Lies and falsehoods, armour made of ambition and cruelty. Irremediably, Tom Riddle's destiny has been written from the beginning, foreseeing a dark and deviant path. But to everything there is an exception, and Anastasia Atwell did not know she was...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Anastasia Dahlia Atwell
It was two weeks into the last school year. Everything was running smoothly, apart from a few pranks planned by Marcus and a few reminders from Tiernan, who was probably the only one of them who could be described as 'level-headed', as if he were the father of that group of ramshackle kids.
Anastasia was in the library, absent-mindedly flicking through a book she'd found by chance about herbology. She sat next to Druella, who was completing her homework with as much concentration as possible and imaginable, before Tiernan could pry the book from her hands.
"Excuse me?", Anastasia had muttered irritably, reaching out so she could take her book back. Not that she really cared, as she wasn't really into herbology, but it would definitely be more fun to rile the boy up instead of reading.
Lestrange barely bent his lips upwards. "I forgive you."
Druella, who seemed to have taken a moment off from studying so she could watch that bickering, laughed under her breath. Barely shaking her head, she muttered something very close to "You are two children."
Tiernan seemed to be immune to that comment as he adjusted his glasses on his nose, already immersed in reading.
They spent the rest of their evening like this. The two of them studied, Anastasia watching them disinterested and even a little bored, not having much else to do and having already completed her homework for the day. When she decided she had enough of watching her friends be model students, she gathered up all her things and with a small bow, dismissed the two.
"I would have liked to stay for a few more hours," she feigned displeasure by bringing a hand to her chest, making the flaming red haired girl giggle. "But I really think I'll join the others in the common room."
As she expected, nobody tried to detain her — and frankly, she was very grateful. She couldn't have stayed a moment longer in that damn library without risking losing her mind.
With the books clutched to her chest, the girl made her way to the common room. On the way she returned the smiles of a few Ravenclaws wandering around the castle, and politely greeted the professors when they crossed her gaze.
It was precisely her courtesy and kindness that had broken through to the hearts of most of the professors who, because of this, as well as her invaluable intellect, had a special regard for her in many circumstances.
As she arrived in the dungeons, the air seemed to immediately turn icy, making her shiver. As much as she may have loved what she now called home, that part of the castle could sometimes scare her to death. While in the towers there were bright lights, warm colours and friendly paintings, in this part of the school the air was completely the opposite: Torches were barely lit, there was constantly the faint sound of the wind and anyone passing by any of the portraits managed to get a glare from the subjects of the paintings.
