"What's happening to me?" I asked myself when I looked in the mirror. My skin had gone really pale and my eyes had a reddish tint to them. My head was throbbing so hard I wanted to vomit.
I was currently in the bathroom of the Slytherin common room. Dumbledore said that I was allowed to stay at Hogwarts as I wasn't exactly welcome at the orphanage and I didn't want to stay in the musty rooms of The Leakey Cauldron. The fact that I killed someone still stays strong to this day.
It was around a week until the first day of school for Hogwarts. The book that Tom Riddle gave me was sitting on my bed right now, open to the Legilimency and Occlumency. Over the course of one and a half months, I had held the Mandrake leaf in my mouth from full moon to full moon and I had also gathered all the ingredients for the potion. All I was doing now was waiting for a natural electrical storm.
I walked out of the bathroom clutching my head as I went to consult the only person I knew who could help me. Tom Riddle. I had this twisted idea that maybe the younger version of Voldemort would actually care about me even if the real Voldemort just wanted to use me. Oh how wrong I was.
"Open," I said to the sink on the second floor girls lavatory. I dove into the Chamber of Secrets to the all familiar scent of snake skin and bones.
I opened the door to the chamber using Parseltongue and I walked into the main cavern. The chamber was exactly as I remember. The snake heads lining a walkway with a large stone statue of Salazar Slytherin.
"Come," I said in Parseltongue. The statue's mouth opened and a large slithering mass of scales flowed out of it. Her name was Bas the basilisk.
Bas bowed her head to me. Being the heir of Slytherin has its perks. "Where is Tom?" I asked Bas. The basilisk opened its mouth to respond but she was cut off by a male voice.
"Right here," Tom Riddle said, appearing out of nowhere. Tom looked... different. His features were more in focus and his once blurred Hogwarts uniform was fully in focus. He had a sinister smirk plastered on his face. "What is it, Y/N?"
"Could you tell me what the hell is wrong with me?" I said while pointing at my face. Tom's smirk widened.
"Maybe you should look it up in your book," Tom suggested.
I nodded and took out the black book with a snake-like chain wrapped around it. It had a large green emerald right in the middle of the cover.
As I turned the pages, I saw a very peculiar sight. My healthy finger nails, were turning gray in front of my eyes. I was dying.
The realization suddenly dawned on me. I had only started to look and feel horrible when I got the book. I glanced back at Tom whose features seemed to be getting even more focused. A scowl found its way onto my face.
I threw the book at Tom, hitting him right in the jaw. He stumbled back a few steps, clutching his chin. "You're using me," I seethed. Tom's smirk returned.
"Of course I was," Tom replied. "You think that I'd seriously want to help you? You're nothing but a shadow of my greatness. You're worthless."
I recoiled at the venom in his voice as tears threatened to stream down my face. I practically swallowed my sadness and pointed my black yew wand at the book that was on the floor.
"Incendio!" I said. A plume of fire erupted out of my wand and scorched the book's yellow pages.
"No!" Tom screeched. A bright light shone from his chest as I sprinted out of the chamber with a stony expression.
I opened the chamber door with the flick of my wand when I heard Tom command Bas, "Kill the stupid boy!"
I took a look back at Bas. She looked conflicted. Well, as conflicted as a giant snake can look. Bas simply gave out a weak cry and slithered back into the statue of Salazar Slytherin.
"Come back here you useless pile of scales!" Tom screamed. A smile found its way onto my face as I closed the door of the chamber behind me and traversed the pile of snake skin. When I exited the chamber, I knew I had done the right thing.
***
"Stand up!" Snape yelled at me. I was currently in the potion master's office, training to be a Legilimens. Severus Snape had always been partial towards the Slytherin students so he agreed to help me. "I never said Legilimency was easy, did I?"
I had been thrown into a wall for the two hundredth time that session. I rubbed my head as I tried to dive into the churning waters of Snape's brain.
This time I managed to get past a strong current of negative emotions and into a memory. I smiled. The memory of Snape's was like all memories. Smoky, hazy, and hard to decipher.
I saw Severus Snape reading under a tree when two boys approached him. "Hey Snivellus!" I heard a boy who had glasses say. He wore a wicked sneer.
Snape tried to take out his wand but it was quickly knocked away by James. It was cool to see Snape not in power for once.
"Nice one, James," I heard the boy behind him say. James's sneer widened as I he held his wand back up to Snape.
He upwardly swished his wand causing Snape to levitate and turn upside-down. Everyone laughed as a redheaded girl told James off. Snape snarled as he took out his wand.
"You'll pay—" Snape said but he was cut off by me being thrown out of the memory. I collided with the back wall, toppling jars of ingredients. A strange acidic liquid splashed onto my hand. It burned. I saw my hand turn a shade of scarlet as I pushed my feeling down into my stomach.
I saw Snape sigh as he lifted me up with the flick of a wand. "You're dismissed," he said simply. I nodded my head as I limped out of the room.
Today was the day that students would be arriving at Hogwarts. I sighed as I dismissed the burning sensation in my hand. I needed air. Fresh air.
Thankfully, my skin had gotten back to normal after disposing of the book. My eyes had lost their reddish tint but they still weren't the usual vibrant green. They were still a very dull gray.
