Riddle Me This

CH 1

“Whoa,” I said, looking around confusedly. I blinked. “Uh…”

“Relax, dear,” a voice said, pulling into view a woman in white. “It’s just the hospital wing. No need to panic.”

I tried to sit up, but the woman, Madame Pomphrey, pushed me down again. I rubbed my eyes. “What happened?”

“Took a rather nasty fall down the magic staircase, I’m afraid,” Madame Pomphrey said, sighing. “First year pushed you.”

I groaned. I, of course, was honored to have the Prefect position, but sometimes it could be a real pain in the butt. Literally and figuratively.

“Any visitors?” I asked. I was really wondering how long I had been sitting there, but I wouldn’t just ask her for fear of being too boring.

“Oh, well, the first year who pushed you apologized to your unconscious body.”

I grinned, laughing. Madame Pomphrey joined in the laughter. I had this effect on most of the teachers.

“Rather petty, these first years, aren’t they?” I said, still grinning.

“I do suppose so,” Madame Pomphrey said.

“Any other visitors?” I asked, again trying to be inconspicuous.

“Well,” she said, "Professor Dumbledore came in to check up on you, but that’s hardly standard of Hogwarts professors to check on their students.”

My grin faded and my mouth twitched. Albus Dumbledore never seemed to leave me alone, even when I was unconscious. He always suspected I was up to something. I usually was, but I wasn’t just gonna tell him that.

I sighed. Madame Pomphrey looked at me solemnly, clicking her tongue. “How long have I been here?” I asked, giving in to the boringness of the question.

“Oh, only a couple of hours,” she said, waving her hand indifferently.

“When can I leave?”

She tapped her finger on her chin, thinking. Finally, she said, “Ah, well, I don’t think I can stop you from leaving now. After all, you’d want to start off this semester freshly.”

“Thank you, Miss,” I said, jumping up and rushing away, ignoring her calls from inside the hospital wing. I skipped down the steps of the stairs, glancing at the clock. It was 7:46. Just in time for breakfast.

Pushing past several people and shouting apologies back at them, I entered the Great Hall, astounded by its beauty as usual.

I strutted over to the Slytherin table and sat down next to my best friends, Sovvy and Olive.

“Hey!” Olive said, patting me on the shoulder as I sat down, grinning. “We heard you got beat up by a first year!”

“Shut up,” I said as the small portion of the table chuckled. Sovvy looked up from his plate and grinned. “Hey, Tom! Where’ve you been?” Sovvy asked, slapping me on the back as well.

“In the beautiful land of unconsciousness,” I said, helping myself to some roast beef in front of me. “Got any tea for me, Olive?”

Olive Hornby, the purest of pure bloods you could get at her age, usually had some new gossip every few seconds, always fluttering around and listening in on every conversation. She had a large attention span and was likely listening in on at least two other conversations as I talked to her.

“Ooh, yes!” Olive said, clapping her hands eagerly and rubbing them together. “Ok, first of all, Myrtle got new glasses again. I can’t wait to tell her they’re outdated again. Girl needs to step up her game in the fashion department.”

I glanced over at the Ravenclaw table, where, sure enough, “Moaning” Myrtle Thomson was crying at the end of the table, bearing yet another pair of glasses.

“Second of all,” Olive continued, “Hagrid got detention again. Heard he’s been sneaking around after dark again. Probably taking care of some new rat this time.”

Rubeus Hagrid was a student a year younger than me who was obsessed with the strangest of critters. The year before, he got suspended for bringing in and taking care of a small flock of Cornish Pixies.

“Never can get out of trouble, can he?” Sovvy said from my other side. “In my opinion, he never should’ve been let in the school, half-giant that he is.”

I nodded. “Half-giants and Mudbloods, next thing you know they’ll let actual Muggles enroll here, the nasty things,” I said. Though I would never express my opinions of Muggles or Mudbloods in front of teachers (that would damage my reputation), I could and would express them with my friends. My friends, however, would never know that I had dirty blood as well. It wasn’t something that you would go boasting around, after all. My father was and is the thing I most regret, but I can’t do anything about it. We don’t choose our parents, after all.

