Riddles and Mudbloods

Riddles and Mudbloods

Chapter 1

Tom Riddle had urgent business to attend to. He swept past the hordes of students, all rushing to the Great Hall for the opening feast and ran up the stairs to the girl's bathroom. Ever since he had heard the legend of Slytherin and what it meant to him, the heir, he knew that he would have to find the chamber the monster had been concealed in and use it to cleanse the school of all those unworthy, filthy mudbloods that were pouring in. All summer he had been studying the history of the school and he was certain that he knew the location of the chamber. He had explored the school secretly at night, when not even his closest allies could see what he was doing and whilst his allies were Slytherins and had pledged themselves to him, he knew only too well that no one could be trusted. His own filthy, muggle father had betrayed him and although he wouldn't admit it to anyone, his own blood made him cringe with repugnance at the very thought that muggle blood was contaminating his own pure Slytherin blood.

Of course he kept this from the other Slytherins, but they knew, in spite of all their grovelling and preaching for the cleansing of the wizard race, they knew that Tom Riddle wasn't worthy, which was why he had fashioned the name Lord Voldemort. The teachers at Hogwarts saw him as a wonderful student; smart, studious and above all - disciplined - which is why they had made him a prefect and why no one could ever find out what he had been up to.

When he entered the bathroom he knew he wasn't alone, he had heard rumours about the crazy girl who came in here to bawl her eyes out, but she didn't concern him; he would wait for her to leave. He crept in and waited in one of the stalls; he peeked through the crack in the door to watch her go. He saw her open the door.

"Oh that Olive Hornby," she screeched, "I'll teach her to tease my glasses, the mean, ugly trollop. Just because she thinks she's so popular."

She snorted and hiccupped, tears poured down her cheeks, she took off her glasses to wipe her eyes and slid down to the floor as she stared at them.

"I don't know what her problem is," she said, grumbling. "Just because she thinks she's so good, just because both her parents are wizards she thinks she knows everything."

She started talking in a high-pitched voice, clearly trying to mimic Olive. "Oh, look at me, all the boys love me, they all want to take ME to the end of year ball, they all want to kiss my hand and tell me how wonderful I am," she said, "but no, no one's good enough for me. Certainly, many of them are in love with me, but none of them would kiss my feet and my father's bum hard enough to suit me."

Tom covered his mouth with his hand to stifle his laughter, no, that's not right; no filthy mudblood could make him laugh. Anyway, she was so peculiar, he was laughing at her, not with her and he certainly didn't pity her. Not with her eyes all red and her nose all runny and what was with the pigtails? How old was she, five? No, she looked about fifteen and he could see why Olive would laugh at her glasses. They were ridiculously round and thick, how stupid, no wonder she was picked on. Those glasses just screamed "Abuse me!"

Still though, she was curiously pretty in an English schoolgirl sort of way - what with her big blue eyes and long brown hair. Hang on, what was he thinking? Tom rolled his eyes; of course she wasn't pretty, look at how ridiculous she is, whining to herself about Olive Hornby of all people. The most ridiculous flirt in the school, always desperately chasing after him, even though he was an orphan, he'd heard her say once, she still thought he was just good looking enough for her. There was no way that anybody like her would get away with that. He wouldn't go out with or even touch Olive Hornby, but that wouldn't stop him from jinxing her in front of all his cronies, they'd get a kick out of that, considering she was a Gryffindor.

The girl had started grumbling again, she put on her glasses and stood up. "I'll show her," she said, "this year she'll know what it's like to be teased or hurt or turned into a cockroach."

She started to giggle madly, Tom was quite enjoying himself; for a whiny, mudblood Gryffindor she certainly had a lot of spite inside her.

"I'll turn her into a cockroach and then I'll step on her!" she said. Then she looked quite frightened and shook her head.

"No, no... Stupid thought, I couldn't kill her, she wouldn't be around to see the triumph on my face."

Tom was disappointed, just as she was getting fired up she had to go and ruin it all by getting an attack of remorse. Stupid girl, he thought, you were just getting interesting. She went over to the mirror, took off her glasses, pulled out her pigtails and roughly combed her hair with her fingers; she splashed cold water over her face and looked in the mirror. The image was blurry so she put on her glasses. Olive was right, they were quite stupid looking, but at least her nose was straight and her eyes were quite nice really, big and blue and not magnified too hugely by the glasses, not like that little first year, Sybil Trelawney, hers were just ridiculous. She pulled her hair down to frame her face and smiled at the result.

"I'm a fifth year now and I'm not going to put up with any more of Olive's bollocks," she said. "She will not get to me, but I can get to her."

She smiled and walked out of the bathroom, head held high. Tom came out of the stall and stared after her, she was rather interesting really. He laughed a little at the bollocks comment, if she wasn't a mudblood, he would think that he might like her as an ally, or something else. But he had other business to attend to; he couldn't keep picturing her smile in his head, her scowl. Myrtle, he thought, interesting name.