I exited the castle as a barrage of cold air slapped me in the face so hard I thought someone was using a wind charm. I walked through the wet grass and took a seat at the foot of a tree in the Forbidden Forest. I simply didn't care about the rules.
I slumped my head against the cold bark of the tree as my eyes began to close. In a matter of minutes, the dark abyss of sleep took me.
"Kill him," said Tom Riddle said. He adjusted his collar under the thick, hooded cloak that was wrapped around him. He peered at his wife who was standing over the cliff with a baby in her arms.
Tom could tell that his wife had regrets about what they were about to do. "Kill him," Tom repeated. "Drop him off of the cliff or something."
"I-I can't," came the croaking voice of his wife. Tears glistened in her vibrant green eyes as she looked down at the baby. Y/N M/N Riddle was his name. It was a shame that Tom and his wife had to kill him but nobody, NOBODY, could step in the way of Tom. He needed to take over the wizarding world.
Tom pulled out his wand and pointed it at the baby. "Avada Keda—"
"Don't!" Tom's wife screeched. "Please, Tom, don't."
"I'm dearly sorry, Emilia, but we have to do this. We talked about this," Tom responded. His eyes narrowed as he looked at his wife. "Unless you defy my orders"—he pointed his wand at his wife—"because in that case, it is you that should be killed."
Tears streamed down Emilia's face as she took one last look at her son. "I love you," she whispered to the baby. She could tell that her son was completely different. For one, he had killed a healer with a scalpel at infancy and he never showed any emotion. He was so much like his father it scared Emilia. She wanted her son to be nothing like the Dark Lord.
At the same time, Emilia was a vain woman. She didn't want to die and would gladly let others be killed in order for her to survive. Because of that, she lifted her son over the cliff and dropped him.
I woke abruptly from the dream by a jarring sound from outside the forest. I looked at the commotion to find a blue, Muggle car stuck in a tree. When my eyes adjusted to the dark, I saw two children inside of the car. One child had ginger hair and the other had raven black hair.
Instantly I knew that Harry Potter and Ronald Weasley had entered Hogwarts—the inconvenient way. I sprinted over to the tree where their car was stuck in.
"IMMOBULUS!" I boomed over the whirling branches of the Whomping Willow. As if frozen, the sentient plant was immediately immobilized. Harry and Ron stopped screaming once they realized that they weren't being rocked back and forth in a death cradle.
The two slowly exited the car and maneuvered through the branches of the tree. Harry got to the ground gracefully as Ron fell face-first onto the cold grass. I sighed as I picked the redhead up with the flick of my wand.
Harry stifled a laugh as Ron tried to walk over to us. He kept stumbling and falling like he was dizzy. I eventually sighed and pointed my want at him.
"Mobilicorpus!" I commanded. Ron's body was elevated off of the ground and was turned horizontal as he floated through the air next to us, synchronizing with our footsteps.
We strolled through the hallways casually as if a body wasn't floating above our heads. I will never forget the stares people gave me. As we approached the staircase that led to the Great Hall, we were met with Professor Severus Snape.
"Potter, Weasley, come with me. Riddle, go to the Great Hall," he said. Harry nods and follows him while Ron—who is still floating—gave a delirious glance at the professor. It was hilarious to see Ron floating over a professor.
I covered up a laugh with a cough and strolled down the staircase. I nonchalantly opened the doors and sprinted to the Slytherin table right as Dumbledore ended his speech. Damn it, I thought. I've missed the first year sorting ceremony.
Draco greeted me with a hello as I sat next to him. He saw the disheveled state of my usual combed black hair and smirked. "Look, Y/N, even though you might be on good terms with the professors, that doesn't mean that you can skip dinner to kiss—"
"Shut. The. Hell. Up," I said. I snapped my fingers and I felt my hair be combed with an invisible comb. My black hair fell neatly over my left eye. I pushed the hair out of my eye in annoyance. "And plus, just because you've kissed Pansy doesn't mean that I need to get a girlfriend or follower for that matter."
Draco's smirk didn't leave his face. "Right," he said sarcastically. I simply glared at him. "Where were you then?"
"That," I said, "is none of your goddamn business."
"Whatever," Draco muttered and then turned to talk to Pansy. I really hate that girl. Besides the fact that she constantly tried to flirt with Draco and I, but also because she had the most stuck-up and entitled personality I've ever seen.
Instead, my eyes locked with a girl from the Gryffindor table. Hermione Granger fiddled with a strand of her brown hair nervously as she periodically looked towards the doors of the Great Hall. It was obvious that she was waiting for Harry and Ron to return.
I looked at the girl sitting next to her who happened to be Aurora. She was having a one-sided conversation with Hermione that I somehow instantly knew was about Quidditch. That girl was obsessed with the sport.
I still hold true to the grudge that I have against the horribly dangerous sport, no matter how hard Aurora tried to get me to come to one of the Gryffindor games.
Speaking of Quidditch, I heard that Draco had gotten on the team from his father buying each of the players a Nimbus 2001. Now I don't really know about Quidditch, but that name just sounds expensive.
"Let the feast begin!" I heard Dumbledore say.
Alright, I thought. Hopefully this new year is great.