“Ooh, and one more thing,” Olive said, leaning in. “They say that a kid who was expelled two years ago came back this year. Cassandra Lestrange. She’s got a rep and you’d better watch out.”

I leaned in. “Which house?”

“Ravenclaw. No one knows why she got sorted there. She would’ve made a perfect Slytherin, according to her record.”

“Show her to me.”

Olive looked back at the Ravenclaw, skimming it until her eyes landed on her target. “There,” Olive said, pointing to a girl laughing hard in the middle of the table.

The girl, supposedly Cassandra Lestrange, was a skinny girl who looked easy to pick on. Her hair looked like it had been dyed several times, with many different colors overlapping and being scattered. Brown, blonde, white, grey, and black. She was wearing Ravenclaw robes, but it appeared that she graffitied them and covered them in marker stains and other patches of various colors. I immediately marked her as someone worth giving detention to, and I could see how she got expelled two years ago. I wondered who had to buy their way into getting her back at the school.

“What do you think?” Olive asked.

“I think,” I said, “that I’ll end up getting her in trouble this week.”

“You know,” Sovvy said, grinning, “you are tolerable as a prefect sometimes. Useful sometimes.”

Sovereign (Sovvy) Malfoy, the tidiest student at Hogwarts, is not someone you want to cross. He will get revenge faster than you can say “Sabatoge”. Last time the filthy Gryffindor kid, Orville Potter, called him a softie because of his cleaning habits, Orville woke up in a bed of tar. I made sure never to offend Sovvy. He knew where all the Houses’ common rooms were, and Olive kept him updated on all the passwords. And even though he was my best friend, he wouldn’t hesitate to take me down if it was necessary. He would also not hesitate to ask me to give Cassandra Lestrange a detention if she ever offended him.

A nasty gossip, a vengeful neat-freak, and a dangerously suspicious prefect/head boy. We made a nice trio.

CH 2

Two weeks later, I hadn’t given any detention to Ms Cassandra Lestrange, surprisingly. She had managed to stay under the radar, for now. But Olive, Sovvy, and I were anticipating the moment where she would strike, and strike hard. But that moment hadn’t come, so far.

I shared a small amount of classes with her. Herbology, Potions, and Divination. She seemed remarkably good at Divination especially, but she was clearly favored by Professor Menalaus. But, I told myself when this was clear to me, you have many more teachers who like you. They like you more. She is hated as much as you are loved. You will always be loved more than her.

But when the naughty girl Cassandra Lestrange, who had quite of a bad reputation, got better Divination grades than the infamous Tom Riddle, who has always been the top of his class, I had to do something about it.

It was a Friday afternoon. I stood in the courtyard with Olive. Sovvy wasn’t there, he was with his girlfriend, Amanda Ohyadd. Olive and I stood with our arms crossed, waiting for Cassandra to come from Charms. 

Sure enough, a small group of boys stepped out of the castle, laughing their heads off. Cassandra stood in the middle of them, wand in the air, and a bird emerging from it.

“Hey!” I said, calling after her and storming up to their group of people. I pointed at the small bird that had come out of Cassandra’s wand. “What is that?”

“A bird,” Cassandra said, grinning slyly. “What did you think it was? A hippogriff?”

“Well,” I said grumpily, “did you transfigure something into it?”

“No,” Cassandra said, scoffing. “It was just a spell we learned. Way to be paranoid, Pretty Boy.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Oh, but I bet you really like it, don’t you, Pretty Boy?” Cassandra stepped closer to me, then waved her hand behind her, at the group of boys. “Yall can go without me. Pretty Boy and I have a little bit of business to deal with.”

I wrinkled my nose. “We don’t have business to settle. We’ve never met.”

“Way to state the obvious, Pretty Boy,” she said, rolling her eyes. “And you know we do. Wasn’t it just my grades that made you come for me in the first place?”

My face turned red. “Wha—how did you know about that?”

“It’s Divination that I’m advanced in, genius. Not Charms.”

