September 15th, 1938,
Things still haven't gotten any better between our two houses, not that I expected it to. I've been here long enough to know better than that. Abby told me that Slytherins and Gryffindors have been arch enemies for many centuries.
Because of the... uh... animosity between the two Houses, Tom and I thought it be best to meet in the library every day during the week after class to talk. It’ll be much safer that way.
During our first meeting, we talked about anything that happened to come up. I told him I made two new friends and about all the things we’ve done together. Once I finished talking, he heaved a deep sigh and looked really unhappy. I asked him what was wrong....
---
He remained quiet for a moment, then finally said, "They're not very welcoming in Slytherin. I have no friends of my own there. The older kids tease me about being not being a pure-blood. The rich kids tease me about being poor, and most of the remainder tease me about living in an orphanage.”
He sighed again and Miriam could see the electricity shoot through his green eyes. “I wish you could have been there my first night. A Seventh year Slytherin chamed all of the suits of armor leading down to the dungeons to brandish their weapons at me. I had to run across and try to avoid them just to make it to the common room. They said it was an 'initiation' of sorts, but none of the other First years went through it, just me.... Damn it, Miriam, I wish they would all just stop bothering me!" he shouted.
Madam Zuzellam, the librarian, looked up from across the room with an extreme look of dissatisfaction on her face. Miriam was a bit taken aback by her brother’s startling outburst.
Tom muttered "sorry" to Madam Zuzellam.
Miriam felt awful at hearing how they were treating her brother. She decided right there to do something about it. "Let's go see Headmaster Dippet," she proposed. "Maybe you can switch houses and join Gryffindor."
Tom shook his head. "Nah, they'd never accept me there."
“We’ll never know until we try. C’mon, let’s go!” Miriam said as she literally dragged Tom out of the library and into the Great Hall where dinner was just beginning. "But we'll have to wait until after dinner to talk to Professor Dippet."
Upon entering the Great Hall, Tom and Miriam split up to join their respective tables. The chatter in the Great Hall met Miriam’s ears and made her smile. None of the other students paid any attention to her as she headed toward the Gryffindor table. This made her smile more. Everyone seemed to have long forgotten about her little gas expulsion
Just as Miriam slid into her seat between Minerva McGonagall and Hannah Evans, and began reaching for a tray of shepard’s pie, a tall girl yelled out from across the Slytherin table, “All hail the belch queen!”
Obviously, someone hasn’t FORGOTTEN about that, she thought bitterly as she stuffed a fork full of food into her mouth.
Once dinner was finally over with, Miriam watched Professor Dippet leave the table at the front of the Great Hall and head into a room adjoining the Great Hall.
In the crowd of students leaving, Miriam met up with Tom and together they began following Dippet. They got halfway to the adjacent room when suddenly something blocked them.
"May I help you two with something?" Dumbledore asked looking down at the Riddle kids with a friendly twinkle in his piercing blue eyes. It was like he was trying to x-ray them.
Tom wasn’t sure what to say to him, so he looked intently at Miriam to answer. Miriam got a weird sensation from the intense way he was looking at her.... Ask him, he said. Only she could have sworn she didn’t see his mouth move....
In the blink of an eye she looked away as a shiver went down her spine. Shaking her head, she replied, "Uh... we need to talk with Headmaster Dippet... it's important."
Dumbledore nodded and replied, "Is it anything I could help you with perhaps?"
"Well," Miriam began with a deep sigh, "could we talk in private?"
"Certainly," Dumbledore answered. He led them into an unoccupied classroom and closed the door behind them.
"What do you need to talk about?" he asked, as he took the seat behind the teachers’ desk. Miriam settled herself into a seat in front of the desk and Tom did the same. He looked as if he was starting to have some serious doubts about this.
"You know that during the sorting ceremonies that Tom and I got placed in different houses, and well, Tom's not happy being in Slytherin. Nobody there is nice to him, and we were wondering if he could... uh... possibly transfer to Gryffindor," Miriam said quickly. Dumbledore sat back in his chair and thought about it for a moment.
