Chapter 4
When dinner came, Tom could already hear the heated disussions from two feet away from the table as he entered the hall, he sat down next to Rosier this time. They were talking about the new teacher as expected.
"Walburga, will you stop? You have been ranting all day about the DA" Evelyn said annoyed
"Of course, you have no problem Evelyn! How dare that woman treat me like that? How dare she underestimate the house of Black!"
"She looked like she liked Cygnus just fine, she just didn't appreciate your callous behavior towards me Walburga." Druella jumped in , her hair impressively still enchanted the way it was during class.
"hmmph, of course you like her. She seemed to favor quite a lot, only people who are short-sighted would prefer your upstart house, does she work for Grindelwald and want to get your aunt's favor? She looks like she just escaped from 10 years in Azkaban"
"We are not that much in contact with Aunt Vinda. And Grindelwald's followers do not get trialed to Azkaban, Walburga. Do your mother's Crabbe thick genes affect you perhaps? " Evelyn ridiculed with venom in his voice.
Before another round of bickering followed, Abraxas said
"She seemed to really favor you, Druella. Do you happen to know her? I remember her saying something about how kind you always were?" Walburga snorted at that.
"I don't know her, Abraxas.She is probably just very nice. However, if you want to talk about her preferences, she seemed to like Tom quite a bit" Druella said.
"Nice? She doesn't look nice at all! Maybe to you? She feels dangerous. Walburga is kind of right, she looks like she escaped prison"
" Yeah, Heaven Tom! it sounded like whatever you said was some sacred truth. Even Slughorn doesn't like you that much!" Nott said looking up from his glass
Tom felt his lips quirking a bit before lowering them down forcefully. This new hire was indeed very favorable to him, albeit too good to be true? He would have to investigate the reason behind it.
Still, he decided to add to his quests this year finding out if the new teacher had any relationship with Grindelwald, afterall he still didn't want to involve himself with him at all. He had bigger ambitions. He supposed with Eccleshall's favor, he can go to her for questions about Horcruxes but if she had any relationship to Grindelwald, it would not be good. At the end, he still decided to go for the safe bet and ask Slughorn about it next week.
The week went by fast and Tom's time was filled with his side projects. He managed to find a clue on the chamber in the girls' bathroom. He did suspect it last year but didn't have time to confirm it, now it's just about great. He will ask Slughorn about the Horcruxes tomorrow after the party and then he will see how to create one. He plans to create seven, the first one would be his diary.
Speaking on this week, Eccleshall's behavior towards him was known to the whole school. Even Tom had to say it was ridiculous how biased Eccleshall was towards him.
His prefect badge was a perfect excuse helping him to wander at night and not be caught. He was supposed to patrol but he went to the forbidden section of the library. He previously spotted a book there that would be of great help for him but he didn't have time to consult. He forgot to ask the slip from Slughorn in case he were caught but no matter, he discreetly hid the copied pages of the book and went outside the library only to be met with the old coot. Dumbledore was there waiting for him. Tom was simply sick of him. From the moment he met him, he has been getting in his way, always eyeing him suspiciously. He was enraged. Tom stengthened his occlumency shields preparing for their upcoming interaction.
"Tom, my boy. What are you doing here outside the library? Shouldn't you be doing your prefect rounds?" Dumbledore said with a most hateful look in his eyes.
"I have just been checking around the library, Professor" Tom answered trying to keep his good boy facade no matter how much he knew it didn't work on Dumbledore.
"Then you wouldn't mind showing me what is in your hand, Tom?" Tom cursed internally. He guessed he had no other choice, he would have to prepare an excuse later if this was brought up to Dippet. Just as he was about to hand the papers
"What are you doing?" A screech was heard, vicious and angry. Tom turned back, it was Professor Eccleshall. She hurried towards them urgently before she took Tom by the arm and yanked him behind herself in a show of protection. Even Tom found this quite dramatic, the situation didn't require this level of urgency at all. She made it seem as if Dumbledore was some great danger to him and was threatening his life while he was merely asking for papers.
"Dumbledore, what are you doing?"
"Professor Eccleshall, do you have a misunderstanding about me, perhaps? I was just asking Tom to show me the papers in his hand" Eccleshall stilled, as if suddenly understanding that her reaction was out of proportion. She then turned to look at the papers that Tom still had in hand.
"I asked T..Tom to copy some books in the library for me" Tom wouldn't say that he was surprised that Eccleshall would lie for him, he just found it fortunate that she happened to be here at this point. However, he doesn't understand why she always struggles to say his name. When she doesn't really need to refer to him to others or to address him, she absolutely avoids to use it.
