Loyal | Tom Riddle

1: Staring

The Scottish countryside was a blur of green foliage and jagged rock faces rising out of the ground, towering over the Hogwarts Express as it steadily charged towards Hogsmeade Station.

On board the train were hundreds of students, all eager to spend the school year away from the prying eyes of their families and return to practising the art of magic. In the front compartments of the first carriage, the eight fifth year Prefects -- all crammed into one tiny compartment designed for six, at most -- swapped stories from their summer adventures and chatted idly as they stuffed their faces with Chocolate Frogs and Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans.

"I nearly crashed into some sort of Muggle tower when I was riding on my broomstick," Will Bones exclaimed through a mouthful of pumpkin pasties. "D'you suppose it's for the war or something?"

The Hufflepuff Prefect was extremely tall, and most girls would admit him to be rather good-looking, like some sort of Muggle film star. He was, without a doubt, one of the friendliest students out of everyone who attended Hogwarts, and thus wildly popular.

Yet his celebrity at the school was only a candle to that of Slytherin's Tom Riddle, a rather mysterious, quiet boy who kept to himself and attained the highest marks on every assignment. He had somehow amassed an impressive amount of friends -- though they were more like followers, in all honesty, since Tom Riddle truly didn't have any friends, nor did he ever feel the desire to make any. He was equally well-liked by both all the girls and all the boys, anyways; the former thought him to be charming and attractive, whilst the latter found him to be the paradigm of everything they wanted to be. He was essentially a god, striking both fear and awe into everybody that he stalked past in the hallways on his way around the castle.

He was eyeing all his fellow Prefects with disdain, as if they were behaving foolishly and he had half a mind to tell them off. But he remained silent, tucked away into the corner of the compartment and listening to their bothersome chatter of hosting Durmstrang students over the summer and humorous magical mishaps.

The only other Prefects who seemed entirely uninterested by the conversation were, unsurprisingly, the two Gryffindors (they had been seeing each other since the end of their third year).

Tom studied the girl, masking his disgust as she smiled up at her Muggle-born boyfriend, laughing at some joke he had made. Her name was Arabella Travers, and his was John Hargreaves.

Riddle himself was quite familiar with her twin brother, Nikolai, as he had been sorted into the right house. She, however, had broken from family tradition (which Tom viewed as a disgraceful act worthy of condemnation, particularly in her case) and joined the proud scarlet-coloured ranks of Gryffindor.

Arabella's eyes drifted for a moment from John's smile to the boy regarding her as if she were a troll sitting there amongst the young witches and wizards. He didn't break eye contact as she stared back at him in shock. In the past four years, he had never so much as looked in her direction, but now his dark eyes bored into her without restraint.

"Love," her boyfriend's low voice jolted her back into reality, "are you all right?"

"Hm? Oh, yes, sorry -- just got caught up in my thoughts." She flashed him an apologetic smile, despite something tugging at the back of her mind. Disregarding the nagging feeling, Arabella nestled her head into the hollow between John's shoulder and neck. "How much longer?"

✧ ✧ ✧

The enchanted ceiling seemed to give way to the heavens far above the students' heads in the Great Hall, lit brilliantly by thousands of floating candles. Four long tables of wood ran the length of the massive room, each draped in sashes of one of the school houses' colours, on top of which golden plates gleamed, yet to be laden with a sumptuous feast.

Looking over the four houses' seating was the staff table, which was elevated slightly. A line of first-years looked on nervously besides their jovial professors as their peers were sorted by a well-worn, patched up hat that would occasionally bellow out a "Ravenclaw!" or "Hufflepuff!" to an eruption of cheers.

Arabella and John now had to welcome all the newest additions to Gryffindor, all of whom looked thoroughly overwhelmed by the entire ordeal of the start-of-term celebrations.

"I think she's the last one," John whispered in relief as a dark-haired girl took her place on the dreaded stool after Yaxley, Aenwyn had been called out, letting the ancient hat slip over her eyes. "She looks like a Ravenclaw."

His girlfriend pursed her lips. "I don't know, I'm thinking that she's more--"

"Slytherin!" the Sorting Hat shouted to whooping from the table farthest to the left.

Armando Dippet, the Headmaster, gave a short speech that was nearly identical to the ones he had given in previous years. Halfway through the feast itself, though, Arabella felt a prickling sensation in her skin. Turning to glance over her shoulder, she thought that perhaps Nikolai was trying to gain her attention -- but no, it was that quiet Tom Riddle staring at her impassively, his pale face unreadable. Seated next to him was noneother than the eternally gloating Abraxas Malfoy, as well as her brooding brother. Nearly every Slytherin -- except for Tom, of course -- was in hysterics at something that their quidditch captain, Orion Black, a third year who was only on the team because of his family name, had said with his trademark smirk.

"Nik's fine," John murmured to Arabella, reaching under the table and squeezing her hand reassuringly.

"That's not why I'm looking," she muttered, turning back to her half-eaten plate of mashed potatoes and roasted quail with a scowl. He arched an eyebrow at her, urging her to elaborate. "Thought someone was staring at me."

John glowered in the direction of where the Slytherins were seated. "No one's going to make you feel uneasy. Not on my watch, they won't."

Arabella smiled grimly and looked back once more, just to check -- Tom Riddle was gone.

//

Hello! I hope that you will like reading this. It's my first HP story, and feedback would be the best thing ever, so let me know what you think in each chapter!

Today's Question: Who is your favourite character so far?

Thank you for reading! I will try to update lots over winter break ^_^

-o