Dose of Darkness | Tom Riddle |

Chapter Five: Keep It A Secret

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"If you reveal your secrets to the wind, you should not blame the wind for revealing them to the trees."
--Khalil Gibran

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Monday September 8, 1944

The Ravenclaw Dormitory had a quiet morning as usual with the exception of the younger years. By the first of the second week, Emma didn't need Eleanor as an escort for she finally found her own group of friends.

"So, are we going to like, meet in secret or something? Would Dumbledore know? I heard he's got something to do with Grindelwald--"

"Shh!" Eleanor hissed, cutting off Marcella as the two walked down the spiraling steps of the tower.

There may not have been many around them but her voice was loud enough to reach the distant ears. Marcella inwardly cringed and she sighed, clutching her books to her chest.

"Sorry, I'm just excited." she shrugged.

Eleanor couldn't say the same.

She still promised Tom to help with his Horcrux yet she couldn't even stick to her own promise to start her own little dueling club in secret.

Obviously, one was easier than the other but on top of it all, Eleanor had lots of homework.

She kept her thoughts to herself, keeping her response to Marcella brief and quiet as they headed towards the Great Hall for breakfast.

Eleanor didn't want to crush her friends hope --which was most definitely thriving in her eyes since she first mentioned it-- but that needed more planning before she could really present it.

Sun rays brightly cast down on the tables leaving some sections in light and some in a shadow from the wall but as her eyes briskly swept over the Slytherin table, the New Girl sat in the light while Adis and Walburga sat on the darker side of the table. The sight made her positive morning attitude dwindle.

Maybe Eleanor was in denial about a Slytherin being a transfer from the angelic Beauxbaton Academy. Maybe she didn't like how she seemed too perfect to be true. The girls were still adoring her which wasn't a good sign.

Eleanor could at least admit she didn't like the way Abraxas, Orion, Evan, Dolohov and Nott all marveled at her with the rest of the Slytherins. To her relief though, Tom's head was in a book she found for him about a particular item he was searching for.

"Hey, El, look at this!" said Cormac, sitting with one leg up on the bench and the other in the isle, no surprise to Lillian sitting between them.

Eleanor distressingly dropped her textbooks and assignments due today on the table beside her plate, peering at the newspaper Cormac pointed to in Julius's hands. The boy she sat beside with his neatly combed blonde hair shining in the sun had a peaceful aura around his tiny face she found herself admiring for a brief second before catching a particular word on the paper.

"Grindewald Comes Out of Hiding"

Her heart leaped in her chest as her fingers snatched the motion picture of a village in ash and smoke, a mugshot of Nikolai from the Durmstrang Institute in the lower corner.

Everything about this article is what awakened Eleanor from the blur she's been living in since the Ministry attack.

Not once since then with the exception of what happened in Diagon Alley had she been so alert of his presence.

As her eyes quickly skimmed the article, Julius said,"Says here Grindelwald and Nikolai attacked a town in Bulgaria, set the whole thing up in flames looking for something. But Nikolai apparently ran off or something because the next day, it says he was found hanging from the doors of the Durmstrang all bloody when a couple Aurors took him in."