March 8th, 1942
Gryffindor is hanging on by a THREAD in Quidditch. The team lost their last match, and the only way they can have a shot at winning the cup again is if they beat Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw beats Slytherin.
Marcella has steadily improved with each game we play, regardless of us winning or losing. They have another girl as Chaser already. She’s good, but deep inside, I wish I was still out there playing.
---
Spring was upon Hogwarts now. The snow was finally gone, and everyone seemed to be suffering from a bad case of spring fever. Nobody could sit inside a boring classroom and look out onto the green and grassy lawns without desperately wanting to run outside and enjoy the snow-free grounds.
As Professor Binns droned about Quindolyn the Bizarre or Samina the Scared, Miriam couldn’t help but let her mind wander to the outside and the nice warm breeze and cloud-free sky.
When they shuffled out of Professor Binns’s class a little while later, they made their way up a flight of stairs to their Charms classroom where Professor Ambley waited.
Upon settling down in their seats, Professor Ambley took roll call. After naming off the students in her class, she looked around and quietly began counting heads to herself. Miriam looked around the class room to see who might have been missing. It was then that it hit her... Tom was nowhere in class! She glanced at her watch and knew that Tom was going to be in deep trouble. He was never late for class, so this was a first for him. Professor Ambley checked her watch and tapped her foot; she was growing very impatient. Taking a deep breath, Professor Ambley opened her mouth to speak when the door to the Charms classroom burst open and Tom came scrambling in. He muttered something inaudible as he took a seat among the Slytherins.
"Well, well, Mr. Riddle. It looks as if you finally decided to grace us with your presence," Professor Ambley said sternly, eyeing Tom. “Good, competent wizards don’t just grow on trees, you know....”
“How true Ma’am, but don’t they normally swing underneath them?”
Many of the Slytherins snickered at Tom’s gibe. From where Miriam was sitting, she could see him look up at the teacher with a benevolent expression on his face. "I'm truly regretful that I am late," he added cajolingly, a deceivingly innocent look still upon his face. Miriam looked at her friends and rolled her eyes at the absurdity of her brother’s behavior. If Ambley bought the load of Hippogryff crap that Tom was giving her, then she was the Queen of England....
"Mr. Riddle, I can't have you late like this again," Ambley answered strictly. Tom gazed up at the teacher again, his eyes virtually boring two holes into her, almost as if he were forcefully trying to break into her mind. Professor Ambley gasped and grabbed her head as if she were suddenly suffering from a very bad migraine.
"I promise," he continued. "I won't be late for class again." He gave her a feigned smile and then looked away. The Charms professor regained her composure, and she stumbled to her desk in a stupor. Miriam gaped at her two friends. She was utterly shocked that Professor Ambley didn't take points from Slytherin for Tom being so late to class. And what was with Professor Ambley's bizarre behavior of just a moment ago? Glancing over at Tom, who was currently in a quiet revelry over not being punished by the teacher, she got a weird sensation.
“To - Today we will be learning a brand new spell ““
”“ the Mobilarbus spell?” Tom inquired.
“Yes,” Professor Ambley responded, eyeing him rather curiously. “How’d you know that?”
~*~
“I swear! Tom wasn’t even blinking! It was like... he was reading her mind or something!” Miriam quietly exclaimed to her friends after class that day. They were sitting around the library finishing up some homework when Miriam told them what she had seen.
“Really?” they asked in shock.
“Y’know, mind reading is rather advanced magic,” Sophie added. “I’m not saying Tom couldn’t do it, but...” Her friend trailed off as somebody from the table behind of them hastily leapt up from their seat, causing her chair to squeal loudly, and started screaming.
“Are you okay, Minerva?” Miriam asked in alarm as she watched her friend stomp the floor in an apparent fit of rage.
“I’m perfectly all right!” Minerva exclaimed. “Yes! Yes... I’m fine! I'm just trying to remember all these facts, and dates, and places, and names...” she rambled, her voice beginning to crack. “If I don’t get good grades now, I’ll never get into my N.E.W.T. level classes. Thereupon I won’t get a good job... if I don’t get a good job, how can I ever expect to make a living for myself?”
“Relax! It’s okay!” Sophie exclaimed, trying to calm the very frazzled Minerva down.
“Relax? How can I relax... yield... or relent with O.W.L.s coming up? Oh, Merlin! I’m... losing... my... PERSPICACITY!”
“She’s really not taking the O.W.L.s that well, is she?” Miriam asked as Minerva ran screaming from the library.
