Take My Heart Away

            Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

 

                                                                                 -George Santayana

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Chapter 2–

 

 

            “Mr. Riddle,” Dumbledore said, checking his wristwatch.

            “You weren’t in your classroom when I came for my lessons, Sir, so I thought you might be here,” Tom said carefully. He glanced at Hermione, and an unreadable expression passed through his dark eyes. Hermione immediately noticed he had a presence that almost matched Dumbledore’s calm and confident demeanor.

            “My, the time must’ve slipped away. I came to see Dippet and I didn’t realize that you were coming for lessons so soon. Forgive me.”

            “Of course, Sir!” Tom said, not rudely, but far from politely. Hermione sensed an odd undercurrent in their words, a strained sort of tension that radiated from both of them.

            “Let’s postpone the lesson until this afternoon, shall we?”

            “That’s fine, Sir,” Tom said, showing no emotion. With that, he walked away. Someone with not as keen an eye as Dumbledore’s would have missed Tom’s fleeting glance at Hermione.

            Dumbledore turned back to her.

            “Sir, I’d like to see Headmaster Dippet,” Hermione said firmly, before he could drill her with any more questions. She had decided that Dumbledore was far too hard to fool. She did not know what Headmaster Dippet was like, but he could not possibly be more shrewd than Dumbledore.

            “This way, then,” Dumbledore said after a moment. Hermione got the impression that he had been doing some serious thinking. Hesitantly, she followed him past the gargoyle statue and into Dippet’s office.

                                                                  *~*~*~*~*

            As Tom walked away from Dumbledore and rounded the corner, he felt an odd shiver roll down his spine. That was the girl from the dream. I’m sure of it, he thought. She had seemed almost identical to the girl, with some slight changes. Straighter hair, perhaps? But the same eerie beauty that seemed to chill his insides.

            Angrily, he pushed the girl and his dreams out of his mind. He wondered wryly if Dumbledore had been making excuses to skip Transfiguration lessons, if you could call them that. Although Dumbledore refused to admit it, the ‘lessons’ had become a private match of wits between the two of them, since Tom had almost reached Dumbledore’s level of capability on the subject.

            Tom had an odd relationship with Dumbledore, to say the least. In a way, Dumbledore was the only person at Hogwarts that Tom had any amount of respect for. Much as Tom hated to admit it, Dumbledore was the kind of man that made a room fall silent merely with his presence. He was the kind of man that could make strangers obey him with the snap of his fingers. In a way, Dumbledore was Tom’s role model. He was the kind of man Tom himself aspired to be.

            At the same time, Dumbledore represented everything that Tom was adamantly opposed to. Dumbledore had such cut and dried ideas about good and evil, about rejection and acceptance. ‘Good’ and ‘evil’ were nonexistent to Tom. They were vague, unspecific names that people put to things to make themselves feel better about their actions. Whatever benefitted him the most was his idea of ‘good’. As for acceptance and rejection? Why should he openly accept Muggles and Muggle-borns, a race of people that had rejected him all of his life? In the Muggle world, he had been nothing but a ‘street-rat,’ an orphan, a boy who would never make anything out of his life. He hated Muggles more than he could say.

            Tom laughed bitterly, for that was not of consequence now. He had long ago rid himself of emotions that normal humans felt. Where pain, joy, and sadness were supposed to be, there was a large void that consumed everything surrounding it. He had not done it with magic, because unfortunately, there was no magic that could take away his heart. Due to his time at the Muggle orphanage, his difficult beginning years at Hogwarts, and the fact that he had never really been accepted anywhere, he had learned to numb himself of all emotion, save anger and occasional satisfaction. Everything else didn’t hit him with full impact; when he was praised, belittled, or insulted, he felt only a dull blow. Packing his heart in ice was the only defense mechanism he had.

            That was why the girl in his dream had thrown him off balance. He had felt a moment’s attraction to her, but that moment was past now, and he could go back to living the indifference that he cherished so closely.

                                                                   *~*~*~*~*

            Headmaster Dippet peered over his stack of parchment at the girl sitting confidently before him.

