"Travers," said Tom brusquely, his dark robes billowing behind him as he stalked into the Slytherin common room.
Nikolai glanced up immediately, nearly spilling ink onto his Potions essay in his haste. "My Lord?"
A cold smile tugged upwards at the corners of Riddle's lips. "I have a job for you."
✧ ✧ ✧
The Great Hall was filled with bleary-eyed students as the post arrived through the ceiling, owls swooping downwards and delivering all sorts of items to the tables below.
Arabella forked a bit of breakfast sausage into her mouth lazily as she unrolled the Daily Prophet, scanning the headlines for anything remotely interesting with John peering over her shoulder.
"What's this?" he asked, prodding his butter knife at a picture of a handsome man standing proudly that she had overlooked. "Why the bloody hell is your father on the front page?"
"'Wizard defects from Ministry, kills many,'" Arabella read out loud, distantly, before letting her eyes linger on the photograph itself.
Her face fell right away as she quickly read the story beneath it, her breaths growing rapid.
"What?" John asked softly, his face lined with concern. "It wasn't him, right, Ara?"
She shook her head, lowering the newspaper with shaking hands and teary eyes. "I-I can't -- he couldn't have -- but -- why? Why would he?"
Arabella let out a sob, causing a sort of silence to fall across the table as she covered her face with her hands.
"I'm awfully sorry, Arabella," Will finally said awkwardly from the Hufflepuff table, cutting across the quiet that had now spread across the entire room.
"That's terrible," Penny Gregors, a fourth-year from Gryffindor, said woefully.
"I feel horrible for you," added Henry Cahill, the quidditch captain.
Little Ethel Hatfield looked close to tears herself as she offered her condolences, along with nearly the entire table and all the professors that had wandered over, worried by all the grave faces from Gryffindor House.
John wrapped his arms around his girlfriend, letting her bury her face into his jumper as she wept. Over her quivering head, he was able to read the article.
Yesterday evening, there was a breach of security in the Ministry of Magic that has since been related to the dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald, who has been amassing an army in Eastern Europe since last April. This is one of the first known cases of a highly-ranked British wizard's defection to Grindelwald.
The Head of the Department of International Magic Cooperation, Alaric Travers, is believed to have stolen several hundred confidential documents from at least twenty countries containing sensitive information before fleeing to join Grindelwald. Travers was stopped before leaving the Ministry, where he pulled his wand out and killed five employees of the Ministry (see Page 6 for information about the victims). Several others are currently being treated at St. Mungo's for their injuries. Following this attack, Travers managed to escape Britain via the floo network to an unknown location, presumably either in Hungary or Czechoslovakia. Inquiries are being made into the Departments of Security and Magical Transportation for their lapses last night, and Aurors have begun their investigation into what could have prompted Travers into committing treason.
If you have any information regarding Travers' whereabouts, please contact the Department of Magical Law Enforcement for a reward.
Arabella was still trembling in John's arms as he stroked her hair, speechless.
"Why would he do this?" she whispered, looking up at him.
Her boyfriend shook his head, his eyes sympathetic. His heart was broken for Arabella, but he felt powerless to help her. There wasn't a thing that he could do to make her feel better, and that almost pained him more than the fact that her father had become the Ministry's most-wanted figure overnight.
Their breakfast lay forgotten on the table, the bright yellow yolk of Arabella's sunny side-up eggs a weak reminder of the blissful ignorance from only minutes before. John closed his eyes as he wished that the owls had never arrived, that the Daily Prophet had never splayed Alaric Travers's charming face across the front page, that Grindelwald had never turned Dark. He wished for many things, impossible things, yet his heart was still filled with hope.
"It will get better," he finally murmured into Arabella's hair. "You might not think so right now, but everything will be all right."
✧ ✧ ✧
Nikolai hadn't been in the Great Hall to witness his sister's breakdown. In fact, he was somewhere he wasn't supposed to be -- which wasn't unusual for him at all.
The silvery water of the lake seemed to extend forever into the horizon, reflecting the dreary grey of the woollen clouds hanging heavily in the sky. Everything was washed out, bleak, desolate; he didn't mind. In fact, he revelled in it.
Feeling the smoothness of the stone in his hand, weighting its mass carefully, he took a slow step forward before releasing it from his grasp with a flick of the wrist, watching it skip across the placid waters. The gentle ripples that radiated outwards, colliding with one another amongst the calm of their surroundings, were not unlike Nikolai's thoughts.
He lowered himself to the ground, letting the earth become his chair as he took in his environment with its towering trees in the distance, its rugged peaks rising high above his head. It felt good to feel so small for once, so insignificant and trivial. It felt good to remember that there were things bigger than himself and his petty problems, his messy life and tangled ball of emotions.
But best of all was the absence of the all-too-familiar clenching in his stomach, that knot of confusion and guilt that never ceased to eat away at his mind.
"It's remarkable here, isn't it?"
He was startled out of his thoughts, forcing everything to rush back to him with a dull, throbbing pain. There, at the foot of the scarcely used trail, stood a girl that he had seen often with his sister and her group of friends.
She ignored his silence, continuing on as if he was making pleasant conversation. "You're Nikolai, right? Arabella's brother? She's told me a bit about you." Her smile, although small, was even more radiant than the sun.
He nodded, stuffing his shaking hands into his pockets before he could give himself away. The comforting, well-worn handle of his wand relaxed him just enough to try and remember who the girl was. Hundreds of faces and names played through his head before he settled on one: Halia Crestwell.
The girl now stood besides him -- he hadn't even realised that he'd stood up -- and spoke again. "I think it's nice to come out here every once in a while. I find that it really clears my mind."
Somewhere in his dry throat, Nikolai had found his voice, which came out as a low rasp. "It's peaceful."
Halia smiled, still gazing into the distance. "It is."
He kept quiet, searching for what had ensnared her attention. His hand slipped out of his pocket slowly, coming to rest inches away from hers. He didn't know what had possessed him to do it, but he was rather fond of the tingle that worked its way up his arm as their fingers accidentally brushed against each other.
They remained there like statues gazing out across the lake, frozen in time. The silence was natural, and it felt right, just like the world around them.
"We're going to be late to class," Halia said calmly after a few minutes had passed. "You have Potions next, right?"
Nikolai nodded, taking one last longing glance at the tranquil water, wishing that everything could be as simple as the lake. But deep down, he knew that beneath its placid surface, there was darkness lurking and vicious creatures awaiting their prey. There were sunken ships filled with the lost memories of centuries past, undercurrents that threatened to drown, and mysteries that best remained unsolved. There were places where no light came through, and there were parts of the underwater forest that had a net woven of sunlight dancing on the floor. It was a complicated world beneath the surface, worlds away from his own yet all the same, and the lake was so very far from simple. But he longed for it, its cold waves and forbidden deep, to envelop him and spare him from the cruelty of his world, his thoughts, his leaden heart, his impossible decisions and inescapable nightmares.
"Are you coming?" Halia asked softly, startling him once more. "Professor Slughorn doesn't like to be kept waiting."
"Just a moment." He closed his eyes, erasing the lake, all the weakness, every grain of doubt from his mind. "I'm coming."
\\
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Today's Question: What do you think of Nikolai? What did Tom put him up to?
All will be revealed soon enough. I've got a lot planned, so I love seeing what all of you think so far. Let me know every chapter!
-o