"Normally, we only allow students to change houses under the most extreme cases," he began, "and nothing of the sort has happened in many centuries. Something like this will have to be brought up with Headmaster Dippet. He will decide whether we should move your brother to Gryffindor... or another house for that matter."
Miriam and Tom smiled at each other.
"Unfortunately," Dumbledore added gravely, "the Sorting Hat virtually never makes a mistake when placing a student."
Dumbledore got up and led them out of the vacant classroom and up to Headmaster Dippet's office. They stopped in front of a large stone gargoyle and Dumbledore gave him the password. "Baubles." The stone gargoyle moved out of the way to reveal a spiral staircase. Dumbledore got on the stairs, followed by Miriam and Tom. These were like no other stairs they had ever seen or been on before. Slowly, they starting winding up and continued to do so until they reached the top where Dumbledore knocked on the door.
“Who is it?"
"It is I," Dumbledore answered. "Tom and Miriam Riddle would like to speak to you for a moment."
"Come on in," Dippet responded. Dumbledore opened the door and they walked in.
"Ah, hello there," Professor Dippet beamed. "So, you two are Tom and Miriam Riddle,” he said jovially. Squarely looking at Tom now, he said, “I remember you! You're the boy who had the longest sorting I've ever seen!" he laughed. "How may I help you?"
Miriam told him the same story she had just told Dumbledore: about how Tom was not happy in Slytherin.
Professor Dippet remained quiet for a moment, thinking over the problem at hand. What Miriam and Tom heard next was neither Dumbledore nor Dippet speaking.
"Perhaps you're wondering why I placed young Tom in Slytherin?" spoke a voice. Miriam and Tom looked up and saw the old, frayed Sorting Hat sitting on the top shelf of Dippet's office.
"I placed him in the house that he’ll most likely succeed in."
"But he isn't happy there," Miriam pleaded.
"I saw his mind, and in it, I saw that he could achieve exceptional things."
Miriam was becoming rightly exasperated with talking to the hat. She turned to Professor Dippet and said, "Surely you can do something, please?"
Headmaster Dippet looked at Miriam and said gently, "I would love to be able to help you, but the Sorting Hat placed him there, and if that's where he's meant to be, then that's where he shall stay."
Miriam nervously glanced over at Tom, who appeared to be on the edge of a tantrum. He took a deep breath and said through gritted teeth, "So that's it, right? 'I'm sorry? You're stuck?' That's it?"
"Tom, it's not..." Professor Dippet began.
"Yes," he hissed at him. He stormed out of the office with Miriam lagging behind, trying to calm him down.
September 30th, 1938
It's been a hair more than two weeks now and Tom is grudgingly adapting to Slytherin. He's been telling me during our meetings that the pestering has let up, except for the rare taunt here and there. At least he's made a couple of friends now, he's told me. Thankfully they haven’t called him any names.
--
"Sometimes they can be really insulting," he told Miriam one day as they sat in the library. "They still pester me for the fact that I'm poor, half-blood, and parentless."
"Have you told them that you don't appreciate it?"
"That would just make them pick on me even more," he sighed. “Mostly, I just try to ignore them.”
Miriam heaved a sigh. They were in the middle of doing their homework assignments one rainy Monday afternoon and Miriam, unfortunately, couldn’t think of the right thing to say to her brother that would make him feel any better.
"Well, I guess it could be worse," Miriam replied slowly. Tom made a grunting noise as he wrote something down on his piece of parchment.
"I just wish I could have switched houses..."
They sat in silence, their quills scratching against the parchment as they wrote.
"So," Miriam began, trying to bring up something more pleasant once a few silent moments had passed, "what are your new friends like?"
"They're okay," he answered. "Their names are Murdoch Black and Carrey Malfoy."