I winced. She had a point. But…no one was that good at Divination. Even I couldn’t actually see the future at least 98% of the time.  “But—still—how?”

“Well,” she said, a sly smile coming across her face, “my family is quite a strange bunch. And strange things happen to us. Up to sixty years ago, some rando put a curse on my family. Said that we would never see the end of it.”

“It? What’s that supposed to mean?”

She shrugged. “It. Danger. Attention. All those things, I suppose. Maybe dying painful deaths is part of it. I don’t know a family member who hasn’t.”

That chilled me, but Cassandra looked on, seemingly happy at the prospect that she would die painfully. “And you’re okay with it?”

“Oh, more than! You see, dying a painful death is kinda the same thing as dying a heroic death. So therefore, I’ll die heroically.”

“With that logic, you’ll also become minister of magic and defeat world hunger. I don’t think it’s up to you how you die, painfully, heroically, or both.”

“Ah,” she said, smiling softly, “but that’s not true. I can chose to die heroically, if I’m a hero, rather than stupidly. Even if I’m in a stupid situation, I can find a way to be a hero, therefore dying heroically.”

If she’s planning on dying as a hero, I thought, then she’s not on the right track.

“Here,” she continued, determined to make me see her logic, “give me a situation to die in. Any situation. No, really! Just, like, ‘you get stabbed’ or something. I can find a way to be a hero.”

“Ok, then,” I said, stepping back and thinking. Olive left, she seemed to think that family curses and heroic deaths were too boring. “Poisoned.”

She squeezed her eyes shut in thought, then opened them and said, “well, I’m assuming that if I was poisoned, depending on the potion/poison, it would’ve had to been brewed by a very good potions-person, so I assume I was already very important.”

I stared at her. She raised her eyebrows and closed my open-hanging mouth. I squinted. “Okay, fine. What about…train crash?”

“If there’s fire, I’ll die putting it out.”

"Death by falling off a tower?”

“I’ll pretend that I was trying to stop someone from suicide.”

I crossed my arms in approval. “Okay, I see you.”

She grinned. “Careful what you say, Riddle. I know a lot about you, about your friends, and about your family.”

I stared at her, awed. Surely she couldn’t know anything about my family? Cassandras smile faded. “And,” she said, a small amount of sympathy seeping into her eyes, “I’m sorry, Riddle. But there’s nothing I can do about it.”

I raised an eyebrow. What did she know about me? What could she see? How far did her talent stretch, exactly? If she had information about my future, she might be able to answer some questions I had…

Heir of Slytherin, he called me. That one night. The guy in the dream. What was that supposed to mean?

I opened my mouth to speak, but Cassandra interrupted me. “Look, Pretty Boy. You can find me anytime you want. I’m usually alone, too, so if you want to ask me private questions, I’ll usually be available.”

That was kind of a depressing thought, but I nodded. “Okay. Okay, and if you ever want to meet with me, take this red tack,” I pulled out a red tack and shoved it into her hands, “and put it on the prefect announcement board in the South Corridor. Put the tack in the bottom right corner.”

“Prefect, huh?” Cassandra looked on with indifference, but her hand closed around the red tack. “And if I lose it?”

I pulled out my wand, making her give a start. I looked at her quizzically, then waved my wand at the tack. “There. Now it’ll always appear in your pocket.”

“And if I don’t have pockets?” she asked skeptically. 

“Then it’ll appear in your fist,” I said. She cocked her head and put the tack in her pocket.

“Alright, Pretty Boy. Just don’t give me detention for it.”

CH 3

The next day, I woke up in a cold sweat. 

It was the dream again. The one with the strange old man.

In case you haven’t noticed, I had a recurring nightmare. In the nightmare, a man finds me. Or…I find him. Basically, I’m walking down a corridor, heading to the Great Hall. But when I step into the Great Hall, there’s no laughter. No tables. And it’s dark, which is really not like the Great Hall.

The door disappears behind me, and I’m standing in a short-ish line of people. I don’t know any of them. In front of us stands an old man, wearing green robes. The robes seem to swirl and turn, like snakes.

