~••Ambrosia••~
"This is a good thing. They could teach us the things you don't know." Tom reasoned, trying to quell the females rather irrational anger.
"Tom, we've caught the attention of Dumbledore, The king, Queen, and tomorrow we'll catch the attention of the pureblood Ravenclaw party! They know how Slytherin politics work because they grew up on them. When we move our seats up from literally the bottom of the Slytherin table to rather far up they will know something is up. Most of them will suspect you for our rise in power which isn't necessarily a good or bad thing." His companion rambled at him quietly from behind her library book titled 'Spell chaining and camouflage.'
"Why is that?" He asked, tapping his fingers on the table in a rhythmic pattern as he looked into blue eyes. "If you wish to achieve what you desire, we need you to be seen in a good light. I'd rather take the blame for anything that would start unorthodox rumors." She responded, running a hand through her attractively messy hair and he barely held back a snort as her hand got stuck on a tangle.
"Understandable. Speaking of what I want to do, what do you wish to do?" He asked trying to hide the amusement in his voice. Blue eyes narrowed at him and he knew he didn't hide it well enough. "I want to help you achieve what you want to and maybe become a professional duelist." She said putting her book down onto the table and giving him her undivided attention. "A professional duelist. You're sure?" Tom asked looking into her eyes, almost searching for something.
"I think so, yes." She responded with a raised eyebrow. "Alright that's settled. I'll help you achieve your dream as well. As long as you don't leave me?" The last part came out weaker than the rest of his words and she couldn't fight the smile creeping up her face or the slight blush. "I'll be here as long as you'll have me." She said brightly, trying to ignore the fact that his slight insecurity made her feel eminently wanted.
Tom rolled his coal black eyes at her with a flush on his own cheeks and a small, fond smile playing on his lips, "'As long as you'll have me' my arse. You're mine forever. It was just a test to make sure I wouldn't have to cast an imperious on you're arse for the rest of eternity or something."
She couldn't hold back her snort at the irony, "You couldn't keep an imperious curse on me if you tried, Tommy." She knew it would rile the boy up but it was the truth. Black eyes narrowed, "Is that a challenge?" Blue eyes stared into black for a long moment, "It's a fact."
The boy scoffed, dropping the subject because he knew he would only get mad at her. "Why are you reading Hogwarts: A history?" She asked after a moment of silence. "Tell me, Irene. Have you ever heard of The Chamber of Secrets?" He asked with a raised eyebrow, feeling slightly stupid because his main source of information was right in front of him.
The returning smirk she gave him was downright sinister, "I thought you'd never ask."
~••Ambrosia••~
Irene was right as always. They caught attention from the other houses when they sat so far up the table. But Tom could hardly care because Irene knew exactly where the chamber of secrets was and she was going to take him there after classes today. He didn't know what was down there and she wouldn't tell him at all, stubbornly deciding to keep her mouth shut.
It didn't matter though because he could prove to be rather patient when it came to her antics. Or at least that's what he told himself as his hand itched toward his wand several times, aborting the motion each time. She would just return everything he gave her until it was a full on duel. Morgana, that would attract too much attention.
The sound of what seemed to be thousands of flapping wings stole his attention from his resigned thoughts. He watched in poorly disguised jealousy as many Slytherin children received letters and even gifts from their family. A golden eagle landed gracefully in front of Irene and he blinked in surprise. Then betrayal stirred in his gut and his heart clenched harshly because, who could she be writing to? Everything she needed was right in front of her, in this castle. Food, shelter, Him.
"An eagle? How pretentious." The girl said looking surprised. "Who is it from?" He asked, slightly surprised by how husky his voice came out but not letting it show on his face. "I don't know. I haven't written to anyone." She sounded genuinely perplexed and Tom relaxed a little bit. Thinking rationally, the girl was by his side all day yesterday until curfew when he had walked together with her back to their common rooms.
"Let's see. It says;
Heiress Black and Heir Slytherin,
I've heard many impressive things about you and your comrade. I would like to stay in contact with the two of you. I am a rather influential political figure that doesn't find it prudent to reveal their identity at the moment. But I can assure you that my sponsorship will be granted to both of you when you come of age. The mention of 'No one in particular' should get you out of most legal troubles until then. Hopefully you would agree to be..ah is it Pen Pals?
