PAPER CONFINES.
02. / And I Bid You Welcome
✶
There was a ghost of her frame at the fourth desk chair in the library, second to the lovers shelf where Timothy Knell and Esmerelda Renaux carved their initials in the wood. It was thin, slate-grey in the pewter velvet, and a reminder every time Amoret pulled into the seat that she had sat there almost every day for the last month.
In front of her was a pile of history texts, periodicals, spellbooks, a large stack of notes, and a cup of tea. She stirred the mug with a sharp finger and a demitasse spoon and drank with a wince; it was all dregs; nettle dust and rooibos and a hint of something sweet. One of Colette's concoctions. The tea stuck to her tongue and she coughed, spat, tried not to make a scene of it, but how could she, anyway? Saturdays were filled to the brim with students who didn't care much for studying at all, and the library was louder than the great hall at breakfast. No one was looking at her.
Amoret wiped her mouth and almost choked again when a crowd enwreathing the chess tables broke into a cheer. Well, less a cheer and more a muffled alloy of applause and some reluctant murmurs of congratulations. Bets were won, others were lost, and such was the way of wizard's chess.
The librarian, Madam Gowne, was the shade of a bruised fruit where she was usually a rouged white, purse-lipped and trying to find an opening where arm met flailing arm and a few boys swapped coins. To no avail. She was boxed out and two seconds away from fainting.
Amoret pushed out of her seat with a sigh. Gowne tensed as Amoret put a hand to her shoulder, but relaxed when she realized it was her. "McTavish left a mess in the Charms section. I'll sort this lot out, all right?"
The madam looked grateful and then newly crossed. Still, Amoret knew the woman had a habit of refusing to abandon one issue unless there was another to replace it, and Gowne was better suited to McTavish's antics, a tad too aged to elbow her way through an eager horde without being trampled. This was a head girl's duty: how to subdue, how to pander, when to coddle and when to scold.
Chess fanaticism was always an amalgam of one and four; subdue, scold, rinse, repeat.
"Hey," Amoret said, pushing her way into the pack, nose scrunched at the sudden olfactory assault. "Hey—all right, excuse me."
The boys smelled of sweat and cigar smoke, the latter prohibited and the other... highly discouraged. Gryffindors careened over each other for a better look, a couple of girls out of uniform squinted in taciturn appraisal, the Slytherins, of course, whispered amongst themselves, and Amoret was internally grateful she'd worn her mother's best heels today. She could figuratively step on toes, but materially was her way through the crowd.
It was a marvel a casual game of chess could draw so much attention, but if Nadya was playing...
Well. The melodrama of it all made significantly more sense.
And there in the middle of the crowd, she grinned.
Nadya's stature was comfortable, broad shoulders for slim arms crossed loosely over her chest. Dark skin peeked out of the cuffs of a coat only those familiar with muggle fashions could appreciate, and Amoret did. She was playing white, her fingers rapping on an arm, so evident by her expression that it was not of nerves, but condescension. I win, each tap said, pay up. The chess clock was still ticking, but Amoret knew the game well enough to know it was over. The red king was toppled, a white rook in its stead, mallet wielded firmly in its palm. Checkmate. Nadya wiped a strand of hair from her eyes and tucked it into her braid, and Olive Hornby stared blankly at her dead king. Though it went unheard under the clamour of students trading knuts and sickles, the underpinnings of the table shook with the stammer of her knee.
But sore losers lost twice, and Liv had a reputation to keep. She gritted her teeth, passed a small handful of coins to Nadya (who definitely did not need them) and barely skimmed her hand to shake.
"Good game?" Amoret asked brusquely, carving a path to the front of the crowd.
Nadya's head snapped up and then her white grin widened. It hadn't taken long for the applause to die down and the bickering to begin—she inspired high wagers, and that meant bigger losses.
"You saw it?"
Amoret spared a sidelong glance at the board. "I can see how it ended."
"Landslide, wasn't it? My chessmen are ruthless."
"I can see that too." The red king writhed and clutched its broken leg for good measure. "Wonder who they get it from."
"They don't actually feel pain, you know," Nadya said with a laugh. "They're actors. Hollywood starlets. Think they're still throwing a fit that I didn't play with them all summer; that's why they're being so dramatic."
