The breakfast scene is repeated in this chapter. And there's more than one point of view. I trust you not to become too confused. Thanks ^-^
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Chapter 6 - Sir Teacher
Hermione Granger felt horrible.
First of all, her new orphanage was a place where bullies reigned. Second, one of those bullies was a freak who paraded his strange powers; the other was someone she had found very agreeable in the least, and she hated being deceived. Third, she had not made any friends yet, and she was lonely.
She liked the two girls living together with her in her room fairly enough, yes. Ignoring the fact that one was completely over the top with her emotional range and not talking to her at the moment, and the other was plainly insane. They were likeable, of course they were.
"Loooona!! Aren't you coming? I could eat a swine!"
"I like the way the dust settles in patterns, look."
Hermione rolled her eyes. Just what she had said, was it not?
She longed for someone to talk to. There were several things she needed to get off her mind. Harry had confided in her about his very frightening and weird encounter with Tom Riddle. He would have been her first choice to confide in about that recent incident. She had returned a book to the classroom... yellow liquid had come from nowhere, and then she had seen... no, she hadn't. These things certainly did not exist. It had completely flustered her, and she hated being irrational. She still was not sure what to make of it.
Harry, however, had already revealed his true nature at that time. Sadly, she could only conclude that he had deliberately made her suspicious of Tom Riddle. His plan might have worked out - no one at the orphanage liked Tom Riddle. Tom would have made a great scapegoat had Harry not been caught in the act, standing at the top of the stairs, with Amy a wretched heap below him.
Just why he had done it, Hermione could not fathom. It seemed so out of tune with the friendly Harry she thought she had met. Hermione had so far prided herself with her correct judgment of people she had barely met. It irritated her to no end that he had turned out to be the greater bully. She reasoned that he was sly, that his entire business was about deceiving, tricking, and lying to others. And yet, she could not bring herself to actually believe that the boy with the gentle eyes who had welcomed her so warmly outside the cafeteria was not someone to trust.
Her thoughts strayed to Tom Riddle, who had without warning made his 'special powers' publicly known the previous evening, granting her and Ginny a full apology for the previous incident where he had sent her flying into the wall. It was very curious.
Ginny was standing in the door, her arms folded over her chest. Next to her, Luna was smiling. "Are you coming, Hermione?" Luna said warmly.
The boys were waiting outside as usually. Immediately, Neville engaged an unenthusiastic, not to say bored, Ginny in conversation. Ron set off with Luna, whom he seemed to consider an object of study, probably in the field of madness. Hermione resigned to trotting after them, listening to her own stream of thoughts. She had not been sleeping well, and she had been crying. Her eyes felt puffed up and she knew they were a bright red. She had seldom felt more miserable in her life.
***
Harry slouched into the cafeteria feeling extremely tired. He allowed his eyes to travel over the group sitting nearest Tom Riddle. Neville was talking avidly to Ginny. The girl was stifling a yawn. No news there. Luna was waving her hands before Ron's face, while he watched her with a display of genuine interest.
Hermione was sitting with them, but quietly. Her eyes were rather red. Two empty chairs separated her from Tom Riddle. She kept glancing at him covertly.
Ron guffawed at something Neville had said. Harry strolled towards the end of the table and started eating his poor-quality breakfast. He felt he had barely eaten anything when he got up, and returned to his room to fall asleep immediately.
***
The carriage came to a halt with a nasty screeching sound. Then, the door flew open, rattling in its hinges. Several people gasped as a bear-like figure emerged. Two enormous boots thundered on the ground. Then, the bear straightened up; his cloak fell to the ground and revealed a rather slim yet muscular person. With a seemingly casual gesture, his right hand removed a streak of dark mane from his face. His eyes were littered with dozens of twinkling stars. Underneath, dazzling teeth formed a gorgeous smile. He was more than simply handsome.
Helen found her voice first. In fact, she seemed quite unaffected by his appearance. She stepped forward, extending a hand; there was no warmth in her eyes. "Well, welcome, Sirius."
"Hi, Helen", he said in a husky voice. "Good to see you."
