Death's Daughter || Tom Riddle

More staring | 3

She and Caelum spent their time on the train continuing their bickering and sometimes she would just turn her attention back to her book or Caelum dozing off and waking up five minutes later. The train soon came to a halt and the pair had just realized that they hadn't changed into their uniforms yet. The two started panicking, not even bothering to go to the bathroom to change but they, of course, looked away from each other while changing.

After they had changed, they quickly made their way out of the train and walked towards the carriages pulled by the thestrals.

Yes, she has seen Death, accepted it, and let it go. And when she meant 'Death' she meant her father. She has seen her father, accepted that he was her father, and had let him go and went to live with her foster mother. She didn't know it could mean that way but she just accepted it and went along with it. But although she said she had let her father go, she didn't think her father was quite letting her go because while she was walking towards the 'horseless carriages' according to her best friend, she spotted a dark animal dashing into a thick bush but not before she caught a glimpse of a cat's tail.

Death is following me

And she smiled at the thought.

The pair got in the carriage and sat in peaceful silence, only speaking when they saw a rare bird or something moving in the forest while they were passing by.

When they finally reached the giant Castle, they headed into the Great Hall which people were slowly filing into. They took a seat at the Slytherin table next to Tom Riddle's group and chatted with their peers while waiting for the sorting ceremony to start.

"How was your summer Caelum?" asked the pale blonde boy of the group, Abraxas Malfoy.

"Boring, yours?"

"Boring too."

The two boys grinned at each other and continued their boring conversation.

She sat patiently waiting for the ceremony to start since she wasn't the type to start a conversation unless someone started talking to her. While she had her head turned toward the professors' table, she felt like the back of her head was going to split from someone staring really hard at it. She turned around to see Tom Riddle looking straight at her. She merely raised an eyebrow questioning him and stared right back at him.

The world seemed to have dissolved and the only remaining things were her and Riddle. She held the stare so long that her eyes were threatening to water but fortunately for her, he turned away first.

What was that all about?

Although Tom Riddle did not try to have another staring competition with her again, she still felt like he was constantly looking over at her every now and then and she found it annoying. He was testing her patience.

After what felt like an eternity, the sorting ended, Headmaster Dippet gave his usual speech, and then the food appeared on the table. And finally, Tom Riddle's eyes did not waver over to her anymore that night.

She has missed the Hogwarts feasts. The loud chattering of students while they were eating, the delicious food, the transparent ghosts gliding over to watch the students eat with sad expressions on their faces, and a lot more things, really.

She snuck a glance at Tom Riddle while eating to see he was sipping on his pumpkin juice. She had kinda wanted to see him sneakily picking at his tooth but of course, that would never happen, he was Tom Riddle. Suddenly, the food on her dish disappeared and instead, dessert appeared. By the time the dessert appeared, she was already full so instead, she watched the others eat.

~—————————~

The prefects led the way to the Slytherin common room in the dungeons.

"Serpent," announced the prefect and the Slytherin's common room door opened.

The first years seemed to be in awe which reminded her of the first time she stepped in the common room. She remembered running over to the large glass window that separated the Black Lake's gloomy water and the room and was later dragged by the collar of her robes to go to bed by a prefect.

Good old days

She thought and smiled to herself. She said her good nights to Caelum and went up the girls dormitory. Her luggage was already placed at the bed's end. She opened it and took out her nightgown and walked into the bathroom to change into it. When she walked out she saw two of her roommates. One of them had already changed into her sleeping attire whilst the other was looking through their luggage. She didn't exchange any words with the two of them even though they had lived together for the past five or six years now but she just couldn't get along with them or she just never tried to.

She plopped herself onto her soft bed and slowly shut her eyes only to be greeted with the image of those dark brown eyes staring right back into her onyx ones.