"I imagine I'd be too, in that sad little pouch you keep them in."
"Hey, I'm still looking for a good box. Quality ones are hard to come by right now, and besides, I ought to teach them a bit of humility."
"You could play with your dad, couldn't you? He likes chess."
"Muggle chess."
"And?"
Nadya rolled her eyes, perpetually narrowed and thick with lashes. "Banks, take your pureblood goggles off for a minute."
"What?"
"You try convincing a muggle stuck six years later on the revelation that magic so much as exists to play violent, animated chess with his witch daughter and tell me how you fare."
Amoret cracked a reluctant smile. "When you put it like that..."
"Exactly."
"Fine. But I did actually come over here to ask you something."
Nadya met her eyes with a crack of her neck, preemptively amused and awaiting.
"I have no intention of becoming a complete cliché any time soon, but—"
"But, you're head girl. So what have I done now?"
Amoret glanced at the dispersing crowd. "The library is for studying, as it turns out."
"Oh, Banks, you are a cliché."
"I'm studying," she amended, "and chess can be played elsewhere."
"Studying can be done elsewhere," Nadya said, slouched in the seat with her legs sprawled out and her shoulders proud, looking lordly, like she should have been on a throne instead. "Or do you intend to leave your figure permanently imprinted in that chair as a monument of your time here?"
"That chair should be grateful for its proximity to my figure. Just—clean up your mess before Gowne runs to Dippet and gets you suspended."
"Suspended? He's practically foaming at the mouth for a chance to have me expelled."
"So... we're in agreement then."
Nadya shrugged.
Amoret sighed in a way she was certain she didn't with anyone else. "I have N.E.W.T practice exams next week and Dumbledore will kill me if I muck up Transfiguration, so if you don't mind removing your fan club here..."
"I'd hardly call them a fan club. Half of them are only here praying for the day I lose miserably. I've got to look at the bright side, though, haven't I?"
"And what exactly is the bright side?"
"Getting on your knees for someone on any occasion is a compliment in my books."
Amoret as good as winced. "Oh, Nadya, don't look clever for that. That's insulting."
"Not my best work?"
"No."
"Hm."
"Look, you can lose miserably at the courtyard tables. Or, better yet, do it in your common room if you're so eager to make a point."
Nadya groaned like the suggestion was a horrible, previously considered inconvenience. "Yes, but the satisfaction of winning is so much sweeter when I get to watch them pass gold to the other houses. If they all vote against me, then it's barely any fun."
"Nadya—" Amoret made an exasperated sound and waved a hand in vague gesture— "get them out."
"Yes, Your Grace," Nadya teased, collecting her chessmen and rolling them into a leather pouch.
A Ravenclaw boy stepped forward. "Mind playing me next, Sidhu?"
Amoret thought she saw him in the common room occasionally, but suspected they shared few classes. Certain Ravenclaws measured higher in wit and artistry than plain intelligence.
"Keenes, is it?" Nadya asked, impassive.
"Heard of me, have you?"
Amoret rolled her eyes.
Keenes towered over Nadya, who was hardly an inch above the bare requisite height of most carnival rides and still refused to wear anything but flats. His gaze was travelling the length of her so unabashedly—lips turning up to one side, sucking on his teeth—that Amoret couldn't help but think he was trying to pluck the layers off her like a Matryoshka doll. And Nadya had more than a few.
She snapped a ring-adorned finger and his eyes flitted with a few blinks to her face. "Are you coming to the RRI meeting?"
The Required Reading Initiative was a group of sixth and seventh years that met in the Room of Requirement nearly every weekend and did exceptionally little reading.
It had started, to Amoret's knowledge, with a few Gryffindors from her sister Reid's year, and was kept to a safe maximum of fifty students who by no small coincidence were almost entirely purebloods. They took advantage of the fact that nearly no one unwanted knew how to find the Room, and slathered their selective invitations with thinly-veiled threats of creative hexes to prevent any members from talking. It was very boring, drunken party doctrine ribboned under the guise of aristocracy.
Amoret was guilty of enjoying it once upon a time, and guiltier for presiding over it.
Keenes' grin widened. "'Course I am. Liv invited me."
"Did she?" Nadya asked glibly, "You know, Keenes, full pockets make me generous. Shall I give you two choices then?"
