-Blood Directory, much too early in the morning at that, when all I expect is a little restraint and thoughtful silence at the Slytherin table. But dealing with dimwits usually proves that pretty much anything is too much to ask …
I begin massaging my temples in annoyance – a clear sign for my company to finally shut up, yet in the heat of the moment, they don't even notice.
"I could imagine that one or the other Greengrass had their fingers in the pie," Rosier mutters, pouring himself a refill of coffee.
"You might as well fill up my cup," Elliott orders. I do seem to rub off on him. Good. "And I bet a few galleons on Greengrass, too," he muses aloud as his third coffee is placed right in front of him.
"On Greengrass?" Mulciber grunts, a telltale sign that he's trying hard to think. "It could really be!"
Starting tomorrow, we'll definitely be eating breakfast alone again. Now and then Elliott believes we should at least interact with some others of our house, but that simply uses up too much of my patience – hanging by a thread much too quickly anyways.
"Yes, or the Yaxley family," Mulciber finally thinks out loud as though he was having a flash of inspiration.
"Nott," I murmur in exasperation, and suddenly they're all staring at me with wide eyes.
Nott himself, however, also gulps. "Err … what?"
For a moment there, his timid face provides for quite some joy. "That wasn't a question," I add. "I'm guessing yourfamily."
"Us?" He's returning my smile, almost bravely, but that nervous fiddling with his shirt sleeves is giving him away much too easily. "What makes you think it … it could be us, Tom?"
"Just a feeling."
Elliott gives me an amused look at these words, then he takes a bite of a far-too-large piece of bacon and, with all the supposed goodness of his heart, he soon pats Nott's back.
"Relax, Nottie," he says while chewing. "Loosen your shirt collar and keep eating - I'll bet on you guys in the future, too, Tom always has a good instinct about such things. But we won't tell anyone. Your little family secret is safe with us."
"Is it?" I ask Elliott, and when he abruptly cackles while trying to take a sip of coffee, I can hardly manage to not laugh as well.
"You know what else I picked up on?" Avery soon asks, looking around in his old, familiar gossip manner. "The Abbotts are now being called blood traitors."
"Denounced, you mean," Elliott grumbles, his laugh fading at once. "This is literally a witch hunt just because a half-blood married in. Hardly appropriate, Avery …"
"Well, my father says –"
"Oh, your father?" Elliott snorts. "That's interesting. Then there's not only pure blood inherited with you, but also plenty of ignorance …"
"What do you care?" Avery asks, shrugging his shoulders. "Your family is pure-blood, too!"
"Yes, but we're not in the Directory," Elliott retorts.
A now delightfully silent Nott is passing me a toast when I nod at Elliott, mock-pouting. "So your family tree wasn't good enough. Too bad …"
"Too bad!" He chuckles himself. "Lucky us. Otherwise, pretty sure we'd have to justify ourselves to such narrow-minded people, too."
His scowling sideways glance obviously worries Avery now, as he secretly harbors an inexplicable fear of me – Elliott's best friend.
"My grandmother was a half-blood, did you know that?" Elliott looks around, not at me though. "She was more capable than all of you together … Starting tomorrow, Tom and I will have breakfast without you again."
"But why?" Mulciber asks.
"Not that any justification was required," I sigh, resigned to fate, "but for the avoidance of doubt – because your cultist thoughts seem ridiculous in light of the fact that they're in no way rooted in skill with you."
Elliott nods. "I would've just said you were morons," he admits with a shrug, "but Tom's response is more eloquent. Let's go with that."
Awkward silence is spreading, but it's like music to my ears.
Elliott, for his part, is now salting his scrambled eggs in a huff, and I'm soon watching him, as are the others, increasingly amazed at this.
"Are you in love or stuck in a time warp?" Rosier asks at some point, given the raucous amounts of salt that are just being spread on the plate.
"In love, you've got a lot of nerve …" Elliott pauses and purses his lips. "That's a sore point and you know it!"
I grin for the second time that morning – of course the time warp does not apply.
"Oh, come on, Bryant." Rosier rolls his eyes. "You've got to get over that. Cassia is not into you."
"I've had the same with Sophronia," Mulciber sighs.
A couple of girls at the Slytherin table, diagonally across from us, start giggling at these words.
"What are you laughing at?" Rosier complains to them.
"Yeah, what is it?" Mulciber asks as well. "That's not funny!"
"Oh yes, a little bit," Rouvenia claims.
Class after class she's my salvation in Care of Magical Creatures. Most animals sense that I have no use nor heart for them, so she – pure-blooded, cold-blooded, though also almost something like patient – has been a real help since her first year at Hogwarts. She just winks and says, "Don't be sad – you just need to be eternally unimpressed like Tom, then it'll all fall into place, you'll see ..."
"Too charming, Rou," I retort. "In return, I'll see to meat for the Thestrals next class."
