Fear The Dark

Disclaimer: As usual, I wish I could own such brilliance as Harry Potter, but alas, I do not.

Summary: AU. Voldemort 'rescues' Harry, after he was abandoned by his parents and his little sister. Awakening to a pair of yellow, Jeweled, eyes in a strange place with the most feared Dark Wizard around, Harry wants answers. Non Slash in main Characters.

Rating: T/M

-Curses-

-Powerful Curses – (Either strong caster or strong emotion)

/Parseltongue/

Chapter 9: Riddle's Question

"Why is it always me?" Sobbed Jane, tears spilling down her face as she tried to understand why she was entered into the tournament, sobs interrupting her words "I don't ask for this shit to happen to me! Is it to much to ask for a normal life?"

Ginny chuckled a sad chuckle. "What's normal?" Jane sent her a frustrated look. "Hey, all I'm saying is what ever the reason your in this tournament, you're in it now and you might as well pull yourself together before you get killed by it and I loose my best friend! And we can't be having that!"

The frown and furrowed brow on Jane's face lightened slightly and a small smile tickled her lips. "I just can't be arsed with this! For once, I was looking forward to having a slightly more normal year without the constant training or threat of Voldemort at every corner!"

"Well the one thing I can say is - at least you only have Mad-Eye in DADA now! CONSTANT VIGULANCE! Haha!" The girls chuckled, their usual high spirits slowly returning to them. Dumbledore had seen it unreasonable to continue Jane's training with Moody after Voldemort's demise and, although they all knew he wasn't truly deceased, they would let Jane live life like a normal teen for once. "Come on, let's go have a walk. That always calms me down, I'll show you a lush little clearing in the Forbidden Forest."

"Shh! Someone's over there!"

The two girls crept out of the castle, down past Hagrid's hut and towards the Forbidden Forest under James' old invisibility cloak as the stars began to fade and the skies lighten. Still running on the emotions of last night's surprises, it was becoming ridiculously late… or ridiculously early, depending on whom you were talking to.

A hooded figure angrily stormed away from the forest and was inches away from walking straight into the invisible pair stood awkwardly under the cloak. A singular breath caught in their throats to prevent being detected by this furious person, who ever it was. The figure thundered just past their position before suddenly coming to a halt, the hood falling down as he turned around. The witches held their breath harder as recognition came across them. It was Harry! And he was staring straight at them! Could he sense them there? He couldn't…

Could He?

And before they could even think about doing anything, he was off again, back up towards the castle and into the distance.

"Phew!" Sighed Ginny, "That was a close one! He looked straight at us! Do you think he knew we were there?"

They continued into the forest towards the clearing. "I don't know, I didn't think people could sense this? Its really old magic!"

"Hmm… I wonder what he was doing in the forest at this time?"

"Could ask us the same thing!" They shared a chuckle as they moved further into the forest.

The sun, just starting to poke above the horizon, gave the pitch-black forest the tiniest bit of light. Enough to navigate through and just miss walking into the trees. It took Ginny about 20 minutes to remember how to find the clearing, and by the time they finally reached it, the sun had risen and sunlight burst through the treetops, illuminating the lushes glade. Jane let out a gasp.

"Told you it was lush!" Ginny smiled warmly, taking out her wand. "Now, lets transfigure something comfy, lie down and just relax. Probably isn't good getting grass stains on the outside of an invisibility cloak."

And the two young witches got to work transfiguring sticks into pillows and blankets and settled down.

It was a Sunday. Not that this mattered to a particular little garden snake, slithering through the glades of the Forbidden Forest. A pleasantly warm and sunny Sunday – surprising for the first of November. Not that this was of any concern to this slithery little serpent either. Nevertheless, our curious little serpentine friend slinked through splashes of sunlight in the undergrowth; sliding towards a strange presence he had felt moments earlier.

The peculiar presence in question was emitting from a rather strange, shiny snake. Or so our little friend thought. Upon closer inspection, it seemed that it was numerous strange, shiny snakes, tangled up, writhing on each other, but not moving anywhere. An even stranger shinier snake, stuck to a chunk of this shininess, headed this tangle of strange, shiny snakes.

Randal, our curious serpent friend, who had randomly named himself Randal when he hatched, slithered up to this mass of shininess and began examining it. The presence he'd felt was strong, but now, at close range, it was dominating and it was most definitely alive.

/Hello?/ Hissed Randal, curious to find out what this bizarre snakelike thing was.

A muffled voice replied. /Open me!/

Shocked, Randal reared back, ready to strike. Was this a threat? Was it prey? What was this thing?

/OPEN ME!/

As his rage started to subside, a wave of normal cognitive thinking returned to Harry as he sat staring from a tall, wing backed chair in the corner of the Ravenclaw Common Room into the blazing fire. A flood of apprehension followed almost immediately.

'I should go back! Father will kill me! What was I thinking?!'

Jumping out of his chair, Harry sprinted towards the exit of the Common Room, only to be stopped dead in his tracks by a shrill little voice and a tiny silver haired professor standing right in his way.

"Ah Mr. Seiko! Where are you off in such a rush, and so early on a Sunday morning?" squeaked Flitwick, raising an eyebrow. But before Harry could even think of a lie to reply with, the miniscule Charms Professor continued. "Never mind, never mind, what ever it is can be dealt with later. The Headmaster would like to have a word with you in his office, now. And before you ask, I've no idea what." He finished just as Harry began to open his mouth. "The password's 'Fizzing Whizbees.'"

Ginny awoke with the suns rays piercing through the treetops and smashing her in the face. She was never a 'lie in' kind of girl. After suggesting transfiguring something comfy, of course they fell into dreamland, neither of them having slept a wink after last night's shenanigans. Groggily rubbing her tired eyes, she peered around the area they'd fallen asleep in and smiled. This was why she liked this spot. It wasn't far enough into the forest to be affected by the numerous magical and dangerous creatures wandering the woods, but yet far enough into it to be obscured from sight of the Castle.

'Although saying that,' thought Ginny as hissing sounds drifted on a breeze and hit the witch's ears. 'Maybe I spoke too soon.'

Standing up, she gave Jane a nudge, only to be received with a grunt of "5 more minutes Mum!" Sighing, she began to inspect the area for the noise. From the sound, Ginny could make out two distinct hisses – one sounded like a normal snake and the other… well the other had some kind of… power… to it. It was like it was calling out to her… She wasn't a parselmouth, that was for certain. But something about this second hiss intrigued her. It was intoxicating.

The sound was emerging from just behind a bush a little way off from her. Moving warily towards it, Ginny whipped out her wand and, keeping herself on guard lest some little beasty maul her where she stood, picked a stick from the ground and tenderly brushed the bush aside. A reptilian tail skittered away into the shrubbery and what remained stared straight back at her, right through her irises and deep into her soul and… and smiled.

"Hi, my name's Tom, what's yours?"

Hi all who read this story, I duno if its going to be continued or not, I found this chapter again, half started, around a year ago and have only recently decided to put it up.

I may at some point tidy everything up and start it fresh as there are a lot of plot wholes I don't really like and am only now noticing after returning to the site after 5 years of not doing anything.

Peace and maybe you'll read more soon. Hopefully x Love Dead Paw