The Founder's Present

The sub-level dungeon that held the room in which the Dark Followers had met for most of the school year prior had been shut up during the summer. The key had been placed in the waiting palm of Athena towards the tail end of the summer holidays and it was only now that Athena had decided to open it up. She’d torn down the ward that had been drawn up around it the lower level entrance at the end of the school year with little regard to the precision Traverse had used. They were weak, breakable wards and Athena knew that she’d have to remedy that. And she would. What little time she’d had to herself over the summer, she’d spent it reading up on various spells on both the Dark Followers and the dungeon meeting place. She had just the spells too; spells that would ensure total loyalty.

The door was quick to fall from its hinges but a handful of spells returned it to its past state. Athena lifted her wand aloft and slowly, a white light began to grow at the very tip. She descended slowly down onto the lower dungeon level and turned her wand around the room, depositing light into the oil burners that hung from the wall. With a roar, the flames soared into life, rendering the beam of light at the end of Athena’s wand useless. She lowered her wand slightly brushed an invisible piece of lint off of the emerald robes she’d donned before leaving the Slytherin dungeons. She’d been specific, sending hand-written letters to each member of the little school-based Death Eater faction. Each one was personalised to the member in question, bearing a different type of punishment should they not arrive. Athena did not have infinite patience. In fact, she had very little. Those who fell behind would be left behind, but not without first being subject to the Cruciatus Curse.

“And so my child, we meet at least.”

A slow, aristocratic voice spread through the air, making the hairs on Athena’s arms stand to attention. She lifted her head, her chin inclining stubbornly as she met the oil gaze of her house founder. She had not been notified of his presence there and at the sight of him, a mixture of fear, admiration and irritation flared within her. Regaining her bearings, Athena dropped down into a curtsey like a bucket into a well. Her head was still aloft, her eyes twinkling with challenge and her lips twitched up into a smirk bearing the same expressive curve. Slytherin chuckled darkly and gestured for her to rise, which she did with little hesitation.

“Another woman,” He stated simply, giving Athena a knowing smile which looked, to her, like more of a grimace than anything else. “Though not as weak as the last, perhaps, but you could be a great disappointment.”

“Could I?” Athena scowled openly as she took steps towards the portrait, the fear of him disappointing as it was replaced with anger. “Stay true to your first comment, sir. I am not a disappointment. You have become naive in death if that is truly what you believe. Now, would you be so kind as to let me pass? There is much to be done before the ingrates arrive.”

Slytherin chuckled once more. “You think so poorly of them? Well, I must say, you are impressive. I wish you luck with them. And...enjoy my gift.”

The portrait swung back and Athena smirked to herself before stepping over the threshold. The portrait swung shut behind her and once again, flames burst into life. She looked around the richly furnished room and her eyes immediately fell to what was sat in rich satin on the coffee table between two emerald coloured sofas -- a single chicken egg and a toad that looked as if it had been placed in a stasis. Athena’s smirk spread into a smile and she crossed the room, shrugging off the outer robes so as to reveal a figure-hugging dress that drew attention to the locket around her neck with its plunging neckline. Athena dropped the outer robes on the back of the sofa and reached over, plucking the egg from its roost within the satin.

“Of course,” She murmured. “What a wondrous gift it is.”

Athena flicked her wand at the fire and watched as the logs slowly caught fire. She sat back in the comfort of the settee not a moment after and held her wand between her teeth as she turned the egg over in her hands. She knew what Slytherin wanted and it was most assuredly a better option than what she had been told to do. No, the stalking of Professors could wait another day. This was much better. Athena wondered how well read the Slytherins were, and whether they’d truly understand how very important the presents were...and what it could mean. Athena hoped that wizards had not stopped telling their children about Basilisks. It would be truly tragic if anyone was killed and they had no idea why. Slytherin had made his goal clear with the first Basilisk creation. Harry Potter had made it difficult the second time the Chamber of Secret had been opened. Now it was time for the third opening. The second snake, one that would finish what Slytherin had intended.

All day, all through lessons, Damien had only one thing in mind. When he had received a letter from Athena regarding the first Dark Followers meeting, he had been excited, until he noticed the line depicting an oddly personal punishment, a threat if he did not turn up. At that point, he was a little perturbed, but soon let it slide, since he was more interested in the meeting, given that he was finally part of the group, and that this was going to be his first meeting with the rest, altogether. For what was a rare time, Damien failed to invest his attention in class, envisioning the scenes that might transpire at the meeting. Rather, he was trying to come up with ways to impress, especially Athena. He was almost too keen to impress her; not romantically, of course. No, that would be odd. He had never thought of the older girl in any other way than how one would think of someone better with a sort of reverence, no matter how odd that even sounded. No, Athena was too much for him to ever think of her as anyone else other than someone to respect. And there were going to be the other older students at the meeting too. He had only one aim in his mind, of course. He wanted to be someone worthy in their sight. He was going to try.

