"All things may corrupt when minds are prone to evil. ~ Ovid (Roman poet - 43 BC to 17 AD)
August 30th, 1939,
We're finally heading back to Hogwarts. From the time we arrived back at the orphanage, Tom and I literally counted down the days until we would head back to school for our second year. Tom was exceptionally elated about leaving, as the other boys in his dormitory frequently harassed him. It nearly escalated into a fistfight once. And since our return to the orphanage, Mme. Westyn has not made things easy for us at all, particularly for Tom. Whenever the others would start their teasing, Tom would always be the one to take the blame. Lately she’s been getting physical with him. Why just the other day, she hit him so hard, it left a small bruise on his cheek.
I'm lucky enough to not have scrapes with the girls in my dorm, as they generally dismiss me and keep for the most part to themselves. They rarely speak to me, but when they do, it’s usually to call me 'freak'... or something much worse. Yet things have never gotten as bad as with Tom.
Truly, I don’t know how he can continue to deal with all this. He's vented to me about this numerous times, but I can’t help but wonder if he’s bottling some of his anger... just waiting for the right time to release it. If the Ministry regulations should ever permit underage wizards to do magic away from Hogwarts, I can guarantee you that Tom and I would have cursed everyone at Mme. Westyn’s by now. To them, we are nothing more than the social outcasts, the pariahs if you will, of Mme. Westyn’s orphanage. Sadly, she does absolutely nothing to subdue the problem.
---
They were finally heading back to Hogwarts after suffering months of ridicule from their peers at the orphanage. On their journey back, Tom and Miriam chose to sit by themselves in a vacant compartment on the train, as neither wanted any uninvited callers. Tom sat on one side, his eyelids becoming progressively heavier, while she sat on the other. Though his head was turned, she could still see the bruise slightly on the side of his face.
Mme. Westyn can be such a pain-the-ass at times, she thought bitterly.
As there was nothing of interest to do besides look out the window, Miriam pulled out her diary and began writing in it. As the sounds of Tom softly snoring filled her ears, she began writing in her diary until a knock at the compartment door interrupted her. Quickly glancing up, she saw that it was her friends, Sophie and Marcella. Running up to the door, she thrust it open so they could enter.
"Come on in," she grinned, standing behind the door. "I've really missed you guys!"
"Hi Miriam," Sophie greeted as walking into the compartment, closely followed by Marcella.
"We've missed you so much!" After giving each other a big hug, Marcella giggled, "It's so wonderful to see you again. Talking by letter is okay, but it's better when you can see your friend in person."
By this time, Tom had awoken from his short nap, and he scowled angrily at the intruders.
“It’s okay, Tom,” his sister reassured him. The angry expression he wore soon faded, but it didn’t disappear entirely.
“Tom!” Sophie exclaimed. “What happened to your face?”
Tom brought up his hand to touch his face and grimaced slightly. “I don’t want to talk about it,” he muttered, not looking at her.
For most of the remaining train ride, the three friends caught up on their activities during the summer. During their conversation, Miriam looked over at her brother. At one point, she noticed that he still appeared a bit sulky as he glared out the window, quietly fingering his injury.
Discreetly giving a sideways glance to her friends, they picked up on her message. Sophie looked at Tom and asked him how his summer had gone. Tom shrugged his shoulders.
"If you consider living in a cesspool with a spiteful headmistress, where everyone seems to hate your guts fun, then I guess was okay," he scoffed, still peering out at the window.
“No need to be rude,” Miriam chided. “She was just --"
"-- asking about my summer,” he frowned, finally pulling his gaze away from the window to look directly at her. His mouth was pursed together tightly.
"So,” Marcella said, interrupting them in hopes of lightening the atmosphere, “you must’ve been really looking forward to going back to Hogwarts, then.”
"Obviously,” he answered, returning his gaze to out the window, “I wish we didn't have to leave it at all."
"Oh, look!" Sophie exclaimed, after an hour had elapsed. "We're almost here!" The foursome gathered around the window, and sure enough they could make out the tiny form of Hogwarts, it’s many turrets and towers visible in the distance.
Once they made their way off the train and into the cool and breezy night air, they stopped to look around. There were students wandering in every which direction, leaving little room for the quartet. Suddenly a Fifth year girl came bounding off the train and nearly ran into Tom in an apparent rush to meet up with some of her friends.
