A Riddle of Love

Chapter 3: Riddle Me This

"Hello darlin'.  Pardon the mess. Name's Riddle, by the way. Tom Riddle." 

   Bean still wasn't moving, and their mouth was hanging open. I have to admit, even I was a little surprised, because though we are around each other a lot, considering we're in the same house and we have a couple of classes together, we never interacted with Riddle much. The silence was getting a bit awkward, so I decided to step in.  "My name is Y/N, and this is my friend Bean." 

  I said, gesturing towards them. They blinked and managed an; "Oh yeah, I-uh, hi." Riddle laughed a little, making Bean blush. "Uh, Beanie? You might wanna, you know.." I looked down at the wand in their hand and raised an eyebrow, thinking they should probably put that away before they accidentally jinxed someone. 

  "Oh! You're right - sorry about that. Nice to formally meet you by the way." They aimed that last bit at Tom as they stored their wand safely back in their robes.

  "No harm done." He said, and looking around he cringed the slightest bit; "I don't think I can say the same for your things, however." Bean looked too, and it finally settled in. "Merlin's beard!" They said, "What am I going to do? I have to clean all this up and get down to the dungeons before class starts - ugh I am going to be late - class starts in five minutes, and Snape's already not in a good mood today!"  Even with me helping her we're going to be late. I thought. Might as well get started then. 

    I started gathering up pieces of parchment that had landed on the stairs and picked them up as I went down. As I was working, I heard someone say, "Pack." and things started to pack themselves back into Bean's bookbag. Why hadn't I thought of that?  I looked up to see who had used the charm and saw that Riddle had his wand out and was helping us pick up Bean's things. I guess he saw our looks of surprise and said, "I made the mess, so I figured it was only right that I helped clean it up." What. Is. Happening? This can't possibly be the same Tom Riddle I go to Hogwarts with. Why is he being so nice to people he just met? Besides, he's the type to jinx someone for bumping into him - even if he was the one who actually bumped into them. Right?  "I suppose so, yeah." I said, handing the last of the parchments to Bean for stowing away. "Thanks." Bean was blushing the colour of a Weasley's head. 

   "No problem - er, did you say you were off to the dungeons?" Riddle asked, putting his wand back into his robes. "Yeah, double Potions with Snape today." Bean said, looking like she was going to explode. "Me too, actually. Mind if I walk with you two?" Bean's eyes went as wide as that Umbridge woman's, in fact - I thought they were going to burst. "That would be fine, but we have to hurry, we're going to be late as it is." I said, grabbing Bean's arm and hurrying down the rest of the flight of stairs and quickly walking towards the dungeons and a very irritable Professor Snape.