She just nods, and Mulciber goes back to whining about Sophronia again.
"Now she's trying her luck with Winky Crockett, that show-off …"
"He's walking into the Great Hall that very moment, by the way," Rosier notes with a wink. "I know you don't like him, Mul, but he's won the game for Slytherin last week."
"It's the least he can do," Elliott mumbles before taking a bite of his jam toast. "He has to at least excel at Quidditch if he's no use academically …"
"You should all read more," I recommend wanly.
"Yeah, yeah," Elliott sighs. He wrinkles his nose and quips, "Not everyone can regularly top their year and forgo sleep for studying through it."
"Sleep is mere compensation for all those who have no ambition," I retort, and I'm about to use the salt shaker myself only to find that Elliott has emptied it entirely.
"Did you want some salt, too?" he asks, presumably caught off guard, but already laughing.
"It's the worst punishment to deal with each and every one of you," I state aloud, already getting an alternative held under my nose by Nott. Suspiciously, I eye him. "It's pepper, Nott, you can keep that."
Incredulous, he checks the truth to my statement, then he mumbles an apprehensive apology.
"Quidditch Crockett up ahead, he's got a salt shaker too." A brilliant clue by Avery. "You want me to go get it for you?"
"Get it?" I ask impatiently. "Don't you do magic before noon?"
He's about to awkwardly whip out his wand, but I just wave it off. "Spare me – I'm better off alone, as usual."
I turn around in annoyance, surveying the place settings at the Ravenclaw table behind us.
"Oh, hello, Tom!" Myrtle exclaims as though she had only been waiting for such an opportunity. But I simply pretend, with Elliott's whistling laughter in the background, that I didn't even notice. My gaze just stoically wanders on until I find what I'm looking for.
A salt shaker.
The fact that a hand with dark red painted nails is about to reach for it doesn't bother me one bit.
"Accio!" I say, and the very next moment I'm holding the shaker with an air of peace of mind.
"Are you kidding?" a bright voice immediately rages though.
Right after that, another audible Accio makes the salt shaker fly out of my hand again, back to dark red fingernails.
I look up in disbelief, back to the Ravenclaw table, where a girl with a not-so-accurate French braid and a far too loose tie is staring at me in wary disbelief.
"That's Tom Riddle," I hear her friends whisper.
Everyone knows me.
Everyone knows I've never failed a spell since the first day at Hogwarts. That causes a stir, perhaps even more than I'd like to ...
My competition for the salt shaker, however, unlike the others around – including Myrtle – does not seem at all taken with me. On the contrary.
She just sets the salt shaker down on the old wooden table with a clearly audible clack, hissing, "And if he was Grindelwald himself – that much pretension so early in the morning is unbearable!"
"I'm no more a morning person than you are," I return, "so I'd be quite glad if this trifle wouldn't have to become the first part of a tragedy."
"Is that supposed to be a threat?"
I pause.
Yes. In a way it is ...
Most people just don't get in on it verbally.
"What?" I hence ask.
"You've heard me, what was that supposed to mean?"
I tilt my head in irritation, and as if summoned, Albus Dumbledore is now striding past between our tables as silently – and skeptically as usual.
"Tom," he greets me with a nod that would make me want to ask how that's to be understood as well.
"Professor," I simply reply, resigning myself before I can even wish for him to just keep walking.
"Is there anything you might be lacking, Tom?" he asks me, with oh so much interest.
I force myself to smile. "No, sir, no lack at all –"
"Lack of tact, perhaps," she whispers again, but I hear it all the way to here – just like Dumbledore.
The insolence … Avery and Rosier are already laughing in the best possible way, but a warning look from me at least remedies that in the short term.
Then I turn back to the impudent raven. Demonstratively friendly, I say, "Esteemed fellow student of the proud House of Ravenclaw –"
"Her name is Harper," Dumbledore reveals in unsolicited assistance.
I wonder if it doesn't secretly get on his last nerve himself to always put on those infinitely wise looks.
"Thank you, sir," I say, taking a deep breath before smiling saintly. "Harper …"
She continues to try for a terribly sternly look, but a smirk, held back with all her might, I nevertheless already recognize.
How can hair be so messy … And nice to look at at the same time …
"I wonder if you'd do me the favor – with all your exceeding kindness – of lending me that salt shaker."
To make matters worse, she now dares to address Dumbledore first. "Professor, you really do impart your lessons like no other."
My jaw is so tense with suppressed impatience that it'll probably trigger a headache later, but Dumbledore just smiles at her devotedly and gives me a reproving look in return before continuing his way to the other Professors with a 'Well, bon appétit everyone'.
And now the salt shaker is floating towards me.
"I don't want it anymore," I inform Harper.
"Oh, you don't?" She immediately huffs the salt shaker back to the Ravenclaw table. "Well, in that case …"
I turn around and eye my scrambled eggs with utmost dissatisfaction. So again I turn while saying, "I've changed my mind."
