Belladonna

“Where have you been?” Walburga burst into their dorm.

The sun had not raised yet, but her roommates were already back from the celebration. They must have been worried all night, wondering where she went, why she never appeared.

“Potter played the guitar all night. It was unsufferable” Druella threw herself to her bed and didn’t open her eyes.

“Well, tell us where were you” Walburga stood in front of her with her arms crossed over her chest in a mother-like way.

Bella sat in her bed. She was trying to fall asleep, but the memory kept on repeating in her head. She knew that she was thinking way ahead. But she couldn’t help by imagining herself with Tom again or even fighting over anything.

“I had sex with Riddle.”

“What?!”

Druella woke up immediately, that was some piece of information. Ofelia told them detail by detail how it all went down, leaving them astonished.

“Who knew Riddle actually like you?” Druella rolled her eyes with irony.

“I know, right?” Ofelia said unsuspiciously. “I still hate him though.”

“Yes, of course” Walburga said in the same tone as Rosier. “So I’m assuming this won’t happen again.”

Ofelia didn’t answer, she didn’t know what to say about it.

“Can you lend me some of your birth-control potion?” she changed the subject.

“Sure” she agreed and walked to her drawer.

There was only one way of avoiding pregnancy in the Wizarding world and it was with the birth-control potion. It was sold in any local apothecary. Of course, Walburga did not buy it right where everyone could see her. She was a lady and she was not supposed to be found alone with a man. So, she would make it herself and store it. The ingredients were easy to find, but the taste, oh, the taste was so disgusting. It tasted like sweat, rotten egg and a troll’s foot.

“Now, place your fingers here…” Monty explained as he helped Ofelia with the guitar.

They finally had some time for him to teach her how to play the guitar. It was harder than it looked, but she was a fastlearner.

“It’s sad that there’s only five days left” Rizzo commented on their way to the Great Hall. It was already dinner time.

“Yes, I know” Monty agreed. “Maybe we could see each other.”

“Actually, yeah!” she exclaimed. “I need an excuse to stay as far away from Clovelly as possible this summer.”

“D’you think Riddle will stay at your house with your brother?”

“Well, he’s off age, so I guess he has no place to live in.”

She knew that Riddle was an orphan. Her brother wouldn’t shut up about it, so that their dad would let him stay with them occasionally. And she wasn’t sure if she wanted to see Tom all summer. She had gotten anxious when that morning he walked right pass her. Living with him all vacation was more than she can handle.

“Then you can come to Godric’s Hollow any time. I’m sure my parents won’t- What’s going on?”

They both stopped when they saw some aurors carrying a covered corpse down the main stairs. Professor Dumbledore and Headmaster Dippet were conforting a woman and a man that were crying uncontrollably. At the end of the stairs, Riddle was staring at the whole scene with a weird twitch in his eyes that gave Ofelia the creeps. What was going on? Who had died?

“Riddle… What happened?” she asked when they arrived to where he was standing.

“A Ravenclaw girl is dead” he said dead serious, looking to the corpse.

“What?!” both fifth years screamed.

“They said something about a monster… that came from the Chamber of Secrets.”

“The Chamber of what now?” Monty asked hysterically.

“Pff, the Chamber of Secrets isn't real. Don’t be ridiculous” Ofelia laughed, but then she realized that Tom wasn't joking around. “Wait. Are you serious?”

He nodded, still staring at the stairs carelessly.

“But then someone had to open it…” she was just thinking out loud.

Riddle met her eyes for a split second and then left the hallway when he realized that Dumbledore was going down the stairs right towards them.

“Come on, go to the Great Hall” the professor ordered, and they followed him, as they were still in shock with the death of one of the students.

However, a strange thought kept on running through her mind. It was weird how Riddle was staring at the whole situation, yet again everything that had to do with him was weird. She knew that if it was true what he had said about the Chamber of Secrets, the only one that could have opened it was an Heir of Slytherin. That wasn’t helpful, since almost all the pureblood families were related to the founders. That left hundreds of suspects that could have been responsible for the kid's death. And as soon as she found out that the girl was a muggleborn, it only confirmed that it could have been a Slytherin student. No other house hated so much the inpure ones of blood as them. It could have literally been anyone, but somehow she only had one suspect in mind.