"He's marvellous", Ginny whispered audibly. The man did not look at her, but his smile deepened. He turned to face the whole herd of anxious children.
"Well, hello", he said, employing a humorous tone. "My name is Sirius Black. I'm going to be your second teacher from now on. You may call me Sirius, or Sir Teacher. You see, I'm nobility." He gave a barking laugh.
Stunned silence greeted his words. "So not funny", the silence seemed to shout. Sirius did not seem to mind; again, he ruffled through his hair. "You see, it's been a long journey. I wouldn't mind a bite, how about you?"
They had all eaten, of course, and were not hungry. Nevertheless they took his words as a signal to head back inside.
***
In the hall, Hermione found herself on her own again. Ron had set off at high speed with Luna, probably because she wanted to show him the absurd shapes the logs in the chimney could assume, and Ginny had found herself besieged with Neville's endless talk again. And so, Hermione dawdled until they had disappeared entirely and Harry slouched into the hall.
Harry looked not only frozen to the bone, but also distinctly put out about something. For some reason, Hermione was almost sure she knew what it was without asking. Not wanting to talk to him anyway, she looked around frantically, but there was no place to hide.
He had seen her and stood quite still.
Silence fell.
They could hear the din the other children were making above, and the clanking of dishes from inside the cafeteria. In contrast, the hall was silent as a graveyard.
Harry simply looked at her. Somehow, she did not have the heart to lower her gaze.
"Hermione", he said finally. His voice was almost a whisper, as though he feared they might be overheard.
She blinked. Inexplicably, a huge lump had grown out of nowhere in her throat. She fought hard to look anywhere but at him. However, when she finally mustered enough courage to remove her gaze from the floor, she was shocked to find Harry standing right before her.
"Hermione", he said with a small smile.
Instinctively, she withdrew a few inches. "No! It's not like..."
Carefully, he extended a hand, but stopped before he actually touched her face. She could feel the heat of his fingertips burn her skin. It was ridiculous. And yet, she could not shake off the feeling.
Sirius Black chose that particular moment to come bursting in from the cafeteria. "Ah, that was good! I'm full!" he exclaimed then drew up short at the sight of them. "Oh. Sorry." What with his grin actually stretching from ear to ear, he did not look remotely sorry.
"Well, you're Harry, aren't you?" Sirius said when they would not reply. "I've heard about you. Would you mind a chat?"
"No", Harry said, sounding hoarse for some reason.
"Okay... follow me, then."
Harry cast half a glance at Hermione as he stumbled away in Sirius' wake.
With a huge sigh of relief, Hermione turned towards the staircase.
Ginny was waiting for her at the top. "Where have you been?" she demanded in her usual reprimanding tone.
"Talking to me again?" Hermione asked coolly. "It's okay for me to think Harry might fancy other girls than you after all?"
"I've been proven right, haven't I?" Ginny said sharply. "He was up to no good with her. I don't understand how you could still take sides with Harry after what has happened!"
"Well", Hermione said slowly, "I don't know how you could be so absolutely sure from the beginning that Harry would hurt Amy someday. From what I gathered, she had a thing for him, and he was being shy about her."
"You're still defending him!"
"No, I'm not", Hermione said very quietly.
"You did talk to him down there just now, didn't you?" Ginny went on, ignoring her. "He's still trying to fool you, don't you see that?"
A door opened and Tom Riddle came walking towards them. His eyes never left Ginny, who glared at him. The look would have made anyone cower but Riddle. The corner of his mouth, however, twitched slightly as he passed her.
When he reached the top-most stair, Hermione's eyes were on his back.
"You should watch out for Potter, Hermione", Tom said suddenly in an unusually kind voice. He did not turn around to face her. "He's got powers like me, only he's in control of them much more than I am. It is why he marked me down as his rival the day we met. I am sorry to see that you already trust him too much."
Finally, he looked at her, and the expression of his eyes seemed to overpower her.
"You want to be careful", he said in an even lower voice. "Those beautiful eyes of yours are going to break from grief if you continue searching his good side. He has none."
