Darkest Desire - English

02

He hadn't even asked her her name!
Half the night Liz had rolled around in her bed. From right to left, on her stomach, on her back.
Nothing had helped.

If her mother heard about her talking to Mattheo Riddle, she would be blindsided! The white sheep of the Black family, of all people.
Quietly, Liz laughed at her own bad pun. But it was true. The Lestranges had adopted her in hopes of making a real Black out of her. And had failed miserably.

It wasn't that Lysandra Black didn't try hard. She would have torn off a leg to please her mother. But her mother placed more importance on her tearing out other people's legs.

Sometimes Liz wondered if she wouldn't have been better off growing up in a children's home. Without a hint of parentage.
Immediately, her thoughts wandered to Mattheo. He had grown up in a children's home. It hadn't been that long ago that his parentage had become known.

Liz rolled onto her side to peer out through the thick curtains into the night sky. Not many people knew the true identity of the dark lord. And even fewer knew about Tom Marvolo Riddle's past.

Just like his son, he had grown up in an orphanage. Could this be called irony of fate?

*

Sleep that night had been short and not very restful.
"Are you awake?" asked an familiar voice right next to her ear.

"Not by choice, Luna." She waved a hand around in the air, hoping to make her friend understand that she still wanted to sleep.

"We only have half an hour for breakfast before we have to go to herbology," Luna Lovegood purred.

Luna was different from most, yes, but that was precisely what had attracted Liz immediately. Luna didn't care about ancestry or blood. She hadn't been afraid when she had learned that Liz had been raised by the Lestranges. Nor had she fled when it became known that she and Draco Malfoy had once been best friends.

And so it happened that Luna had secured this place. Her best friend. Luna Lovegood.

Only in the morning, Liz was never so sure she really wanted friends. Especially ones who were more awake than she was.
But Luna won that morning because Liz had forgotten to eat dinner the night before.

*
"You look kind of different than usual," Luna remarked as the two walked across the grounds to the greenhouse.

"Oh, I lost my hair ribbon." Liz tucked an unruly strand of hair behind her ear. Without her trademark blue hair ribbon-it hadn't felt right to do a bun. But the longer she walked around with that braid, the more she regretted the decision.

"That's not what I meant. You're kind of paler than usual. Did you have a nightmare?"

Liz almost tripped over her feet. Everyone thought Luna was crazy, but this girl had an eye for mystery. That was for sure. After a moment of uncertain silence, Liz confessed the previous day's encounter to her friend.

"You sure got lucky there," Luna commented, polishing her thick glasses.

"Lucky?"

"Would you rather have fallen off the roof? I don't know if Madame Pomfrey could have done much then." With anyone else, that answer would have been full of irony, but Luna was so delightfully direct and honest that Liz could only grin.

"I think even her abilities have limits. But if it weren't for him, I wouldn't have been on the roof in the first place."

"It's not like he forced you to follow him. Tell me, what do you think of this drawing? I sat on it for ages yesterday, but somehow it doesn't look right?"

That put the topic of Mattheo Riddle to rest for Luna. Instead, she took out her herbology paper and presented her drawing of a mandrake. Or rather, what was supposed to be a mandrake, as the big title proclaimed.

Herbology was actually a subject Liz liked. But after that night, she found it hard to keep her mind on the lesson. She kept noticing herself drifting off and almost nodding off several times. She was about to really fall asleep when Professor Sprout ended class. Confused and disoriented, Liz blinked around.

"Well Whitey, I guess you gave up, huh?" Gregory found himself incredibly funny in denying her the title of Black. "Can you explain to me again why you didn't join Hufflepuff?" Liz shoved him aside on her way back to the castle. " Oh, are you at a loss for words now, too?"

"Eat shit, Finley." Liz really didn't feel like dealing with him again. She was tired and irritable and just wanted to get back in her bed to cry into a pillow.

"Are you sure your mother wasn't a muggle? You're acting like a mudblood."

Abruptly, Liz stopped. Gregory ran into her, as expected, only to immediately swallow his evil laugh. Liz had drawn her wand and was jamming the tip under his chin. "Don't think there's no Black in me just because I always get my act together. You and your wannabe pureblood family can't hold a candle to me."

This was the first time Liz had openly hidden behind her family. She was shaking with anger all over her body. Just one tiny spell. She could make his tongue swell, or his teeth fall out.

Around them, everyone had fallen silent. Most of the Ravenclaws had stopped, unsure if they should intervene or just eager to see what would happen now. Many had been waiting for the day when Lysandra Black would finally show her true colors. At the end of the day, she was Bellatrix Lestrange's daughter after all.

Liz instantly regretted what she had said. She was a Black, maybe, but she wasn't like the Blacks. If she backed out now, things would only get worse. But she couldn't really curse Gregory. She could get through a punishment paper, after all, but expulsion? She wouldn't be able to take that.

Liz would never have expected in a hundred years that the Syltherins, and especially Draco Malfoy, would be the one to save her. She was still facing her classmate with hate-filled eyes, her wand digging into the soft flesh, when an angry voice rang out behind them.

"What are you people standing here in the way? Get out of here!" Draco and his posse strutted through the middle of the gathering of Ravenclaws, dispersing the onlookers. "Well, get a move on!" he hissed as he stood directly behind Liz. He couldn't have recognized her. Otherwise he would never have snapped at her like that - at least Liz hoped. But this way he gave her the excuse she was hoping for to lower her wand.

As she whirled around, her eyes met the steel gray of the Malfoy. There was a flash of realization of who she was and what he had just interrupted here, but both Draco and Liz were too proud to even acknowledge anything. With heads held high, they both strode past each other as if they had never met before.

Not even Mattheo Riddle, who had been walking in the slipstream of the group, could tickle a reaction out of Liz. He grinned sinisterly as he raised his hand to his face and made a scratching motion near his eye. Yes. She had probably just outdone that threat many times over.