Ethereal Catastrophe | Tom Riddle

chapter twenty-two

It had been about a week since Asteria found Tom again

A week since she first found this room? Building? His house?

She still didn't know.

He had been meeting her at the park near her home, the apparating into the same spot each day.

She asked him time and time again where it was, but he did not answer.

And because she couldn't read her mind, it made it far more infuriating.

In addition to this, he had not gone near her.

One day, it was Thursday, and his presence was...too much.

She felt needy and hated herself for it but...there was just something about him this day.

Perhaps she was getting withdrawal symptoms but it was like her heart was beating harder and faster, her hands became stiff and her eye started twitching.

But what was worse, she felt needy. Like she needed him then and there.

As he was drowning on to her about the floorplan of the Bellaroses estate, she couldn't think of anything else but him.

She picked at her thumb, focusing on him and only him. Listening to the way he spoke, not the words themselves, but the way he drawled them out, the way his tongue would flick when he said his 't's' and 'd's', the gravelling sound when he moved onto another sentence.

The way he wouldn't even look at her. Just drawing out ways to get to the stone as quickly as he could. Plotting the knights with his quill along the corridors, watching him get frustrated when he thought of a way that wouldn't work.

"Did you have any ideas or are you just going to sit and watch me this whole time?"

His question was like cold water splashing onto her face, waking her from this trance.

Normally she was the one putting people into a trance but Tom...Tom was the only exception.

And she didn't know why.

"With what?" she stupidly said, instantly regretting her words.

He sighed as he got up, "If you're going to be no help, Asteria, then there's no point of you being here. I will apparate you home now."

Asteria.

The way he said her name made her shiver with a coldness that twisted around her bones, to her thighs, to her core.

She made herself snap out of it.

Asteria stood, quickly following him. "No, no I'll help! What about along the far corridor in the west wing, then up the stairs to the balcony?"

"I just said that wouldn't work," he spoke, seemingly annoyed.

She sighed, speeding toward him as she suggested again, "What about the east?"

"Do you not listen?" he snapped, picking up his wand. She could see his fingers pressing into the wood. Remembering the way he used them to-

She scratched her head trying to get the thought to go away, "Well- I bet you haven't got a suit, we need to get one. And a mask! We can go to the best tailor, my treat."

"I've got a suit," he said bluntly, looking at the floor.

"Not one that will make you blend in I bet it. And don't even try and say that you'll borrow one from one of the 'knights', whichever one you choose won't fit and people will notice these types of things. You'll stick out like a sore thumb."