"Er, all right?"
"You play me now, privately and sober, or, bring me a bottle of firewhisky tonight and we'll see if your pride survives losing to me drunk. I'll make the first bet."
He stared dumbfounded and half-red, and Nadya reached for his crooked tie as if to fix it before yanking down. Keenes made an ugly, choking sound. She let go and waved him away with a smile.
"Wouldn't stop pestering me for a date last week," she whispered to Amoret when he was gone, "Bet with some Gryffindors."
Amoret clicked her tongue in distaste, and pretended she hadn't seen a thing.
She sat back down at her desk once Nadya's crowd dispersed and Madam Gowne looked again like a person and not a plum, and Esmerelda was puckering the air where Timothy had stood, swiping chapstick over her lips. Amoret didn't imagine empty space was the best kissing partner, and she wasn't sure what practice Esmerelda needed with a steady boyfriend anyway, but what did she know of romance? There had never been time.
Amoret sighed and buried her head in her books again.
After nine, the library was empty and she was still reciting notes from her heap of texts, twirling her key ring around her fingers repeating the same thing: five more minutes and I'll lock up. Five more minutes, five more minutes. She'd been saying it for thirty.
It was a characteristic evening for Amoret. Lucidity came in waves between drowsy almost-naps until her palm slipped from under her chin and she slammed face-first into the table. Her neck was tight. Her back ached. Her lips were bloody from the drastic weather and then they were scabbing with dry air and the worry of her teeth. All of this was fine. She'd signed up for it—prefect, then head girl, then nursery handler of all things potentially nefarious at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. It seemed as though she earned a promotion in title every other day; some official, others unregulated. Problems arose and fell like wish-blown dandelions into her lap.
She signed up for this.
"Transfiguration?"
Amoret jumped in her seat. The candle on her desk nearly blew out from the movement.
Tom Riddle stood a distance away with his hands clasped neatly over a textbook. His green head boy badge gleamed in the lantern light and his eyes flared gold. He wasn't in his robes, but instead donned a grey knit jumper and a pair of black trousers. It was an infrequent sight. Strange how refined he made it look.
His presence had a density to it that made rest of the library seem emptier by contrast.
"Tom."
He smiled regretfully. "I apologize, I should have announced myself. It's late and you were focused."
Amoret shook her head. "No, I'm... I should have left nearly an hour ago, anyway. It's probably good you're here."
"I was finishing my round of the annex. I thought I ought to warn you, there's a third year intent on sneaking into the Restricted Section after Gowne's left to bed. Though it appears she finally took to my heeding and gave up."
"I guess so. Thank you, though. I'll keep that in mind." Amoret stacked her books and paused, looking back at him. "And—yes, by the way—about Transfiguration. I've been studying for the practice exam."
He tilted his head. "You've always excelled in Transfiguration. I can't imagine you'd need the extra effort."
She was displeased at how easily she sank into the compliment. He was only tracking her successes to assure they didn't surpass his, but Tom was as skilled in flattery as he was in class. The greatest flattery was that he was threatened enough by her to think she was worth using it on.
Still, her judgments were unfair. She tracked him in equal measure or worse. Amoret knew everything that anyone could know about him: that he was a Legilimens, an orphan, a muggle-born who had earned the respect of Slytherin, a prized member of the Slug Club, keen on the Defense Against the Dark Arts position post-graduation. Tom Riddle did not bide and he did not prattle. He treaded on Amoret's coattails or pushed beyond, and catching up when Tom was ahead was the same feeling as wandering upstairs in the dark, the spectre of an extra step where there was really only floor. Everyone stumbled to stand around him.
It was perhaps acceptable to know so much about a person after seven years, but not to think so much about them.
Amoret smiled deferentially. "That's kind of you, but I don't want to rely on precedent for this one. I'm set on an O, to my own detriment."
"Of course. Though, forgive me, I was under the impression that you were studying Astronomy."
"I was," she said carefully, not expecting his question. "I've decided to try for St. Mungo's instead. They're in need of mediwitches with Grindelwald's efforts growing more determined. So to say, the pay is good for an apprenticeship and I'd be far more useful there than staring into space."
"It's honourable."
"It's smart."
"That, too." He paused. "I've never heard of Transfiguration implemented in medicine."