March 18th, 1942
We haven't seen hide nor hair of Minerva since her little nervous breakdown in the library the other day... except for a tiny glimpse of her here and there with her nose buried in a book....
Aside from that, we had an interesting Transfiguration class today that involved Tom talking back to Professor Dumbledore....
Really, I don’t know what’s gotten into him lately....
---
“Class, we’ll begin today by finishing the transfiguration of a rat into a teacup that we started during our last class.” Dumbledore began bringing out many interestingly colored teacups - some that still had rat markings - from behind his desk. As he brought them out, Miriam couldn’t help but let out a small laugh. Marcella’s teacup still had whiskers, Sophie’s had a tail, and unfortunately, her’s had brown fur. Tom, on the other hand, had managed to turn his into a beautiful blue teacup with a spiraling golden handle; Dumbledore had awarded him full marks.
“Today, we will turn them back into a rat.”
“Sir, if I may say so, but wouldn’t it be pointless to have a bunch of rats hanging around the school after we transfigure then back?”
“The whole point of this is to see how well students can transfigure a teacup back into a rat. A reverse transfiguration,” Dumbledore replied with a steely note in his voice and a look of determination in his eyes.
“But, sir, it seems rather purposeless to do this. We’ve already shown our prowess at it.“
”Mr. Riddle, if you have a problem with the way I handle things, then I advise you to bring it up with Headmaster Dippet. Since you have determined it not necessary to finish the assignment, I will dock Slytherin fifteen points.”
~*~
“What gives with him?” Tom asked furiously as he left the Transfiguration classroom later that day. “So what if I wouldn’t transform his stupid teacup back into his stupid old rat... honestly....”
April 1st, 1942
I think Minerva has finally suffered from a mental meltdown from studying too hard for her O.W.L.s. Gosh, I hope I don’t go mental when it’s time for me to take them.
On a bit of sad news, Gryffindor lost the Quidditch Cup to Ravenclaw.... I guess it could have been worse... we could have lost it to Slytherin.... Ew!
Hagrid, meanwhile, has been keeping up his grades beautifully... except for the few occasions he still needs me to go over thing with him. He seems to have come to grips with his father’s passing, though it still is a bit of a sore subject for him. His troublesome mischief seems to be at a standstill.... He only got in trouble one other time last month, and I’m hoping that it’ll be the last time. Dumbledore has been very, very lenient with him.
And Tom... well, let’s just say that he seems to be enjoying his newfound teenaged angst. He may be one of the smartest in the school, but he has a bad habit of speaking his mind a bit too much, especially when it comes to him and Professor Dumbledore....
---
“Hormones,” Sophie said simply. “Boys take to this stuff much differently than us girls. Sure, we get the monthly, when we turn into horrible little monsters, but boys get all sorts of other problems. I read about it in a Muggle book once....”
“I don’t know,” Miriam sighed as she and her friends headed to Potions class. “Personally, I think being in Slytherin has finally gone to his head.”
As they made their way down many staircases, they rounded a corner and made their way to the entrance of their Potions classroom. Since class hadn’t begun yet, many of the students were standing by the doors and waiting for Professor Panes to let them in. Tom was casually leaning back against the brick wall, twirling his wand idly between his long fingers and looking rather bored. He looked up and saw Miriam and her friends coming downstairs. A twisted smile enveloped his face. Walking over to them, he announced with great arrogance in his voice, “Make way for the Heir of Slytherin...” and brushed by them to join Carrey and Murdoch who were standing by an opposite wall, each wearing an absurd grin.
“Still think it’s just hormones?” Miriam asked, raising her eyebrows.
"... Don't want your hand
This time I'll save myself
Maybe I'll wake up for once
Not tormented daily defeated by you
Just when I thought I'd reached the bottom
I'm dying again..."
May 14th, 1942
O.W.L.s can’t seem to get here fast enough for poor Minerva. I found her today in the library fast asleep, her face down in an open book....
---
“You can’t go on like this!” Miriam uttered, shaking her friend awake. Minerva lifted her head, a few of her notes were now plastered to her forehead.
“The properties of a moonstone are... are...” she mumbled. Looking around, she realized she wasn’t being examined for her O.W.L.s; instead she realized she had fallen asleep in the library and her friend was waking her up.
“It’ll be over with in a few weeks,” Minerva muttered.
“You need a break! Otherwise, you’re going to have a complete mental breakdown.”
“I know, but I still haven’t finished my Potions studies. If I don’t at least get an O.W.L. on that, Panes is going to go ballistic on me....”