Then he turns toward me. Everyone else is still, strange, like zombies. They don’t seem to be aware of their surroundings. The man raises a hand, and two boys and I walk up, against our will.

One of the boys looks just like me, with dark brown hair waving across his forehead. The other one, however, looks very strange. He has scraggly brown hair and circular glasses, with a strange scar on his forehead.

Then the old man speaks to us:

“You three. My heirs. You must be chosen. You must avenge me! Avenge my choices and take them down.” Then he looks directly at me. “Avenge me, Heir of Slytherin.”

And then I wake up. Every time.

This time, I nearly hit my head on the bunk above me. I rubbed my head, groaning softly. I sighed. I swore that the next time I had this dream, I would tell Cassandra immediately, but…

It just didn’t seem right to tell her. I knew from all the people who ever gave me advice that knowing your future was never a good idea. And, with my past, my future must be really interesting. Probably dangerous, too.

I stood up from my bed, silently slipping over the floorboards, careful not to wake anyone. I quietly got dressed and treaded softly down the stairs, heading into the Slytherin common room. 

I sat down on a black chair facing the fire. I put my head in my hands. What to do about this dream…what to do, what to do…

I stared at the fire, trying not to shake. I had this dream frequently, but every time, it seemed to get worse.

Avenge me, Heir of Slytherin.

I could almost hear the man’s voice echoing in my mind. What did Heir of Slytherin mean? Who were the other people there? And what did they do to the Great Hall?

I thought. Should I tell Cassandra? It did seem quite fast, just going and getting her the day after we decided to meet up if anything “went wrong.”

The flames in the fireplace flickered. I wondered if the flames would stay there, pulsing, all night. I wondered what kind of charm was put on them.

Then I heard it.

There was a small tapping on the door to the common room. It was quiet, but if I strained my ears, I could hear it. And it was definitely there.

I stood up, cautiously moving over to the door. I creaked it open, peering out. Sure enough, there was a small paper bird, quite like the one that Cassandra had produced the day before. I poked it, and it fell to the ground, motionless, like a piece of origami would. I picked it up, reading

Riddle

This is Cassandra

I’m sorry for what I did

I should’ve asked you before I did

But I can hear your thoughts

Keep this paper

You might need it

Don’t worry

I know about the dream

Meet me on the seventh floor, near the painting of the guy teaching trolls ballet tomorrow

Again, I’m sorry.

• Cassandra  Cassie  Lestrange 

Ps. You can call me Cassie, not Cassandra

I held the paper bird with trembling hands. How did she know about the dream? She saw the future, not people’s minds! And what was she sorry about? Did she go against Hogwarts regulation again? Did she get expelled? And how could she “hear my thoughts”?

I watched as the words on the paper disappeared, replaced by new ones. These ones said

Don’t freak out! It’s ok, I’ll explain tomorrow. And like I said, keep a hold of this paper. You might need it. I would suggest that nifty pocket spell that you tried on my yesterday.

So she could hear my thoughts!but how? Last I checked, she wasn’t telepathic. Maybe I should ask Olive, I thought, then quickly pushed the thought away for fear of Cassie seeing/hearing it. 

I went back to my dorm room, climbing onto bed. I silently performed the pocket charm on the small piece of paper, then fell asleep, recalling all the events of the night as I did so.

CH 4

“You did what?”

I shook my head at Cassie, pacing. We stood on the seventh floor, right where she told me to meet her the next day. She winced.

“I had to do it!” Cassie argued. “It was the only way I could get you to your future!”

“What future?” I asked, putting my hands in my hips. “Are you gonna give me any information on that dream or not?”

“Yes, I am,” Cassie said, rolling her eyes. “But you’re not listening, and if you don’t understand why I did the Connection Charm, I’m not going to explain it.”

I dropped my hands. “Fine. But if you’re gonna tell me a little bit of my future, don’t give away too much. We both know how dangerous that can be.”

She sighed in satisfaction. “Okay, I needed to have a brain connection with you because you are going to need to tell me things in the future when I’m not there.”

“Okay, two questions so far,” I said, making her roll her eyes again. “First of all, why can’t it be a two-way connection? Why can’t I hear your thoughts?”

