Tormented

We spent the evening in companionable silence waiting for everyone to head to their respective dorm before beginning to speak as the last of the seventh years finally shut their door.

“Is that a common reaction to a new queen?” I asked him glancing at the panel behind his throne.

“In my three years as king I have never know the portrait to move nor the doors to glow, no.”

Upon this statement I turned to look at the panels that had glowed earlier and noticed they did indeed appear to be cleverly concealed doors.

“Where do they lead?”

”Im not sure, they have never opened for me. I have tried many things but they have always stayed shut.”

I got up and went around behind my chair to push against the panel. Nothing happened. Upon my second try Salazar Slytherin walked back into his frame.

“It may take a password fit only for those most worthy to be in my house.” This made no sense to me but Riddle appeared to be having an epiphany. He smirked at me before turning to the door and announcing in parsletongue “*Open*”. “Do you speak parsletongue?” I asked the portrait, already turning towards my own panel. “I was the foremost expert in parslemagic in my time, and I would love nothing more to teach you all about it my dear” Slytherin replied. Riddle, who had been watching this exchange with a growing look of incredulity on his face went to say something just as I hissed “*Open*” at the door.

The circular chamber had walls lined with books from floor to ceiling, their shelves emanating a soft glow that illuminated the space without the need for sconces or lamps. Two doors stood opposite our entrance, with a large floo-ready fireplace between them. In the center, a loveseat and two armchairs surrounded a small table atop a plush black rug. What truly made the room breathtaking, however, was its ceiling which, like the window in the main common room, offered a mesmerizing view into the depths of the black lake.

Riddle and I shared the same reverence for the room as we explored it silently. After a while, Slytherin appeared in the portrait above the fireplace I had barely noticed earlier. "This was my personal study before the school expanded. When my son and daughter attended together, some twenty years after the founding, they established the first court system. I gifted them this room and the adjoining ones to use. These books, however, are so precious that I created wards allowing entry only if both the King and Queen were worthy of their titles and spoke Parseltongue. Entry to this room grants not only my assistance and access to this knowledge, but also use of the floo network." He gestured to the fireplace below him. "You'll have direct access to your rooms"—he indicated the doors on either side—"and a private bathroom. I'll let you two become acquainted with each other and your surroundings tonight. I'm here to help with your duties, and I can pass messages and keep watch throughout the dormitories, common room, and most of the castle." He then left his frame, presumably returning to the main common room.

I turned to Riddle after a moment “do you wish to discuss our goals for the house tomorrow perhaps?”

“You were truthful in wishing to discuss that?” he questioned

“Do you not have any goals for our house?” I quirked an eyebrow

“I have never before met a queen that does. Tomorrow night.” He smirked at me before heading towards the door on the right, I decided to follow his example and headed towards what I assumed to be my new room.

The room I entered was gorgeous. A large four-poster bed sat in the middle atop a plush rug. The wall to my right was entirely made of glass, offering a view into the lake. The wall to my left contained two doors with a large wooden desk between them. The farther door was open, revealing a spacious closet. Assuming the closer one led to my bathroom, I pulled it open—only to be met with the face of the person I had bid goodnight to not two minutes ago.

Looking past his rather confused face I could see a door opposite mine lead into what was presumably his room. The bathroom was large and rectangular, the wall to my left was made entirely of one long slab of black marble and had two sinks and two vanities. To my right the room stretched out way past what I thought was reasonable considering the fact that this was a bathroom for two people. On the right side of the room two showers had been constructed out of black marble with opaque glass doors on the front. Next to that was another structure made out of black marble with two doors that I assumed were toilets. On the left side of the room was a bathtub the size of a small swimming pool.

The back wall was made up of thousands of stain glass snakes intertwined with each other that seemed to glow because they too looked out into the lake. I couldn't tell if they were hissing because the bath seemed to constantly be running but they were slithering all over each other creating a rather dizzying illusion and some rather pretty shadows on the floor.

I looked over to Riddle who was looking past me in to my room. “I suppose his definition of private bathroom is different than mine”

His lips tilted up for half a second before he looked at me and said it what was almost a sincere manner “I do not wish to compromise you, we should work out a bathroom schedule.”

I gave him a rather condescending look before pointing out that unless I took a bath or he broke into my shower stall he wasn't going to see anything more interesting than me brushing my teeth.

I could tell my condescending tone grated on him but all he did was turn around and walk back to his room. This was fine by me as I intended on getting to bed as soon as possible.

***********************

The next morning I woke early from a nightmare but not early enough to consider anything other than a long shower. I beat Riddle to the bathroom but I heard him enter just as I was shampooing my hair. Fortunately, we missed actually interacting as he was in the shower when I left. I met up with Melania and Aurora in the common room and headed down for an early breakfast. The girls seemed entranced by my display with Walburga the night before, and were attempting to express this without seeming uncouth. It was rather endearing, I truly liked all of the girls in my year, other than Walburga, and was excited to see if I would be successful in actually making friendly acquaintances over the year. It helped that I was in Slytherin and the students there were all more politically minded as I would otherwise have probably given up the first night in the dorm.

Today was my first defense against the dark arts lesson, I had it first thing in the morning. Thankfully Melania, Aurora, Tabitha, and Esmerelda were also taking newt level DADA so I was able to walk to class with them instead of Riddle. The professor was a strict but kind old man who had served with the Aurors for over fifty years. I introduced myself to him before class, as I had made a habit of with all my professors, and learned his name was Professor Starke.

He began by outlining the course aims and giving the mandatory newt year speech before shocking everyone by revealing we would participate in two duelling tournaments this year. The first one would take place first semester and would be with partners. The second one would start after we came back from winter break. Because of this we would have an extra class period every Thursday at 8pm after dinner when we would watch or compete in duels. Normally an announcement like that would be met with terrible complaints but everyone was too excited to participate in what was essentially a school sanctioned fighting ring to care overly much. The promise of extra credit to the winners of the duels was just the cherry on top of a very large cake.

After he finished outlining the structure of the program he paused dramatically before announcing that our duelling partners had already been chosen for us. Before everyone could be too upset by this, he assured the class he had chosen partners he believed would work well together, and were in the same house so that it was easier to arrange times to meet and discuss strategy or practice together. This alleviated much of the grumbling from around the room, and as he started listing of the partnerships many people cheered with who they had been paired with.

I however was slightly concerned with who the professor would think I would work well with. I had just met these people four days ago and he had never seen any of us interact. As I watched Aurora and Melania pair together and then Tabitha and Esmerelda I knew my chances of being paired with someone I actually liked had just plummeted to almost zero.

When the professor announced “Grey and Riddle” though I began to have some hope. I knew we would hopefully be able to work at least peacefully together. I also hoped that based upon his position in the house he would prove to be a good dueller, and we would be able to win the tournament. Partially for the extra credit but mostly because my pride wouldn't accept anything less.

After he finished announcing the partnerships he began the actual lesson on the pros and cons of different muffling charms and I stopped paying attention to his raspy voice.