i am lord voldemort • Tom Riddle

V

"It's really nothing," Tom cut in. It wouldn't do for her to realize how often she'd come up in the past.

"Then I guess the relative muddiness of my blood is nothing as well..." she conceded with razor sharp pointedness.

Despite maintaining a perfect veneer of disinterested calm on the outside, Tom gritted his teeth in irritation.

"Very well. If you must know, Fawley bet Lestrange you were a muggleborn, and because they are both children and live for the sake of argument, he bet otherwise."

Fenella's expression soured at what Tom thought was an extremely accurate description of them both, while Rabastan nodded in acceptance.

"How much?" Ophelia asked.

"Pardon?"

"How much did you bet?" Ophelia elaborated, addressing Rabastan, "How much is my blood purity worth to you?"

"Three galleons," Rabastan admitted.

It was a lot to waste on a foolish wager, but to wealthy purebloods such as themselves, it was pocket change.

"Fine, I'll tell you," she decided, to Tom's surprise. She'd always been so evasive about her upbringing when he tried to brooch the subject during the Christmas holiday, so he'd assumed she'd be the same way this time. "On one condition."

"This is ridiculous," Fenella complained testily.

"I'm listening," Rabastan said, the same gleam in his eye that he got whenever he made a wager with Fenella.

Ophelia didn't say anything immediately, choosing instead to trace her finger around the rim of her goblet. "I'll tell... for a cut of the winnings. One galleon from both the winner and the loser."

Rabastan's smile widened. "I knew I liked you for some reason. We'll get along swimmingly. You got yourself a deal."

"Hold on, I didn't agree to this," Fenella complained, blissfully unaware of how thoroughly she was being ignored.

Staring squarely at her untouched food, Ophelia said, "My father was indeed a muggle."

"I told you-" Fenella began triumphant, but Tom cut her off.

"Let her finish."

"Yeah, don't crack open the celebratory bottle of firewhisky quite yet, Fen," Rabastan agreed.

Quieter, as though remembering something unpleasant, Ophelia murmured, "And my mum is a squib."

Tom did not miss the use of past tense for her father.

"See? That still counts as wizards' blood." Rabastan held out a hand to Fenella for his winnings expectantly.

"Raised by a squib and a muggle? That practically makes her a mudblood by default," she challenged, looking to Tom for support.

He fought back his the flash of anger that came with the comparison. He had been born to a muggle and a squib, after all.

"I never said they raised me," Ophelia muttered bitterly. "My mother abandoned me at my first signs of magic."

"That's why you stayed at Hogwarts through the holiday," Tom concluded shrewdly. "You don't have anywhere else to go."

For a fraction of a second that felt more like ten, her eyes widened in panic, meeting Tom's. He'd never before realised what peculiar shades they were, one sky blue and the other pitch black. As different as day and night. He couldn't believe that, after nearly three months of watching her, he failed to notice, but then he thought back to her seemingly evasive nature. She'd never met his eyes, always looking down, or talking to the air right beside him. For whatever reason, she'd hidden her eyes on purpose. It was a clue to... something. But what?