desiderium | t. riddle

xiv. aftermath, after hours

The Great Hall was silent that night. Words weren't needed to know exactly what the students were thinking. One sweep of the eyes across the four dining tables and you'd know exactly how most felt about the events of the evening.

The Ravenclaws sat with knitted eyebrows, some buried in books whose contents spoke of magic darker than the ink presenting them, gears turning in their heads. The Hufflepuffs were holding hands under the table, thumbs tracing pacifying circles into knuckles, and warm, steady fingertips smoothing shaking hair. The Gryffindors sat with fury in their eyes, looking around at every other face, ready to pounce, almost daring someone to admit to the crimes. And some Slytherins answered these looks with sneers to add fuel to their fires. Others sat, pens skating along paper in their best pureblood-worthy penmanship, writing home with faces coerced into stoic composure.

And Tom sat unbothered. A typical night, other than a few forged looks of sympathy shot toward Rosier, who was watching Riddle with an odd glimmer in his eyes. Abraxas sat next to him, aristocratic mask firmly in place and his brows overly ironed out.

Evangeline watched. She watched the bonds strengthen in bridges over tears, the ties knotted by plans for vengeance. She saw the mistrust unleashed in the hardened jewels of pupils' eyes, the fear that had taken the place of youthful joy. She noticed girls reaching absentmindedly into their bags, pulling their hands out just enough that the acquired lip color and handheld mirror peeked from the bag before their faces went abruptly pale in a stark contrast to their black robes and their hands shoved the products violently back into the bag as though on fire.

Her eyes wandered to the dish in front of her. Soup for dinner. It seemed that somehow the house-elves had known that not many students would be up for real food tonight.

Her gaze trailed over to Cassi's to the right. Less substance had been ladled into hers, more broth. Cassi's spoon twirled around, her graceless fingers as its dance partner. Brought up a shell of pasta, dove back down to play lifeguard to a semi-circle of zucchini, then down and out again to bring back a weak crescent of celery.

Her thoughts projected, deafening and anxious, but unnervingly calm and assuring at the same time. Eva could hear numbers and measurements and the swallowing of a clogged throat as the soup swam in the reflection of her light eyes.

Not pasta, it'll bloat you up. Not zucchini, it won't go down; you'll just have to throw it up. Maybe that's a good thing? Yes, maybe zucchini. But what about celery? Those are negative calories, remember? No, not when it's doused and softened in broth. Why the fuck are you even thinking about food when a girl has just been petrified? Gosh, what a pig!

The voice went from anxious to harsh in seconds, stamping down on Cassi almost visibly, crumpling her eyebrows and crushing the sapphire in her eyes to lose its coruscation.

She watched as the silverware dropped back into the spoon with a dull splash, the war lost, but twisted to form victory in her mind, as her hand reached for pumpkin juice, then stopped to relocate to her water goblet.

"Cassi."

Her eyes lowered. Evangeline was still unsure exactly what was happening to her, but she had always been preached leading by example, so she looked around at the students dining around them and slowly picked up her spoon in imitation.

"Try not to look at it too hard before eating. That's what everyone else is doing, right?" She whispered, tilting her head towards Cassi's abandoned cutlery.

Cassi bowed her head and Eva immediately feared she'd said the wrong thing. Out of lack of anything better to do, she shoved her own spoon of soup into her mouth and began chewing.