An Otherworldly Experience (Tom Riddle Era)

Chapter Nine

Kelli knew that she should not have said that the moment she had said it, but she had said it and that was that.

Riddle grabbed her arm with a tight grip. "What do you know?"

"I know a lot of things." She could almost feel the blood rushing to her face.

"You know that I'm the Heir of Slytherin," Riddle stated coolly.

Kelli stepped closer to him, even though she was literally in arm's reach with him holding her arm and she asked quietly with an equally as cold voice, "And what do you plan to do?"

A small pause. "Use you," he replied, letting go of her. "Like the others."

"So glad you've finally said it," Kelli spat out coldly, a tone sarcastic. Neither moved, glaring at the other. Then, as Kelli usually did before she left him, she smiled at him with a kind smile unsuited to their encounter, and said, "Well, I'm hungry and dinner's soon. See you in class, Riddle."

Riddle nodded curtly and Kelli turned around walked to the Great Hall.

Kelli was terrified. She actually wanted to cry with her anger and her fear. Kelli wasn't confrontational, when she got angry she started to cry and that wasn't at all cool. She was only slightly relieved she hadn't shown weakness in front of Riddle but hell if she ever did it again, she probably wouldn't be able to keep her cool.

Her hands had started to shake, her heart was pumping fast. She also thought she was totally going to die or at least get petrified. Or maybe she'd warded the attacks off. Or maybe he was confident in believing she wouldn't say anything - maybe he was confident he'd get her to like him.

Kelli's mind was in overdrive, she didn't know what the hell was going to happen. Maybe she should have just kept her mouth shut and lied to him that yeah they were friends. Her pride had gotten the better of her.

"Kelli- Kelli, are you okay?" Lauren asked, grabbing onto her shoulders. By the sounds and looks of it, Elizabeth and Lauren had been calling out and they looked quite concerned.

"Oh, um, I don't wanna talk about it here," Kelli muttered, not even thinking about not wanting to tell them what had happened. "C-can we get dinner first?" she asked, clearly quite shaken.

They both looked at each other before nodding once. "Alright. Let's get dinner, but we'll go down to the kitchen."

"I'd rather in the Hall," Kelli told them, not wanting to seem weak to Riddle.

"I mean, we'd rather you don't, right?" Elizabeth asked, clarifying with Lauren.

"Give us a short version."

"I'm pissed the hell off and I want to spite Riddle," Kelli answered, a tad shaky.

"Oh."

"Okay. But we're definitely getting details," Elizabeth responded and they head into the Great Hall.

Kelli took a seat opposite Lauren and Elizabeth, her back towards the Slytherin table and back to the door. It was passive aggressive enough. She didn't eat too much and neither did Lauren or Elizabeth who were trying their hardest to not appear concerned for Kelli, although they were failing at it, Kelli found it quite endearing to say the least. Kelli looked up at them for the sixth time that dinner before she started to laugh at them, staring at her with faces that looked concerned but also in pain.

"My Lord, girls, you two look dumb," she joked at them, a giant grin on her face.

"Look, we're really just concerned about the relationship," Elizabeth retorted.

Kelli put a hand on her chest and say, "You must be, I never thought of it. I must be sacrificed to the nearest volcano."

"Well that just means it's gone forever."

"We'll make the decision to throw you into either an active volcano or a dormant one. With or without him," Lauren then added, nodding her head.

"I choose dormant for me, active for him," Kelli replied, thoroughly meaning it but saying it lightly like a joke. She felt a lot better joking around with Elizabeth and Lauren.

They laughed and both said, "We'll see."

The door clicked behind Kelli and she cast a spell to lock it like they usually did. While the other two didn't expect anyone to enter their room and frankly, neither did Kelli, Kelli just liked the extra security when she owned so many books.

Kelli turned around, expecting eyes on her, which they were. Both of her roommates and friends sat on Kelli's bed, looking at Kelli.

"Honestly, a lot of this is on me," Kelli started, walking closer and sitting on her own trunk. "When I left here earlier when we were talking about Riddle, I'd run into he and his group. As you know, they're not the kindest of people, they were tripping people up as they passed. I hadn't really noticed that, reading my book when I did. They tripped me up, I attacked back. Riddle asked me that I don't say anything to the Professor's, saying we were friends. I told him we weren't friends but that I wouldn't say anything about him. I told Professor Dumbledore, the closest Professor, about it but excluded him."

"Go back a second, you said you're not friends?" asked Lauren. "Aren't you?"

Kelli shrugged a shoulder and said, "Riddle and I have always been, at most, friendly. But we've never been friends. At this moment, I suppose Riddle doesn't think of anyone as friends. Anyway. I was tutoring Hagrid - uh, a second year from Gryffindor, the really big kid, from there. I suppose Professor Dumbledore had gotten the other four in trouble, given them detentions. Riddle came after Hagrid had left to thank me."

"This doesn't really sound bad."

"Well, instead of thanking me, which I suppose was my fault because he had snuck up on me and made me flinch, so I called him creepy," Kelli added, continuing her story. "He asked me why I didn't think of him as a friend and why I'd laughed when he had asked earlier. I'd laughed at the time. I asked him if he saw me as a friend like he saw those he hung out with - cruel people. He said yes, because they were his friends. I told him that if that were the case, we weren't friends, accusing him that he wouldn't be friends with a muggleborn if his friends were all for blood purity. If he'd easily betray their ideals for someone else, then that's not a friend I'd want," Kelli muttered. "I said something quite unkind, I'd rather not say that again. He grabbed my arm, he admitted that he didn't have friends for the sake of having friends, he had those people because they could be used."

Lauren and Elizabeth looked quiet.

Kelli didn't want to tell them that he was the Heir of Slytherin. Because if he still went ahead on his attacks next year, they wouldn't be safe with that information. And sure, in her old life she'd be the type of person to yell at the protagonist whenever that happened, but she was finally in that situation. She sure as hell wouldn't be yelling at them now.

"Well, I guess you've made yourself sound unjustified, but knowing you, you were very likely very justified," Elizabeth said gently. "So that's it, Tom Riddle is dead to us. What an ass. Literally saying he doesn't have friends but insisting that you're one of them? What a gross human being."

Kelli took amusement in her language, Kelli had said enough weird things that they had started to pick up on it.

"Prick," Lauren agreed, with a nod. "Absolute tosser."

Kelli smiled at them both but didn't say anything. If there was anything about Hufflepuff that could be said in the two of them, it was their absolute loyalty, even though Kelli hadn't been totally honest with them.