Tom Riddle and the Pure-Blood Prince

A Deathly Encounter

Tom Riddle and the Pure-Blood Prince

Part Two

Chapter Nineteen: A Deathly Encounter

Inexplicable terror passed over Eileen as her parents coaxed her onto the train at platform nine and three quarters. She looked over her shoulder, spotting in the distance the distinctive presence of Tom Riddle.

Riddle had attracted a small entourage of students. He was standing in the middle, quite at ease.

"Who are you gawking at, Eileen?" her mother, Marie demanded.

"Who says I was gawking at anyone, mother?," Eileen snapped back, giving her mother, a final repulsed look.

She turned on her family and went to sit in the nearest compartment. The train would be leaving at eleven o'clock, which was about a minute from now.

"Er...Keep up the good work in your N.E.W.T.s," her father, Graham said sheepishly from outside the open window in her comparment.

"I will...," Eileen said not unplesantly. standing near the window.

She peered down at her little brother, Francis and smiled. His round face was taking in the whirlwind of activity, with innocent wonder and perhaps longing for his time to go to Hogwarts, which was still five years away.

The Hogwarts Express started to move and gather momentum, and Eileen waved farewell without much enthusiasm. At least she wouldn't have to see her mother's pig-headed, obstinate expressions until Christmas break.

Eileen plopped down and stared out at the metropolis of London for the first few minutes, and then the English Countryside.

Inside her mind, she stewed over how alone she thought she was. But then the hope of "Dark Order" meetings, and the probability of the onyx stone becoming activated early this term, with the chance to do more with Riddle's gang, cheered her up.

She jumped out of her reveries when she remembered she had her first prefect duty of the school-year at noon.

Eileen made her way to the back compartment, the last one on the train. About two dozen other fifth, sixth and seventh year witches and wizards were heading in the same direction, for each of them were Prefects.

A young woman of sixteen was standing in the front with quite a serious expression for such a youthful individual, her wry mouth, pursed with very red lips and cheeks. Her eyes glowed behind chic green spectacles and her hair was coiled back in a tight French knot.

"Good afternoon, Prefects. I'm Minerva Mcgonagall, as most of you are aware. I've been made Head Girl," was articulated in a crisp, clear voice. "...And, the Head Boy, also a Gryffindor is Jason Mitchells," she added beckoning to where a boy stood on her right, seemingly content to allow the Head Girl to take the initiative.

"Could you please pass out to each Prefect a copy of the Objectives List?," Minerva asked.

Mitchells did not hesitate, but started going around to each of the Prefects, all of them congregated in small groups.

The Prefects were surprised that they were getting their usual instructions instead of just verbally as was the usual, primary fashion, but also a written copy, which would be useful for them to remember.

Riddle was at the foray of the groups, flanked by two of his followers, Wilkes and Rookwood (the former a Hufflepuff Prefect and the latter a Ravenclaw Prefect). Tom was eyeing Minerva shrewdly, until his hands closed around the paper and he started reading

Eileen was on the other side of the compartment, staring curiously at her beloved gang leader, but also harboring confusing trepidation.

Jason and Minerva waited patiently for the Prefects to cover the information. "Does anyone have any questions in regards to the Objectives List for the new term?"

There was a pause, in which Riddle continued to mildly appraise the Head Boy and Girl and then his hand came up, "I do..."

Minerva and Jason turned as if one, to look straight at Tom Riddle. The rest of the students copied their movements, all eyes fixed on Tom.

"It seems these policies you've no doubt drafted yourself, Mcgonagall... are in short an outdated response, to last year's scares and the legend of the Chamber coming true....for instance assisting First years to their classes for the first week of term? May I ask, if that is necessary?"

The followers beside Riddle gaped at him in awe, as if they hero worshipped him. They could not believe that he dared allude to those events, that he was secretly responsible for, again. Eileen scrunched her eyebrows, thinking Tom had a fair point.

Minerva noticed their behavior, and let out a huff, expelling her irritation. Then explained in a voice of deadly calm, "I cannot pretend the idea didn't come from those events...Yet the Chamber incident revealed weaknesses in the Prefect system in some respect. The objectives are simply some new traditions to make the start of a school-year easier for the benefit of all...for everyone to get acclimated."

Riddle's dark eyes narrowed and he retorted condescendingly, "Or perhaps a method to fully establish your own grasp of power and influence, as Head Girl Minerva. You thought you could use the Prefects to exemplify that, is that true?"

"No, it is not! We....This is the Heads and the Prefects working as a team, Riddle. I'm sorry for your own lack of wisdom in understanding the way things are run at Hogwarts."

"Yes...she is already thinking how above she is compared to us," Riddle said softly.

