Serpentine [T.M. Riddle]

I lost you (Part III)

Sundays aren't as interesting without Ximena being available to follow around Hogsmeade. She knew good places to find cheap school supplies and secondhand books, and while he thought (at first) that this was where she got her supplies of strange tomes, he now knows that none of the shops carry anything like what she's shared. Not like the books Tom saw within Balam's library or in the small towns they've visited.

He's never asked about her supplier. Maybe if he had, she'd have been reunited quicker. Taken away from him faster. Couldn't have that. He's not done with her. He has questions. Ideas.

Like the idea, the prospect, of showing her around the areas in which he's traveled with Balam. It excites him. To show her the people he's known and the shops he's found. This scenario is only possible if she remembers nothing about where she grew up, and (even if she does) that Balam has never taken her to the same places he's taken Tom.

The idea of teaching her rather than she teaching him something is such an appealing thought, he bathes and lathers in it for a good part of the afternoon, accompanying the Slytherin boys in his year around Hogsmeade and drowning out their boring drivel. Hogsmeade was more appealing when his upperclassman was here, her freetime open and available to him.

At least in México, he won't have to share her with any other students. Just possibly her family, but luckily for Balam, Tom has grown to enjoy him. There's no condescension when he teaches, just disdain for Tom's teachers here at Hogwarts (something that still bothers him, if only because this school was his savior). He tells Tom they should have done better. That things should be different for those like him. With dark magical cores.

Undoubtedly, the man is teaching Ximena about magnificent dark magicks, things he's kept tight and secret from Tom, despite how hard he's working at peeling them away from the man. He's already figured out what mechanism is keeping Balam's study locked (the magic is akin to that of the bracelet), now he only needs to open it and search...

...Would Ximena...?

There's no use thinking about what ifs and guestimations. He'll know soon enough. Keep himself from daydreaming his time away instead of focusing on more important matters. On his goals and on his social circles.

He sips his butterbeer as Dion says something vulgar about Hedwig's plump figure. Tom owes it to her to silence him, so he stretches out his magic and squeezes the boy's hand painfully tight. Just enough for his own group to notice. None of the barmaids or other customers around them do. The group stops their incessant tittering.

Evan clears his throat, "I've found the information you were looking for."

The other boys in the small circle perk up. Tom remains impassive.

"It was Little Nott's sister that spilled it," Ah, Gwendolyn, "Of course, I would take her word with a grain of salt, with that mouth of hers." There's a snicker from Dion, a glare silences it, "She bragged about her great uncle Cantankerus being the wizard behind the Sacred Twenty-Eight list."

Katux scoffs, "Impossible. The man's a lunatic. Completely batty."

"I wouldn't brush him off quite yet, Katux." Evan drums his fingers on the table between them, "His family has helped the Averys publish their Nature's Nobility editions since the very beginning."

"Yes but Cantankerus isn't the best and brightest of the Notts." Katux mumbles, drinking from his mug, "He doesn't even have an heir, what kind of respectable man has no wife or next-of-kin at his age?"

Tom refrains from snorting. He has no intention of ever marrying or fathering children. There are better status symbols for a wizard of his caliber, "Terminal bachelor?"