Miriam sat down and looked at some of Minerva’s half-completed assignments:
History of Magic - write a three-foot scroll on the Goblin wars.
Potions - write a two-foot scroll on the properties of moonstones.
Defense Against the Dark Arts - perform difficult defensive spells.
Transfiguration - Change our hair color
Charms - Practice the blocking charm
Deeply engrossed in the long homework schedule Minerva had made for herself, Miriam barely had time to react to something gray-ish green darting only a mere few inches by her face.
“Vipera!” she hissed, looking down at Tom’s pet snake, who was hissing nonchalantly at her. “GO!” Shooing the snake away with her hand, Vipera bared its fangs at her before slithering out of the library indignantly. What is it with that damn snake? she wondered bitterly.
As Vipera left the library, someone else came coursing into the library and over toward Miriam, barely missing stepping on Vipera, which caused the snake to hiss angrily at the girl.
“Hi, Hannah,” Miriam greeted. Hannah Evans panted and then said, “Did you hear?”
“Hear what?”
“Tom’s in detention again!”
“What for?”
“Apparently he tried going into the girls’ bathroom, but one of the Hufflepuff Prefects caught him!”
That’s the second time he’s done that... she thought. Miriam followed Hannah to an empty classroom where Tom was scribbling ‘I will not go into the girls’ bathroom’ over and over again on a blackboard. Hannah said good-bye and left Miriam alone with her, in her own words, obviously whacked brother.
“Are we having a gender crisis or something?” she spoke up. Tom turned around, a small grimace on his face. “That’s none of your concern, now is it?”
“Uh, hello to the stupid person!” Miriam chastised. “But please explain to me why a boy would want to go into a girl’s bathroom?” Tom looked at her, but Miriam held up her hand to silence him. “If this is some weird new fixation you have, I don’t want to know about it.”
He sighed heavily, then breathed, “Even if I told you, I’d have to kill you.”
~*~
“That’s what he said,” Miriam confirmed later on back in the common room.
“What could he possibly want in there?” Sophie wondered.
“I wish I knew!”
“Eww...,” was the only thing Marcella could squeak out. “Remind me to never use that bathroom again....”
As Miriam lay back on her bed that night, her thoughts kept shifting to her perverted brother and his obsession with the girls' bathroom. Slowly, she began drifting to sleep....
"Wake up!" a voice called out.
"Wha --? Tom? Is that you? How'd you get in here?" she asked groggily, trying to sit up in her bed and open her eyes. Once she finally managed to open them fully, she saw Tom staring back at her with a smile on his face. But upon looking around, they weren't in the Gryffindor common room; in fact, as she scanned around the strange settings, she realized she had been lying down in a grassy meadow. Slowly she got to her feet as a light breeze ruffled her hair....
"They're waiting for us!" he motioned, waving her on. Tentatively she began to follow him, but then she stopped abruptly and screamed.
"What on earth am I wearing?" she exclaimed, looking down at her horridly frilly pink dress.
"Hey! Wait up!" she called after him, tripping up on her dress. Stumbling, she managed to follow him through the thicket, her hair catching on the tree branches and causing her to slow down. But they eventually arrived at a cliff.
Tom faced Miriam, grinned, and then jumped off the cliff before she could even react. Miriam tried to stop him, but he was already out of reach. Nervously walking toward the edge, she peered down and almost tripped when she three people swimming along in a crystal pool of water.
"C'mon in!" a man's cheerful voiced sung out, beckoning her in. She squinted hard at the man: His dark hair and shining eyes made him seem vaguely familiar to her. But she looked away when a woman's voice called out to her. Miriam gazed at the woman: She was very pretty and had long hair like the man’s, but hers was slightly gray in spots. She had the most brilliant green eyes.... She looks so much like me, Miriam thought.
Enthralled by the remarkable appearance of the woman, the man called out to her again, making her pull her gaze from the woman.
"The water's fine!"
"Don't chicken out!" Tom yelled. "Don't want us to think you're scared, do you?"
She looked down at the man, realizing now that he looked a lot like the woman who was traveling through the water over toward Tom. Miriam suddenly remembered the image of her mother staring back at her in that strange mirror at school. How could she not have realized that this woman was her mother? Even though she looked different, perhaps a bit older, from the last time she saw her....
Miriam smiled down at the carefree people in the water who were waving her on to join them. Her heart was suddenly overwhelmed with glee as she looked onto the face of her beloved mother. Miriam desperately yearned to dive in after them, but something stopped her... her feet wouldn't budge from the ground. Straining, she tried to move them with all her might, but they felt as if they had been glued down. Something unforeseen was preventing her from diving in after them. The man's once smiling face twisted into a bit of a scowl; his once shining eyes took on an eerie gleam.
