September Fourteenth, 1943

The halls of Hogwarts were dark. Shadows loomed in corners by sleeping paintings and portraits. Every step she took echoed through the darkness and sent goosebumps down her spine. She knew, as she edged closer and closer to her destination that it was wrong. She should be back in her bed, bundled up in warm, emerald blankets or asleep by the fire, curled up next to sheets of parchment as the dying embers crackled. No, she knew what she was doing, she knew what the consequences would be if she was caught. But she kept walking.

The Slytherin house was riddled with rumors and accusations. People associated it with evil things. Comments like 'only bad people are sorted into Slytherin' and her personal favourite, 'oh, you're in Slytherin? Tell me, how many people have you killed today?'.

Yes, she was a pureblood and although the thought arose some days, no mudblood was annoying enough to murder, Arabella knew she didn't have the stomach for murder like many of her predecessors before her. And some that will come only a year before her...

Tom Riddle. Now he was an enigma. He was a year older than her, in his second to last year at Hogwarts. He was tall, dark and brooding and no one could deny that he was a good looking young man. Sharp cheekbones and green eyes. Eyes that looked down at everyone he met, like he thought himself better than everyone else. Yes, he was pretty to look at but she knew his heart held the deepest and the darkest of secrets that would scare even the greatest of wizards.

"Miss Caerwyn?"

Her eyes widened and her heart sped up. She pushed herself back into a dark corner and held her breath, hoping he didn't catch her.

"Arabella Caerwyn?" the Ravenclaw prefect called again. "Was that you?" A bright light suddenly rounded the corner. The boy, holding his wand outstretched walked closer and closer to where Arabella was hiding. The light about to reach her toes. She stifled a breath and slowly reached into her robe pocket. Arabella drew out her wand and drew it around her head in a circle gently and whispered the incantation.

Thankfully the disillusionment charm worked and Arabella melted into the wall. She held her breath as Jacob Summers past her without a second glance and kept going down the hall, his blue-hemmed robes fluttering behind him. Arabella let out the breath she was holding and felt her heart hammering wildly in her chest. Gripping her wand tightly in one hand and using the other to guide her body down the dark halls, Arabella made her way down the hall.

After many twists and turns, she came to a dead end. "Lumos," she whispered and held her wand up and examined the painting in front of her. It was an older painting, older than most of the other paintings in the castle. The frame was wooden and painted with gold. Flakes of paint had come off during the centuries and created a rugged, tired look. The picture was of a dark-haired man whose eyes were currently shut- sleeping. His skin was wrinkled and gaunt and he held a black walking stick in his left hand. Arabella lifted her wand up higher and saw that behind him was a black, long box that was kept shut by a great big python that was wound around the box like a rope.

She frowned. What would Tom Riddle want with this painting? After scanning the picture once more, Arabella dropped her eyes to the bottom of the frame to check for an artist or a title. Anything that would give her any insight into Tom's motives. At the bottom right of the frame lay a small golden plate with the initials S.S engraved nearly in the centre. Suddenly, the sound of voices startled Arabella from her thoughts and she sunk into the shadows once again, thankful she had kept the disillusionment charm working.

"Nox," she whispered and it went dark.

"I'm telling you, Stefan," drawled a soft voice and Arabella froze. "The painting has what I'm looking for. I just need to know how to open it."

Tom Riddle and Stefan Malfoy walked round the corner, deep in conversation. Tom's eyebrows were furrowed in annoyance, his glare directed at the white-haired boy who shrunk under the older boy's gaze. "Yes, but until you open it Tom, don't you think you should talk to Slughorn again? He's got to break sooner or later."

Arabella leaned forward slightly so she could hear better. The mention of her favourite professor made her ears perk and her mind sharpen. Slughorn was going to break?

Tom groaned and ran his long fingers through his ebony hair. He walked forward a few steps and placed his palm on the canvas. "What secrets do you hide?" Arabella watched as Tom closed his eyes and placed his forehead on the frame. He stayed there for a few moments, just breathing. Malfoy coughed.

"Lets go back to the common room, Tom. We've got to drop the prefect off in a dark corner somewhere so people think he dropped drunk and wasn't stunned."

Tom nodded and let Stefan lead the way back the way they came. As soon as the drawl of their voices drifted to the same silence as before, Arabella whispered the incantation that reversed the disillusionment charm and stepped back in front of the painting. She looked at it curiously. What is so special about you? She wondered then turned her gaze to the initials on the frame. And who is S.S?

The man in the painting didn't wake as she stared at it intently, as if it would give her all the answers she needed. Sighing, Arabella decided that her bed sounded like the best place to be at that moment. She turned on her heel and began walking when suddenly she registered what Stefan Malfoy had said.

"We've got to drop the prefect off in a dark corner somewhere so people think he dropped drunk and wasn't stunned."

Her breath caught in her throat, her skin prickled. ...so people think he dropped drunk and wasn't stunned.

Tom and Malfoy stunned someone. And a prefect no less! Arabella made a funny sound in the back of her throat, deciding between the path of a nice, warm bed or following the strange year six and his ferret of a friend.

We've got to drop the prefect off in a dark corner somewhere...

