The Adventure of a Riddle

1- Rom Tiddle, right?

Knowing that there was no way in hell she'd start acting like a pompous nerd like her friend, she replied just as innocently as before, "Since when is it a crime to rhyme?"

Needless to say, he promptly disappeared back into his diary while Aurora howled with laughter.

When Aurora was the sweet age of four, she discovered the hidden basement underneath the drawing room floor, which contained a multitude of various dark objects and books. She was immediately drawn to the little black diary because of the dark magic she'd sensed in it— of course, being four years old, she had no idea what made her grab that of all things, until Tom explained it to her in her later years. She pocketed the diary, and it stayed untouched in her room for over a year collecting dust.

However, every year that Aurora grew, her magic seemed to grow even more. One day, she had trouble controlling it a few months after she turned five, and accidentally made a rather nasty hurricane form over their entire area code, after Draco undoubtedly managed to hurt her feelings somehow. It was completely disastrous. She'd never seen her father, Lucius, look so angry with his beet red face and snarled lip. Apparently, he cared more for the peacocks in the front lawn and the other pureblood nonces that live near them.

Not that Rory minded— she and her father never saw eye to eye on anything.

Anyway, she got confined to her room for a few weeks, her only company being the house elves that brought her food, and an apology note from Draco slid under the door. She had been quite bored by the third day of her solitary confinement, and picked up the old diary, writing the longest word she knew how to spell at the time.

Amusingly enough, that word just happened to be "booger" of all things.

To say she was shocked when she got an answer back would be an understatement.

Aurora had watched as the chicken scratch writing of the word "booger" sunk into the diary, and new words reappeared in elegant, neat handwriting, that definitely did not belong to herself. When the words "I beg your pardon?" came back upon that very page, she let out a gasp and ran over to her desk. They've been inseparable ever since, quite literally.

It started with her simply writing to him the best she could, but he'd eventually convinced her to join him in his little diary world by pressing a hand to the diary and letting the magic flow through her. It just so happened to be a whole little mini Hogwarts that he'd set up as his mindscape, behind each door would be a different memory of his life up until the keen age of sixteen.

If she was shocked to be suddenly going from her spacious bedroom and transported into a huge castle, it was nothing compared to the prefect seeing a five year old, dainty little girl clutching an old white rabbit stuffed animal and wearing a light blue nightgown.

He'd tried to manipulate her too— didn't work. She seemed to not even notice him, and instead started wandering around the castle in complete awe. Tom truly didn't know what the hell to do in that moment, which was a first.

He'd cleared his throat to try and make her notice him, but the girl simply started talking to one of the portraits on the stone wall like it was a casual thing she did every Sunday morning. He'd approached her slowly and cautiously as to not scare the little girl. He cleared his throat once more and she twirled around to look up at him looming over her. Thinking he may have looked particularly threatening in that moment, he squatted down to one knee to be eye level with her.

It was in that moment when he figured she was the strangest looking child he'd ever seen. With skin as pale as his, and white wavy hair cascading down to her elbows. But what truly shocked him was her multicolored eyes—one blue and one brown, almost black. He was about to speak, when she suddenly gasped and put her hand over her mouth and excitedly exclaimed, "Oh so you're him! The guy from the diary! Rom Tiddle, right? Why in the name of Merlins saggy left ball would a guy like you be writing into a diary of all things?"

This was, perhaps, the first time in Tom Riddle's life that he'd been rendered speechless. Open mouthed, trying to comprehend what just came out of her mouth starting from "Rom Tiddle" to "Merlins saggy left ball" and as to why a sixteen year old male would, in fact, own a diary.

A whole whopping forty three seconds of silence passed before he regained himself.

Realizing that he should probably say something by this point, he cleared his throat once more, and shot her a charming smile (which she had no reaction whatsoever to.) 

"Er.. It's Tom Riddle, actually." he gritted out before continuing, " And it's more of a journal of sorts, I suppose you could say. What is your name?"

"Aurora."

Raising his eyebrows, he asked, "Do you happen to have a last name?"

The hand that wasn't clutching onto the old rabbit plushie shot to some necklace of sorts and fiddled with it for a moment before she stuck out her hand, flashing him a bright smile and confidently stating, "Aurora Ariana Malfoy."

Now this intrigued him. So this was Abraxas' descendant? He shook her hand gently and gestured to the Great Hall of his diary-world so that they could at least sit. She, of course, had led the way as if she were the one living there.

"This is amazing! So this is what Hogwarts looks like? Can we go to Egypt next? I've always wanted to go there. My father doesn't let me travel with the family anymore since I started that hurricane, which is totally unreasonable considering it was all Draco's fault anyho—"

She was cut off from her rambling when she looked up at the Great Hall's "sky." Aurora mouthed a "woah" while Tom stared at the strange child and mouthed "hurricane" to himself.

Aurora had grabbed his arm and dragged the prefect over to the Hufflepuff table— he had to lean down quite far because of the height difference. Tom was completely out of his element, to say the least.

Once they were sat down side by side at the yellow Hufflepuff table of all places, she looked up at him expectantly.

"Well, Aurora, you seem quite fearless," he complimented pleasantly, trying to hide the irritation threatening to show itself. "How old are you?"

"Five," she replied innocently, as if this sort of thing happened to all five year olds. "How old are you? Oh wait I can just—"she grabbed his arm once more and flipped it so that his palm was facing upwards. The only reason he hadn't yanked away was pure curiosity, scrutinizing the way her eyebrows had scrunched together in concentration.

She gazed at his palm for a few seconds before she put her own small hand right on top of his own cold digits. (it took up not even half of his.) She had closed her eyes. Apparently the whole "stranger danger" phrase didn't apply to her, he thought to himself, as he watched her for a few moments before she opened her eyes once more.

"So you're sixteen, but your soul or whatever is trapped in the diary! Cool! Can you teach me? I want my own diary world, oh, Draco would be so jealous."

He couldn't help it. He had to laugh at the ridiculousness of it all.

And thus, their adventure began.

**

Note, if you're rereading, you may notice some changes, but it's all to do with the plot! IM SO HAPPY TO BE BACK BTW !!!

Lowkey was burnt out last time, but now I'm FINALLY ready and excited for this story again, I missed all of you too much!!