"Really? Bellatrix? " Eccleshall's face seemed to morphe a little when Dumbledore's used her name.
"I think you have much more important things to be dealing with outside of these walls than bother with a student, don't you think Dumbledore?" she said venemously, her tone totally inappropriate to be addressing a colleague. Before Dumbledore managed to reply, she took Tom by the arm and left with him, her steps urgently trying to get him away from Dumbledore. Tom was very confused. He didn't understand Eccleshall's intention and he was starting to doubt she has anything to do with Grindelwald at all, nobody working for Grindelwald would rub Dumbledore's inaction to his face and taunt him about it, it just didn't make sense. Specially not to defend a mere student. Then if she didn't want to recruit him, why was she so nice to him? Was it because of his grades? He highly doubted it. Did she fancy him? It didn't seem to be the case. Tom was always sensitive to when somebody has a romantic inclination towards him, even when old women on the streets marveled at his looks and didn't have any more intentions beyond that. In fact, he often used his looks for that purpose. He was very sure that Eccleshall didn't view him that way.
Tom let her drag him and she only stopped when they arrived at her office and she closed the door. Only after she fired spells after spells of soundproofing and warding did she finally relax. This was starting to get extremely out of hand with how bizarre it was. She turned to look at him
"My....Stay away from Dumbledore" Tom's flashed red. He didn't need her to say that really, he always avoided the old coot, it was he who kept getting in Tom's way. However, he didn't know why Eccleshall would say that. Besides, it didn't escape him that she again hesitated at the beginning of her sentence.
"Professor...."She seemed to cringe whenever he called her that and he simply didn't know why. It seemed that this time it was simply too much for her.
"Call me Bella...Bellatrix"
This wasn't an appropriate request for a professor to ask a student but Tom was very sure it was not because she held any intentions towards him. In fact, Tom would have preferred she did, it would have made much more sense than this. Maybe she just wanted to shorten the distance between them? Tom decided to humor her until he managed to find out what she really was all about.
"Bellatrix..."she seemed to relax at that "Why do you say that about professor Dumbledore?" She for reason seemed to cringe again but this time it seemed, at him calling Dumbledore professor.
"Just listen to me....it's for your own good, you must avoid him at all costs" Tom looked at her. He must say she really doesn't treat him as a teacher at all and remembering the occlumency episode and how she usually treats him, he decided that he would just ask her what he wanted and see how much he could get away with.
"Do you work for the dark lord?" At this question, she seemed surprised and confused before asking "What? Who?" Tom found it weird that she was pretending to be stupid on that point, everybody knows Grindelwald, if she was a spy, then she was a very poor one indeed. Though, at this point he highly doubted. He decided to reiterate "Do you work for Grindelwald?" At this, understanding seemed to truly dawn her face before it morphed into something akin to ridicule or amusement, Tom didn't know why and he was getting irritated. "So?" He asked again. She looked at him and said "Absolutely not, the only one I am loyal to....I mean the only person I care about is you...uh, Tom." The only person she cared about was him? Didn't she only start to know him a few days ago? Was he missing something? Or was this an insane person who confused him with somebody else? She didn't seem to be that in her right mind after all. She seemed to realize that what she said was a lunatic's talk.
"Professor, are you confused perhaps?" He decided to call her professor to help her snap out of her delusions. He has no time to be entertaining a lunatic, though he may be able to use her delusions to his favor.
"No, no I am not. I know what I am saying may sound strange to you. And you may think that I am confusing....." He interrrupted her ravings.
"Do you take me for somebody else?"
"No, no ...I" She stilled before looking at him for a while as if truly seeing him for the first time and Tom saw something strange in her eyes "Perhaps...perhaps you are right" she said while sitting on the chair as if truly facing some reality for the first time and for some reason Tom didn't like that admission at all. He didn't know why. However, before he could ask something else, she got up from her seat, wrote something on a paper and gave it to him before saying
" You..you maybe right but you can still... make use of it. I will always be helping you, Tom." Tom was incredulous, he did briefly think to use her delusions to help him but he didn't expect her to say it herself. She was essentially telling him to make use of her affection towards somebody else. It didn't escape him how easily she has been able to say his name this time. Tom had the feeling that maybe he shouldn't have interrupted her previously. She ushered him out of her office. Once outside, he looked at the paper slip she gave him, it was a year-long permission to access the forbidden section of the library.
The next morning, Tom was hardly paying attention to what was said on the table, it was not anything important probably just Walburga again. His brain constantly went back to Yesterday's events. He decided to shove this in his shields to analyse later as today there was Slughorn's party and he needed to think everything through in his mind before approaching the subject and leaving no trail.