Amoret opened her mouth but found no answer. He would be the first person besides Nadya and Colette curious enough to inquire further.
He seemed to recognize it too. "I'm prying, aren't I?"
"Not without reason," she adjudged.
"Well, whatever you decide, they'll be lucky to have you."
She pushed her chair under the ridge of the desk, still prodding for words. Her books were toppling in her arms as she tried to gather the library keys from her bag.
Tom swept in. "Allow me."
Amoret didn't know much about muggle films, but she was sure one of Nadya's Hollywood starlets had lived this scene. It was all very cliché. The ever-prepared niceties didn't even have a chance to fumble out before Tom had ahold of half her books, the number withered down after she'd returned the useless ones to Gowne before she left for bed, but plenty enough for him to split them between both arms.
Instead she just smiled. Had she already said thank you more than once in the last five minutes? Did politeness come with a per-use charge?
"I can walk you back to Ravenclaw Tower, if you'd like."
Well, Tom Riddle certainly didn't withhold his manners.
"Of course." Still not a thank you. Thank you waits until he leaves you safely at the door. Some of her father's wiser advice.
She took a sip of her tea if only to not stand awkwardly still. It was cold. The dregs still stuck.
They didn't converse much on the way to the tower. Amoret could remember a time when they were new prefects at the start of fifth year, when she'd apparently been braver and sat beside him on the train, despite Nadya's disapproval.
Amoret had—as she often caught herself doing at that age—opened her big mouth and decided to ask him about his summer. An innocent question. Completely inoffensive. Except that Tom stayed at an orphanage during the summer holidays and notoriously did not like to talk about it. He'd smiled politely, mustered some non-answer, and was quiet for the remainder of the ride, save a few passing comments on the weather or the new student body. Amoret hadn't bothered to mend the silence. Speaking at all felt like she'd be haranguing him into absolving her guilty conscience.
"Are you all right?" he asked.
Amoret faced him with a hitch in her breath. "Oh, yes. Just tired. Are you?"
"Quite."
"Good."
She nodded and turned back around to spurn herself again.
"How tired?"
Amoret was a moment away from stepping onto the staircase, but stopped, leaning on the balustrade to face him again. He waited with her books and a half-hopeful expression.
"Why?" she asked, wishing she'd worn her father's watch. It was late, but all she knew was that it was sometime before ten by the library's hours.
"I only thought... I might have something that could help you in your studies, but I won't keep you."
"And who's to say I need your help?"
"Need?" he repeated in an inquiring tone, a little smile playing on his face. "Am I not allowed to offer privileged information because I want to?"
He was so... annoying. Had anyone ever looked him in the eyes and said as much?
"Oh, well if it's privileged information I'm not sure I can resist."
"Good. I was relying on an uncharacteristic surrender."
She crossed her arms over her books, and Tom looked rather amused by the display. What did he know of her character? "What do you have, then?"
"What the room allows."
Always speaking in tongues. Surely, he was referring to the Room of Requirement, unless there was something greater—and of course, if there was, Tom Riddle would be the one to have found it. Was he keeping something of his there? Some secret scroll of proscribed spells and epics, ancient codes and philosophic revelations? No. He wouldn't have offered them to her if that were true.
Besides, the room was tricky. Once, Amoret had gone to it with certain intention and still the room showed her what it believed she needed, rather than what she wanted. Its enchantment knew best, and so filled an empty classroom with her old moleskin pages and her father's suitcase still unpacked on a desk. She hadn't been to it since.
On the off-chance Tom did bring her there and by cruel, divine intervention, the door opened to the RRI meeting (it seemed the sort of misguided judgment the room would make), Amoret knew she'd be stuck there all night.
It was a risk either way. She didn't want to be left to Nadya's drunken devices, or the glossy liqueur floors, the tack under her mother's shoes. She didn't want to be the one to ruin everyone's night either. They were fed up with their head girl already and it was barely the end of September.
"It's a place I visit often," Tom added, obscurely answering at least one question. "I have a feeling you'll appreciate it."
"Fine."
"Fine?"
Maybe he was shocked at how easily she said yes. She was certain she was more shocked at herself.
"Have me back before eleven, Riddle."
