For the Greater Good || Tom Riddle ||

Chapter Five: The Hat Box

Midnight Astronomy went by in deathly silence. The class was taught by none other than Professor Perpetua Fancourt, the inventor of the Lunascope. She drawled on and on about the phases of the moon, specifically emphasizing that the night "featured a waxing crescent."

She also talked about Centaurs, how they decided that they would rather be deemed beasts than beings as they did not want to share such status with hags and vampires, and cited Newt Scamander's Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them approximately every other sentence when trying to describe the creatures' natural knack for astronomy.

Gwen had refused to look at Tom during the entire lesson. However, she could have sworn she could almost feel the magical aura pouring off of him in waves from the other side of the tower. It was a soft, pulsating sensation that crept up her spine.

She had forced herself to concentrate on observing the surface of the moon displayed in the lens of her Lunascope. She could not afford to be tangled up in anything but her schooling and her task. As the class came to a close around one o'clock in the morning, Gwen had hurriedly made her way down the staircase.

It was now officially the end of her first day of school at Hogwarts; it was the slowest day of her life.

The Scottish castle had not failed to entice her curiosity. The atmosphere had proved to be quite magical indeed, but in a different way than Durmtrang. In fact, magic at Hogwarts seemed to be something else entirely.

The students of the four Houses seemed to all take distinct views on how magic should practically be applied.

The Ravenclaws, it seemed, enjoyed using magic to invent and formulate ideas. In the Common Room, Gwen had stumbled across several students pouring various substances into small vials. The liquid became cloudy and clumpy, and eventually, turned into solid matter. What they were trying to create, Gwen hadn't the slightest clue.

She had found that the Gryffindors liked to use magic in a slightly less approved way. While she walked down one of the main halls, she had spotted a group of boys exchanging small parcels of what looked to be various herbs and live animals. Gwen couldn't begin to imagine what they were going to do with such ingredients, but was able to deduce that they were behind the infamous stink bomb that went off in History of Magic while she was in Charms.

The Hufflepuffs were more conservative witches and wizards. During lunch, Gwen had overheard a posse of girls discussing their future careers. Many expressed their interest to stay home and look after their kids, while a few others said that they wished to be healers at the wizarding hospital in London called St. Mungo's or members of the Ministry.

And from what she could tell so far, Walburga Black was not wrong when she assumed that Gwen would be sorted into Slytherin. Students from the serpentine House held many of the same qualities that students at Durmstrang possessed. A dislike for muggle-borns and a fascination with the Dark Arts were among some of the similarities.

But any likeness between Hogwarts and Durmstrang ended there.

For instance, duelling and martial magic were not of utmost importance at Hogwarts. The Hogwarts professors were merely witches and wizards with a passion for teaching magic to young people. Gwen's new professors were not authoritarians nor drill sergeants.

And there were certainly no students like Tom Riddle at Durmstrang Institute.

The students adored his suave charisma. The professors ate up his articulate answers. Everyone was under Tom Riddle's spell of polite charm and polished smiles.

But as Gwen climbed to the top of Ravenclaw Tower, her thoughts drifted and darkened towards one professor in particular. One who did not seem to favor Tom Riddle.

Professor Albus Dumbledore.

His piercing blue eyes nearly haunted all of her thoughts when she was not in class, and she even found herself thinking of them when she was. Her mind drifted to the textured piece of paper she had removed from her pocket after her encounter with Tom Riddle in the library. Now, it was stuffed in the bookcase next to her bed, inside her copy of The Tales of Beedle the Bard for safekeeping.

The Prefects had returned from duty, and nearly every soul in the Ravenclaw Tower was fast asleep. Gwen snuck into the girl's dormitory with little to no trouble. Jane was lightly snoring in the bed next to Gwen's, obviously exhausted after waking up so early that morning. She had mentioned at dinner that she had been sleeping in all summer.

From what Gwen had gathered after her first day of Hogwarts, Jane was a pleasant girl with a slightly melodramatic personality. She loved to express her own opinions, but resented it when other's expressed theirs that were not within her standing.

Jane was the first muggle-born student Gwen had ever interacted with. She was surprised when she found out Jane was quite gifted at Charms.

At Durmstrang, it was always said that muggle-born students struggled with magic and often had questionable morals, just like their relatives that were fighting in the Muggle War. However, there were no muggle-born students at Durmstrang to disprove this, so the rumor kept circulating until it eventually became perceived to be fact.

Gwen walked passed Jane quietly, observing the girl's features as she slept. Her dark hair had been tied back from her face with a ribbon, and it curled slightly just around her temples. She had a rather large nose, and thick lips. And even in sleep, her brow was stern.

A curious thought ran across Gwen's mind, and she briefly wondered what the girl's childhood was like. However, she did not dwell on the thought long as she changed into her night clothes, sat on her bed, and opened a book.

As soon as she opened a page, the note fluttered out, and Gwen quickly bent down to grab the piece of textured paper off of the floor. She noticed the crushed velvet hat box stashed under the bedframe, and quickly straightened up to sit. She looked around the room.

Everyone was still asleep.

Cautiously, constantly looking about to see if anyone was going to wake up, she slowly inched herself off of the bed. She winced as the mattress let out a sharp squeak. Still, no one stirred from their slumber. Gwen picked up the box and placed it next to her atop the bed.

In one fluid motion, she opened the box and pulled out a piece of cloth. Its silvery, silky material seemed to catch the moonlight and absorb it. In wonder, Gwen pulled it over her lap.

Immediately, her lower half disappeared.

Gwen looked down at the book on her bed, The Tales of Beedle the Bard. Stories whirled through her head, and she took a deep breath.

She ran a slender hand over the enigmatic material.

Quietly, in awe, she whispered, "The Cloak of Invisibility."