Sacred Silence | A Tom Riddle Story

19: Milo's crush.

Siobhan sat down in an empty compartment on the Hogwarts express. Her fingers trailed the plaid pattern on her skirt. She was waiting for Florance and Milo to leave their parents to join her. She just couldn't stand there and watch the happy family say their goodbyes, it hurt too much. It was bad enough that she was probably going to have to give a summary of her break.

Juno put her two front paws on Shivs chest and licked her cheek affectionately. She couldn't help but smile a little.

'Shivvy,' she heard the playful voice of Florance and looked up to see brother and sister enter the compartment. Flo sank onto the bench next to Shiv, she gave her a quick hug and a kiss on the cheek.
'Look at this,' Flo said, and she held out her hand. A beautiful blue stone was shining on her hand. 'Milo got it for me, to match his.'
Shiv looked over and saw Milo smile at his sister. They locked eyes for a second and Siobhan felt her guilt return. He looked good, his blonde hair was pushed back in a casual way, and just like his sister and Siobhan, he was already wearing his school uniform.

'It's gorgeous, Flo,' Shiv said. It wasn't a lie, it was just hard to see so clearly that her break had been so very different than her friends.
She hadn't gained, but lost a piece of jewelry. Although it wasn't noticeable, it felt like she had Tom's cold fingers around her wrist instead of a bracelet from now on.

'How was break, Shiv?' Milo asked, and if he was upset about her not writing back, he didn't show it.
Siobhan took a deep breath and shrugged. 'It was fine, nice to see my brothers again.' This also wasn't a lie.
Milo gave her a small smile, and she returned it. She hoped it was was enough for now, until she could explain her silence of the last two weeks to him at a later moment.
Not that she would tell him about her situation at home, that would be insane. If her dad found out she had spoken badly about the Selwyn family amongst other students, her next trip home would be even worse.

It was all made worse by the way Tom had touched her the last time she saw him. If she closed her eyes, she sometimes still felt the cold skin of his thumb on her lips.
Tom was able to make her nervous in a way nobody else did. Her father scared her, Milo sometimes made her blush. Tom did both at the same time.
She didn't like that idea, and it was the reason she had tried so hard to ignore it. If she truly didn't want to end up like her mother, she quickly had to stop feeling so damn drawn to him.
She had plenty of people to choose from, if she wanted. Both Abraxas and Anthony had looked at her with hungry eyes during the parties. Milo had even asked her to accompany him to Hogsmeade. It would be dumb to spend all her time going over Tom's actions. They didn't matter. She had other, better options.

She chatted with Flo and Milo for a little before pulling a book out of her bag. She read the same sentence about 5 times before she accepted this wasn't the moment to study.
Classes would start back up tomorrow and Shiv was more determined than ever to be at the top of every class. Whenever she visited home, the need to better herself academically rose to a high afterwards.
She took out a notebook instead and started writing down potion recepies from the top of her head, to see if she didn't forget anything over winter break. She wrote down the ingredients for amortentia and pollyjuice potion without a second thought, and felt pleased with herself.

She looked over the top of her notebook and observed Milo for a second. He was drawing a beautiful picture of a dog on a small piece of parchment. His hand moved across the paper quickly, wiping away lines and creating new ones.
He caught her stare and gave her a small smile. He picked up his drawing and held it out to her. 'Here, you take it.'
Shiv clasped her fingers around the piece of parchment and studied it. She had seen pictures of the Evans' family dog before, and this drawing was almost as clear as a picture. 'This is really good, Milo,' she said, impressed.