He smiled, and a small breath, something like a laugh, left with it. Amoret didn't think she'd heard ever heard him laugh. Maybe once, at the table beside her in the Great Hall; at something said by a friend under his breath, or during the month she was paired with him in Potions last year. She tried to remember.
"Should I take your lace-gloved hand and guide you?"
Him acknowledging it made it worse. Him actually joking back made it dreadful.
Don't be charmed, Amoret, she snapped at herself, don't you dare.
"Your hands are full."
"So they are," he said, but his eyes drifted quickly to her hands like it was something regrettable.
And then he walking up the stairs, and she was following behind, hoping perhaps they'd abandon her once he stepped off so she could be carried away in another direction—Nothing to be done, sorry! Mind of their own! I'll be off to bed now!
They did not.
Amoret instead tried to see it for the opportunity it was; two years ago she would have leapt for the chance. So she strutted after him in half-conscious imitation (and he did strut—there was simply no other word for it), but her endless fidgeting made it difficult to compare. Her spare hand was pressed over one of Bibi's old opals and she was stealing glances at the stairwell so often she nearly crashed into Tom when he stopped.
He had a tendency to be abrupt. Or maybe she wasn't paying attention.
The wall that provided the most dependable access to the Room of Requirement was the same blank, beige stone as the rest, going for what seemed like a mile with the corners of either side obscured by the shadows.
Amoret swung on her feet, tapping her fingers against the book spines under her arms. Tom didn't seem fazed. He was concentrated, staring at the wall as if offering it something, as if the Room of Requirement had something to gain by obliging him.
Knowing Tom, it did.
He took a pointed breath, gaze narrowed, and Amoret tried to watch him from her periphery without it being too noticeable. He inclined his head almost in a bow, soliciting, and a stray wave of hair fell over his eyes. His focus never wavered and Amoret wondered fleetingly if that was where they differed. How he was able to sometimes best her. He uttered something inaudible; a charm or a command to activate some dormant spell he'd cast already, and a pattern began to settle in the rocks.
Amoret had never seen the room work like that, but she asked no questions. She had a feeling she would have plenty more when she saw whatever was behind that door.
"Come," he beckoned.
She abided him again to the door, a tall, eight-panelled thing painted with black lacquer. It was uncomfortably elegant, twice both of their heights. Tom twisted a golden floral-wrought doorknob and it opened with a creak.
When Amoret entered behind him, he swiped a hand over two sconces fixed to the wall, the only things she could see in the remaining light, and the room flickered amber before it settled. She blinked at the adjustment, and then she could see everything.
It was no wonder it was so dark for a moment. The walls were pure black too; panelled in the same expensive style as the door, only they lacked the refined polish. The floors were mahogany but scuffed with boot marks and mud splatters. It was a small room. Almost stuffy, but just large enough not to be. On either wall, a shelf stood from floor to ceiling, stacked almost completely with what appeared to be well-tended books. There was a bicorn fur splayed before the door with its horns traditionally shed. Amoret felt sorry and stepped around it.
"What is this place?" she asked in awe.
She placed her books on a studying table in the middle of the room. There were no chairs to sit, only the two shelves, a wheel-footed ladder, the table and the rug. All of the furniture was built in. All of it was spaced accordingly, intentionally.
"My library." Tom said it as if it were obvious.
"Your—what? How?"
"The Room of Requirement is as indulgent with you as you are with it."
That could have meant so many things it had no meaning at all.
"So you've just been collecting books and... storing them here?" she asked dumbly, "I didn't know you could do that. It's that simple?"
"Most things are, I find."
Somehow Tom Riddle always knew just what to say to prove his superiority over her.
"Hm," she mumbled, and moved to the other side of the shelves. "Are they categorized in any sensible way?"
That came out sounding more snotty than she meant it. Maybe she was a tad bitter. She'd been reading from the scraps Tom left behind, decidedly unworthy.
"Most of it is organized by topic, and then alphabetically."
"So the same as every other library?"
He did that breathy almost-laugh again. "Sure. Some of them may be out of place, though. I often find myself coming in and out in a hurry."
Amoret flipped open the first book that caught her eye.
Soothsayers: the History of Celtic Folklore and Witchcraft. "What's this?"
"I believe it's in the title."
