Ethereal Catastrophe | Tom Riddle

chapter ten

What she did see was a Walburga Black looking at Abraxas as if he was God on earth. Eating up his words like they were the pastries in front of her. Looking at him like she had...hope? Asteria had never seen Walburga look at him this way, not even when she looked at her through Abraxas' mind. Her chestnut eyes glimmering almost a gold, her lips painted with a crimson gloss contorted into an awestruck smile. Her body language leant towards him like she wanted to be closer to him. The way her gaze was fixed on him until he looked up towards the Ravenclaw table and noticed the golden-haired seer. The way her stare changed in stages.

One, confusion. The way her brow furrowed and her lip curled slightly.

Two, realisation. The way she followed his eye's to Asteria and the slight raise in her eyebrow and the opening of her mouth.

Three, envy. They the harsh sigh and the subtle glare.

Four, grief. The way her inner eyebrows raised and her lips pursed together.

Five, the mask. The way she would mask all this emotion up in a simple smirk and bite of her breakfast.

She's so obvious, Asteria thought. She likes Abraxas.

Perhaps the announcement that the charms would be broke between them ignited Walburgas crush into an inferno that she could no longer hide.

Interesting.

"Asteria!" Malfoy called from across the hall, glee painted upon his face.

"I'll be back in a minute, go talk to Diggory," Asteria giggled to Tia with a wink to which she replied with a grunt.

"Come to give me a good luck kiss?" Abraxas suggested as he slung his long arm around Asterias shoulders and guided her out of the hall, not forgetting to steal a couple of pieces of toast from his table, giving them to her.

"You wish. Why are you in such a good mood?" Asteria asked.

"Quidditch, of course, dearest Asteria. My second favourite thing in this world."

"What's your first?"

"You of course. So, the fact that you will be at a quidditch match, screaming my name like you usually do makes me a very happy man," he smirked.

"So crude," she laughed as she leant her head into his chest. The musky smell of his aftershave streaming through her nostrils. The smell of home, the scent of protection. A part of her clung to Abraxas with both hands, begging her not to let go. But the other half sawed off their wrists desperate to get away from anything blossoming in her infertile heart.

"You love it," he smiled and then stopped their stroll in the middle of a hall. He cupped her face and looked at her as if he was gazing at all the stars in the sky. Studying Nebula to Cabella, dotting the faint freckles on her nose. "I remember when we were younger I used to play dot-to-dot with your freckles. I can still see the faint smudges on your nose, but they're much more prominent in the sun."

"Are you saying I'm lesser due to my lack of freckles?" She whispered into his face, their lips centimetres apart. Her fingers pushing his hair back with a delicate flutter and his eye's pulling her into a near kiss.

"Never," he muttered as he drew closer into her lips but turned his head to the crowd of hyper Slytherins roaring with excitement to see their captain. The noise like a flock of agitated birds hungry for their prey. In this case, it was the Hufflepuff quidditch team.

"Oi, oi Malfoy- try not to get too excited before the game. Wouldn't want your head to be somewhere else," Lestrange heckled within the large horde of schoolboys.