desiderium | t. riddle

xix. lust, not love

"As you all know, this castle is under attack and, though I will always vehemently discourage students to go looking for trouble, it is unfortunately becoming more and more plausible that trouble may sneak up on you." Professor Merrythought was pacing the front of the classroom like lines on a book, left, right, left, right, greying brows furrowed and wand gripped in hand. Her eyes seemed incapable of deciding whether to dart suspiciously around the room or zone out on a random patch of space. She continued, "To combat these... sneaky dangers, today we will be learning how to reveal hidden human presences and remove magical guises."

She went on to demonstrate the hand movement and incantation before allowing them to split with the partners they had been assigned at the start of the year. Eva nodded to Tom, whom she'd been paired with as a result of his being second to only her the duel of the first Defense lesson.

It wasn't quite a duel, though the pair nevertheless walked neatly in opposite directions in a display of proper dueling etiquette before swiftly turning back around, wands poised elegantly in their hands. Then, as they did every time they were assigned partner work, each student in the duo slipped their respective wands into the pockets of their contrasting robes.

Eva lay gentle fingers to the parting line crowning her head between two french braids as she silently cast a Disillusionment charm over herself so Tom could attempt to put Merrythought's lecture to use. Disguised, she saw Riddle's jaw tense in frustration as it always seemed to do when Eva displayed power he was still working towards obtaining. He could do wandless magic with skillful ease by now, but still had trouble performing particularly difficult spells in the absence of his wand and words.

He had just put his hand out and begun to recite the words Homenum Revelio, when Eva decided she didn't want to make it so easy for him. Someone needed to teach Riddle what it felt like to squirm and sweat, after all. She placed a quick Muffliato on herself to silence her already ghostlike movements and moved to stand to the far right of the vicinity in which Tom's spell would hit. When nothing happened in response to his actions, confusion flickered across his face like candlelight in the wind, but it was quickly replaced with poorly imprisoned rage.

Serpens swallowed back a smirk and sidled up next to him, just inches away from his shoulder as he cast the spell again, this time with an admittedly impressively larger range. "Alright, Riddle?" She failed to keep the smirk out of her voice and Tom whipped to face her and attempted to lift her Disillusionment charm yet again just as she slipped around him to the other side, still hidden and smooth as molten butter.

"What are you playing at? The assignment was simple." He said through gritted teeth, walking in a circle now.

Eva rolled her eyes, but stayed at a dangerously close distance to his left shoulder as he moved. "But what would be the fun in that?"

She deftly fell into step walking backwards in front of him as he nearly broke his neck to turn towards her voice and cast another revealing spell in vain. "C'mon stalker, what's wrong?" —she walked around him to let another spell miss her before resuming the same position facing him— "Lost your..." Before he could attempt to reveal her again, a reckless idea came into her mind; so far, the only touches between them had been initiated by Tom. She was tempted to know if she would still lose her mind to touch if she were the one in control.

So, before she could think too much about it and scare herself from catching the train of thought, she reached up an obscured hand and gripped his uniform green-and-silver tie to pull him down and take his carved jaw in her other hand, her thumb on one side of his chin and the rest of her fingers on the other. She finished her sentence with triumph bleeding into her voice as she realized she felt completely sober when she touched him on her own terms, "...touch?"