Chapter 2: The Unfriendly Rendezvous

The bright rays of the sun didn't touch Irene's face, but the emerald played with the glare in the dungeon room, making her awake. She slowly opened her eyes and listened carefully: everyone was still asleep. She quietly climbed off the bed, with her dress folded in half hanging on the footboard, and put it on, trying not to make any noise. Carefully levitating her shoes from under the bed into the hands, she tiptoed toward the exit.

It was another fifteen minutes before all the students got up, and the common room, where Irene cleaned herself up, was empty. She wasn't much of a fan of household spells, but there was no point in detracting from their usefulness in order to save time, so she never shunned them. She put the new shoes on and flopped down on the couch, resting her feet on the armrest. The long black hair spread across the surface of the couch.

"Well, what do we got?" With a slight gesture of a forefinger, the fireplace flared to life, brightly illuminating the entire living room. Irene took out a leather pouch, and the galleons jingled as they banged against each other, going one by one back into the little purse. "Well, the textbooks will be second-hand, but I can buy a nice robe. A winter robe... I'll buy one later, before it gets too cold," the verdict wasn't very loud, but it was out loud nonetheless.

Irene's body immediately felt hot, and every inch of her skin began to burn. She inhaled deeply, hoarsely. It felt exactly the same as yesterday in the Great Hall.

"What on earth is going on?" she thought, and clawed her pale fingers into a thick, curly hair.

She sat down, leaning forward, eyes fixed on the fire blazing in the fireplace. No, it wasn't hot enough to make her sick. She lifted the hem of her dress slowly, showing her stomach, and looked at the wound: There was fresh blood. The cut hadn't healed at all during the night.

"Holy hell!"

Deciding not to waste any more time, Irene let the dress hem down and got up from the couch, putting the pouch back in the pocket. Yesterday the headmaster had given permission to apparate into the Diagon Alley, where she could find not only various stores and stalls, but also the much-needed apothecary. To hell with the bad manners! The pain was so unpleasant that to endure it, postponing the moment of Apparition to the exit out of the gate, was impossible. After a loud clap, the Slytherin common room was empty, disturbed only by the quiet crackling of the fireplace.

Katherine Grace made a commotion at 8:30 sharp, when everyone was getting ready for breakfast. The new student was nowhere to be found. After questioning absolutely everyone in the common room and the girls' room, she made an announcement at the common table.

"Irene Düster is missing! I've been looking all over for her, she's nowhere to be found! Has anyone seen the new girl?" Katherine cast an anxious glance at her fellow students.

"After pointing her finger here and sitting here," Lestrange nodded at the empty seat, "I'm not surprised she's missing."

"What are you talking about!" Grace gave a disapproving look.

"Cheeky girl," Avery sniggered as he sipped strong coffee, "acting like everyone should obey her. 'Don't make me ask twice!'" the young men laughed at the last phrase.

"Enough," Catherine said sternly. "You'd have to be an idiot not to see that she's not that simple."

"Katherine, sit down," said someone in a quiet voice behind her. "I'm sure everything's all right."

"Good morning, Tom," Katherine nodded respectfully, and the young men sitting next to her did the same. "As prefects, we have a certain responsibility, and no one here wants any trouble... Considering the circumstances of last year…"

"I know, Miss Grace. I suppose it's common for..." Riddle was silent for a moment, settling back in his seat. His cheekbones tensed. "...For a new girl... to disappear and wander to all four corners of the world. Who knows, maybe she's discovered five more, invisible to the naked eye, happily exploring them without even remembering your name."

"My Lord," Katherine whispered softly, clutching excitedly at her robe — no one, of course, noticed this. Perfect manners and restraint had been instilled in her since childhood. She didn't find Tom's joke funny. "But what if something happened?"

"If it makes you feel better, look in the toilets." Tom elegantly broke a fresh bun. "For the boys. She's probably choking some chubby kid in there."

Katherine looked at Tom warily, but he, without another word, proceeded to the morning meal. Realizing that the discussion was over, she took a deep breath, and then sat down in her seat next to Malfoy.

"All right, I'll see the Headmaster after breakfast," she said to herself, as the male company ignored her concern and peacefully began discussing the political order of the wizarding world and the latest events taking place in Europe.

