deceived | tom marvolo riddle

XII | conflictions

I couldn't let him think he was scaring me off that easily.

--

I frowned as I continuously rapped my raven feather on my desk.

Listening to the faint scritch of the other student's quills as they started on their own essays only added onto what was laying heavy on my mind.

Just yesterday, Headmaster Dippet had revealed the Goblet of Fire, transforming it into the only possible topic of gossip between the two becomingly obnoxious Hufflepuff girls who were sitting behind me currently through Charms.

I blew out a longed breath, tucking a loose strand of dark brown hair behind my ear. I hadn't gotten any time to clean up this morning as I had gone to bed extremely late last night, or early, attempting to uncover the echos of the conversation Tom had left me with. His words, each and every individual one of them, would have needed to be stored and analyzed.

I only had the time to slip into my Slytherin robes and quickly run a brush through my hair once. The decision to leave it down was a very final one and was made with much hesitation. I had only truly made the recognition with Tom's remark after I had already ran to breakfast and slipped down a piece of toast.

I reminded myself to scold the living hell out of my roommates, who had so kindly decided in leaving me out of waking up, as I finally started on the written assignment.

Professor Flitwick had ruefully assigned us a twelve inch requirement essay on how charms affect creatures other than witches and wizards; like trolls and goblins and such.

As much as I had tried to think of what I remembered, all that seemed to be crowding my head was, obviously, the Dark Lord but also with the memory of Hermione telling me of the Chamber of Secrets. I had some terribly awful feeling it was going to happen this year. I didn't want to believe that Tom would wait much longer, since it sounded like he had already figured how to open it in with the information I had collected with his reading patterns, though mostly it was intuition.

"Miss. Astra?"

I looked up, finally snapping out of my daze just to find Flitwick and the entire class staring at me, looks of tease in their faces. I blushed slightly, picking at the splitting end of my quill, "I'm sorry. Yes, Professor?"

Flitwick frowned, or at least I think he did, he always honestly looked like he was upset, "I would truthfully advise you to pay attention next time but I'll repeat myself,"

The entire class snickered part from Tom, who just stared at me curiously, as if he was attempting to read my mind, "I asked you to give the class a demonstration of the repair charm."

I gave a curt nod before removing my wand from my robes and facing my quill, feeling my blood pump anxiously. Did I remember how to do this again? I cleared my throat.

"Reparo."

The whole class stared eagerly and rudely hopeful for my failure. They were disappointed however when the feather pulled itself back together, just as if I had not snapped it.

Professor Flitwick raised his eyebrows, trying to hide a smile of amusement, "Excellent. Ten points to Slytherin then,"

I grinned, embarrassed.

He turned to face the rest of the class, "I want your assignments due date as two days time from now." The class groaned, "Thank you. Everyone's dismissed,"

People began leaving in herds, continuing their talk of the tournament again. As I collected my quill, I overheard a bit more detail of the one centuries ago then what I knew happened. Someone had in fact died, just as it had been rumored in my own time.