Preventing A Prophecy | Tom Riddle

Chapter V: The 'M' Word

30/11/2016

Rights to some of the characters and plot line go to J. K. Rowling and L. J. Smith. However, most of the characters and plot are mine.

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Katherina's PoV:

Dear Ms. Dracula,

We are now a whooping month into the new year and I'm extremely proud to announce you are doing amazingly in potions (and all your other classes if staffroom gossip is correct), so much so you have surpassed even Mr Riddle.

Every now and then I host a dinner for a select few outstanding students (my way of including the legacy of Demon Vladimir-Dracula, of course) and it is my great pleasure to extend this invitation to you to join us in such a dinner, on Saturday the 6th October in the potions classroom. It will be a wonderful opportunity for me to greet all my bright students and also for you, as a new transfer, to meet even more people.

I do hope you will attend the evening, please dress formally if so!

Professor Horace Slughorn.

I sighed as my eyes came to the end of the letter that my pitch black owl, Noir, had just dropped into my hands. So I take it that Slughorn is trying to build bridges with any student who stands the slightest chance of leaving Hogwarts for a successful career, in order to build his own political stance... fair enough to him I suppose, the man thinks ahead.

"Yo, did any of you get one of these?" I looked up from the letter to look at my friends, happy that we had convinced Dippet (not that it took much, I think the surname persuaded him enough) to let us create a new table.

Part of the deal was that we include people other than the 12 of us, which meant that Scarlett had joined the table along with some first years who had become close to Jill, Mya and John.

Catherine was still being ignored, much to my anger.

"Got one of what?" Christian raised his eyebrows, mouth full of some kind of chocolate pastry, causing Lisa to slap his arm.

"Manners!" She hissed.

He rolled his eyes, still looking at me.

"Letter from Slughorn." I handed the letter over to him - Kiyo, Lisa and Adrian leaning over his shoulder to read.

"I did." Lisa nodded. "He said my healing potions were exceptional and extended his invitations. And obviously Christian will be coming along as my date."

"You have to bring a date?" I rose my eyebrows in shock.

"Always read the fine-print, Kat." Kiyo turned the sheet round so I could see it again.

And at the very bottom, in small writing:

P.s. Dates are necessary though they do not need to have received an individual invitation.

"Oh lovely." I sighed.

"You could go with Riddle." Scarlett smirked from her place next to Mason, one seat down from me.

"Is she hell." Adrian and Kiyo both growled together.

I rolled my eyes.

"You've been spending a lot of time together." Rose pointed out.

I shrugged. "We have that assignment for DADA."

But deep down I knew it wasn't just that, Tom and I had been sharing our love of the dark arts more than we had been researching for the presentation. Every day for the past month, we had spent at least the hour of DADA together, more often than not followed by quite a few hours in the library, after lessons. We had made some headway on our presentation but both knew there was a long way to go and the distractions were not helping.