At a distance from the main entrance to the castle, there was a click of an Apparition. Irene Düster, safe and sound, returned from the Diagon Alley. In her hands were two large bags stuffed with textbooks and a robe. Looking amused and pleased, she headed for the door, but, unable to bear the weight, she threw the bags — they didn't hit the cobblestone road, but hung in the air and obediently flew after the mistress. The front door swung open with a clang, and Apolyon Pringle appeared on the threshold, a drop of sweat hanging from his mustache.

"There you go again, naughty girl!"

"With the headmaster's permission, Mr. Pringle, so you won't punish me today." There was a mawkish, fake smile on her face.

The caretaker muttered an obscene swear word under his breath, but Irene didn't care. Satisfied, she walked busily inside the school and into the dungeon.

On the neatly made bed was a note from Katherine, which said that, firstly, Irene still had time for Potions, and secondly, Katherine would personally strangle her, throw her out of the window and use the Cruciatus after that, because she, the prefect, needed to be notified of the departure. After finishing reading the amusing note, written in perfect handwriting, Irene smiled and took out a robe from a canvas bag.

After putting on the Slytherin robes, she froze. A heavy feeling flared up inside of her that felt so familiar. Looking at herself in the mirror, she realized that her outer state was not nearly as attractive as inner state: a painfully pale face looked at her from the reflecting surface, and the dark circles under the eyes betrayed her fatigue. It would pass. Irene hurriedly threw back the robe and lifted the hem of a dress. The wound healed. She smiled contentedly and put her hand into the bag from which she had pulled the robe earlier. In her pale fingers was an empty vial, which went into the trash with a cheerful clink. Apparently, the potion had done its job, and now nothing would prevent her from getting on with the much-anticipated studies.

The Potions Classroom was one of the large dungeons in Hogwarts Castle. Thankfully, Katherine had taken care of that as well, describing in an angry tirade how to get there. The doors to the classroom were open, which meant that the class had not started yet. There were already students sitting at some of the desks. Irene slowly stepped into the spacious and cool room. There were huge racks of jars and vials filled with ingredients everywhere, and the windows were quite small, so it was rather gloomy in the classroom. Behind the second desk in the right row, a blonde head could be seen. With a sigh of relief, Irene headed over there.

"Katherine, is it free?"

"Yes. I usually sit with Abraxas, but today I have to kill you, so it's free," Katherine reported through a smile.

"That's so kind of you!" Irene put her textbook and parchment down on the table.

"Next time you'll have to warn me! I almost rushed to the Ministry of Magic to enquire about your disappearance! They would have found you, of course, by my request, but..." Her blue eyes widened, and she gesticulated excitedly. Irene, on the other hand, was staring intently at everything that was happening without blinking, it could even seem that she had long lost the essence of the narrative and was simply examining the aristocratic features of the face opposite. "Abraxas said we should break off our engagement because I'm defending the one who stained him with a pie."

"Arrogant poseur," Irene muttered under her breath, opening her textbook.

"What?" Katherine didn't hear the inarticulate grunt.

"I said, has he already made a marriage proposal?"

"Yes!" A smile touched Katherine's face again, and she rolled her eyes dreamily. "By the way, Hufflepuff is with us today, so the lesson will be calm, not like with this... Gryffindor," She faltered, holding back an obscene word that almost slipped off of her tongue. Manners and upbringing played into the hands.

Soon the classroom was filled with students, and the door clanged shut. A professor of Dumbledore's age approached the teaching place.

"Good afternoon, dear students! I am glad to welcome you to our next class. I would like to inform you that we have a new student. So, it is my duty to introduce myself: Horace Slughorn!" The professor smiled and nodded toward the dark-haired girl at the second desk. "I am the Potions Master and also the Head of the Slytherin House. Welcome!"

Irene tensed from the excessive attention, and sticked a smile on her face. Wanting to disappear, she shrank back a little.

"Welcome, Irene Duester!"

A wave of indecipherable student voices swept through the classroom, to which Irene, feeling terribly uncomfortable beforehand, nodded kindly and tossed the pesky curls back so they wouldn't get in the way. It was worth braiding, after all.

The heat was intense.

"Merlin's beard! What the hell is that?" thought flashed through her mind.

She tried to breathe deeply to calm her body. Maybe it was something nervous and it was long overdue for her to take a break and rest for about a dozen years.