“Because I can see your future, Pretty Boy.”

“Oh,” I said, feeling dumb. “Right. Ok, moving on. If you know that I’m gonna need to tell you something, don’t you know that something I’m gonna tell you?”

“No,” she said, sagging. “I can’t see that far. Knowing why you were finding me yesterday was simple, but with vital pieces of information like whatever you’re gonna tell me, my gift restrictions kick in.”

“Oh. Okay. Continue, then.”

“That dream of yours,” she said, moving over to the strange painting on the wall. “It’s important.”

“Figured as much.”

“Well, it’s not only important to you. It’s important to everyone inside Hogwarts. To everyone who will ever attend Hogwarts.”

“So… I’m the one who decides whether it’s important or not, I’m guessing?”

“Yep.”

“Well, great, then,” I said, sighing and pacing again. I remember what Albus Dumbledore had told me during my early years at Hogwarts. He told me I was destined for great things, but that I should keep my special…talents secret.

I stopped at the other end of the hallway, my back to Cassie. I heard a sound behind me. Like bricks moving. I turned.

Sure enough, when I turned, I saw a large entryway, and Cassie standing in front of it, wincing. She looked at me. “Welcome to my humble hideout.”

———————————————————————————

“So, what are we here for again?” I asked Cassie, standing in the middle of what she called “the Room of Requirements”, surrounded by a lot of junk. There was all kinds of treasure in there.

“It’ll show up eventually,” Cassie said, glancing around nervously. She seemed giddy to leave the room, it clearly scared her. 

“Something wrong?” I asked her skeptically.

“Nothing,” she said quickly, “just memories. This room is what got me expelled two year ago.”

I stared at her. I realized that, though her looks were a bit rowdy, and she did laugh hard a lot, she didn’t really seem like someone to get expelled to me. “How did you get expelled two years ago?” I asked.

“Oh,” she looked uncomfortable. “Well, I sorta—well I kind of—“

“Come on. You can trust me.”

She raised an eyebrow at me. “You see, I just… I didn’t do anything.”

Now it was my turn to raise my eyebrows at her. “How?”

“My gift. I just predicted a Mudblood teacher’s death, and a week later, when the Mudblood teacher was killed, I was the one who couldn’t be found when it happened. I was in here. I wasn’t hiding, I didn’t know she died, but everyone thought that I did it, because I wasn’t to be found when the teacher was killed.”

“Why didn’t you tell them where you were?”

She shrugged. “As far as I’m concerned, no one else knows about this room. I just couldn’t bring myself to let it slip to the whole school where my hiding place was.”

I could probably relate to that. I had a lot of secrets. The fact that my father was Muggle, that my mother couldn’t make him fall for her, so she slipped him a love potion, and—

“I’m sorry, Riddle,” Cassie said. “About your dad. Your mother, too.”

I blushed deeply, cursing myself for forgetting that she could hear my thoughts. Cassie grinned, sending shocks up my spine like lightning. I forgot she could grin, even. Like, not an evil one.

“Moral of the story:” Cassie said, “predicting death can be especially dangerous.” She frowned, tapping her chin. “That reminds me. Riddle, your dream. Like I said, it means more than you think it is. You are the Heir of Slytherin. And you need someone to confirm it. Someone real, and alive.”

“Alive?”

She clapped her hand over her mouth, then stood up. “Forget I said that.”

But it was too late now. I knew that knowing your future could be dangerous, but at the moment, I wasn’t listening to what I knew compared to what I didn’t. “Cassie, tell me, now.”

She heaved a heavy sigh, closing her eyes. “Riddle, you know knowing your future can be dangerous. Careful, Pretty Boy.”

“I know. I don’t care at the moment. Spill.”

She opened her eyes painfully. “Riddle.”

“Cassie.”

“Fine. I’ll give you answers, but you have to be smart enough to figure them out.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Riddle!”

“Okay, okay, fine.”

“Listen, have you ever heard of… the Chamber of Secrets?”