Sincerely yours,
Nobody in particular." She read, brows furrowing the farther down she got into the letter.
"What do you think of it?" He found himself saying, feeling a strange urge to continue to talk to the stranger. "I think that this letter is absolutely drowned in compulsion charms." His company said drily before a small smile found way onto her face. "I think I like who ever sent this though. Bold of them to send so many easily detectable compulsions and leave nothing but an alias to trace back to them. They're testing us." With those words their food disappeared and the first timer of the day rang out.
"They want to see if we care enough for promised success to trust a stranger. We don't need their sponsorship in the slightest and they know it, obviously by the use of our familial titles. They also know that if we knew who they were we would be less inclined to stay in contact. So, they must be a controversial political figure." Tom said, stopping his magical flow to the privacy charm he had thrown up when he started badgering the girl for answers about the chamber and getting up.
"Ah. Do you wish to stay in touch?" The girl asked bluntly as she too rose from her seat and began walking towards the doors with him in tow. "I think so. It could prove to be interesting. Of course, if it's not worth our time you and me will have fun punishing them regardless." He said after a moment of thought. It was settled with no argument and he knew she was hoping he would say yes to avoid the argument.
Transfiguration was actually very interesting at least to Tom. They were practicing turning a simple match to a sewing needle. Irene had taught him the basics of transfiguration and together they had managed to transfigure one of their thinner blankets into a thick throw blanket during a rather bad winter at Wools. He thinks that is what prevented them from getting the flu that spread around the orphanage like wildfire that year. That and their anti social tendencies.
Transfiguring a match into a needle was essentially light work for the two of them. However, with the way the Professor seemed to be keeping close tabs on them, they had to at least pretend to struggle. Especially since it was the man himself that came to see them at the orphanage. It would be much to suspicious for them to automatically show magical prowess after growing up with muggles.
After 'struggling' with his transformation about three times, he raised his hand to ask a question. That way he could get behind the excuse of needing it explained better to channel his magical potential because he was not going to dumb himself down due to suspicions. "Yes, Mr. Riddle?" Dumbledore questioned walking over to where he and Irene sat. "Is there a way i'm supposed to specifically imagine the needle? Because i've been trying and it's not.." He trailed off stamping a defeated expression on his face.
"Excellent question my dear boy! To visualize the needle you have to know what it's made of, the point of its tip and the size of the eye of the needle. As you can see," The man gestured to the front of the class where the board was now projecting a diagram of a needle with arrows naming each part with its dimensions under it. "I hope that helped? Would you and your seat mate attempt it so I can see what you were doing wrong?" He asked, eyes twinkling merrily and Tom itched to lock eyes with Irene knowing that she caught the unnecessary mention of herself.
"Of course, Professor." He heard Irene's voice echo closely behind his own and he waved his wand envisioning the needle and it's dimensions in his head. Now that he knew who the man was suspicious of, he had no reason for him to be so close. The match's transformation to a needle was as smooth as running water. Chancing a look to the right he saw Irene's needle mirroring his own. "Perfect transfiguration! 10 points to S-Slytherin!" Tom had a shark like focus on the man and he noticed how he stuttered on their house name like it left a bad taste in his mouth.
A scowl took over his face as the man turned his back on them to head back to the front of the classroom. A quiet hiss from his right caught his attention and his brain quickly translated it, "Interesting." He couldn't help but feel inclined to agree. Very interesting indeed.
Charms class was just as frustrating as the day before and Tom made it a priority to learn a Translating spell before their next time in the class. It was getting ridiculous. How was he to understand charms theory if he couldn't understand the teacher?
And now he was in a predicament. He had no clue what the instructions for their practical hour of class were. "He wants us to float the feather." He heard the familiar voice of his basically life long companion whisper from his right. Turning his head to the side he couldn't help but wonder how she knew that. The instructions were said in french.
"How?" He asked. It was, admittedly, a loaded question. How do you know? How can you understand him? How would I float it? Wingardium Leviosa or trying to slow its fall with Aresto Momentum?