Riddle had formulated that confrontation mainly as a way to pit the Prefects against this powerful Head Girl and probably Jason Mitchells as well as a protective measure for his own influence, which was absolutely contained. Riddle believed everyone would think he had others' best interests at heart.

Eileen nodded to Riddle's words, but she was looking at Mcgongall somewhat fascinated by her ability to stand up to the likes of Tom. She had to admit she admired the Head Girl at least a little bit.

But nobody really heard Riddle's comment as the Head Boy, Jason Mitchells interrupted in a loud, gay voice, as he wanted to avoid the arguments going too far, "Take turns patrolling the corridors! We'll see you soon."

The couple of dozen prefects left in a hurry, Riddle and his followers some of the last to go. It wasn't untrue that some of the Prefects were now going to more guarded and more suspicious of Minerva because of what Tom Riddle had said.'

A golden orange of a moon was rising over the outskirts of Hogsmeade Village as students disembarked from the nine- hour journey aboard the Hogwarts Express.

Ogg, the Gamekeeper could be heard in the crowd yelling, "First years...down the path to the boats...Come on, don't be shy!"

Hagrid trailed in Ogg's shadow, languidly following the Gamekeeper. Eileen managed a passing glance at fourteen-year-old Rubeus Hagrid. His tan face was determined, but also muddled from grief over the recent loss of his father.

Somebody was rubbing her shoulders, then an arm wrapped around them. She thought she had an idea on who it was.

She peered up into the dark eyes of Tom Riddle. Something about those eyes made her shiver like never before, and her stomach lurched inside.

Using Legilimency over the most recent thoughts, including the fleeting glimpse of Hagrid's reaction to his fate, Riddle smiled widely and laughed mirthlessly, sharing with himself a private joke about Rubeus's new life from his expulsion of last June.

"Riddle!" a loud, rather harshly deep voice spoke.

Eileen felt herself being guided by Tom, moving toward the vast line of coaches in the velvety darkness.

Meanwhile, pounding footsteps of two people caught up with them, one breathing in heavy huffs. It was Rabastan Lestrange and Mulciber, two of Riddle's followers.

Eileen frowned deeply at the sight of Mulciber, with his brutal visage of a face. She absolutely loathed the boy and naturally so. This future Death Eater was the one who had wanted to use 'Avada Kedavra' on Eileen for sport in the Forbidden Forrest at her entrance into the 'Dark Order' last January.

Nearing one of the coaches, Eileen let out a hastily stifled gasp, but then started to feign a coughing fit. Luckily nobody paid her any mind.

Riddle was having a supposedly casual conversation with Lestrange.

"When does the first of you-know-what start?"

Riddle gave a significant look, "Soon enough, Lestrange...I'm delighted you're so eager to provocate, but you know the cliché, patience is a virtue. I for one...happen to have that virtue."

Riddle adored the fact that he had such license to milk his ever-arching ego whenever he wished, when in the company of his servants.

Eileen continued to tense up, as they finally approached a vacant carriage. Her clammy hand reached to her mouth, still surprised.

Riddle looked her fully in the face, his curiosity mildly incensed from the tension he had sensed from her a moment ago.

Eileen's brown eyes darted from the whites of the pupils of those things in front of all the coaches, back to Riddle's dark ones.

His eyes narrowed and there seemed to be an omnisicient wisdom that told Eileen that he could see them as well.

"Y-You see it?"

He only nodded, from the sidelines of Eileen's point of view, and opened the door of the compartment into the stagecoach, letting Eileen go inside.

Afterwards Rabastan Lestrange and Mulciber followed Riddle in.

Eileen continued to stare at the horrible creatures, now visible in the opening between the bench parallel from where she was seated beside Riddle. Simply mesmerized by their limply folded leathery wings of a scaly and ribbed frame and the fact that they looked like there wasn't a piece of flesh on them.

Rabastan and Mulciber were consumed over an argument about some ridiculous detail in the interrelated dynasty of the pure-blood families.

Riddle was just nonchalantly gazing over their heads at the thestrals, consumed in his own thoughts. But after a moment he looked at Eileen, thinking of some secret passion.

She was slightly nauseated by the grisly sight of the Thestrals as the line of carriages started making tinkling jingles as they headed towards Hogwarts. Eileen wished she could become calmer. In one hand, she touched the glittering green opal necklace, worn everyday since that night in July. It was like a pacifier to assuage her fear.

Mulciber and Lestrange had quieted down from their prior argument. Mulciber happened to give Eileen a thought, as he loudly commented, "You look miserable...Prince." It was not meant to be compasssionate, it was delivered quite rudely.

Tom Riddle did not have the same level of faith that Eileen would be loyal to serving him as he had in the beginning. Therefore, he was going to continue with the rigorous Legilimency he had been employing since last year, after discovering Eileen had the gall to accuse him.

Riddle saw all her terrors over the sight of these creatures, totally foreign and unknown to Eileen.

