i am lord voldemort • Tom Riddle

XXI:

Even the sun felt different under a free sky. It was preposterous, of course, since Hogsmeade was hardly a world away from Hogwarts— barely more than a handful of miles— but Ophelia still couldn't help close her eyes and tilt her head to embrace it. It's soft, warm fingers ran down her arms and the wind tugged at her hair like an old friend.

She never wanted to move again.

A hand patted her once on the shoulder and Ophelia reopened her eyes just in time to see Tom stride past her to direct the others. Eventually, when she'd absorbed her fill of the scenery from that first step out the tunnel, when she'd memorised every last leaf that littered the ground and the dew drops that clung to them, she followed after at an easy pace. Seeing them all head into the Three Broomsticks made an apprehensive shiver roll down her spine, despite being anything but cold. It seemed too bold, going in there. What if it got back to the professors?

Tentatively, she pressed her hands against the rough-worn door and entered to the sound of soft tinkling of bells. Several of the others were already pressing two tables together in the back, much to the annoyance of the man at the bar. Suddenly, a young girl, so small Ophelia hadn't seen her standing beside the barkeep, ran up to her.

"Well?" the girl demanded, placing her hands on her hips just above where her dress flared out at a near ninety degree angle, filled nearly to the breaking point with fabric and painfully vibrant tulle. "Don't just stand there letting the air out. Sit down already!"

Over the child's shoulder, the man hollered, embarrassed, "Rosie, stop antagonizing the customers!"

She huffed and stomped back over to the person Ophelia presumed to be her father. "I told you to stop calling me that! I'm not a kid anymore..."

"You'll always be a kid to me, Rosemerta," he said fondly, ushering her into the back, where she couldn't cause anymore trouble.

Ophelia slipped into a stool at the front, content to just observe for awhile.

"What'll it be?" the barkeep asked, reaching for a glass.

"No, nothing for me,. I don't have any money." She never needed it, stuck at Hogwarts year round, nor had it been much use in the less than legal nature of her upbringing. "Thank you, though." It struck her then, how inconsiderate it was to take up space there when she had no intention of buying anything, so she made to leave. There was still so much of Hogsmeade left to explore before they returned to the castle. It would have been criminal to waste it indoors anyway.

"Would you watch where you're going?" Fenella snapped, and only Ophelia's classically conditioned response to sensing a threat to her life that allowed her to swerve to the side just in time to avoid a collision. Fenella was certainly a threat worthy of such an overreaction, as far as Ophelia was concerned. At least the snake couldn't hold a grudge the way Fenella could.

"My bad," Ophelia apologised with a shrug, although she had a shrewd suspicion Fenella was the one at fault for the near-mishap. Surely that was just the paranoia speaking.

"Going so soon?" Fenella asked, nodding to the door.

"That's the plan."

"Well, you shouldn't."

Ophelia wasn't sure she'd heard correctly. Perhaps she'd imagined hearing the last two letters, unless "shouldn't" had recently attained a double-meaning equating back to "should".