"You do want it?" She goes wide-eyed and plays surprise. Innocently she adds, "So what now?"
"Hand it over!"
She blinks as though she'd just misheard. "What's the magic word?"
"Accio!" I growl.
"No, no," she replies, grinning as she stops the salt shaker from flying away again. "The other magic word."
"I'm about to forget myself," I assure her, "I'm certainly not begging for a salt shaker!"
"Ah." She shrugs. "I understand that, of course."
My eyes narrow considerably as she now also decides to turn her gaze to her own breakfast – to salt it.
I can't possibly put up with this outrageous audacity, and before I know it, I'm already getting up to unceremoniously sit down at the Ravenclaw table with my plate. The girls around Harper, who still holds the salt shaker firmly in her hand as a precaution, suddenly fall completely silent, and I don't care about Dumbledore either. They're all welcome to watch the spectacle with wary eyes – I don't want to kill anyone, I just want a pinch of salt!
After barely a heartbeat of silence, Harper asks in less than astonishment, "You're giving up just conjuring it that easily?"
"There's no cure for stubbornness – ergo, no spell."
"How about the Imperius?" she asks.
Interesting. A little raven joking mindlessly about dark magic. Under other circumstances, I might be a little intrigued.
"Hardly in front of the assembled faculty of Professors," I instead reply through clenched teeth, trying not to curse her.
"Oh, sure – but then I guess only the most powerful magic word in the world can help," she replies in all calmness. "I can teach you how to use it." I give her an incredulous glance, so she simply proceeds.
"Just say it."
"Say what? Please?"
"Sure, there you go!" She takes the shaker to salt over my plate. "More?"
I nod, to my own annoyance almost a little indecisively as I didn't see this sudden cooperation coming.
Her lashes lower with a thoughtful glance at the scrambled eggs until she looks up at me with dark eyes again, pointing at the plate as if it were her turn to present it.
"You're welcome." She smiles softly. "See? The magic word can be of great use."
"Let me try that right away," I say and inch a bit closer. "Teach your lessons elsewhere – please!"
"Sure, I gladly will," she snaps. "It's a well-known fact that the smarter one gives way after all. And at the Ravenclaw table, even you as a Slytherin could count on intelligence, couldn't you?"
A murmur is going through some listening rows, and I'm probably not the only one wondering why the hell she dares to speak to me that way.
"To disguise plain weakness as intelligence," I reply, giving her a mirthless smile, "doesn't exactly show superiority. Not for nothing they say stupidity and ignorance are –"
"Akin," she finishes my sentence. "Sure. Do you know any more interesting proverbs? Because otherwise I might come up with 'Interim velim a sole non obstes'."
I can't help it, the corners of my mouth twitch – something that surprises both of us. In amused bewilderment I shake my head and translate, "For now I just want you not to stand in the sun? You want me to stay out of your light? You're seriously quoting Diogenes to me?"
She nods with a grin herself, for who would've thought that we'd both be equally guilty of a certain bibliomania?
"So you're familiar with that," she says. "Only you're not Alexander the Great …"
I look at her, and her thoughts easily tell me that she still finds my looks fit for Greek mythology. Another smug smile crosses my lips, not least because she suddenly seems so caught.
There's something about her. I no longer want Avery to tell me the latest gossip of Witch Weekly. I don't want to hold a conversation about Quidditch, much less about something even more stupid.
I would much rather discuss issues of sense and reason with her, hostilely if necessary …
"You know exactly who I am," I finally say.
"Mhm, Slytherin's model student." She gives me a vague smile. "Rumor has it you're already doing magic like we're about to take our finals. And yet you can't manage a proper Accio …"
"Do you really enjoy it that much?"
"Oh, I do. But now your food is salty as well."
"Marvelous." I eye my scrambled eggs suspiciously. "But also cold."
No sooner have I uttered it than she points her wand at her hand to light a portable flame in it. She levitates my plate up a few inches, holding the flames below it and hence causing the scrambled eggs to steam the very next moment.
I blearily nod as the flame dies and my plate lands back on the table. And she knows what's going through my mind. That I could've come up with this myself …
"How much longer are you going to leave me alone with these morons?" Elliott shouts from behind. "Come back to our table!"
"You're missed," Harper says, not looking away. "Good thing you've got what you wanted."
"Seems like I don't have to stand in your sun any longer, yes." And like I can take the darkness with me again, it crosses my mind.
So I stand up with my plate and nod to the round, with all sorts of interested looks on me. "Ladies," I say, yet once again with my gaze lingering on Harper's dark eyes. Maybe on her faint smile, too …
"Your tie," I then tell her as I go, "it's way too loose."
"Why don't you also wear it like that, Riddle?" she retorts. "It's much more comfortable."
I shake my head, and what should be disapproval turns out to be resigned amusement.
So much for stupidity. More like ignorance and pride …