Malefic [BOOK 2]

Tom's Strange Interests.

"No, I'm Bond. James Bond," Leo said with a straight face.

"What?" Tom asked in panic, "So, you are not Leo?"

Leo rolled her eyes, "Of course I'm Leo! What is wrong with you?"

Tom shook his head, "No, not just Leo. I need to make sure that you are the Leo that I know."

He grabbed Leo's hand before she could ask whether Tom had finally lost it, and started dragging her towards the couch. He placed his hands on her shoulder firmly and urged her to take a seat. He then sat down beside her and face her with his hands still placed on her shoulder.

"Tom, what is going on? Why am I in the room of requirements?" Leo asked, suddenly feeling a bit anxious.

"I will let you know everything. But first, you need to tell me something," Tom explained while searching her eyes for something.

"Yeah, sure. Ask me anything."

"Tell me something that only you and I would know about."

Leo studied the serious look on his face. Whatever she was going to say was important to Tom. What was he trying to prove? Since when did her words matter so much to him. Half of the time, Tom would be busy ignoring her and even call her stupid. Now, he wanted to hear her.

The thought brought a goofy smile to her face. She giggled like an idiot and smacked Tom across his chest. The boy flinched slightly but didn't let go of her.

"Okay, fine. I know that you read erotic novels-"

"Not that!" Tom snapped before letting go of her, "tell me something before the lake incident."

"Okay! Okay fine," Leo raised her hands up in surrender.

Tom was acting very out of character. She wanted to ask why he wanted to know about the lake incident in particular. It was a very sensitive topic for her to speak on. What was she supposed to say? There were a lot of things that had happened before the lake incident.

She glanced at tom to see him looking at her expectantly. Her eyes softened immediately and she felt herself melting under his gaze.

Feeling very confident, she guided Tom's hand back to her shoulder. Tom was taken aback by her sudden gesture but didn't make an attempt to pull his hand away. Leo turned her face away from his to hide the blush on her face. She pursed her lips to bite back a grin and pretended to think deeply about what she was going to say.

There were a lot of things that she knew about Tom. For instance, Tom always liked to wait exactly seven minutes to steep his tea before drinking it. He was strangely particular about that. He always carried a pencil and an easier in the left pocket of his trousers for reasons unknown to Leo. He also had a big stash of almond cookies hidden away in the drawer of his bed in the Slytherin dormitories.

Leo couldn't count the number of times she tried and failed to steal those from him.

One thing that she was sure that only she and Tom knew was an incident that happened back when they were captured by Grindelwald. It wasn't a memory she was fond of but she would remember it till her last breath.

Leo stared up at Tom with eyes full of sadness. She felt his grip going tighter around her shoulder in an attempt to comfort her.

"Well, you saved my life once," Leo trailed off.

Tom frowned, "I saved your life a lot of times."

"No. You saved my life when we were in the dungeons back at Grindelwald's place. You had killed two men, right in front of my eyes. If you hadn't done anything that day, I wouldn't be here," Leo mumbled out the last part.