“Watch it!” he shouted at her, but the girl was already off in the distance and didn’t hear him. “Where do we go now?” Tom complained as he rubbed his shoulder from the impact.
"Over here. We’ll be riding in these," Sophie replied, indicating at the horseless carriages a few feet away.
“Don’t we have to take the boat again?” Miriam asked naively.
“Only First years take the boat,” Sophie corrected. “Everyone else rides in carriages.”
Upon encountering an unoccupied carriage, the youngsters climbed aboard and settled down in their seats. The carriages slowly began to move... by themselves.
“Look!” Miriam exclaimed, pointing outside. It was an eerie sight seeing the carriages move without any help. Tom leaned forward in his seat and stuck his head out the window. The cool breeze mussed his jet-black hair, and when he pulled his head back in, the grin on his face stretched from ear-to-ear. “It's amazing how it moves without any horses to pull it," Miriam breathed.
The carriage continued its trek through the darkness and around the castle, eventually making its way to the other side where, once it came to a halt, the kids jumped out and met the other students who had already gotten off.
"Hey, Riddle!" a cold, drawling voice yelled out. They turned around and came face-to-face with a Second year boy with a long, pointed face, pale blond hair, and a Slytherin crest on his robe. "What on earth are you doing fraternizing with those Gryffindors, Riddle?"
Miriam felt an instant dislike for the boy with the sharp tongue and irritating voice. She equated his unnerving voice to a dull blade slowly cutting through her or nails scratching on a chalk board. She looked at her brother and could see him turn a dark shade of crimson.
"I, uh, had nobody to ride with," he muttered, completely caught off guard by his friend’s remark.
“It could be worse, I guess. You could have been riding with those Dufferpuffs.”
"It's Hufflepuff,” Miriam interrupted crisply.
The boy scowled intensely at Miriam for what seemed like ad infinitum. Take a picture, it lasts longer... she wanted to yell, but she refrained from doing so.
"You must be his sister,” he commented, raising his one eyebrow. “He's told me about you. Mary or Mariah, was it?"
"It's Miriam," she replied, scowling back. What an idiot.
"I'm Carrey... Carrey Malfoy," the boy revealed.
"These are my friends, Sophie Prewett and Marcella Thomas." Carrey eyed them for a moment and then repeated, "Prewett? Thomas? I've heard of you. Both of your parents are Mudblood lovers,” he muttered to the indignation of both Sophie and Marcella. “I would have expected better from pureblood girls' families.”
Miriam had no idea what a 'Mudblood' was, but obviously Sophie and Marcella knew. From the looks on their faces - a cross between severely affronted and intense anger - Miriam reckoned that it wasn't a good term. Sophie crossed her arms over her chest and snarled through gritted teeth, "You filthy, stuck-up, no good, little cretin! If I -"
“I guess it’s true then,” Carrey shot back. “When you fell into the ignorance forest, you must’ve hit every branch on the way down.”
"Hey, what's going on over here?" somebody yelled. Running up to where the disruption was, to Miriam’s great relief, was her friend Abby Bones.
"Abby, he called us Mudblood lovers!" Sophie attested, outraged. "He has to pay for that!"
Abby looked from Sophie and Marcella to Tom and Miriam. Her gaze finally fell on Carrey. "Don't worry," she enunciated cunningly, a smile slowly creeping onto her face as if she had something unscrupulous up her robe sleeve. Giving a small wink to the girls, she strolled away, leaving them all a bit bemused.
"What was that all abou?" Marcella whispered to Sophie. Sophie merely shrugged her shoulders, as she couldn’t make hide nor hair of what Abby had planned.
"Let's go, Riddle," Carrey motioned to Tom. He and Carrey meandered up to the castle, eventually being joined by Carrey’s other chum, Murdoch Black.
Miriam did not like Tom's friends at all. She thought Carrey was the biggest moron in the entire school. Thinking about this made her giggle, but she quickly stifled it before her friends could hear her.
Watching them from a good distance back, her happiness faded away as she worried that by hanging around them, Tom would eventually become an arrogant, self-centered, rude prat like them, picking up on their pureblood overzealousness.
"Let’s go," suggested Marcella, breaking Miriam of her thoughts. "The feast will likely be starting soon. We don’t want to miss it."
While they trudged their way across the massive lawn, something was nagging inside her mind. "What’s a 'Mudblood?'" she asked. Marcella and Sophie stopped walking and exchanged a worrisome look.