In the morning in Diagon Alley, the first thing she did was buy a potion to get rid of the wound, which, apparently, was the cause of severe malaise. Although she was well aware that it was nothing compared to how it could be. But still, the flashes of the fiery hell began to irritate, because there was simply no logical explanation for sudden attacks of fever, except for the wound that had already healed. Maybe due to the fact that she was going like this for a whole day, she got complications. Then things are bad. She needs to get to the healer as soon as possible.

"So, the topic of today's lesson is " Everlasting Elixirs". Has anyone already encountered this?"

"Yes, sir," a pleasant voice came behind Irene. "It's a group of potions with a focus on long-lasting or inexhaustible effects. In order to interrupt the effect of a long-lasting elixir, you must drink another potion, which works on the principle of an antidote."

"That's right, Tom," Slughorn nodded approvingly. "Five points to Slytherin!"

The Hufflepuff students were peacefully writing down new information on their parchments. Irene exhaled heavily. It was cool in the dungeon, and perhaps that was the only thing that saved her. Slowly raising her hand, she looked at the professor.

"Yes, Miss Duester?"

"This type of potions can include the Draught of Living Death. This is an extremely powerful Sleeping Draught, sending the drinker into a deathlike slumber. It can only be dispelled by a tonic potion called the Wiggenweld," Irene said less then she knew.

"You fool!" it flashed through Irene's head, "You raised your hand to ask for the hospital wing!"

She exhaled slowly, reproaching herself for the stupid demonstration of knowledge. Slughorn didn't expect the new student to have anything to say. Neither did Katherine, for she looked at Irene in surprise.

"How do you know that?" whispered Katherine.

"In Koldovstoretz, we used to pick these bloody Sorbus berries for potions every September," Irene answered just as quietly.

"That's right, Miss..." Slughorn looked with undisguised interest.

"Yes, thank you," Irene interrupted him, being absolutely not ready to hear her last name publicly for what seemed like the hundredth time.

The professor continued to conduct an interesting lesson, and every student, without exception, listened to him attentively and enthusiastically, except for Irene. She slowly turned her head to the right, where racks of various vials stood at arm's length. "Just what we need!" she chuckled, trying to resolve the situation without leaving the classroom. Lowering her hand down, she directed it towards the shelves. A light beckoning gesture with an index finger — a small empty vial soared at the level of the desk and slowly flew towards her. No one around noticed this, and the little beaker took its place on the edge of the desk. Irene stole a glance at her neighbor, who was listening attentively to the professor.

"Pokulum," she whispered quietly, and the little vial turned into a glass. "Aguamenti!" Immediately she pressed her lips to the cold water, greedily gulping it down. It got better.

The class went smoothly, apart from the fact that Irene occasionally felt like she was about to be burned alive. The class was a theoretical introduction to the big unit, so fortunately no one noticed her missing wand. The class was finally over, and the students began to lazily disperse. After all, the end of the school day was making itself felt. Irene took her time putting her textbook and parchment into her black canvas bag. The water saved her, but not for long. The fire shower was so exhausting that the decision to visit the Hospital Wing was no longer in doubt.

"Are you coming?" Katherine's voice rang too loudly, and it sounded like a bell ringing in the ears for a moment. Irene opened her mouth weakly, but only an inarticulate wheeze came out.

"She's staying," a steely voice said from behind. "And you, Katherine, in the meantime, make sure that our students behave with dignity. Abraxas, you will help her."

Irene saw Katherine nod silently. The next second there was the sound of footsteps leaving the classroom of both prefects. The heartbeat slowed, but the fever increased. Irene slowly turned her head to the left where the Hufflepuff students had sat before. The entire row of desks had long since been empty. Horace Slughorn was the first to leave. Irene sluggishly rose from her chair and confidently turned back. She wondered who was so bold to give out orders and tell her where to stay and what to do?

A tall, well-built young man was standing behind, leaning on the table, his arms crossed over the chest. The look was cold, intense. Black hair framed an insanely beautiful pale face with sharp cheekbones.

Eye to eye.

An unpleasant tingling sensation passed over the skin. This look of dark, almost black eyes seemed to stick to Irene's pale skin. He looked so piercing that it felt as if electrical impulses began to pass through her body.

The pause was too long, and Irene, grimacing in a mute question, waved her hands in displeasure. "Well, I'm waiting!" — that's exactly what her every move looked like.

The edges of the young man's lips twitched nervously. Otherwise, he looked unflinching.