            “Miss Nestowe . . . you say that you’ve been to six years of wizarding school in Germany?”

            “Yes, sir, to Frau Brunhilds Hoher Schule der Zauberei!”

 

            Dumbledore, who was sitting on Dippet’s left, put in quickly, “May I acquire as to why you don’t have a German accent, Miss Nestowe?”

 

            “Well, my family lived in England until I was ten or so, and then my father moved us to Germany for work purposes. Now we’re back in England, you see, so I never really picked up an accent,” she finished, as if eager to divulge information. Apparently, even Dumbledore was fooled by her confident surface. Inside, her heart was pounding uncontrollably. She found she hated lying to Dumbledore more than anything she had ever done. It twisted her insides into lumpy knots, but it would do no good to tell the truth. ‘Yes, Headmaster Dippet, I’ve come here to murder your best student. Will that be a problem?’

 

            Dippet smiled and said, “Well, Miss Nestowe, I’m pleased to tell you that from the magical tests we’ve performed on you, you are more than capable of attending our school. I just can’t figure out why we overlooked you in the first place. I daresay you’re one of the most brilliant witches since –”

 

            “Armando, I must question your hasty decision on this matter. Perhaps there was a reason we overlooked her, and pardon me, Miss, but it seems a bit suspicious that –”

 

            “Nonsense, Albus!” Dippet said arrogantly, waving his hand. “Can’t you see the girl is telling the truth? The Sorting Hat said she was to be in Gryffindor, and has it ever been wrong? Besides, with a seventh year witch this brilliant, we’ll have two of the finest students this school has ever seen! Imagine the funding that the Ministry will . . .” with a slight flush, he glanced at Dumbledore before continuing, “ . . . well . . . erm . . . aside from that . . . you’ve been accepted to Hogwarts, Helen Nestowe!”

 

            Hermione pasted a smile on her face, and turned to leave with an, “I’m honored, Sir.” She had been told she was to move in with the seventh year Gryffindor girls, and had that on her mind as she descended the staircase.

 

            “Miss Nestowe? May I have a private word?” Hermione turned to see Dumbledore’s figure poised on the staircase above her.

 

            His expression was deadly serious as he said, “I do not wish to go against Headmaster Dippet’s wishes, but by all means, when you tell me what you are really doing here, I will be ready to listen. Until then, I daresay I’ll be keeping a very close watch on you.”

 

            Hermione opened her mouth to say something, but found it frozen in that position. How has he . . . ?

 

            “Good day to you,” he finished with a smile, and turned away calmly.

 

 

                                                                *~*~*~*~*

 

 

            Dumbledore watched the antics of the Great Hall from his position next to Headmaster Dippet.

 

            Helen Nestowe, or so she called herself, kept nervously flattening her hair at the Gryffindor table. She seemed to have made friends quickly with the Gryffindor seventh years, although she only spoke when spoken to, and did not seem to mind eating in silence.

 

 

            Tom, on the other hand, was surrounded by a knot of Slytherins and a few Ravenclaws. Tom had barely touched his food, and was talking quietly but rapidly. Everyone was listening far more attentively to him than they did to any of the Professors in class.

 

            Dumbledore feared that Tom had gained too much power over his fellow students. The students obviously found him charming, witty, and shrewd, but felt comfortable around him, like he was an equal and not a superior. He constantly defied authority, and often bested the Professors, which, Dumbledore noted wryly, was another reason the students idolized him so much.

 

            It was possible that Dumbledore was the only one who saw another side in Tom. Not only was he witty, shrewd, and charming, but he also had an amazing amount of ambition, cunning, and bottled up hatred. All of the qualities he possessed, and the fact that Dumbledore was positive he had opened the Chamber of Secrets two years ago, made him potentially the most dangerous wizard in the world.

 

            To the contrary, Helen Nestowe was brilliant, and although suspicious, hardly seemed a threat. Dumbledore wondered what might occur if Helen and Tom got to know each other.

 

            Chuckling to himself, Dumbledore decided to alter Helen’s class schedule to match Tom’s, though first he managed to convince himself that he was doing it more for her intellectual benefit than for his own amusement.

 

            Well, mostly.