"A 'Mudblood,'” Sophie began, “is a derogatory name for someone who isn't pureblood. It means 'dirty blood' and generally isn't used in normal, polite conversation. The purebloods use it as a way of bringing down the half-bloods and Muggle-borns."
"Abby’s pureblood," Marcella noted, "and so is Sophie. Oh, and don’t forget Peter Longbottom. It just goes to show that there are some good purebloods out there."
"Precisely,” Sophie verified, grinning at Marcella. “It’s most unfortunate though that people like the Malfoys feel that anyone who has Muggle blood in them is below them and isn’t suitable to practice magic."
"Do you want to know something?" Marcella asked. “If wizards and witches hadn't married Muggles, the whole wizarding population would have perished centuries ago.”
They reached the entrance of Hogwarts just in time, as upon walking into the Great Hall, they could see the sorting ceremony was about to begin. They found their way to the Gryffindor table, and sat down just as Professor Dumbledore began to read off the names of the nervously waiting First year students.
Viewing the ceremony brought back memories of when she herself had gone through it just last year. She recalled how frightened she was as the hat was placed on her head. It took some time, but eventually the hat decided upon placing her in Gryffindor. Almost as soon as she'd left to join her house mates, Tom had sat down and had the hat set on his head. His sorting was acknowledged to be the longest on record at Hogwarts. With bated breath, she'd waited in hopes that the hat would call out Gryffindor, but she was profoundly disappointed when it finally settled on Slytherin House. Why and for what reason it put him there, Miriam didn't understand.
Thinking of Slytherin at that exact moment, she looked over at their table and saw Tom eagerly watching the ceremonies as well. One-by-one, the crowd of nervous First year students reduced, and before long, there were none left. Miriam peered around the table at the new Gryffindor students who were looking scared.
Kind of how I must have looked last year, she thought.
September 5th, 1939,
When Abby told to us not to "worry" that night when a particular prat by the name of Carrey Malfoy insulted my friends and me, she sincerely DID mean to NOT worry. Earlier today at breakfast, she extracted her revenge on the snotty-nosed imbecile.
I only wish that I could fix his expression into my memory forever...
---
"Let’s see," Abby began slowly as she twirled her lengthy red hair between her fingers in an attempt to prolong this embarrassing moment and make it even more agonizing for Carrey. "For insulting three of my fellow house mates with your rotten tongue and use of that monstrous word, I will subtract five points for each person to whom you said it. That adds up to a total of 15 points you just lost for Slytherin. Kudos to you. Remember this the next time you insult someone from my house!" She walked off with a self-satisfied smile on her face, leaving a stunned Carrey behind with a look of absolute shock, horror, and confusion on his face.
Across the Great Hall at the Gryffindor table, Miriam, Sophie, Marcella, and their house-mates watched the debacle with much rejoicing, while those at the Slytherin table began pointing and whispering furiously at Abby as she swaggered back toward the Gryffindors.
Serves that jerk right, Miriam chuckled to herself.
Without delay, a boy with short dark-brown hair got up from the Slytherin table and forcefully advanced toward the Gryffindor table.
"Listen here, Gryffindors," he barked, as he violently shook his fist at them, "I don't --"
"Aw, Stephane, put a sock in it, you blowhard," Abby bellowed curtly, cutting him off in mid-sentence. "Carrey did something wrong and needed to be punished for it. End of story. If you don't like it, go snivel to Professor Dippet!"
“Make like your robe... and split!”
“You are such a pompous retard!” Abby reciprocated, rolling her eyes at Stephane’s lack of maturity. "Your gripe is with me, not them, so don’t get your knickers in bunch!”
“It takes one to know one, you old hag."
“Oh, for the love of Merlin, Stephane... that’s all you ever do is bitch,” Abby complained. “Sadly, it’s a shame that somewhere, you are depriving a village of an idiot.”
The Gryffindors snickered loudly.
Rolling her eyes, she turned on her heels and stormed out of the Great Hall with Stephane following closely behind her, bellowing all the way. "We're not done here, Abby!" he shouted.
“Oh, I think we are!” she yelled back.
Gryffindor two, Slytherin nil! Miriam thought, the corners of her mouth tugging up into a grin.
