Pairing: Tom Riddle x f!reader
Status: Work in progress
Please note: This story is a sequel to Promised. Reading Promised first is recommended, or else you won't know the characters and how they got here.
Synopsis: After the wedding, Tom and you s...
After telling Miss Toffana about Tom's Father, needing an antidote for him and her old student Morfin being the reason for it, she stacked you up with heaps of remedies to counteract all the dark potions she could think of.
"Let me see. Here, yes. Take this one as well, it's good against Bloodroot Poison," she said while rummaging through her cabinets.
You added the vials to the bag she had already filled. "Can I use any of these to cure Tom's Father while I'm at it?"
"Oh I'm sure Morfin brewed something special, I'll need to take a look at it first. Nothing I can't fix though," Toffana said and laid a hand on the bag. "These are meant for you. Keep them near, you'll never know when you're going to need them."
You hadn't told her much, not even about how Morfin and Marvolo had used Mors Grano on your little sister, but she seemed to sense the danger. "Gaunt was always mean-spirited, you know. Not towards me, he wouldn't have dared. He wasn't that good of an actor though, I never bought his feigned politeness."
"Didn't you say he was a good student?"
"Oh, he was. He was intelligent, well-read and good at theoretical knowledge. What he lacked was an understanding of humans. Couldn't read me. And you know how much of an open book my facial expressions usually make me."
"I sure do."
"Sometimes I pitied him. So clever, yet..." She took a breath. "I stopped explaining my mood and just focused on teaching. Focused on his strengths. He was clever, but every time he'd ask me a question I could tell there was some kind of ulterior motive behind it. Hardly ever he asked something about the theory of things. But when he did, I had the feeling he already knew the answer anyway and was just doing it because he thought I'd be impressed. It was obvious, maybe not to others, but to me, that his problem of reading me was indeed the same problem of him not knowing how to show himself."
"What do you mean by that?" you asked.
"By that I mean," she answered, as she rummaged through her cabinets again. "That communicating, knowing and showing his true emotions, or doing good just for the sake of it didn't come naturally to him. It always felt forced. Fake. And I could tell. But he didn't know I could. That's how bad he was at reading me. He was a good student, but he never studied for the right reasons. Never just to know, always to know better."
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Things at home had changed a bit since Tom and you had met his Father. The Auror staff list had been altered, which meant new faces and less Lip. When before he used to work at least one shift a day at your house, now he only did one every other day. He had told Tom that Abraxas sent him off to other cases - needed him for more urgent matters, which didn't seem to bother Lip. Even Tom had admitted that keeping watch day in, day out, was bound to get boring quickly. He never admitted though, that being stuck there day in and out as a resident was too.
Tom still preferred you being home anytime you weren't at work, protected by the Aurors, much to your dismay. He often kept you company, took some work home from the office if there were long hours to do so that he would return home roughly at the same time as you. He sent Tummy to run errands, which he claimed was meant as a favour, while it was just another means to keep you there.