Dinner was hardly touched in the Great Hall. As soon as he felt sure that it was useless putting food into his mouth when he was not interested, Damien left the Hall to make his way to drop his belongings off in the Boys Dormitory, before swiftly walking to the designated DF meeting place. The temperature had slightly fallen as he proceeded down to where he was told the Hideout was at. Damien could not help but to smooth his uniform, flicking the dust that his eyes could always spot anytime, anywhere. The boy came to the end of what felt like a long, long walk; and he stopped in front of the portrait. Salazar Slytherin was not very much bothered about his appearance. He merely crossed his arms and stared coldly at the boy. Damien looked at it in an uncertain manner, as much as he wanted to feign strength. He stood looking at the portrait, clenching and unclenching his fists, thinking. And then he began to smooth his hair. Because his eyes was averted to the ground, Damien did not notice when Slytherin's patience wore thin.

"WELL?!" The voice boomed out from what sounded like everywhere around him. Damien quickly looked at the portrait again. He cleared his throat, and tried to sound confident in the password that he was told. Slytherin shook his head, as if already exasperated by what looked like a weak answer to the call for Dark Followers. Deciding he would rather not wear himself out further by making conversation, the portrait swung open for Damien. Clearly, Slytherin was not stoked about his appearance. This definitely got to Damien, who was trying to keep his head up, even as if he was suppressing doubts about himself inside. He had to remind himself on how he thought he was going to be powerful and useful in the future. Hopefully, future came soon. The entire place smelled of oil burners, and Damien's eyes quickly adjusted to the sight of the room, happy to be in it, finally. The room was, however, awfully quiet. There was no, except Athena. But of course. Grinning to himself, he made his way towards the girl, eyeing at what she was doing. He was a little confused, her playing with an egg ... Damien could not comprehend exactly what the scene was trying to tell him.

Although he had nodded as soon as his eyes landed on Athena, Damien went towards her, eager with a greeting. "Good Evening."

[OOC: Soo.. unfortunately, I'm not gonna read all of that..... sooo]

Pricilla was near tears as she flung herself into the room and then stared around the room. "ATHENA!" She shrieked and flung herself into the room, her arms flew out to circle Athena's shoulders and she burst into tears. "Athena! I broke up with Tobias!! I had to do it! I had to!!" She sobbed before looking around the room and seeing Damien. "What are you looking at D'Earth!" She glared at him for a long moment before turning back to Athena. "He hit me Athena!! He hit me!! Look!" Cilla showed her cheek to Athena, half sticking her face in her friends.

There was a bruise on her cheek bone, and it was obviously made by a fist, the only problem was was that she was lying, Tobias hadn't hit her, but she had needed SOMETHING to make it reasonable why she would break up with him. She had been thinking about it for AGES, and now she finally did it. She knew she'd have to act it up though, and would be sobbing and crying for days after this, staring morosely, getting upset when he entered the room, but soon she'd perk back up and be her normal self in no time.

"Oh Athena.. I don't know what to do!! What am I going to do?! I've never been without him! Athena!! "She sobbed, her arms around her friend's neck as she let the tears escape down her cheeks. She had to admit though.. she was a great actress.

It wasn’t altogether surprising to Darius that Athena had become the ring leader of the Dark Followers. She fit the part well enough; she was pureblooded, only valued pureblooded individuals, and put on the air of being a badass. The fact that she really wasn’t as tough as she seemed was apparently information reserved only for Darius and a few other select individuals who were not so stupid (or so invested) as to try to stop her ascension to the throne.

Darius had never really wanted to be in the gang of Dark Followers, because as far as he could tell, the little group never really achieved much of anything. They talked big, did a lot of planning, and then executed a lot of… nothing. Darius could wreak more havoc on his own, and with considerably less time invested in going to petty meetings, but he had joined because the rest of his friends had done so.

But now those friends were… well, they were currently exercising the part of friendship that involves not talking to him. It was stupid, really, what they were upset over. And it had been months ago now that Darius had said those things – those true things – to Athena and gotten the shit kicked out of him because of it. Hadn’t it been punishment enough that he had had to entertain himself all summer by casting curses on the neighbor’s cats and cause various problems for the muggles who mistakenly crossed paths with him on the streets of London?

