He was darkness.
He was death.
He was pain.
He was suffering.
He was a mystery. One she intended to solve.
"You wouldn't kill me, Tom." "Avada Kedavra!"
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Arabella's bed wasn't as warm as she remembered. She tossed and turned and rumpled the green linen sheets as her mind wandered over Tom's words to her down in the common room just hours before. Her, wonderful, curious mind danced tenderly of the memories of the Ravenclaw prefect, all beaten and bloody in the secret hollow. She muffled a sob in the pillow. Was Tom always this awful? I should hope no one was out of their bed tonight for the wrong reasons... Was he always so callous and cruel? ...because, I would just have to punish them, accordingly. Was Jacob Summers in the wrong corridor at the wrong time? Was stunning him then letting the vicious Malfoy at him, Jacob's punishment? Arabella's pillow was growing damp, and she was failing miserably at hiding the sound of her sobs.
"Arabella?" Jaelyn Marigold turned over in her bed. "Are you alright?"
Jaelyn was one of Arabella's closest friends at Hogwarts. They had met in their second year during the sorting when Jaelyn's sister was sorted into Gryffindor. The hall had gone silent the very second the Sorting Hat placed the the very Slytherin-based family's youngest child in the house of Godric Gryffindor. Jaelyn was sitting next to Arabella and had let out a barely audible gasp. She watched as her only sister walked over to the house of blood-traitors and mudbloods. Little Caroline Marigold was gone. Arabella had wrapped her skinny arms around the trembling twelve-year-old Jaelyn and comforted her and in that moment, both girls became inseparable.
Now, in the dark dorm, Arabella needed Jaelyn's arms and warmth to shield her from the darkness that was Tom. "No," Arabella said softly and a few moments later, she heard sheets being thrown away and feet padding along the ground. A warm body snuggled close to Arabella and pulled covers over both bodies.
Jaelyn's face lay close to Arabella's and she watched the troubled girl struggle to close her eyes. "What happened, Bella?" Jaelyn whispered.
"Tom Riddle," Arabella replied softly and nothing more was needed to be said. Jaelyn had been at the receiving end of Tom's words not long ago and knew what it felt like. Knew how Tom's words cut like knives, stinging and painful. Jaelyn's eyes softened, her heart ached for her best friend. Arabella sighed and felt Jaelyn wrap her arms around her torso. Warmth errupted from where their skin touched. Silence ensued once again in the girls dormitory and then it was peaceful.
Deep in the dungeons, water dripped from the ceilings and onto concrete floors, a steady drip, drip, drip sending two best friends off to sleep, wrapped in each other's arms.
September Fifteenth, 1943
Arabella woke first the next morning and was greeted by Jaelyn's beautiful sleeping state. Mouth slightly ajar, eyes scrunched closed and hair messier than a hippogriff's feathers. Most of the other four-poster beds in the dorm were empty, most people having gone up to the Great Hall for breakfast. She shook Jaelyn lightly. "Jaelyn, wake up! Time to go to breakfast."
