Extreme Ways ( A Tom Riddle fanfiction )

Chapter 6

"How soon Riddle learned that the famous founder of the House could talk to snakes, I do not know - perhaps that very evening. The knowledge can only have excited him and increased his sense of self-importance. However, if he was frightening or impressing fellow Slytherins with displays of Parseltongue in their common room, no hint of it reached the staff. He showed no sign of outward arrogance or aggression at all. As an unusually talented and very good-looking orphan, he naturally drew attention and sympathy from the staff almost from the moment of his arrival. He seemed polite, quiet, and thirsty for knowledge. Nearly all were most favorably impressed by him."
HP6

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In the following months Evelyn focused hard on her studies. She got rewarded with higher scores, but it was never enough for her. There was always someone who got easily the top scores. The Slytherin boy who also spent his whole time on books, while his companions were used to spend their free time in other ways like watching Quidditch matches.
It wasn't an open competition. Riddle and Evelyn appeared friendly to each other, but she could sense the heaviness of each triumph he was getting and she could catch his weak smirks while everyone else considered him a humble and quiet boy.
Evelyn also had another goal. She wanted to stop being an open book. Her emotions had to be hers and only hers. She needed to learn how to stop her hair from showing her mood.
She couldn't keep seeing her hair turn dark each time she had to witness that Riddle got a score higher than hers first of all. And then she had to stop the other people from teasing her just to see how they could affect her mood. It was humiliating.
She also imagined of cutting her hair off or using some hex to fix her problem, until she realized that it depended all from her self control. It seemed that was the message Riddle's challenging eyes sent her when he proudly watched how she reacted to his triumphs.
And she wanted to succeed, at any cost. Her only friends were Kat and Adele, who tried to help her by trying any kind of hair lotions on her. And also tried to dye them. But Evelyn hated the result. For a moment she panicked when she feared that her hair would turn purple instead of her natural blonde.
The only time that they got departed was when Evelyn drowned herself into books, while the other girls entertained themselves with boys and their crushes.
Evelyn was glad that she found someone who accepted her for how she was. Somehow her friends were also a shield against the pranks of her wicked cousin Milly, who lately had to focus on fixing her low scores.
Evelyn woke up from her thoughts to catch what Kat and Adele were discussing about.
They were in the Founders Room.
"So what do you think of team?" Adele teased her "Are you a fan of Godric too?".
She bit her lip thoughtfully, admiring the statues of the founders in front of them "Everyone fancy Godric, but Slytherin wasn't that bad".
"He was handsome" Kat agreed.
"You have a weird taste about men" Adele made a bad face to them.
"What's wrong with him?" Evelyn complained "He wasn't evil. Think of the period they lived. Wizards and witches were persecuted by muggles. He didn't accept muggle borns because they could be spy of the witch hunters".
"I never thought it from that point of view" Kat confessed after thinking about it
"Preservation against innovation. That was all" Evelyn concluded, imagining the sever Salazar Slytherin smiling at her for her words.
"Why they don't teach it?".
"That's part of the secret history of magic".
"Well, well, I found a lost Slytherin here" another voice said.
The girls winced and turned to see some of the Slytherin boys, their mates for the astronomy lessons they were heading to.
Lestrange winked at Evelyn "You are the proof that the silly old hat can be terribly wrong when sorting students. I would gladly replace you with all our Slytherin girls".
His mates mocked him, all except Riddle, who kept his unreadable gaze on Evelyn and the statue of Salazar.
Then the boys moved away.
"We have the feeling that Lestrange fancies you" Adele whispered to Evelyn's ear.
Evelyn scowled at her. She didn't want to play that game. And she was sure she didn't fancy that Slytherin boy back.
To give a new confirm to her friend's theory, some days later at their Potion lesson Lestrange suddenly sat next to her, followed by his gang, showing her the most popular book amongst Slytherins in those weeks.
Evelyn already knew about the Sacred Twenty Eight, the true pureblood families according to the writer, Cantankerus Nott.
Her uncle discussed about the reliability of that book, since he knew many secrets behind those surnames.
At least their own surname appeared on that list. And Lestrange wanted to show her that most of the Slytherins had those "pure surnames".
But she was more concerned of the offended shadow in Riddle's face. His surname was definitely not pureblood. He just walked away, alone, speechless. But for her his silence worthed more than a thousands words.
"The Pureblood Directory" remained the most discussed book between the students, although the professors forbid that topic our of respect towards the Muggle Borns and the Halfbloods. But most of the students blamed it on the fact that professors like the headmaster Dippet and professor Dumbledore weren't on that list. While professor Slughorn was, so in fact the Potion professor didn't mind to hear his students speak lively about it.