Metanoia~ Tom Riddle

Chapter 16

Veruca tossed and turned, wide awake at 3 in the morning. She hadn't caught a wink of sleep and she had to be up in 5 hours. At least, she could blame her lack of sleep on someone other than herself tonight. She was thinking about Tom. She could see the anger clouding his heart and mind, she could see the tormented young boy hurting and on the verge of killing.

"Oh Merlin, I haven't slept at all and I've still got four hours of darkness. Moony, where are you? You, silly cat." She got up and grabbed for her robe, wrapping it around her tightly, before she wandered out of her room.

"Moony!" she whispered. It was silent in the common room and she received no reply.

Moony! She yelled through their mind link. Nothing.

Veruca sighed and took a seat on one of the couches, close to the fire. She held her head in her hand and leaned towards the arm of the couch. She stared into the fire, noticing it danced the same way as it had in her own time. She was so entranced that she didn't see or hear Moony's warning. Instead, she heard the common room door and the sound of many footsteps.

With no place to hide Veruca hurriedly muttered, "Evanesco." And she slowly disappeared. To Veruca's utter horror, she sees a bunch of younger Slytherin boys scurry through the common room, whispering together and looking terrified. Then, the older boys came in, looking tired and angry.

"He thinks he's so superior, cursing us left and right. I swear he's mental, d'you see the way he looked?"

"Yeah, mate, it was in his eyes! The creepy stuff!"

"If you idiots think that you're smart by talking about him behind his back, you've got another thing coming." She recognized him.

Abraxas Malfoy, she only knew of him because Dumbledore had her look through an old school photo book so that she could recognize people. People like him, she guessed.

"Get to your beds, this instant!" the female Prefect, she assumed, shouted at the boys. They rolled their eyes but left. So, did she. Once Veruca was alone, she released the spell and sat back down. Thoughts raced around her head.

Were those the first Deatheaters?

The Knights of Walpurgis?

Did they just come from a meeting?

Where is Tom?

Her question was answered when Tom Riddle entered the common room. Veruca thought of the invisibility spell and used her wandless magical abilities to make her invisible to Tom Riddle's eyes. Tom stalked towards the, seemingly empty, common room and collapsed into the nearest armchair. Veruca held her breath, what was she going to do now? The spell she used wasn't permanent. The boy before her sighed and started hissing.

Veruca carefully got up off the couch, moved to the nearest wall and crouched. She was still going to spy, obviously, Tom Riddle was the whole reason she was here. She had a job to do, and she couldn't fail. She couldn't get scared and run away.

Tom, across the room from her now, continued hissing. Suddenly, there was a slippery, slithering sort of sound and a small snake emerged from the boys' hall. Veruca held in a gasp. Tom started hissing in different tones and the snake nodded and slithered onto his lap. Veruca, after all her research, knew Tom was a parselmouth, but the surprise was still evident on her invisible face.

Veruca sat there for a while, listening to them hiss back and forth. She wished she could understand, there was probably something worth hearing, but at the same time, the hissing was a sort of lulling tune that made her realize just how tired she was.

It had been a few weeks now and she hadn't really made much progress with Tom. Aside from the polite good morning's and small talk during classes, they hadn't spoken much to each other. They weren't even on a first-name basis. She was tired of asking herself the same questions every night; How could she get the ball rolling? What would even get them started? Why did she seem to have no idea what to do?

She felt as if she was starting her whole life over, a young lady with many advantages, and a baby's mind to help her sort them out. At that final thought, she stood and turned to head to her room.

What she hadn't noticed was that her spell was wearing off, and Tom had seen the shimmer of her reappearing body.