Nobody would suspect Riddle. But she knew something that the rest didn’t. Tom wasn’t a muggleborn. And if his family was old enough to have hallows, it could also be related to the founders. However, these were too many assumptions with zero proofs.

“Who would have thought?” Walburga said some days later, while they were busy starting to pack everything.

“What?”

“There has been a murder in the castle, Druella!”

“Oh, right, that thing…” Rosier said without really caring about it. “Well, it’s a tragedy, really. But they caught the murderer anyways so…”

“Isn’t it weird that the heir of Slytherin was in Gryffindor?”

“What it is weirder is that he was in second year. He was a kid!”

Ofelia was listening to the conversation that her friends were having. Yes, technically the mystery was solved and even they had found the creature. However, she was not satisfied with the results. Maybe deep down, she was hoping it was him. Then, she could have blamed him for everything and stop thinking every minute of every hour about him. She was going crazy. It was undeniable that the more time she kept on going like this, the more she was convinced that she could actually like Riddle. That he wasn’t a bad guy and that maybe she could give him a chance.

Maybe she was walking right into the wolf’s cave. She needed an excuse to stop thinking about him.

“At least they solved it. I was scared they were going to close the school for good” Walburga continued with the subject.

“They weren’t going to close the school” Ofelia spoke for the first time, standing from the desk chair. “I’m going to my brother’s dorm.”

“What for?” Druella teased her.

“A letter from my father arrived. I’m going to tell him what it says” she explained with a mischievous smile shining in her face, as she walked to the door.

“But wasn’t your brother helping at the greenhouse?” Walburga asked innocently.

“Uh-hu!” she exclaimed leaving the room before they could argue with her.

Fine, she was just looking for an excuse to see the nightmare that kept on invading her mind. She hadn’t spoken to him ever since that night and it was driving her crazy. Perhaps she was more excited than she should. Still she had mixed feelings about Riddle. She hated him, but she couldn’t help by feeling feverish with the memories of his body on hers. She had to confrot the issue, and rip the bandaid if it was necessary.

Bella arrived at the dorm’s door and took a deep breath. There was a high chance that Riddle wasn’t in there. After all, he still had Head Boy duties and he was the type of person that would ramble through the whole castle in his free time.

Suddenly, she heard a noise coming from the inside of the room and if Braulio wasn’t in there, it was most definitely Tom the one who was inside. She decided to not knock on the door because if she was looking for her brother, she wouldn’t have done it, and she wanted him to believe her acting.

“Braulio, there’s a letter from papà that you need to- Oh, fuck!”

She did open the door and perform her best piece of acting, but she wasn’t expecting what she saw when she looked up to the Head Boy’s bed.

“Shit…” Eileen Prince said out of breath, pulling away from Tom’s cock.

She was half naked with her blouse off. She stood up like lightning had strike her and flew from the scene without even looking at Ofelia in the eyes. Eileen Prince?! If this was a joke, it wasn’t funny at all.

Rizzo couldn’t move as she watched Riddle get properly dressed and stand up from his bed. He stared at her with a dead look in the face, like there was nothing that could go through him. Like she didn’t just catch him shagging some other girl.

“You look disappointed.”

“I am disappointed.”

“If you were expecting for us to get married after what happened the other night, you were just fooling yourself and you know it” he established like he was some supreme force that had the ultimate truth.

“Actually, I think I was looking for an excuse to stay as far from you as possible. Guess you just gave me what I wanted.”

“Then, why are you so disappointed?”

“I was expecting you to be the heir of Slytherin and responsible for that girl’s death” she confessed. “You shagging Prince, that’s a disappointment.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yes, I guess I was harping on you too much. Now, you’re like every other lad I know” she sighed aiming to hurt his pride. “Anyways, would you give this letter to Braulio? It’s from our father.”

Riddle accepted the piece of paper, a little unsure of Ofelia’s reaction.

“Goodbye, Riddle” she waved at him, but it felt like more than just a simple farewell.

After five years of enmity, she was finally liberating herself from him. No more Tom Riddle after all, as this was his last year. Hopefully, she would cross him every once in a while, for the festivities and that was it. She walked down the hall heading to her dorm. She knew deep down that she was just bottling up her feelings. But she didn’t want to accept that she was let down by Tom Riddle. So, with a bittersweet flavour in her mouth, she kept on walking away from where he was.