No. Tom wouldn't ruin someone else for his own gain, no matter what it was. Arabella began jogging down the hall, following Tom and Malfoy. She hurried round corners and through secret passages, keeping an ear out for their voices. Soon, she heard them again and so Arabella slowed down and peered around a pillar. 

The North Side of Hogwarts was riddled with secret passages and hidden rooms. Dark corners were almost too easy to find. Tom and Malfoy would have no problem finding one to dump Jacob Summers in. Arabella knew that if an especially powerful wizard struck one with a stunning spell, sometimes, it would end in the victim being unconscious for days. Tom Riddle was an especially powerful wizard and Arabella knew that he would need Madam Pomfrey to patch him up, even if he was a Ravenclaw Prefect. And as Arabella watched the limp, floating body of Jacob Summers, she decided, he may need more, than Madam Pomfrey. 

Blood dribbled off his pale skin and fell onto the floor in steady drips from gashes on his skin. Wide, red, angry cuts were all over his body and seemed to worsen with every jerky movement that the Malfoy idiot made him do. Stefan held Jacob's lean body up in the air, suspended with magic. He grinned as he maliciously waved his wand around wildly. 

"Put him down, idiot!" Tom hissed and waved his wand from left to right three times. A small panel in the wooden wall slid open with a menacing hiss and a puff of white smoke. He waved at Stefan to place the body of Jacob in the small hollow inside the panel. "Put him in here! By the time someone finds him, he'll be dead and out plans will be safe." 

Malfoy glanced up at the limp form of the Ravenclaw prefect and wiped his lip roughly when a drop of crimson blood fell and splashed on the red skin. "With pleasure," he said, smirking. 

She watched as Jacob, still as limp as a twig, crumpled into an awkward position of limbs in the small 'dark corner'. Arabella glared at the backs of the two boys as they walked away, guilt as real as nargles in their hearts. She heard the panel slide shut and she instantly forgot her horror at the two boys and rushed over to where Tom had stood moments before. She copied Tom's movements with her wand, waving it left to right and repeated it twice.

The panel slid open again with the same noise and the same dramatic puff of smoke so Arabella assumed Tom had charmed to to open like it did. He was a dramatic person. She rushed forward and hooked her slim arms under Jacob's armpits and hauled him out of the little hole in the wall. Slick blood coated her arms and made it harder to hold him but she gripped him even harder and pulled and pulled until he was lying next to her and she was breathing heavily. 

"Wingarduim Leviosa," Arabella whispered, the fact mentally clicking in her mind that it was still after hours and if she was caught out of bed, she would still be in a minor amount of trouble, even if she was saving a fellow student. Jacob Summer's body took to the air again but this time, Arabella took care in moving him forward.

She walked all the way to the hospital and knocked on Madam Pomfrey's door quickly. Soon, quick footsteps approached the door and it swung open to reveal a grumpy, tired Poppy Pomfrey. "What in the blazes do you think you're doing here at this time of night?" She grumbled, glaring at her. Arabella moved to the side to reveal the floating figure of Jacob and Pomfrey gasped, her hand jumping to cover her mouth. "Oh my," she said. "Thank you Miss Caerwyn. Please go back to the Slytherin dormitories and you will have a meeting with Headmaster Dippit tomorrow."

Arabella nodded. She watched as Madam Pomfrey collected Jacob's body and laid it down on a bed. "Will he be ok?" 

Madam Pomfrey closed the white curtains around him quickly then turned to look at the shaken young Slytherin. "One can hope." 

Arabella nodded and caught one last glimpse of Jacob Summer's blonde hair before the gap in the curtains was fixed and the door of the hospital wing shut with a flick of Pomfrey's wand. 

Arabella turned and began walking back down the stairs and back to the common rooms. A feeling bubbled up in her stomach like acid, it made her want to punch a wall and scream so loud the centaurs in the Forbidden Forest would hear her. She approached the wall and whispered the password. "Salazar," she whispered into the bricks and a door appeared.

The comforting sight of green lights and the warmth of a dying fire greeted her as she wandered into the Slytherin Chambers. She was one foot on the staircase leading to the girl's dorms when a cold, soft voice made her stop in her steps.

"And where have you been? Fifth years don't usually like to go out on night time walks." Tom Riddle sat up from the couch, alone. Malfoy had gone to bed. Tom swaggered up to Arabella, his dark eyes requesting an answer from her pink lips. When she didn't answer, his eyes darkened and he stepped closer. He placed his finger under her chin and forced her to look up into his eyes. "Why were you out?" he said again. "Answer my question." 

Arabella struggled for an answer. "Um, I was in the Hospital Wing. Sore stomach." 

Tom scrutinized her for a few moments but snatched his hand away from her skin like it burned him. "Ok." He wandered over to the boy's dormitories. As Arabella began to take tentative steps up the concrete stairs, Tom said one thing more that made her blood freeze. He stood in the exact same position as he was in when Arabella turned away from him but his eyes were wandering the common room, like he was talking to no one in particular. "I should hope that no one was out of their bed tonight for the wrong reasons because, I would just have to punish them," pause, "accordingly." 

Arabella squeaked quietly and scampered upstairs, hoping that Tom never found out that it was her who saved his vicim that night, her who knew of his obsession with that strange painting. 

Yes, Tom Riddle was an enigma indeed.