Tom Riddle had a secret - he had murdered his family. Arabella Chambers knew his secret - she had witnessed it.
After Tom Riddle kills Arabella Chambers, he steals her wand for safekeeping. But, unexpectedly, Arabella shows up at Hogwarts, very much...
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Arabella's birthday was a joke.
Not only because she was born on April 1st, but because it could hardly be regarded as a birthday considering she hadn't aged in over a thousand years.
The punchline truly was the yearly reminder that, while the world moved on, she remained trapped in the same unchanging body.
Her friends — if she could really consider all of them besides Edmund and Amber friends — thought she was turning seventeen today. In reality, she was one-thousand and ninety-two years old.
She sat in the corner of the library which was expectedly full considering the approaching exams. All the desks were occupied with students scrambling to cram last-minute knowledge into their heads, hoping it would be enough to pass.
Arabella had no real need to be here because... well, she knew everything. She was only here to entertain Tom. Keep him company.
Well, maybe not entertain Tom. More like entertain herself watching him study feverishly.
His hair was messy, small curls falling into his face, which he would push away every so often with an absent-minded hand. His dark eyes devoured the words on the page like a starving man, his quill moving with the drive of someone chasing something just out of reach.
It was as though he believed every answer, every secret to power, was hidden in the ink before him, and he couldn't stop until he had consumed it all. His hands wrote so quickly yet his handwriting was still as elegant as ever, every stroke perfectly precise.
She shouldn't be surprised though — Tom was nothing less than determined. In both achieving top marks and outshining her. Futile attempt. Maybe that was why watching him study was so entertaining. Or maybe she was taking advantage of the view. She was still a woman, after all.
Arabella didn't bother hiding the fact that she was not studying at all, her eyes glued to him. Every once in a while, his gaze would flick towards her, finding her watching him. He would smile faintly and get back to work.
Yes, she was most definitely enjoying this view. But she was also trying to determine if he knew it was her birthday today.
He didn't know. No-one knew.
Well, she had thought no-one knew until all her "friends" began acting... strange a few days ago.
Whispered conversations that stopped the moment she entered the room — pointless since she could hear them before she even reached the door. Poorly concealed grins whenever she passed by. Out-of-the-blue questions like:
"What's your favourite food?"This was a difficult choice considering she loved everything, but eventually she picked a dessert — Charlotte russe.
"What's your favourite flower?"A poppy — because of its beauty, simplicity and meaning.
"What's your favourite colour?"This one was so obvious she wasn't even sure why they felt the need to ask — crimson.