The thought was odd, but she considered tossing the book at his head. Instead, she read:
In Celtic mythology, the Cat Sìth is a Fae creature, said to resemble a large, spectral black cat with a white spot on its chest. As legend describes, the Cat Sìth haunts the Scottish Highlands. However, like many mythological creatures unproven by muggles and sorcerers alike, there are many renditions of this legend. Mythos among the common-folk suggested that the Cat Sìth was not a fairy at all, but a witch that could transform into a cat nine times.
To the people of the Scottish Highlands, the Cat Sìth was not to be trusted. They believed that it could steal a person's soul before death was complete and it was claimed by the Gods. This was done by the spectre passing over a corpse before burial, and so rituals like the Feill Fadalach (Late Wake) were practiced and then performed night and day to keep the Cat Sìth away from a still-sitting corpse. Methods of distraction, such as games of leaping and wrestling, catnip, riddles, and music would be used to keep the Cat Sìth away from the room in which the corpse lay. In addition, there were no fires near the body, as it was said that the Cat Sìth was attracted to the warmth.
On Samhain, it was believed that a Cat Sìth would bless any house that left a saucer of milk out for it to drink, and those houses that did not let out a saucer would be cursed.
How odd the give and take was; don't leave the beast a fire, but don't leave it hungry; let it be cold but alive; fed but weak.
Sometimes you couldn't kill a monster, but you could control it.
Amoret looked up from a brief skim of the book, startled by the intensity of Tom's gaze when she found it. He was looking at her expectantly, and there was a sort of silver in his eyes, even though they were blue, even though the only light in the room was gold.
"Riveting," she finally said. Was it sarcasm shaping the words? Nadya really was rubbing off on her.
"I figured you'd think so."
"You knew I was going to pick that one?"
She put it back in its slot. His gaze wasn't faltering. In six years of knowing him, she didn't think she'd ever been alone with him of their own volition. Schoolwork and prefect tasks and idle chatter on trains, yes, but this? It was off-putting. It was off-putting just to realize.
"I had a feeling," he replied. "That or The History of Transfiguration on a Global Scale."
Wrong, Amoret was proud to think, because it was evident in the way his eyes narrowed to assess her that he was eager to learn why she'd changed studies. Still, she was impressed he'd come so close, if not a bit scared. And then she recalled what he was.
"Can you see it as I describe it?" she blurted. "My thoughts, I mean. Can you see them like pictures, or memories—or is it the voice in my head? Written out like words."
Tom frowned. "I'm sorry?"
"You're a legilimens. I've just always wondered..."
"I don't see anything," he answered swiftly.
"Really?"
"At present? No."
"And is it always like that?"
"Not always. I imagine it's unique to both the reader and the mind. Whatever one person thinks, whatever they see, however they imagine it, it would manifest differently than it would with another. Sometimes there are visuals, entirely vivid, like seeing through new eyes or standing beside them in a memory, but more often they're a degree detached. And sometimes, yes, there are only voices. Impulses. Right now, I don't see anything because I wasn't reading your mind."
Amoret wavered. "Really?"
"I hope you don't think me quite so invasive."
"No! No, I didn't mean anything by it. I just thought..."
He spared her stuttering over an explanation. "I've never read your mind, Amoret."
She couldn't manage a response. She just closed the book and put it back on the shelf, hoping he'd fill the empty silence.
He did. "I've never felt the need."
There were about a hundred different things that could mean. Some better than others.
"Am I that transparent?" she asked.
"Not at all."
"Then how'd you know I was going to pick that book?"
"I didn't."
"What?"
"I thought you were going to take the Transfiguration text."
"You—" She laughed incredulously— "Right."
He was smiling too. Very proud of himself, no doubt. "Would you like to keep it?"
"No. No—I mean—I can guarantee I've already read about every creature in there. I've probably met more than a few." She went to itch her neck and lingered on the hook of her necklace. "I was hoping to keep looking, if that's all right."
He nodded toward the books. "You're my guest, are you not?"
"...Right."
