The Warning
The next morning I woke up at 6:00 am, unintentionally of course because who would want to wake up that early before you had to. Breakfast had already started but I wasn’t hungry yet, so I decided to get dressed and read in the common room for a little bit before heading down to breakfast.
At the time I was reading The Secret Garden, and was about halfway done. As I made myself comfortable in one of the lounge chairs getting ready to settle in for a quiet hour of reading I noticed someone lurking in the corner.
It was one of the older students, I recognized him but couldn’t place a name to his face. “Good morning” I said quietly with a polite smile, deciding it was better to acknowledge he was there than to ignore him completely.
As I said this his eyes narrowed like he was a predator and I was his prey. The way he looked at me left me feeling unsettled. After a moment he strode over to me, taking a seat on the couch next me, looking at me intently like he was trying to discover my deepest secrets.
“Can I help you with something?” taking a slightly colder tone than I had before, wanting to know why he was so crudely staring at me. At this point alarm bells were going off in my mind, telling me to leave before I couldn’t. However he surprised me by saying “Your Snape’s kid, correct?”
“Yes I am. Why does my parentage preclude this conversation?”
He glared at me as he said “no need to be so snide, I am trying to help you?”
“Help me how? By pointing out the obvious.” I said, throwing him a glare of my own.
He clicked his tongue in annoyance before saying “Pointing out the obvious is me helping you. Your father is a professor that many students here hate. However, a group of slytherins, including myself, are willing to make you untouchable by offering you our protection.”
“What's the catch?”
“Sorry”
“Offers like that always come with a demand on the backend. So, my question to you and your group, is what do you want from me? What is your demand?”
“We want nothing from you. Believe it or not, some students don’t want others to be picked on, particularly when it is about something as stupid as your parentage.”
I didn’t respond for a moment, I just sat there assessing his words, trying to decipher if what he was saying was the truth or not. “Okay, I’ll allow you and your friends to protect me. However I want to know how you plan on doing that. And just as a forewarning, your plans better not include violence of any sort, if they do this tentative deal is done, understand.”
“I can assure you they don’t. My friends and I…well lets just say that money, and names have sway over the general population of the school. All you and your friends have to do is sit with us at meal times, hangout a few nights a week with us in the common room, ect. Just publicly showing that you're our friends.”
“And how does sitting with you at mealtimes protect me in any way whatsoever?”
“It protects you, because no one harms my friends or family. Ever. If they do, they feel the wrath a rich and powerful family has.”
“Deal. But your friends will need to be the ones to explain this to my friends, just so we’re clear.”
“I can assure you that is being taken care of as we speak. Now let’s go get breakfast.”
I don’t know what made me trust him at the moment, but I did as he asked and stood up to go get breakfast with him. On our way down to the great hall, I realized I didn’t know his name.
“You know if this arrangement is to work I will need to know your name.”
“My name is Tom Riddle III”
“So your Mattheos brother?”
“Yes, I am.”
The rest of the walk was quite after that.
Once we arrived at the Great Hall I was surprised to see all of my other friends there already, but accepted it because Tom had said that they had already been informed prior to this.
At breakfast we were all as chatty as we were on the train ride here, however I felt people staring even now, but when I looked at them they all quickly looked away, as if somewhat scared. A small part of me relished in it, but I mainly felt sad and insecure knowing that I was once again the weird girl.