Fan Fiction ❯ Guilty ❯ the meeting ( Prologue )

Listening the OST of "Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain", I met with a song: the words have made me think about Uncle dear's parents, to his mother to say the truth. This fanfic is a side story of "China Doll": I'll end this story at the proper moment, to tell the ending in the sixth or seventh chapter of CHIDO.

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The air was still and torrid, as always in summer, and the crickets screeched among the prickly pear bushes; alone, a girl went through the low street on her bicycle: her four cousins and she had left from Santa Eufemia's little marked-place. After ten kilometers, they had stopped near a well to drink a sip of water; but when she had turned, Sebastiano, Fede, Speranza and Carità had disappeared, leaving her alone in an unknown place.

" When I'll find them, I swear that I'll hex them from there to home!"

The girl grumbled. Perhaps it wasn't very nice that a high society girl, born in one of the most ancient and rich families of Wizarding England curse in that way, but Herentas -this was her name- was so furious with her cousins to don't care of such details. To tell the truth, her mind was too busy thinking about how punish her cousins, that she noticed too late the car coming from the opposite direction. The sound of the horn suddenly caught her: the girl screamed and sideslipped; her bike stumbled in a stone and catapulted the young witch in a prickly pear. The driver stopped and ran to help her.

" Are you all right Miss? Are you wounded?"

He exclaimed with worried voice. Herentas looked around and saw her new bike with a deformed wheel.

" No, my bike! My father will be really angry when he'll know it!" she whimpered, then she tried to get up, but an pain at the left leg made her lose the balance," Ouch! No, I'm not all right: I am full of thorns, my bike is a wreck and I broken my leg!"

" Lean on me; here, in this way, put an arm around my neck." the boy answered helping her, then called one of his friends," Hey Ernest, comes to give her a glance: after all you are the doctor here!"

A young man got off the car and approached the girl and his friends; then knelt in front of her.

" May I Miss?" the girl nodded and he just raised her skirt's edge," Tom, you know that I'm a doctor as you are a lawyer. To be broken, it is broken, but it doesn't look like that serious: we must take her in town right now. Carry her in the car, I take the bike."

" Can you walk?" she shook her head and he took her in his arm," Dorian, move back. Victoria, Amanda, I'm sorry, but we couldn't leave her here with a broken leg!"

The two girls smiled nodding while Dorian helped Ernest load the bike on the trunk, then the two boys got on the car and Amanda sat on Ernest's lap. Tom laid Herentas on the front seat.

" I apology for the trouble I'm giving you: I mustn't be so careless, it's all fault my. "

Herentas said wincing at each pothole; Tom shook his head.

" No, it isn't a trouble! The fault is of these mule tracks: they are so narrow! Ah, I am a rude, we haven't yet introduced! They are Ernest and Amanda Ramsay, Dorian Trémont and Victoria Flaherty; I am Thomas Riddle, Tom for my friends. And you?"

" Herentas Maria Meridiae."

" Herentas Maria? It's a beautiful name; strange but beautiful. You are English, aren't you?" Herentas nodded," We too: the Ramsay have rented a mansion near Santa Eufemia, it's where we're going. Once in the village, we'll take you to a /real/ doctor, not a fake one like our Ernie!" Amanda slapped his nape and everybody laughed," From there you can phone your parents: if you want it, we could stay with you until they don't come."

" Santa Eufemia? Actually my uncle lives there, everybody knows him: it won't be hard find anyone that could take me home."

" Ah, really? Then you can go back home right after the doctor visits you... "

But his voice betrayed a certain disappointment. While they went through the road, Herentas threw fleeting glances to Tom: he was a handsome man, with tidy, smooth, dark blond hair and eyes of a vibrating honeyed green, his skin was slightly tanned by the summer sun and his features were hard but harmonious; he was in his early twenties and he seemed very polite, very... common and ordinary; and perhaps was his mediocrity to intrigued her so much, since she was continually surrounded by extraordinary people. Tom sensed the eyes of that girl on him: usually it annoyed him, but with the stranger girl it wasn't so. Perhaps it was the aura of mystery that surrounded her; perhaps her chocolate colored eyes, large and sparkling, that seemed to stare him from a place crawled with fears and pleasures. The short, black and shining hair framed her chiseled face with soft curls and her fleshy, cherry lips curled in a grimace of pain at each hole. Her lips... suddenly Tom felt the desire to seal those lips with a kiss. He chased that thought away: she was little more than a child, perhaps fifteen years; it would have been not even legal! But more he tried to suppress it, more it grew.