"I hope we can all see them one day...," he almost dreamily announced.

Eileen sharply looked up, back at the Thestrals and then turned abruptly back at Tom, so fast she cricked her neck.

The deathly creatures reflected back in Tom's pupils. He was aroused by the sight of them, because of what they represented.

In an outspoken burst she countered, "You mean not everyone can see them? What are they anyway?"

Riddle fixed his eyes slowly back on Eileen's pale face in the glowing interior of the coach. Tom's eyes seemed so dark, as if no light could ever penetrate.

"Thestrals...you'll only see if you've seen death. Obviosuly you have, Eileen. I wonder who that could be," he offered the last sarcastically. A smile twitched reminescently.

Mulciber and Lestrange had their full attention on Riddle. Yet they weren't hanging on every word like they normally would. Both had identically dirty looks.

"Now the whites in their eyes', that indicates the loss of power. A tremendous loss of magical power, one you witness when you kill...or see someone die," he hastily added.

Mulciber sniggered. "Stop telling Prince ghost stories! This isn't Halloween, Riddle."

Lestrange laughed and smirked skeptically at what he thought was a joke on Eileen Prince.

"Yeah, there isn't anything there....except Hogwarts," Lestrange surly intervened, glaring at Eileen.

Riddle had been exaggerating about the white's of Thestrals' eyes. But nevertheless he went onward, "Speaking of ghosts...they're an imprint left on this earth...Why? Because they feared death, Eileen. Death...such a fearful activity. One can evade, yet very few can accomplish it."

Eileen gulped. There was a transparent redness in Riddle's eyes for a moment. She discounted it. Afterall, she was totally allowing her imagination to run away with herself.

Riddle sat back more relaxed. He gained pleasant comfort in his own, most secret fear of death in frightening Eileen.

As the coaches, came to a halt in front of the school gates, images swam forward becoming paralyzed in the reality of death, the inescapable fate that awaited everyone. Images of skulls, gravestones, and even bodies like corpses flooded her consciousness. Stricken with fear, Eileen couldn't wait to get away from those Thestrals.

The four of them stepped out. At the end of the gargoyles lining the pathway to the front of the school, was the stone steps leading up to the gigantic oak doors.

Lestrange and Mulciber disappeared into the enormous crowd converging from all the carriages. Students gaily, full of their youthful energy, sprung up the stone steps into the castle.

Riddle had only taken a few brisk steps, when Eileen determined he wouldn't disappear as well tugged on his arm. "Tom!...Slow down. Can I ask you something?"

Riddle slyly answered, "Yes, considering you just asked me a question."

Eileen couldn't help but turn icily direct, "Where did this opal necklace come from?"

Riddle surreptiously eyed the glittering green stones, draped over her heart.

"It's for you, Eileen. I bought it...That's all there is to say."

He began ascending the stone steps, Eileen followed anxiously watching him.

"I want your explanation of what happened over the summer. For weeks my magic suffered. I felt ill...It started right after the night I saw you...D-did you curse me?"

Riddle shrugged his shoulders and stopped ascending the steps. His expression looked apalled. "No. Eileen I would never curse you. That's nonsense."

Her body began to shake, considering she was challenging him. Yet Eileen managed to still speak icily, despite her fearful tremors. "There were cuts on my arms, Tom. How'd they get there?"

Riddle sighed, exasperated. Maybe he should have been even more precise with his cover-ups of the truth. "Eileen...if there is one weakness you have it's fastidiousness to trite details. There were rose-bushes where we were, which would explain the cuts. Don't you remember?"

He peered into her intently. Eileen felt a whirlwind of memories zoom through her skull. Then it felt like they were being pulled out, it was so strong. The image of them lieing in a rosebush, playing around made her feel giddy inside.

But in reality, Riddle was examining the work he had done on the pulvarization of the true memory and the replacement with the false one.

Eileen also re-experienced it as the images were forced onto her to view as well. All those comforting images and words on their romantic evening, how could she forget?

"Eileen, I just examined it. We had a good time. The Sorting begins soon, I don't have to elucidate because you remember it correct?... ," he sounded totally unperturbed by Eileen's suspicions, confident that she would believe him.

Eileen just nodded, suddenly feeling warm inside. They were in the castle now, and the flame torches were as numerous as ever, against the high walls of the Entrance Hall they were crossing to enter the Great Hall.

It took just a few moments for Tom and Eileen with a small number of other students to cross the flagged stone floor to the far right.

They veered off onto the left side of the Great Hall, as soon they past it's opened doors. Instead of the magical sky above them being sprinkled with stars, it was a mound of blackness, clouds filling the magical night sky, reflecting the real one outside.

Tom did not say good-bye to Eileen, as she thought he would. Yet he continued onward right next to her. Eileen narrowly avoided the silvery ghost of the Bloody Baron passing through her body, inadvertently leaning closer to Tom.