"Now! Come on!" he yelled, his voice gradually changing, becoming more poisonous with each word he spoke. "Jump!" Fear weighed heavily in her abdomen as she swallowed deeply and watched his face deform and disfigure with madness. Rooted to her spot, she felt defenseless as the image of the man slowly morphed into a massive serpent, hissing balefully at her. Coiling itself around her feet, it tried to force her off the cliff... and into the fiery pit below. Her mother was nowhere to be seen....
“Leave me alone!” she shouted, trying to hit the snake on the head with her bare hands. “Leave me ““
”And leave you to hinder our special planssssss ...?” it hissed.
“Our?”
“You and your brother have the blood of a noble family coursssssing through your veinssssss....”
Before she could interrogate it even further, her vision began to grow blurry... it became foggy and black.... The snake’s grip on her had tightened, squeezing the very life out of her. Her breath caught in her throat, and she began to gasp.... Just when she thought she would die from suffocation, a song, the most beautiful song she had ever heard in her life filled her ears, instilling strength in her heart. Though very weak, she looked up at a majestic red bird soaring through the air. The grasp around her loosened, and her lungs began to fill with air again.
The darkness around her vanished and was replaced by the bright morning sunlight.
May 26th, 1942
I’ve just received the most wonderful news! Dumbledore had asked me to stay after class today as he had something very important to tell me....
---
“He didn’t!” Sophie exclaimed.
Miriam nodded her head. “Yes! He said special arrangements could be made so Tom and I don’t have to go back to Madam Westyn’s! We can remain here for the summer!”
“That’s marvelous!” Marcella cheered. “I’m sure Tom would love to hear it!”
~*~
“You’re kidding!” Tom asked, his eyes round as he sat in the library pouring over his partially unfinished homework.
“It’s true!” Miriam exclaimed sitting down next to him. “Dumbledore said that in our case, arrangements could be made, but only if we wanted to stay here.”
“Yes! Did you tell him yes?”
“I think my facial expression told him all he needed to know,” she beamed.
May 29th, 1942
Poor Sophie. She received some rather bad news today in Potions class....
---
As if a ray of light had radiated down upon the two Riddle kids, Miriam felt the happiest she had ever been in ages... at least since she first found that she was a witch and would be leaving the orphanage. Of course, things weren't going as swimmingly for her friend Sophie. A few days after Miriam and Tom found about their good fortune, Sophie received some very disappointing news.
“I can’t believe I got a ‘P’ on my Potions essay!” she fumed, grinding her teeth. “That’s only two steps up from ‘T’!”
“‘T’?” Miriam asked.
“Troll,” Sophie muttered darkly. “At least you and Marcella managed an ‘A’ on it.”
For most of the day, Sophie was in a very foul temper. Throwing insults and dark comments at passersby seemed to be the only thing that remotely amused her. That night at dinner was no exception. Miriam silently prayed that something would come along and get her friend out of her moodiness. Little did Miriam know, she’d soon be regretting that very wish....
Her wish came in the form of Tom walking into the Great Hall with his arm tightly around Libby MacNair’s waist and smiling from ear to ear. Libby was positively glowing, and she wore what Miriam could only guess was a look of superiority on her face. Libby held back her hair as she leaned over and kissed Tom on the lips.
At this sight of this extreme public display of affection, Sophie turned her head away in disgust. "Will they please take it back to their common room?"
"I think I just lost my appetite..." Marcella imparted, looking rather sickened as well. “I didn’t know they were still dating.”
Miriam scrunched up her face. "What does he see in her anyway?"
"Oh, I don't know," Sophie began slowly, trying hard to not glare as Tom and Libby passed by the Gryffindor table. "Think about it, will you? She's attractive, pure-blood, wealthy, and well, if what I’ve heard about her in the girls' bathroom is any kind of indication, then I guess you've got your answer...."
"You don’t mean he's..." Miriam asked with much difficulty, not entirely sure she wanted to hear the answer.
Sophie nodded her head. "With her, I would assume so...."
"Ugh!" Miriam exclaimed, thrusting away her dinner plate in complete nausea. "I guess it would certainly explain why he was caught going into the girls' bathroom those few times," she muttered darkly.
As odd as it may have been for them, it was exactly the sort of thing that got Sophie out of her funk, though instead of being happy, she was merely sickened to her stomach for the rest of the evening.
Music lyrics used above are from the song "Going Under" by Evanescence