Miriam was looking up another fact in the book she was reading when she said randomly, "Abby's told me a lot about those two, in fact, about Slytherin overall. It seems that most of the Slytherins are very selective and only accept those in their group that are 'pure-blood’. Abby also mentioned something about Slytherin turning out the most dark wizards than any other house. Be very careful with whom you hang out, you don't want to become jaded and evil like them."
Tom stopped writing all together and looked up at Miriam incredulously. "Duh! It's not like I actually planned on being some poor, parentless half-blood. Besides, Murdoch and Carrey aren't like the others. Furthermore, you knew that I wanted to change houses, but that half-witted rhyming hat wouldn't let me switch."
"Yeah, but please just be careful all the same," Miriam said again, her face down in her parchment. "I don't want to see you get hurt. I’m just trying to look out for you. It’s what sisters do."
Tom looked up again and smiled. "Okay, but I don’t need anyone to look out for me. I think I can take care of myself."
Wake me up inside (Save me)...
Call my name and save me from the dark...
(Wake me up) Bid my blood to run...
(I can't wake up) Before I come undone (Save me)...
Save me from the nothing I've become . . ."
October 2nd, 1938,
I had a terrible nightmare last night, it was the worst I’ve ever had. I must have been tossing and turning quite violently, since I awakened to Sophie and Marcella shaking me. They were standing over my bed, both looking extremely scared and worried.
---
That night as Miriam closed her eyes and had gone to sleep, she dreamed that it was a cold, wintry day and she was sitting outside under a tree with her friends. Suddenly, everything in her dream went pitch black and Sophie and Marcella were nowhere to be seen.
"Hello?" Miriam called out nervously. Her voice echoed in the silence and an ice-cold hand grabbed hers, tugging her forward. She wanted to yell, but she soon found that no sound could escape her mouth. Everything moved in slow motion, like she was underwater.
The hand pulled her forward into the castle and through a room where a floor length mirror stood. In the dim room, the candlelight revealed the white and skeleton-like hand to have a grotesque symbol cut into it. The hand belonged to a person wearing a long hooded robe. Miriam couldn't make out who was underneath it. The hand pointed to the mirror and Miriam looked at her mirror image, yet it wasn't quite the image she was expecting, as she was a great deal older in the mirror. Miriam estimated her reflection to be around seventeen years old. She had become a beautiful young lady.
I actually have curves, she smiled to herself.
Pulling her gaze away from the mirror, she looked down at herself and saw that she truly was seventeen years old. She had aged six years in a blink of an eye, but what caught her attention the most were the two badges she wore on her chest. Leaning in the mirror for a closer look, she saw one said "Prefect,” the other "Head Girl." Whatever this dream was trying to tell Miriam, she couldn't guess for the life of her what it could possibly be.
She stood there admiring herself in the reflection until another person appeared beside her... it was Tom, and he, too, was older. Seventeen - like her - to be precise. She turned around and came face to face with her brother. He, as well, was wearing a "Prefect" and "Head Boy" badge.
"Tom, what's going on?" she asked him, hoping maybe he knew what was going on.
Tom looked at her with an apologetic expression on his face. "I'm sorry, Miriam, I really am."
He held up his hands and she saw that they were completely covered in blood. Slowly, the blood dripped from his hands onto the floor, leaving crimson spots all over the ground.
“The blood from hundreds of innocent victims,” he mumbled, as the blood continued to ooze from his hands like from a freshly cut wound.
Miriam stumbled backwards, a look of pure terror on her face. She held her hands up to mouth and gasped for breath. Slowly, she started backing away and began feeling around in the darkness for a door that could get her out of this place. The person in the hooded robe pulled back the head piece to unveil a thin, colorless face with red vertical slits for eyes.
“Your brother will be joining me,” it hissed.
No! she thought. Miriam wanted to scream, yell, do something, but was too stricken with terror and couldn't bring herself to do any of those things.
She glanced back into the mirror again and Tom, who was now gazing into it as well, saw that his reflection wasn't his anymore. It had become that of the thing next to him: tall, skeletally thin with red vertical slits for eyes. Miriam quickly pulled her eyes away from the mirror and looked into the saddened eyes of her again normal looking brother, who was pulling something out from inside his robe.
