Wish Upon A Star

Dueling Club

'Hello, Riddle. I am Ashlyn Clarke.'  The moment she wrote this, Ashlyn regretted it. She hadn't thought at all. She had made elaborate plans on how she would call out Riddle, but this was certainly not it. She facepalmed. I'm screwed, she thought.

'Hello Ashlyn Clarke, it seems you already know who I am.' came the reply. 

Ashlyn dropped her quill and closed her eyes, leaning back in her chair. Okay, she had imagined various scenarios of her outsmarting Riddle, but now that she was faced with the real deal, all the stupid courage she had before drained out of her. 

The elegant cursive writing might give an impression of mild surprise at first, but what Ashlyn saw was not a welcome, but a threat, a dare. He was daring her to go further, to write some more. He was studying her. 

The mere thought of it proved how strong Voldemort was. If a broken fragment of his soul, trapped away in a book for fifty years could try to manipulate her and move her around a puppet, she could only imagine how powerful Lord Voldemort would have been in his prime.

With a sigh, she picked her quill back up. Her hands were clammy and sweaty now. She dipped her quill in ink and wrote. 'Yes' 

'Anything in specific that is bothering you?'  The prick actually sounded concerned, but Ashlyn knew it was just pretence.

'Stay away from Ginny.'  That was all she could think of at the moment.

'Yes. Ginny did mention you were a great friend who seemed to know everything.'  

What did you tell him, Ginny?

'Do not worry. I am just a friend.'  Somehow this snapped something in Ashlyn.

'And why would I trust you?' Ashlyn scribbled back.

'Ginny told me about the attacks,' Riddle wrote back after a bit of a pause, as though he was hesitating.

'It happened back in my time too. Fifty years ago,'  he wrote. 'I caught the person who'd opened the Chamber and he was expelled. But the headmaster, Professor Dippet, ashamed that such a thing had happened at Hogwarts, forbade me to tell the truth. A story was given out that the girl had died in a freak accident. They gave me a nice, shiny, engraved trophy for my trouble and warned me to keep my mouth shut. But I knew it could happen again. Like it is being now. I cannot let that happen. Not this time. I cannot let another person die an unfair death,'

Ashlyn huffed indignantly. Was this asshole really pulling that card right now? Oh, how she would like to bitch slap Riddle, that jerk. He killed poor Myrtle! 

Okay. Fine. Two can play that game.

'Died?' Ashlyn wrote. 'Someone actually died?'

'Yes,' came the reply.

'That's so terrible' Ashlyn wrote after a few seconds, making her handwriting slightly bendy to make it seem as though she was struggling to get the words out.

'Yes, it was. The school almost shut down,' Riddle wrote.

'Was it that serious? They couldn't find who had done it?' Ashlyn scribbled down, faking her concern.

'No,' Riddle wrote. 'The monster lived on, and the one who had the power to release it was not imprisoned.'

'But you said you caught them,' she wrote.

'Yes, unfortunately, all that was done was mere expulsion,' Riddle wrote, and Ashlyn was actually impressed. His handwriting had changed slightly, as though his hand was shaking with repressed rage as he wrote.