OF SERPENT AND ANGEL ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎➝ tom riddle ¹ | ✓ |

THREE

The Hogwarts train rode northwards through the green farmlands of southern Scotland on its journey to Hogsmeade station. Eliza Galway was seated by the window, her blonde hair in its usual up-do as she read the book open in her left hand, flipping the pages with her right. She was clad in full Hogwarts uniform; a past-the-knee grey skirt with white socks and button up shirt, which was covered by the grey sweater and black robes. The green and silver tie was also impeccably knotted around her collar and tucked under the top two layers of clothing, a Head Girl pin on the left side of her robe, the Slytherin emblem on the right.

It was rare for the Head Boy and Girl to be from the same House, but that year it had not even been a difficult decision for the Headmaster. Tom Riddle and Eliza Galway were easily the top of their year, both having records cleaner than perhaps ever in the school's history, not having served a single detention, nor had points deducted. Both were incredible students, receiving O's in all their O.W.L.s and were well off to keep up the record in their N.E.W.T.s.

Opposite Eliza sat Atha Creage who looked out of the window in boredom. Her warm brown eyes were unfocused as she kept blowing away a brown lock of hair that stubbornly continued to fall across her face. Her American Shorthair cat was curled in her lap as she scratched behind his ears and the pet purred loudly.

"Can you believe that we're already starting our final year?" said Atha, breaking the comfortable silence of their shared compartment. "I feel as if we just rowed across the lake in those horribly unstable boats for our first year."

"I find it more difficult to grasp the notion that for the first time in my life, I will be apart from all my family at once," replied Eliza, her green eyes still quickly reading the pages of the book in her hand. "Now that Kitty has graduated, I will be the last of the Galway's in Hogwarts."

"That may be a good thing," the other said with a slight shrug of her shoulders. "You'll have more privacy and space and all that."

"Perhaps, but that won't mean I won't miss them incredibly," said Eliza, still reading the book as she spoke simultaneously. Her incredible skill of multitasking was somewhat of a wonder to most, many found it unsettling and others grew envious.

The brunette sat up and looked at the girl opposite whose eyes were still moving at a quick pace as she read. "Well then it is only a matter of finding something else to preoccupy you with," Atha said with a suggestive smirk tugging at her lips. "Or perhaps someone is more appropriate wording."

"I don't think a boy will do much difference," the blonde said with a smile, finally closing her book as she reached the end of the chapter. "There's a certain danger in being apart from one's family."

"What dangers could you possibly face at school?" Atha said, quirking her right eyebrow.

Eliza only shrugged.

"But, even if a boy may not be a replacement for your family, there can be no harm in it," she continued.

"There absolutely can," the blonde argued. "I'm Head Girl, and we're taking our N.E.W.T.s in no less than ten months, and I will not be distracted from my studies. Second best simply will not do."

Atha sighed as she shook her head at her friend, the curl once more falling over her face and she resigned and left it there. "Well, fine," she surrendered, "but for the sake of my entertainment, if you were to be courted by a boy, then who's the one with the biggest chance?"

Eliza took a minute to consider the question before answering. "William Fullmore," she replied unabashedly.

"Fullmore? Really?" the girl raised her eyebrows. "He is tolerable at best."

"I find him to be most amiable," she replied. "He's kind and considerate, and not even slightly selfish. Not crass like all the other boys."

"Perhaps I must agree with you," Atha said thoughtfully. "Thaddeus and Fritz are both most ungentlemanlike, and whilst Tom may have manners, there's something thoroughly off with him."

"If I were under oath I would have to admit that he does scare me a little," the blonde said, instantly feeling uneasy at the thought of the boy. "He's just so incredibly cold, barely even human."

Atha hummed a little in agreement. "Don't let him hear you speak in that manner of him," she said then. "He'll come after you."

"I rather believe he would be pleased by it," Eliza said, brushing a curled lock behind her ear as her eyes cast a quick glance at the corridor behind the glass compartment door. "Tom Riddle enjoys inspiring fear, which only gives one more reason to fear him."

"But he did save the school, you must not forget," Atha spoke. "He's the one who caught that boy who opened the Chamber of Secrets with the beast that killed the Ravenclaw and petrified all the other students. I for one find it most unsettling that he is working as Groundskeeper now. He's a murderer, and they let him stay at the school."

"I've always thought it difficult to believe that Hagrid was behind that; he always seemed so good-willed," she replied. "But do you not find it odd for the Heir of Slytherin to be a Gryffindor?"

The brunette shrugged. "Perhaps," she said. "But I don't give it much thought, I'd mostly just like to forget all about that year. But we can't forget that we all own our lives to Tom, no matter how eerie he may be."

Eliza pressed her lips together, not quite pleased with that statement. "Have you heard the way his ... friends speak to him?" she asked Atha. "I could swear that I've heard them address him as 'My Lord' ... that's rather extreme, even for Tom. And they always do whatever he says and none of them speak much around him."

"I don't quite understand why you're so suspicious of him," Atha said. "Of course, I would never hope to be left alone with him or forced to be around him too much at once, but certainly you are exaggerating a little. Everyone loves him, including all the professors."

"Not Dumbledore."

"Maybe Dumbledore doesn't like him because he wins us the House Cup every year and he wants his own House to win it," she shrugged.

Perhaps Atha was right, perhaps she was imagining. But no matter how many good deeds Tom Riddle might have done, she couldn't fight the feeling she got whenever the boy was around. It made the hairs at the back of her neck stand up and the butterflies in her stomach to wake into an anxious flight.  Tom Riddle may have been a hero, and perhaps she should be more grateful to him, but Eliza could not ignore the aura of threat that loomed around him like an invisible cloud. He was much darker than the world had yet to know, but to Eliza Galway, it would not remain a mystery much longer.

so I changed my mind and this is actually gonna start in their seventh year and not their fifth

love you all, hope you enjoyed