"Heir Prewett speaks French. Professor Dupont wants us to use Wingardium Leviosa to make the feather float for 10 full seconds." She replied as if it explained everything and..much to his ire, it did. He could now see that the little whispers from his right that he was trying to tune out weren't from Irene being bored with the class. Which, in his defense, was a plausible assumption. She had already attended Hogwarts for six years but wasn't too good at explaining spell theory to him when it came to wands.
Glancing at the redhead seated to Irene's right he could already see him looking right at him with a raised eyebrow. As if expecting a thank you. It made him want to sneer at the boy but he held back instead he stiffly nodded his head at him. It was the closest thing to a 'thank you' the Gryffindor would get from him.
Potions was something he found himself enjoying even as the Gryffindor was bold enough to walk with the pair to their next class. Tom could feel the muscles in his cheeks straining as he listened to the incessant babble from the boy with a polite but fake smile. The satisfaction he felt when Irene's instinctual grip on his hand tightened with every stupid thing the boy uttered. Surely, she would get tired of him even if he was useful in charms class, right? He was getting more sure of the thought the tighter her grip got.
Till he started talking about Quidditch.
Tom would be stuck with this boy for a long, long time. It was such as despairing sight to watch Irene's eyes light up at the mention of the sport that his eyes nearly got stuck skyward. Then they snapped to her at the mention of joining the team. She was good at the game, that was one thing he knew from the stories of her time playing. Losing one match, due to dementors, out of her whole career was an impressive record.
He knew she would be in the Daily Prophet if she chose to join. A legendary seeker from the Slytherin team would come with wild amounts of backlash, he knew. He would talk to her about it when they got rid of the annoying Gryffindor. Then his thoughts went back to the famed chamber of secrets and he got excited all over again.
Back to potions. The classroom was rather dark with jars full of weird parts of magical creatures he knew he would be reading up on and lanterns with blue fire. Something called soul lanterns. When the professor walked in Tom knew playing this man would be a piece of cake. He looked entirely too gullible for the title head of Slytherin.
Potions theory was something very complicated and Tom found himself faced with a true challenge for the first time at Hogwarts. Irene was literally no help at all, which wasn't really her fault but he would be kicking her ass in gear as soon as he began to understand it.
The magical ingredients in potions had to carefully cultivated and used within a certain time frame, some even reacted violently to certain magic types. Most potion makers were woman as most of the time they had most soothing magic and the most control over it. You couldn't just feed a magic requiring potion raw magic.
You had to actually extract the magic from yourself and jar it. Then you had to press your wand to the jar, imagine what the magic was supposed to do to the potion and then pour it's essence imprinted with its purpose into the potion. There were even ways to age jarred magic like some sort of expensive cheese or liquor.
Of course, those were for the more complex potions but Tom found the idea absolutely fascinating. If he could find magically compatible ingredients, he could essentially mix anything together. He wondered what effect non magical healing herbs like chamomile flowers would do to certain healing potions. Would chamomile strengthen the Draught of peace or the calming draught? Or would it make the potion a complete dud?
The thought of such experimentation was absolutely thrilling. But when the practical period of class came he found the experience rather lackluster. It wasn't very hard to follow the written instructions. A boil curing potion was unsurprisingly simple to make. The professor seemed to have taken a liking to him as well when he saw his perfected potion.
And of course, just as that thought came, a scream also came from the Gryffindor side of the classroom. He looked at absolutely exasperated with the lions and their need to make noise for the smallest of things. The sight that greeted him drained all his irritation and made him want to laugh.
A girls' face was covered in a green sludge like liquid that was quickly seeping into her skin and reforming into a huge boil smack dab in the middle of her forehead. She looked like a bastardized form of muggle unicorn pictures. That really was a huge boil though he didn't know how her skin could contain it.
"Oh dear. Let's get you to the hospital wing!" Professor slughorn tutted ambling his way over to the girl.
With a loud and wet squelch Tom stood corrected. Professor Slughorn stood drenched in a steaming and foul smelling liquid. Her skin could not contain it.
2.7k+ words
I finished this chapter early nd i'm a very impatient person sooo enjoy the double upload! Idk about the update this coming Thursday but i'll try to have one out then too.