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Nearby the fountain in Santa Eufemia's market place, there were a boy and three girls with their bikes: they were the Trao siblings. Sebastiano was a handsome strong young fellow of almost twenty years; brown ruffled hair, olive skin and a happy face, that when he laughed has the dimples on his cheeks. Fede, Speranza and Carità, instead, were girls that didn't pass unnoticed: first because they were triplets; and latter because they were albinos: long, smooth, snow-like hair; pale skin with neither moles nor freckles; pale icy blue eyes. Often Sebastiano involved them in his absurd jokes, almost all to their cousin's harm. And they were talking, or rather, fighting about this.

" That has been a bad taste joke, Sebastiano! If something happens to our cousin, the responsibility is your!"

" Don't be angry, nothing will happen!"

" Brother, you're making a mistake..."

" ... Something /is/ happened..."

" ... and the consequences will be serious!"

" Herentas isn't a baby, she can take care of herself!"

" This was the first time that we brought her there! If she got lost, uncle Marvolo will be really, very angry!"

" Tsk, uncle doesn't understand jokes," mumbled Sebastiano," and he understand nothing!"

The three sisters looked silent, a single thought crossed their minds.

" Well, we won't wait any more... "

" ... we go to look for her... "

" ... are you coming with us?"

Sebastiano puffed, but knowing that his sisters were right, he bent his head and nodded. They were just mounted the bikes, when they heard clear Herentas's voice from the other side of the market place.

" Here where you are! Is this the way to behave? Leave me alone, in an unknown place: what kind of cousins you are?!"

" Herentas!" exclaimed the triplets joining her," You know, it's all Sebastiano's fault! We were about to come to look for you. Are you all right? Does something happen to you?"

" Sure that something is happened! I broke a leg and my bike too!"

" I'm sorry Herentas, I didn't think... "

" Shut up Sebastiano!"

The four girls exclaimed. The young in the car hardly held back a laughter; and the triplets looked at them, staring Tom: the young man felt uneasy; Fede, Speranza and Carità's eyes didn't show any emotion. It was as if they are watching in the depth of his soul to find out the deepest and innermost of his secrets; the three sisters drew near, whispering something to each other, and a light breeze rose from sea moving their hair: Tom couldn't not compare them to the three Graces and... no, they weren't the Graces, they were the Parche, the Erinni, the Furies; and a shiver ran on his back. Everything lasted only one instant, the time of a blink; and here his friends getting off the car telling him to take home the wounded girl; and the three sisters sitting on the back seat laughing like the girls laugh and teasing their brother, whom would go back home with the bikes since there was not space and none of them wanted him on their laps; and before Tom realized it, he was on the way for Villa Trao. When they arrived, the three sisters told him to wait Sebastiano, whom came about ten minutes after: throwing a withering look to his sisters, Sebastiano lets fall his bike and took his cousin. Herentas threw a last, intense glance to Tom and she said with a thread of voice:

" I thank you for what you have done for me today, Thomas Riddle: I won't forget it."

" Er... I... I have just did my duty as gentleman, nothing more!" he replied nervously," But I would like to see you again."

Herentas looked him for a long time, then threw a glance to Fede, Speranza and Carità; and added with eerie voice:

" We will meet again, Thomas Riddle, if this is what the Fate has in store for us."

They said goodbye with a nod, then Sebastiano brought the girl inside the villa, followed by his sisters; Tom stayed to watch the five cousins until they crossed the threshold and the heavy wood door closed: sighing, he U-turned the car and left with a cloud of dust behind and with a feeling of empty, as if he had lost something important, inside his heart.