Since his attempts to get back into the good graces of the group had been only barely successful – if you could count his interaction with Athena on the train a success, which he still wasn’t certain of – Darius had been thinking he might get out of his obligation to the Dark Followers. But alas, Athena had sent him an owl promising to reveal a certain piece of information that would, if exposed to the population at large, prove significantly detrimental to Darius’ reputation.

And thus, Darius entered the Dark Followers hideout after getting past the snarky portrait of Slytherin who had learned long ago that Darius didn’t take any of his crap. The collection of students was pretty dismal at this point, just Athena, Damien, and another girl he thought he recognized from having hit on her once or twice (but certainly never while she was as big a mess as she was now), but otherwise the room was empty. Darius could see a few things sitting on the table next to Athena, but he didn’t let his eyes linger too long; Athena would be sorely disappointed if she didn’t get to play leader later and announce to all of them what her grand scheme was, so he may as well let her have her fun and save himself the mental trouble of figuring it out.

“Evening, all,” Darius said, striding across the room and flinging himself across one of the couches on the far side of the room, as far away as possible as he could get from the sobbing blond disaster. His long body made him too big for the sofa, and his feet dangled over the arm of one side even though he was sitting upright with his back against the other arm.

“If you’ve called this meeting to ask me to put her out of her misery, I’d be happy to oblige,” Darius said deviously, pulling out his wand and twirling it idly in the direction of the blond girl, whose name was hovering somewhere in Darius’ subconscious but he wasn’t bothering to chase after it.

The dark haired young woman had been brought up in away unlike that of her friend. No, the blonde had never been told to save face and withhold emotions that were better off being vented in private rather than public. Despite the fact that the small circle of people that had gathered could not quite be called ‘public’, the eyes fixed on the blonde were enough to make colour and heat rise in Athena’s cheeks. Her grasp on the egg did not falter though Pricilla’s grip was strong. The curve of the easily breakable item in the woman’s claw-like grasp was the most important thing to them at that present moment in time. Pricilla’s love life or, apparently, lack thereof, was far from importance - further than perhaps Pricilla would like to imagine, that she could cope with imagining. Athena would occasionally play the ‘caring’ friend but not in this instance. No, she couldn’t bring herself to revert to the soppiness Pricilla expected of her. The blonde could think on. Business had to be attended to.

Forcing the girl away from her, Athena let Pricilla fall where she may, the sobbing mess she was. The pale woman then turned, taking a few calculated steps towards the flickering fireplace over the mantle of which sat a bold portrait of a smirking Salazar Slytherin. The pair, now fairly acquainted, shared looks of mirrored exasperation before smirking at one another. Athena then whirled around, her patience truly beginning to wane, and held aloft the egg which she had kept so close to her person. Now it was time to let the children figure out their plans which, whether they liked it or not, would be followed through with. She was not going to put up with the same amount of placidness as Traverse did. She wasn’t particularly useful in getting anything done bar kidnapping a handful of rather confused children. No, this was better...much better.

“Tell me, darlings,” She all but purred, “what in Merlin’s name would we use a toad and a hen’s egg for? I wonder...”

Unfortunately for Darius, Athena didn’t take his offer to take out the blond seriously. Instead, she merely pushed the sobbing mess away and walked toward the fireplace, where the glow of the flames flickered off her pale skin and dark hair. The girl really was a specimen to look at , and as long as her back was turned, Darius was free to let his eyes wander over her form without risking the wrath of Athena. He’d seen quite enough of that in the last few months, but it wasn’t enough to make him stop fantasizing about what he’d like to do to….

And then Athena, apparently deciding to get on with business despite the utter lack of attendance, turned on the spot and held out the golden egg that had caught Darius’s eye earlier, but instead of telling them outright what it was she wanted with it, she was toying with them. Darius probably should have seen this coming, because the one thing Athena loved more than herself – or perhaps, Darius corrected himself, second to herself – was toying with the people around her. She did it so effortlessly, and without ever getting flak from the rest of the group. So why did Darius have to play hermit all summer because of his own envoy in to the same damn territory?

“Well, I could come up with a pretty extensive list of first-year pranks,” Darius replied sarcastically, knowing perfectly well that Athena would despise this answer. It was true he wanted to be back in the good graces of the group, yes, but he wasn't going to give up his entire personality to do so. They wouldn’t want him if he was a quivering glob of remorse, either.

“But the ingredients for such things are not nearly as specific as what you’re holding, nor would you be calling meetings on account of simple pranks. So why don’ t you enlighten the rest of us to your brilliance, Dear Athena?” Darius prompted, grinning up at her, “We’re hanging on your every word.”

That almost sounded unsarcastic… congrats, Darius, the boy’s subconscious said ironically, knowing full well that sarcasm was Darius’ first language, and he’d never get rid of the accent.