Slytherin Roar || Tom Riddle's Era

Chapter 5 || Sneaking Out In the Night

Swearing quietly in ancient Greek, I rubbed my fingers together as the cauldron's liquid burned through my skin. Brushing my fingers against my skirt, I hurried to stir the potion I was making.

"Aw, did you burn yourself, Pearce?" Abraxas smiled in fake sympathy.

Returning the gesture with ridicule, I moved back my focus on the crushed Snake Fangs and added in the measured amount.

"Do you ever talk, mudblood?" Abraxas sneered, ignoring his over bubbling and heated cauldron.

Glancing towards his pool of bubbliness, I murmured, "Your potion is over boiling."

Not bothering to seek for a reply, I put in four Horned Slugs and two Porcupine Quills, stirring it five times clockwise. From the corner of my eye, I saw him fuss over his potion and from the other, I saw Tom smirking silently. Hiding a smile, I turned off the fire and placed my hands on either side of the cauldron and stood there until the liquid-cooled down.

"Ms Pearce."

Tensing at the sound of my last name, I raised my head. Flickering my gaze back and forth to my brewed potion than to the older man I straightened my back.

"Professor Slughorn," I greeted with a smile, then faltered. "Did I do something bad?"

"Of course not," he tells me, a chuckle escaping. "I just wanted to tell you that you are doing an excellent job."

"Oh, thank you, sir."

I didn't know if he was being genuine or if he just wanted to boost my 'self-esteem' and 'self-confidence' because I'm ADHD and have a difficult time concentrating on classes. But I guess I'm used to it now since I went to a few schools where the teacher treated me as if I'm a baby. Now, I may have gotten annoyed and ended up punching a male teacher on the face, breaking his nose and getting myself expelled. Now that was fun.

Dropping my eyes, I started pouring my Cure for Boil potion inside an empty vial, labelling it with my name. Raising the bottle to the dim light, I smiled in satisfaction when I saw that the liquid was the exact colour of blue as the textbook said.

"Ah! Mr Riddle," said Slughorn. "Fine work on the potion."

"Thank you, sir," Tom replied with a proud twitch of his lips. I had a feeling he's directing it to me.

Sighing through my nose, I smiled in amusement and walked past the professor and went towards his desk to place my vial. Coming back, I see Tom helping Abraxas to get his potion to bubble the correct way. Cleaning and putting away the objects in the respective places, I glanced at the clock. 3:45 p.m. Fifteen minutes until class ends.

Pulling out the stool from under the table, I sat down on it and studied the other students. I saw some having black substance, perhaps soot, due to the explosion that happened a while ago. Some were having grim expressions, some were having pleasant ones. I wondered what their lives were, full of normal mortal stuff and enjoying their families. The thoughts made me slightly slouch my shoulders and decided to read until school ends.

"How did you do it?"

Looking up from my book Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, I raised an eyebrow at Tom who was standing before me. Shutting my book with a snap I regarded him for a second.

"How did I do what?" I asked innocently, although I did nothing wrong — I think.

"How were you able to brew the potion faster and slightly more effective than me?" Tom asks me intensely.

My forehead wrinkled in pure confusion. "I'm sure your potion is better than mine and are you that naive to think speed makes something better?"

"Of course not," he declared, though his face was slightly turning red. "I just want to know how you have done something better than me."