Riddle chose a spot closer to the back, where several of the boys from his secret cult were sitting. Some of them were supposed to be closer to the front, because they were third, fourth and fifth years.

Eileen took a few extra paces forward, until she found one of the last available seats between two girls that she shared the dormitories with every year. She was very used to being ignored by them, and the two girls' standoffish behavior. Eileen did not so much as glance at them. Instead she eagerly viewed the Staff table, mildly pleased to see all the old teachers present.

But the two girls were eyeing Eileen, who was sitting between them. Eileen hadn't even noticed they had made a space specially. Somewhat boredly tracing the path of the line of candles streaming down the Slytherin table above, Eileen was totally aloof to the attention.

Until one of the girls, nudged her ribs. "You've changed, Eileen. You look much better than last year."

Eileen turned her attention to the girl and made something between a smile and a frown, and as a nervous habit, she began touching her necklace.

The other girl laughed and said in an overly friendly voice, "You actually cut your hair, Eileen. Having a short mop totally improves you...Boys are gonna think you're a knock-out."

It was true. Over the summer, Eileen had cut her jet-black hair from all the way down down the back, to above her shoulders,as well as altering it with a side part. It was a much more fashionable trend of the nineteen-forties, but Eileen had done it because she had been feeling so different on the inside.

"Well, I don't think I looked half as bad as you lot think I did last year. It's only obvious because you always look everyone over when there's Start of Term," Eileen waspishly whispered back at them.

Professor Dumbledore, wearing a pointed hat with bright stars seemed to light up the room, as he sedately sauntered down the aisles between Hufflepuff and Gryffindor. Nearly everybody watched, craning their necks to get a good look at the batch of scared First Year pupils.

Several seconds past, until Dumbledore finished leading the line of eleven-year-olds to the front of the Great Hall, before the front and center. He then placed a worn, patched hat on a four-legged stool, situated on the platform.

The hat began to sing a song, describing what each of the four houses of the Founders prized in the students.

Eileen and the two girls were not listening. Eileen's line of vision drifted down the table, scoping out for her one girlfriend who would be a fifth year now.

But the two girls she shared her dormitory with were not done. Throughout the song, they kept beguiling Eileen on why she had walked in with of all people, one of the most popular students in the school.

On the third try, the girl named Steaphanie whispered, "Are you really friends with Tom Riddle?!"

Eileen had equivacated because she could not make her up her mind on whether it was prudent to divulge the truth. Eileen couldn't resist giving them the juicy news. Telling them would be an advantage socially, something that could dramatically heighten her status in Slytherin House.

"Well....try to keep it under wraps, but Tom is my boyfriend. ...Sort of," she quivered reluctantly.

The other girl, Kelly began to giggle, under her breath. But Steaphanie's eyes flashed with impatient interest, "How long have you been dating?"

"Er...Dating?...Several months, I guess," Eileen faltered. She knew in her heart that it wasn't really dating, but how was she going to explain the many complexities and complications to her relationship with...Lord Voldemort? They would never understand!

Steaphanie, gave a scorching look, that told Eileen she was annoyed her roommate had kept it from her all those months.

But the convervasation was forced to end abruptly as Professor Dumbledore called from the list he was reading, "Adders, Michael!"

The Sorting Ceremony was underway and nobody was whispering in the Great Hall anymore. Eileen's mind was doing mental leaps meanwhile. She wasn't sure if the implications of telling her roommates she was intimate with Tom was a good idea.

A boy emerged from the thirty or so young witches and wizards being sorted. He rushed forward and jammed the hat on his head. Seconds later the hat shouted, "GRYFFINDOR!"

The boy's face flushed red, and he made his way to the cheering table.

The next was a boy called, "Black, Alphard!"

There was a momentary silence and then, "SLYTHERIN!" was screamed.

The whole house of Slytherin went beserk. The cheering was even more incessant than Gryffindors'. Slytherins actually stomping their feet, in joy of the first new member for their House.

After a minute or two "Bulstrode, Augusta" became a Gryffindor. The hat had taken nearly a whole minute to decide with her though, as she nearly made Slytherin.

Some other First Years of the sorting in Eileen and Tom's sixth year included Bridget Cornfoot (Ravenclaw), Ambrosius Flume (Hufflepuff) Ciceron Harkiss (Ravenlaw), Timothy Johnson (Hufflepuff), Sylvia Macdougal (Hufflepuff) Hierome Longbottom (Gryffindor). Lastly was Mary Yardley, who would become an anomaly in Slytherin as a pig-tailed muggle-born girl.

The headmaster Armando Dippet, rose and greeted the school with bubbly enthusiasm, "Welcome to another year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry...May it be a spectacularly successful year for each of you!"

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