"I don't care!" thought Irene and headed for the exit. The door was half a meter away when it slammed shut with a clang.

"Irene… Düster," he finally said. Measured approaching footsteps were heard behind, which made her turn around. "Nice to meet you."

The young man was smiling good-naturedly, but from this smile, the beautiful features of his face seemed to be distorted in the barely perceptible shadow of a malicious grimace. The voice sounded friendly, but something caused a feeling of discomfort.

"Yes, that's my name, thank you," Irene replied politely, anxious to get to the hospital wing as soon as possible. She slung her bag over the shoulder and stepped back toward the door.

"Tom Riddle," the young man paused without looking away. Irene was getting worse and worse, and so being in the classroom was getting more and more unnerving. "Hogwarts Prefect," he said.

"Yes, thank you, all right!" Irene shrugged him off, trying to remain indifferent and calm, and took another step back. "Nice to meet you."

She pushed the door open, but it was locked by a charm.

"Okay..." she whispered, accepting her fellow student's incomprehensible game. She turned around and asked directly. "What do you want from me?"

"Well, I don't know... maybe, say hello." He put on a warm smile that reeked of a barely perceptible dislike.

Tom was tall, and Irene stared stubbornly at one point somewhere in the center of his chest. The feeling that he was like a snake slowly coiling around its prey, preparing to swallow it, grew stronger with every passing moment.

"I said hello to you, Tom Riddle," Irene frowned, casting a furtive glance.

Why was he nitpicking to her? What was the reason of urgent attention? This was clearly not an attempt to get acquainted or notify her that here I am, the Prefect of Hogwarts, and therefore the best of the best! Awe and fear, admire and respect, new student.

Suddenly the headmaster's words about the boy she lived with in the orphanage appeared in her mind.

"Wait... did you and I live together in the orphanage?"

Tom didn't react to the question in any way, his gaze was still expectant. After a short pause, he said bluntly, seriously, "That's enough, Irene."

"Enough of what?" A nausea rose to her throat, and the fever worsened. There was a noise somewhere in her head, and it got so bad that Irene was frankly defiant, trying desperately to keep her tone polite, which hardly worked. "You're torturing me here, actually. Did I take away your favorite toy at the orphanage and broke it? Well, I'm sorry. Childish grudges, you know, you got to let them go."

"So this is it, right?" Tom smiled.

In the next instant at the snap of a finger his face became absolutely stony and his movements abrupt. The distance between the classmates shrank rapidly. Tom's gaze rested on Irene again, unpleasant and heavy. It seemed as if all the air around her had shrunk and begun to press down on her head with the weight of several tons, so uncomfortable it became.

"Who took you from the orphanage?" Tom asked a single question.

Irene felt as if Tom was squeezing her frail shoulders painfully, bruising them. But it was only a look, full of a desire not to miss a hint of her true emotions.

"Parents," Irene aid indifferently and shrugged, turning toward the coveted exit.

She had answered the question, and so logically she was free. The door, however, would not yield to a steady push, causing Irene to kick viciously at the wooden surface and then turn around, giving Tom a look full of momentary hatred.

"I just want to get out of here," she hissed. Her condition was so unbearable that she felt as if she were about to fall right down at the feet of this arrogant prefect of Hogwarts who acted like a king, giving out the orders who should stay and who should go.

"You've been good at showing fake politeness and innocence since childhood," Tom smiled and leaned his face closer to Irene. Now he could clearly see the eyes, the color of which had not changed at all over the years. "You showed your true face quickly."

"What are you talking about? You won't let me leave the classroom. Find some chubby whiner and try to torture him," she grumbled back through her heavy breathing.

"You don't remember, do you?" Tom grinned, matching up a jigsaw puzzle of Irene's emotions and reaction. "You don't remember me."

He suddenly took a couple of steps back and leisurely pulled out his white wand. Irene froze, watching his every move intently. The palm of her right hand froze in mute readiness, which was instantly read by Riddle.

"First of all, I'm not going to duel with you. Finishing Hogwarts is more important to me than a hysterical girl. And second of all, I wouldn't walk around with a Morion on my finger," Tom said condescendingly, looking at the Irene's hand, which had a beautiful ring on its finger with a stone the same color as her hair. "Especially at Hogwarts. Although when I saw how masterfully the vial flew to your desk, then turned into a glass, which silently filled with water... I admit, at first, I thought that you were a master at nonverbal spell."

