His Saving Grace

Chapter 2- Trip to Diagon Alley & The Notorious Rude Boy

I made my way towards Diagon Alley with Blair along with my desperate desire to be anywhere but there, which was quite noticeable on my face. It is not that I hated my trips to Diagon Alley, but the back to school routine was too repetitive. Diagon Alley was the place to gather all schooling materials, run into your Hogwarts friends and, sometimes professors, admire whimsical objects displayed on small windows and get lost in your thoughts until you were physically lost as well. Despite the many shops to visit and the many people to see, repeatedly having to come to this place for specific materials and only being allowed to walk through certain areas of Diagon Alley took the life out of coming here. But in all seriousness, is there truly no other place I could go to in order to get some books or could I not arrive here at a later time? It's preposterous if you ask me!

As I kept walking along the small alleyway, I saw a few familiar faces; mostly students from years below mine. After minutes of distracting myself with different stores and running into fellow students and acquaintances, I finally found the book store and decided to make my way inside. I nearly ran to the second floor, where all the Defense Against the Dark Arts books were usually found.

That class, given by an excellent yet rather cold professor, was one of my favorite subjects. Learning to protect one's self, and even others, from dark magic was not only important and logical but also incredibly interesting. I could definitely see myself becoming an auror; the wizarding world's defence against the dark arts, mainly because of my deep interest in this class. Of course, there have been no aurors in my family before, making it another grievance for my aunt to deal with.

As I was staring down at the books, I made eye contact with a girl from my year; a fellow Ravenclaw like myself, from my Herbology class last year. I decided that my obvious staring was going to make her uncomfortable, so I raised my hand and gave her a small wave to which she returned with a big joyous smile and huge wave.

She was too happy and preppy for me, but she was one of the few Ravenclaws that helped me out with Herbology; my least favorite subject, in the Ravenclaw common room. So, I had no other choice than to tolerate her. But as Head Girl, I will have my own dormitory and a different smaller common room only for the chosen Head of House students meaning I would have to find another way to pass the class.

I always thought that girl fitted much better in Hufflepuff because she was very loyal, kind, and always had a smile on her face so big I feared her jaw might never move from that position again, but the sorting hat makes no mistakes. Then again, I did get sorted into Ravenclaw despite having a long line of Slytherins in the Alastair family. But as I said before, the sorting hat does not make mistakes so questioning its choices is a waste of time.

I decided to stop focusing on my wandering thoughts and I quickly grabbed the heavy books and made my way to the first floor. Distracted by the books in my hand, I nearly slipped due to missing a step on the whirling gobble stone stairs.

Thankfully, a pair of strong rather large hands grabbed me by the waist before I could embarrassingly fall flat on my face. I was about to say thank you to the kind stranger, but then I saw his face.

Notorious Tom Riddle, presumed soon to be Slytherin Head Boy and fellow seventh year, was the face behind the "kind" stranger. We've only had an actual conversation a few times in DADA, but that is mostly because we are each other's competition for top of the class and we completely despise each other. Both of us have always obtained grades far superior to those of other students, but we've had to share the spotlight due to having the exact same marks every year. Maybe I would not hate the idea of sharing the spotlight if it were anyone else, but just sharing the same air as him made me want to hurl.

I was a generally kind person that tried to get along with most people that had done me no wrong, but I hated his guts. He breathed and obtained the attention I could only obtain if I made some sort of advanced revolutionary work. I knew Snape; our DADA professor, liked me quite a lot, but no one was liked more than the extremely rude and intimidating young Riddle.

I am equally as qualified as Riddle in every single class we take together; except Herbology of course, but he gets all the attention. Not only this, but he is not even respectful to anyone which makes for a lot of time wasting confrontations in classes. He taunts and challenges the teachers and treats everyone as subservient to him. Yet, somehow, Tom Riddle is the picture perfect student of Hogwarts.

Snapped out of my thoughts by his deep dark voice, "Alastair, I did not deem it appropriate to let you meet your doom or gain serious injuries before taking the top spot in all of your classes.", he said.

As I try to process his words, I realize he still has a firm grip on my waist and I briskly responded by squirming and pushing him away from me. I brush my robes, firmly take hold of my books and straighten myself only to find his penetrating gaze still on my face.

I put on my arrogant and overly confident voice, which was reserved only for the Slytherin, and responded, "Riddle, I can take care of myself. Plus, you know I can take the top spot even beyond the grave."

To this, I receive a sarcastic chuckle and a smirk from the handsome yet disgustingly irksome boy. It is extremely like him to have a condescending response to anything I say, so I would not stay and chat with him even if my life depended on it.

"Well Riddle, it was extremely bothersome catching up, see you at school.", I said as I abruptly ended our banter before it could truly begin and I made my way down the steep stairs towards the store's exit not knowing someone's eyes were still boring into the back of my head.