complicity [tom riddle]

viii.

a/n - hi i hope you have all been well, apologies for being away for so long i do have an explanation... im currently in line for publishing my own collection of stories but with that comes the project of interviewing other published writers and in depth research, i have been working on this for a few months now and it has taken over my life. however, as a break from my work i have decided to resume this book and feed u guys. so without further adieu, please enjoy this chapter of which doesn't exactly reflect on the quality of my " serious " work ...sigh. but is something fun ! + also i fell in love so life has indeed been blissfully hectic

14th October 1944

The sun bled through Heidi's eyelids forcing her awake.

She groggily rubbed her salt-crusted eyes and gave a hearty yawn at the yellow sun that shamelessly blinded her. Blinking a few times she tried to make out her surroundings.

Scratchy sterile bed, institutional tables, blue shutters aligning the many beds in the room, the smell of medicine. Heidi listed all the things she saw in her head.

She was in the hospital wing. But why? Thinking back hard, attempting to break through the white noise in her mind that conspicuously implied she had slept rough, and then remembered. Flashes of illumination, torture, and betrayal haunted her mind for a few moments and she gasped. She winced at the emotional pain and then took note of the dull stabbing pain in her fingers that she had failed to notice previously. And with that she dragged her eyes down to the horror that was her hand.

It was her hand but at the same time not her hand. It certainly looked better than the last time she had seen it; bloodied and crumpled. But altogether it was still alien, uncanny valley screaming out her name. She dared to wiggle her pinky finger and tensed at the ache, it moved fine, looked fine, but it's associations most definitely weren't fine.

Who was Professor Roman DuLac really?

Man? It didn't seem so. He seemed twisted and sucked of all life, like what Heidi imagined the final non-surviving victims of a dementor to look like. Or a crooked dead tree that exudes a dark magical force that no one can seem to describe. And what she had seen in that cavernous hallway... inexplicable. Perhaps even illegal.

Fortunately, Heidi was back in the safe haven that was the walls of Hogwarts. Well, as safe as it could be with a growing opposition against the head master in it's very own walls.

Considering going back to sleep she pulled the scratchy covers over her pudgy, bandaged knees. She must have cut her knees when she had fallen from the pain in her hand, too agonised to realise the swelling pain in her knees.

Across the hospital wing she heard a voice, "Heidi?"

She peered up from over the covers that blinded her view and to her pleasant surprise it was Tobias Nott and Mary Mulciber.

Unlikely friends in likely times.

Mary rushed over and made a dreadful fuss over the girl, waving her hands over her bed as if that would make any remote positive difference.

"What in Merlin's name has happened to you?"

Heidi's mouth went agape, preparing to speak, readying whatever stupid alibi she was about to spew. But she was saved by Tobias' rude but helpful interjection.

He flicked his short fringe, "We came as soon as we heard the news. And do not fear as we've brought some of Honeydukes finest candies."

Mary seized them from his grasp and flippantly tossed them to me, "Pay us back another time."

Mary winked at Heidi and it almost made her feel normal. After all, repressing the whole situation was an option, in a way. But would it be clever?

Dumbledore would want her to be clever.

Heidi brushed that thought off and started playing out the much needed discourse in her mind.

Though Professor DuLac's behaviour seemed awfully strange and inappropriate, he has always been there for her and until the events of their last meeting she held him in the highest respect. And ought it be strange for a head master to task a young pupil of theirs to do their bidding, a ploy for a war of partially their own making?

She could hardly assume that Professor DuLac's intentions of introducing the recent ideas to go against Dumbledore to be nearly as exploitative as Dumbledore's intentions with her as of late.

Especially since there was nothing grand or special about her. Outside of her intellect and a few other things, she really is just like every other student. The only difference now is that Dumbledore's let her in on one of his premonitions about Riddle and that she wants a secure place as an Auror.

An Auror!

Heidi cast the tainted thoughts from her mind, it didn't matter if Dumbledore wanted her to be clever, she needed to start working like an Auror, being clever like an Auror.

Clever like what DuLac see's in her?

Tobias snapped two rough fingers in the beeline of her vision.

"Did you smack your head also mate?"

She laughed coyly, "No, not quite. Just a broken hand. I fell, not on my head of course, I just fell."

Her friends slowly gave each other a brief look from the side and pulled her up from bed.

Both of them took the weight of each of her arms and pulled her up swiftly from the scratchy bed.

Heidi grimaced at her bandages on the way up.

On the bed side table there wasn't much there except Heidi's jacket and a few of her belongings.

She grabbed those along with a small bottle of an ointment that had been left by the nurse for her.

The ointment bottle was brown and the liquid inside was a perilous mahogany colour that was actively bubbling as she looked inside. It looked creepily alive but Heidi nodded a small thanks to the air as a token for the nurse.

With that, Heidi concluded she was done with everything. What she had seen with Professor DuLac hadn't motivated her but frightened her.

It was over.

She was no longer Dumbledore's or anyone's spy.