With a wave of the snow-white wand, the classroom door finally swung open. Irene, realizing that there was no longer any threat, bowed theatrically and said with a pretentious intonation, "Thank you, my lord!" The strained smile disappeared, and Irene's haggard face became indifferent.

As soon as the prefect of Hogwarts was behind her, she again felt a strong heat, from which her legs gave way. It was an unbearable, physically devouring feeling, the cause of which was Tom Riddle.

The rest of the day was haunted by Irene's rotten mood. She remembered everything: Wool's orphanage, Mrs. Cole, Bella, Billy, and his rabbit, which she wanted to feed the huge python in the basement of the building; she remembered going out for walks in London, and once even running barefoot through puddles; she remembered Dumbledore's visit, which she was so happy about; she even remembered the trip to Diagon Alley, where a beautiful black wand was bought! She remembered the evening of August 31, 1938; her last supper at Wool's Orphanage, and how she had come to the third floor, where her poor little room was located... She remembered everything except a boy named Tom Riddle.

The fact that this young man was so angry with her was physically palpable. The fever was gone as soon as she was out of his sight, so there was no point in going to the hospital wing. What would she say to the healer? Give me a potion from an apparently talented and strong student of your school of Witchcraft and Wizardry? His energy is as frenzied and powerful as a Cerberus, which he is eager to unleash on Irene, who has just begun her studying. And what had she done to him as a little girl?

At this point Irene's mind began to wallow in a puddle of assumptions, each of which could be wrong. But she was sure of one thing: she had done something terrible, for the way Tom had literally hated her was evidence of that.

Katherine was quick to consider the bad mood of her new mate, so she did not ask any questions: neither about what had happened between Tom and Irene, nor about any distracted matters among other things. Or maybe Mr. Riddle had ordered her to? After all, apparently everyone obeyed him.

Irene sat on her bed, immersed in reading her textbooks, which always helped distract her. When the room was full of students, she decided to go to the common room and continue her reading there alone. Katherine immediately gave her prefect permission, so the lights out was not a problem. Katherine's favor pleased Irene. She took a cozy seat by the fireplace and grumbled to herself under her breath as she read five pages of the Defense Against the Dark Arts book, "No resurrection stone will help, I told you."

She yawned loudly and set the book aside, giving in again to the intrusive thoughts of Tom. As she fantasized about their conflict, she chuckled resoundingly, deciding that it would be easier to shake some pink ball of magic at divination to get an answer. But her musings were replaced by another, equally interesting question: Why didn't she remember him?

The fatigue of the previous days made itself felt, and sleep crept up quite imperceptibly, dragging Irene with its clinging paws into a dreamlike world. The cozy crackle of the fireplace echoed in the empty common room of Slytherin.

Irene opened her eyes abruptly, realizing that she had fallen asleep quite unexpectedly. She tried to shake off the drowsiness as she stared at the dusky shadows dancing around the common room from behind the fireplace. The fireplace hadn't gone out, but it was barely burning. It was high time to go to bed. Irene was about to get up when something fell from the hem of her dress to the floor. "Strange. I only have the book with me," she thought and rubbed her eyes. She leaned over the floor and saw a black magic wand.

"It can't be," she whispered. "It can't be!" Her trembling fingers grabbed the object lying on the floor, it fit perfectly in her hand. "Lumos!" A bright light burst out from the end of the wand.

Irene couldn't help smiling and joyfully pointed her magic wand at the couch, illuminating its surface: on the very edge was a textbook, open to a page with the title Defence against Inferi. A happy chuckle echoed through the common room, making Irene look around warily, but there was no one in the room.

"I thought I'd never see you again, and I'd have to buy a new one this weekend!" Irene held the wand to her heart.

She closed the book shut, hurriedly picked it up, and tiptoed to the girls' room.

There was a large leather armchair in the farthest corner of the common room. It was always in the shade, even during the day. A tall figure slowly floated out of the gloomy part of the room and headed toward the fireplace. Tom sat down on the sofa and leaned back where Irene had been before. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes.

"Black rose and jasmine, which blooms only at night..." Сheekbones seemed even sharper because of the playing glare of the almost extinguished flame in the fireplace. "Oh, yes," he whispered faintly in Parseltongue, "the sensuality of patchouli leaves... I hate this triad."