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

Chapter 4-10

Autumn brought about change. The visual appeal was the only factor it had going for it; yellow and brown leaves confetti'ing off the trees that had mushrooms circling around their bases, forming a cozy carpet on the mostly untouched courtyards and well-travelled paths.

If Spring bloomed with rebirth, then Autumn decayed with death. You had never looked at it through the sober lens before, but since death happened within those months, it felt grimmer than it had ever been.

Grass died. Nature died. Green turned to brown, and the palette of vibrant colours paled. Animals were about to go into hibernation. The silence of the season was nice, helping you let all the things you couldn't stop thinking about fade away.

"Do you know when you're gonna use it?" A maple leaf drifted down, and you were quick enough to pinch it between your dark green gloves.

It never won't warm you that these had no holes in them. You were one of the fortunate orphans to possess gloves back in London, with holes. They never bothered you when snow packed its way into the broken seams, and it the frigid chain of the swing never made it easier to deal with.

And now that was in the past.

Alyssa's object of interest was far more powerful than a lost leaf. She was admiring the vial of liquid luck from where she was holding it in front of her nose.

"Will it really work?" She questioned its effectiveness.

"You bet. Rosalind made the love potion after drinking." And couldn't shut up about it either.

Should Felix Felicis even be allowed in the school when one of its side-effects included hyperactiveness that lasted for the full twenty-four hours?

As an added bonus of sleep deprivation from her all-nighter with Eileen, you had no concentration in the morning and failed your grade on your Transfiguration test because reading the questions was even harder than keeping keeping yourself awake.

Woo. Even more reasons for McGonagall to hate you! You were glad she wasn't the Head of your House anymore. Say what you will about Slughorn, but he never scolded any of his students when he knew they did their best. All your bad grade got you was a pep talk.

*Cough* some other Slytherins could learn a thing or two from that sort of coaching *cough*.

Alyssa fumbled with the pocket of her maroon faux-fur jacket, putting in it your gift for her before tracing you. "You look tired. Did you sleep bad?"

It didn't take a mirror for you to physically see the wine-hued bags sag under your eyes. You could feel them droop lower and lower the more you fought to stay awake.

Holding back a yawn, you wiped under an eyelid to brush away the crust trapped in your eyelashes.

"Not much." You clarified reluctantly, "Rosalind and Eileen kept me awake. They talked and talked like they had coffee instead of pumpkin juice."

Alyssa's visual moved left and right as she reviewed more of your sleep-deprived form. "Did she even thank you?"

You absentmindedly flapped the leaf's serrated edges. "Only, like, twenty times. She really, really needed it... Never told me what for."

The devil was at the end of the oncoming current of students walking out of the wide open courtyard, and into the cloisters at turtle speed.

With her were Tom and Abraxas. Because why wouldn't they be.

You noticed Alyssa's cringing before you noticed them. "Look at her, being so clingy," her walking pace slowed.

"You see it too?" Even at a distance you could see Rosalind leaning closer to Tom than Abraxas. But it wasn't Abraxas that stepped off to the side so she could enter a narrower section of the corridor.