Ginny gaped.
Once Riddle had left, she rounded on Hermione.
"What was that all about?" she demanded. "Don't tell me you and Tom Riddle -"
"Oh, stop it", Hermione said wearily. "You know, people can care for each other without having secret engagements. I do think you're being a bit paranoid."
Ginny opened her mouth to retaliate. Hermione, however, marched fiercely past her, not wanting to hear another word. She really needed to think now.
***
Having pranced into the empty classroom, Sirius sat down on a desk. A small smile lingered around his mouth.
"Well?" he said. "Anything you want to tell me?"
Harry did not reply.
Several minutes passed. Suddenly, the new teacher looked very stern and grown-up. "Let's talk openly, Harry. I won't be able to make you believe I haven't heard about you. In fact, you're the reason I came here."
Harry stared at him.
"Orphanages in this country, and especially this one, are not so much self-reliant and unmonitored as you may believe, Harry. We have had an eye on Tom Riddle for a while now. He never gave us reason to interfere." Harry snorted in disbelief. "Oh, of course we knew he was not at all innocent", Sirius continued. "However, if there were strange things going on, we could never trace them back to him. He behaves quite well, you see. You, on the other hand..."
And Sirius heaved a deep sigh.
"I want to impress on you the horrible nature of your behaviour. It is lucky you did it for all to see. Bullying others in secret is not only a nasty thing, it is also much harder to fight. You, on the other hand, allowed me to come here, so I can attempt to make you a better person."
Harry said nothing. So this social worker had already classified him as a bully. And he had told him that he was not about to do anything against Tom Riddle even though he knew that Tom was worse than Harry.
"Don't get me wrong", Sirius said in his lowest voice. "I hear that Tom Riddle has very strange powers... It seems that he took Amy Benson and another boy into a cave with him some years ago, and we never actually found out what happened there. I know he is dangerous, and I have been praying for a chance to get to him all these years."
Surprised, Harry stared at him. Did that mean...
"You could help me", Sirius concluded. "I think that even if you are not innocent, there might be some interesting details you could give me about Tom."
A knock on the door made both of them jump.
"Yes", Sirius called out. Harry saw beads of sweat form on the teacher's forehead.
Tom Riddle entered the room, looking paler than usually.
"Oh, I beg your pardon for my rudeness", he said politely, but with a sneer that completely eradicated the effect of his words. "I thought I had heard voices. It is just that I need to get a certain book for my studies."
And he walked over towards the bookshelf, looking quite untroubled at the expression on Sirius' face. Harry wondered what it conveyed - was it fear?
What was there between Tom Riddle and his new teacher?
"Well, Harry", Sirius said, "I think that's all for today. You may go back to your room now..."
Harry, however, did not feel like heading back to his lonely chamber just yet. Once the classroom door had shut behind him, he strolled down the corridor, hesitating a split-second whether he should go to the infirmary, and deciding against it. Instead, he set off for the hall and walked outside into the chill afternoon air.
It took him a while to realize where his feet were carrying him almost instinctively - towards the beach.
The sky was a leaden colour, hanging low above his head. The sea stretched endlessly towards a yellow horizon; its surface was bubbling and brooding eerily. The wind carried strange voices from an invisible shore beyond the distant horizon. Harry shivered.
"Hello, Harry", said a dreamy voice behind him. He spun round.
"Oh, it's you", he said, letting out a long sigh of relief. Luna smiled vaguely. Harry noticed that the same wind tearing at his own jet-black hair furiously left Luna's waist-long mane oddly untouched.
"Who did you expect?" Luna asked serenely.
"What? Oh, no one in particular", Harry replied, shuffling his feet in the sand.
They watched the waves thunder and roar and crash, Harry feeling very much at ease with the world for a change, and Luna looking very calm.
"You know", she began once more, "I could talk to Hermione for you."
"Why would I want you to talk to Hermione?" Harry returned, his heart beating very fast.
Luna gazed at the waves dreamily, as though lost in memories, and did not reply.
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Coming up: "My dearest"
In which Harry is asked to become engaged.