The Golden Age of Hollywood . Tom Riddle

Chapter 5

            The OWL's went by smoothly. Exams were so easy, in fact, he already knew he'll get straight O's the moment he was handed the exam paper. Occasionally, however, Tom spotted Norma leaning over her parchment, looking extremely concentrated. This meant that she encountered difficulties, but he was pleased nevertheless, since she appeared to actually put effort into her education for once.

On the first completely free day Tom excused himself briefly from his knights to sit with Norma by the Great Lake until her friends come. While he was walking away from the boys, some of them called after him "Bye, Tom" and he couldn't help but flinch before nodding politely. Norma noticed that, of course, because she studied him curiously as he sat down next to her.

"You don't like your name?" She said curling her lip in a small smile, "I couldn't imagine you with any other."

Tom was silent for a second.

"You can say it," he said, not looking at her. "It sounds... different when you say it. More like an incantation than a name."

Norma closed her eyes and smiled into the Sun.

"Create a new name, if you don't like the old one," she said and leaned back on her arms.

"How will you spend your summer, Tom?" Norma asked after a few minutes. The question, however, made him very uncomfortable, they've never spoken about their families and life outside Hogwarts.

"I'll be in London," he began carefully, and Norma sensed the shift in mood. "-I'm an orphan, you see."

She was silent, so this must have surprised her. She was looking at the opposite shore of the Great Lake.

"I'll be in Los Angeles," said Norma just as carefully and searched for a way to change the topic. "Did you know that I drive a car? I hate side-along apparating and LA's huge, so there's no other way to get around. I love driving, it's so fun- I open the car roof, wind fans my hair, ocean's turquoise blue on the left... Road's hot, Sun's shining and palms cast rare shadows..." she went on dreamily. "You must visit California, it's a paradise," Norma leaned back on the tree, smiling at Tom. He didn't answer, but kept looking ahead of him, at the lake. "Oh, and in Santa Monica, there's such a lovely port- mum and I rent a boat often. She even had a photoshoot while sailing once. That was a lot of fun. We usually have a picknick then."

"Santa Monica? Don't you live in Los Angeles?" 

"It is part of Los Angeles. A very fancy part. Hm? How do you like that?" said Norma and leaned closer to Tom. The idea definitely sounded appealing, but he couldn't promise her anything- it would take a lot of work for an orphan to travel across the Atlantic during both wizarding and muggle wars.

Summer approaching was always a grim time for Tom, but this year it was exceptionally unpleasant- he was so close to discovering the Chamber of Secrets and couldn't, nor wanted to postpone this issue for later again. And that was a reason why during the exam period, while others were revising, he would go for a walk around the castle every night. And one of those nights he heard something. To put a long story short, a voice, coming from girls' bathroom told him how to get to the depths of the castle and that was when a breathtaking sight met him: he stood in a huge, dark underground hall, in front of a giant sculpture of Salazar Slytherin himself. A wonderful Basilisk slithered out of its mouth and, after some convincing, accepted Tom as a true heir of Slytherin.

The snake was hungry, and Tom, quite foolishly, he admitted so to himself later, let it roam around the castle. As a result, several students were turned to stone and panic rose among teachers, although they tried not to disturb students, who were already stressed about their exams. The kids were cured, all but one.