"Those two," a voice giggled. The girls looked around and saw Minerva McGonagall shaking her head, a smile on her face. "I remember in my first year, Stephane was always trying to ask Abby out on a date, but she'd turn him down each and every time. I have a feeling that he still likes her, though. It might be why they're always bickering."
"How so?" Miriam inquired.
"Well," Minerva began, leaning into the table as to get closer to Miriam, "since he hasn't been able to adequately express his true feelings for her, those feelings for her sort of turned into resentment. But I think he still likes her; it's not hard to notice if you watch him. It's the way he looks at her... it’s... it’s just there.”
Miriam and her friends snickered. "Ooh, unrequited love!”
“I can't believe that Stephane actually fancies someone -- especially Abby," Sophie replied in shock, raising her eyebrow. "If I remember correctly, last year during the first Quidditch match of the season, he knocked Abby out of the air with his broom."
"We are talking about Stephane here," Minerva answered, taking a sip from her cup. "He has his own... um... unique way of showing affection."
"Affliction should be more the word," Miriam jested. This set them off laughing and caused Minerva to snort out her drink out through her nose, which just caused them laugh even harder.
October 13th, 1939
When I went to the library today to get some books for a homework assignment, I happened to see Tom and his friends through a space in one of the ledges. Considering I was just in the next section over, I couldn't help but listen in to what they were saying.
---
"It says here that only the heir of Slytherin can open the Chamber of Secrets," a voice quoted, which Miriam knew at once was Carrey's.
"Look at this," a different voice announced, one whom she guessed to belong to Murdoch. "It says here it's located somewhere within the school."
Carrey lowered his voice, and Miriam had to strain to hear him. Leaning in closer to the bookshelf, she heard him say, "They say it's inhabited by a monster!"
"Really?" Tom and Murdoch inquired in hushed, but totally awestruck voices.
"Yes. They say it’s supposed to be something very frightening... something horrifying!" Carrey answered matter of factly.
"How do you know?" Tom demanded.
"Father's told me all about it," he answered authoritatively, sticking out his chest. “Honestly, your ignorance is encyclopedic,” he snapped.
From the other side, Miriam couldn’t help but let out a small gasp. A Chamber of Secrets? A monster? She wasn't quite sure what to make of this. As she pondered it, a small first year boy toddled into where Tom and his friends were.
“Hi!” he squeaked.
“Out!” Tom yelled, pointing his wand at him, causing the boy to tremble. A blue light shot out from Tom’s wand, sending the boy scrambling away.
Well, that was just rude! she thought as the small boy ran screaming by her and out of the library.
Grabbing the rest of the books she needed, she turned around and left the aisle, only to have a near run-in with Tom.
"Oh, hi Miriam," he murmured.
She returned the greeting, trying hard to hide the shock of what she had just heard and seen.
"I was just, uh, getting some books for the Transfiguration assignment,” she replied quickly and left before he could reply.
"Oh, okay. I guess I'll see you in class then," he called after her.
Once she got back to Gryffindor common room, she pulled Sophie and Marcella into a vacant corner in the common room and asked them what they knew about the Chamber of Secrets.
"The only thing I've ever head about it was that it was supposed to be a myth," Sophie answered. "Why do you ask?"
Miriam debated whether to tell her that it was Tom who had brought it up. Finally, she figured that telling her would be best. "I overheard Tom and his friends talking about it in the library today. Carrey said that a horrible monster is supposed to dwell within it. He boasted that his father knows a lot about it.”
Sophie and Marcella looked at each other, Sophie raising her eyebrow in surprise. "I don't think Carrey's father even knows that much about it. Sounds like he only knows what's common knowledge, at least, what’s common knowledge for those who do know about it," Sophie answered.
"He also said something about only the heir of Slytherin can open the Chamber. They were looking at some books about it," Miriam added.
"Only the heir can open it?" Sophie repeated. "We really should ask Professor Dumbledore about it. He would probably know a lot about it." Marcella nodded her head vigorously in agreement.
"No! We can't!" Miriam hissed quietly. "If we tell Dumbledore that I overheard Tom and his friends talking about it, he'll probably ask them, and then they'll know I heard their conversation!"
"I really wouldn't worry about it then," Marcella contributed as she looked around the common room, making sure no one could hear them. "I'm sure that the Chamber is just what Sophie said it is: a myth and nothing more."
Miriam had to agree with them. The Chamber of Secrets was probably just some made-up place to scare First and Second years with.