Dread filled my lungs, making it hard to breathe and harder to think. “Dumbledore. Professor Dumbledore warned me about something called the Chamber when I first came to Hogwarts.”

Cassie pursed her lips, suddenly nodding. “Alright then. I can see him closely entwined with your fate. You with his as well. Let’s go see this Dumbledore.”

CH 5

After a lot of arguing and convincing, Cassie and I soon found ourselves standing outside the door to the Transfiguration classroom. Cassie raised her hand, poised to knock. She breathed, looked at me firmly, then tapped three times on the door.

It was a moment before a man with a shaggy beard and shaggy hair opened the door. He smiled at Cassie, then turned to me and nodded, his smile fading slightly.

“Ah,” Dumbledore said, “a strange duo, but I always knew you two would show up knocking one day. Come in, will you?”

A few minutes later, Cassie and I were sitting in front of Albus Dumbledore as he smiled serenely and clapped his hands together.

“So,” he said, “what did you two come here for?”

Cassie and I exchanged glances. “Well,” Cassie started, “we were wondering…if we may ask you, of course…”

“Do you know anything about the Chamber of Secrets?” I asked abruptly. Dumbledore looked at me. His smile was gone and he looked dead serious.

“Yes,” he said, then he stood up. “But if you two are looking to cause trouble at this school, then I will ask you to leave and—’’

“Professor!” Cassie said, shooting up and out of her seat as well. “Of course. We should leave. We won’t be bothering you anymore.”

I looked at her, but she nodded her head urgently and raced to the door, gesturing for me to follow. We stood in the hallway outside of the classroom.

“You can’t just go around asking about the Chamber of Secrets, Pretty Boy!” Cassie said, grabbing my arm and storming down the hallway.

“I’m sorry, I didn't know!” I said, rubbing my arm that she was still crawling.

She sighed, stopping. “Riddle, you know how I said that Dumbledore’s fate and yours were entwined?”

“Yes,” I said, wondering where she was going with this.”

She just sighed again and started walking. “You have to be careful, Riddle. That man—you have to watch out for him, cause in your story, he’s one of the bad guys.”

I caught up to her. “Where are we going?”

She suddenly paled and turned to look at me. She put her hands on my arms to steady herself, then looked me straight in the eye. “We’re not going to the place I thought we were. Riddle, do you know where the Chamber is?”

“No,” I said incredulously. “Please tell me we’re not going there, though.”

“No,” she said.

“Oh, good.”

“Not yet,” Cassie continued, wincing at my expression. “First we need to find your friend, Olive.”

“Olive? What do we need her for?”

Cassie met my eyes again. “Because she knows where the Chamber is.”

I stared at her. “Olive? How?”

“She just doesn’t know that she knows,” Cassie said, still making no sense. “Well, it’s not really that she knows, but it’s like she’ll…lead us there. For you to open the Chamber.”

“Open it? Why would we open it? We don’t even know what’s inside!”

“I’m sorry if you don’t want to, Riddle, but in exactly three days, you will open it, whether you like it or not.” She looked sad, as though opening it was the last thing she wanted.

“You don’t seem to like that prospect,” I prompted.

“No,” she said. “Not at all. But let’s just hope that…thst my predictions are wrong for once.”

“Well,” I said, putting my hands on her shoulders. “Tell me what you’re worried about.”

She wouldn’t meet my eyes. “There would be no point. I can’t help my fate. But I can try to help yours. Riddle, you have to try to change your fate as well. Please,” she suddenly looked panicked and hopeful, “you have to try. Don’t trust your followers. Don’t listen to the Prophecy. Don’t—don’t let your pride get the better of you.”

She seemed especially distraught, like she had seen something that she wished she didn’t, which was probably true.

“Cassie,” I said calmly. “Tell me. What’s really bothering you?”

She looked terrified, finally meeting my eyes. “Riddle,” she whispered, “I saw something. Something I know I can’t avoid.”

“What? What was it?”

“I—’’ she choked a bit. “I know how this will all end. How I will end.” She closed her eyes, holding back tears. “I know how I’ll die.”

CONTINUED IN RIDDLE ME THAT