Amoret was glued to the sixth shelf with one hand on the ladder, looking at a line of book spines decorated with gold-and-silver-embossed names; How to Turn Nightingales into Nightlillies by Franz Berkemeier, Conjuring Gold: A Means to a Glorious End by Niamh Behan, Animalistic by Thérese Beignon—and one book either misplaced or intentionally hidden: Divinity and Damnation by Valerian Krowe. She barely gave it a glance, like she was wrong just for looking at it, like she knew it didn't belong and neither did she. But Tom was peering through the pages of another book, leaning against the centre table with an unbothered look about him. She had to remind herself that he had invited her here. For whatever reason, he had, and she was allowed to let her eyes, and hands, wander.
She pushed the ladder along the rod. Atop the eighth shelf, Amoret found cut-out photographs and newspapers tucked between the texts. She pulled them free, and as the paper crinkled she could hear Tom shuffling over. There were a few words she caught, a few moving pictures on the cover: Gaunt... missing... descendant of Slytherin... hysteria... bewitchment... a glimpse of a tall old house and a thin, raven-haired woman with violet rings under her eyes.
And then he was behind her.
"I'm sorry," she startled, holding the papers out to Tom like a guilty dog would look upon a shredded piece of furniture. "I'm sorry. Are these private?"
He bristled, grabbed them from her, but then his face flashed back to his regular impassiveness. "No, I apologize. An extracurricular project I misplaced."
"I'm sorry," she said again.
She'd ruined this. Whatever this was, she was sure she'd ruined it.
"Don't be. "
Amoret climbed down from the ladder and grabbed her books from the table, muttering some excuse to leave.
"Amoret," he said, pressing a hand to her shoulder. There was never anything less than complete certainty in his voice. She stiffened, still not wanting to face him. She imagined he was standing too close, and then she'd be embarrassed for another reason altogether.
"I told you I'd walk you to the tower."
"You don't have to—"
"I'm not known for not following through with my promises."
"You're not known for making promises."
"They're worrisome things to keep." His hand retreated, and then he was standing at her side holding it out. Reluctantly, Amoret handed him the smaller half of her books.
Neither offered anything more. Tom walked her to the tower as promised, and again, little conversation was exchanged.
"Well," he said at the door, "thank you."
He was thanking her?
"You're... welcome."
"Any time."
She raised a brow. "Is that a promise?"
"Not this time, no. I'm reluctant to make two in such short succession."
"Then I won't hold you to it," she said, the weight of all of her books returned making her nervous she'd stumble.
"That's wise of you." He nodded a polite farewell. "Goodnight, Amoret."
"Wait!" Well, she cringed, there's no need to sound so eager.
"Yes?"
"The time," she said slowly and half-joking.
Tom turned around. "Sorry?"
"The time. What time is it?"
His brows furrowed, but he pushed his sleeve back and took a glance at his watch. At that, he clicked his tongue, looking back at her with something like a smile.
"What?"
"11:01."
"That's—are you serious?" Amoret stepped closer, and indeed, the watch ticked again to 11:02. "You're late."
"A regrettably wasted minute, I'm sure."
"Two, now."
"And yet you're still here."
"Goodnight, Tom."
"Do refrain from hexing me when I turn around."
"Do refrain from assuming I'd waste the energy."
Then he was really smiling. "I'll bring you a book tomorrow."
So it wasn't a matter of Amoret's wavering attentions. Tom Riddle was abrupt, and pretentious, and unfortunately skilled in the art of surprising her.
"Tomorrow's a Sunday."
"You'll be in the library, won't you?"
She was embarrassed to say that, yes, she would likely be in the library all day tomorrow, just like today and yesterday and every other day this week.
"I'll bring you a good book," he remedied, turning on his heel.
"And good tidings for the Cat Sìth."
"No tidings," he said, "Leave it riddles and music, and leave your body away from the fire, lest it find you warm and prey on you next."
"You're strange," she said with unabashed fascination, "I imagine not enough people tell you that. Thank you for the gift."
"Goodnight, Amoret."
"Goodnight, Tom."
Amoret went to sleep with the end of a riddle scrawled on foolscap under her pillow. The Cat Sìth knew the answer, and thanked her in her dreams.
[ . . . ] dracula reference cause it fits tom's nasty vampire energy. my writing style is wacko here for like a thousand reasons but it gets better i promise (sidenote: i am aware tom is not muggle-born but what reason does anyone else have to think so! it would be a bit silly of him to open the chamber of secrets while publicly known as the heir of slytherin) / word count. 6076
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