Hogwarts: a school of Witchcraft and Love (Tom Marvolo Riddle x F!reader)

Chapter 1-03

Kids sitting across from you at the Slytherin table in the Great Hall. They had been talking themselves up for at least ten minutes now, saying how they were going to be the 'smartest' students, the 'best' students and were going to achieve the 'highest' grades to prove it to everyone.

Abraxas said you joining their group would keep the... Peasants away from you?

What was a peasant? You had no idea,
but it sounded bad.

''Mm," you hummed in distracted false agreement, and continued pushing the food around on your plate while thinking about your encounter with Myrtle and how Dumbledore brought her into his office to talk.

The Slytherins' boasting weaved over into complaining about just how boring History of Magic was, and one of them even wondered if a ghost could feel a drawing pin if they put it on his seat.

You weren't sure when you'd stopped listening, but when you tuned back in, Abraxas was still going on about the lesson between bites of hamburger.

"Did you see his face?" He enthused. "Binns looked like he was going to feed you to a dragon!" The silverware in his hand flashed under the candles' lights in the Great Hall, as he wildly motioned his hand around.

You were glad you had Tom sitting between you and him because if he hadn't, you would have threw a pea at him. Just one.

"Ha. At least I wouldn't bloody fall asleep then! How dreadful can someone be? It's like they paid him Galleons to bore us to sleep." You cringed at the sight of the scrawny Slytherin talking with unidentified pulp in his mouth. Clearly he had never heard of table etiquitte.

You looked back down at your pasta mixed with vegetables that you barely touched. It wasn't that you weren't hungry—you were. It was just that chewing distracted you from what you were thinking about.

Lost in daydreaming, you hadn't noticed Tom staring at your fingers prodding absently into the pile of leftover food before you.

He stared you in the face. "What did you think about it (Y/N)?" He spoke loudly to attract your attention. He further attracted your attention by  knocking his knee against yours under the table and you turned, silently wondering what you missed with your your meandering thoughts about Myrtle.

"Avery's comment in class," Tom specified, assuming your lack of response to that you were lost on the ongoing discussion. "What did you think about it?"

Avery? The boy in front of you was Avery? The Avery that Myrtle said teased her? Unless there was another Avery in the first year of the snake House, which was highly unlikely because the name wasn't one you heard often.

You struggled to recollect what it was that Avery said. Something about goblins needing to accept their place beneath other magical beings?

You ate a forkful of your dinner to stop yourself from saying anything. You would have had it just been you and Tom eating together, but with three other pairs of eyes staring at you as judging as they did, you were simply too shy. You didn't want to be laughed at or made fun of and end up like Myrtle, crying and alone in the toilets.

"Doesn't seem like she found it that funny," Lestrade commented from beside Avery who, in turn, gave a lousy shrug. "She's been silent all this time so Merlin knows what's on her mind." Ideas seemed to flash before his eyes as you suddenly found yourself to be the talk of the table.

A grin formed around the last bite of his steak. "Maybe she's thinking about a crush!" He waggled his eyebrows.

Your face scrunched up. "Ewww! Nah-uh!" You cut right through his stupid theory.