"I'm sorry, Miriam," Tom said again, his wand now pointed at her. It was the last thing she saw as a bright outburst of green light suddenly blinded her... a high-pitched and cold laughter filled her head.
“No!”
"Miriam! Miriam! Wake up!" Sophie and Marcella were shaking Miriam awake.
"Are you alright?" Marcella exclaimed.
Sophie added, "You were mumbling something, but we couldn't make out what it was... but that's not important. We just want to know if you're alright or not. Do you want us to get the nurse?"
Miriam's head was throbbing with pain. Too many questions, she thought. It simply hurt too much to think.
"Ugh," she complained, slowly sitting up in her bed. "I'm fine, really." Sophie and Marcella exchanged glances. "Guys! I'm fine, honestly! It was just a bad dream. That's all!" Miriam exclaimed.
“You had us worried sick. You were tossing and turning, throwing your sheets around. Look... you even pulled down your curtains,” Sophie pointed out. “We'll help you get your bed back together."
"Thank you," Miriam sighed.
October 5th, 1938,
I haven't told Tom about that nightmare yet. I really don't think I should. He's got enough to dwell on right now and I don't want him to think his sister has gone mental over a silly dream. Yet, it seemed much more realistic than just a dream. I can't explain it... it was almost too real in a way.... I never even told Marcella and Sophie about it.
Speaking of my friends, today was Sophie's birthday. I didn't know what to get her, as I have only known her since the beginning of September, but she said that having me as a friend was more important than gifts. Later she asked me when my birthday was....
---
"October thirty-first,” Miriam replied.
"Ooh, a Halloween birthday, how neat," Sophie beamed.
"It sounds interesting and all, but it lead toward unmerciful teasing at times," Miriam recalled with a shudder.
“Sometimes people can be enormous prats,” Sophie said, rolling her eyes. “Did they even celebrate your birthday at the orphanage?”
“No. Madam Westyn never celebrated anyone’s birthdays at the orphanage,” she answered morosely.
October 21st, 1938,
I had another nightmare last night, though this one wasn’t nearly as bad as the last one. Thank heavens for something, as I don’t think I could handle another one like the last.
This time I dreamed I was in a dreary, desolate place....
---
Where am I? she thought. Looking about, she noticed a narrow pathway leading into a dimly lit area. She followed the pathway, which was lined by snake-head statues. To her side was a shallow pool of water, and right above it was a statue of a man carved into stone. Miriam wondered what type of place she was in... it was very eerie and creeping her out -- big time.
She meandered along a little further and came to a spot in the room separated by two large pillars.
Miriam heard voices coming from around somewhere in the room. They sounded like they were... hissing.... Like snakes, she thought. How very odd.
Whoever was creating the hissing sounds sounded like something was following closely behind them... something large. But what struck Miriam as odd was that she could understand what the person was saying.
"There's someone here... find them..."
She hid behind the pillar and looked ahead, though it wasn’t very well lit. Straining her eyes, she could make out the outline of a person and something that looked to be... a snake!
But this wasn't your everyday, commonplace snake. This one was about sixty feet long she guessed. Miriam drew in her breath and held it as she didn’t want to be discovered by that monstrosity.
Please don't find me.... Please don't find me,she prayed.
The colossal snake slithered on by, right past where Miriam was hiding. She breathed a deep sigh of relief once it left, but unfortunately, the monster heard her. Slowly it’s turned around, trying to find the source of the sound... it's next victim. Miriam's intuition was ordering her to not look into its eyes, though she didn't understand why. Yet, she followed her instincts and shut her eyes just as the monstrous serpent pounced down on her... her heart began to pound in her chest... she opened her eyes... half expecting to find herself being devoured by it. But instead, she found herself back in the safety of her bed.
Sighing, she rolled to her side and tried to shake off the frightful images of her dream.
A/N: Music lyrics used above are from the song "Bring Me To Life" by Evanescence