"As you all know, this castle is under attack and, though I will always vehemently discourage students to go looking for trouble, it is unfortunately becoming more and more plausible that trouble may sneak up on you." Professor Merrythought was pacing the front of the classroom like lines on a book, left, right, left, right, greying brows furrowed and wand gripped in hand. Her eyes seemed incapable of deciding whether to dart suspiciously around the room or zone out on a random patch of space. She continued, "To combat these... sneaky dangers, today we will be learning how to reveal hidden human presences and remove magical guises."
She went on to demonstrate the hand movement and incantation before allowing them to split with the partners they had been assigned at the start of the year. Eva nodded to Tom, whom she'd been paired with as a result of his being second to only her the duel of the first Defense lesson.
It wasn't quite a duel, though the pair nevertheless walked neatly in opposite directions in a display of proper dueling etiquette before swiftly turning back around, wands poised elegantly in their hands. Then, as they did every time they were assigned partner work, each student in the duo slipped their respective wands into the pockets of their contrasting robes.
Eva lay gentle fingers to the parting line crowning her head between two french braids as she silently cast a Disillusionment charm over herself so Tom could attempt to put Merrythought's lecture to use. Disguised, she saw Riddle's jaw tense in frustration as it always seemed to do when Eva displayed power he was still working towards obtaining. He could do wandless magic with skillful ease by now, but still had trouble performing particularly difficult spells in the absence of his wand and words.
He had just put his hand out and begun to recite the words Homenum Revelio, when Eva decided she didn't want to make it so easy for him. Someone needed to teach Riddle what it felt like to squirm and sweat, after all. She placed a quick Muffliato on herself to silence her already ghostlike movements and moved to stand to the far right of the vicinity in which Tom's spell would hit. When nothing happened in response to his actions, confusion flickered across his face like candlelight in the wind, but it was quickly replaced with poorly imprisoned rage.
Serpens swallowed back a smirk and sidled up next to him, just inches away from his shoulder as he cast the spell again, this time with an admittedly impressively larger range. "Alright, Riddle?" She failed to keep the smirk out of her voice and Tom whipped to face her and attempted to lift her Disillusionment charm yet again just as she slipped around him to the other side, still hidden and smooth as molten butter.
"What are you playing at? The assignment was simple." He said through gritted teeth, walking in a circle now.
Eva rolled her eyes, but stayed at a dangerously close distance to his left shoulder as he moved. "But what would be the fun in that?"
She deftly fell into step walking backwards in front of him as he nearly broke his neck to turn towards her voice and cast another revealing spell in vain. "C'mon stalker, what's wrong?" —she walked around him to let another spell miss her before resuming the same position facing him— "Lost your..." Before he could attempt to reveal her again, a reckless idea came into her mind; so far, the only touches between them had been initiated by Tom. She was tempted to know if she would still lose her mind to touch if she were the one in control.
So, before she could think too much about it and scare herself from catching the train of thought, she reached up an obscured hand and gripped his uniform green-and-silver tie to pull him down and take his carved jaw in her other hand, her thumb on one side of his chin and the rest of her fingers on the other. She finished her sentence with triumph bleeding into her voice as she realized she felt completely sober when she touched him on her own terms, "...touch?"
Both of them stopped in their tracks. Riddle's eyes widened as he looked right through her Disillusioned face and his lips parted in a little surprise and... a little bit something else. But before she could decipher that something, the Slytherin had gotten over his wonder and cast the revealing spell while he was still held in her vice-like grip. Another wave of shock went through him at the unveiling of the almost nonexistent distance between their faces and Eva grinned, unaffected, at him. Feeling particularly delighted at her newfound ability to touch him with ease, she even gave him a quick wink before letting go and pulling away.
She raised an eyebrow at him as he simply continued to stare, ordinarily strong coffee eyes unfocused. Serpens snapped her fingers in front of his eyes and brought him out of his disconcerted state.
"Your turn," he turned to the side as if he felt uncomfortable looking straight at her, his voice hard. The last glimpse of him she caught before he disappeared under a magical disguise of his own conjuring was his tensing jaw, his moods ever the wound up coil.
"I hardly think it'll last long enough for it to be considered a turn, Riddle," she smiled good-naturedly as she said this in no particular direction.
"We'll see about that, Serpens," A voice came from behind her, warm breath tickling the sparse hairs on the back of her neck. She sent a Revealing spell over her shoulder in a waterfall rush straight at the voice, but it was blocked with a whispered Protego, and she saw her spell deflect to crash into another magically concealed student in the periphery of her vision.
She felt uncharacteristically gentle fingers on her neck brushing aside the baby hairs falling between her braids and began to get slightly dizzy. Before he could touch her anymore and render her intoxicated in the feeling of his skin on hers, she reminded herself of what she had realized only moments before and reached a hand over her shoulder and wrapped her fingers around his wrist. Her senses came back to the ground and she was able to properly savor the feeling of Tom's touch and mobility under her control.
She opened her mouth to say something, but the tall boy behind her beat her to it, "Just taking a look at your little drawing, no need to be so jumpy."
Eva's breath stalled in her throat. She hadn't even thought to check whether her wing ink would still be there. She hadn't expected it to remain after her wings had been brutally sliced from her spine. Her grip on his wrist slackened momentarily.
She inwardly shook herself out of her own thoughts. "It's called a tattoo, Riddle."
Eva didn't need to grow eyes in the back of her head to know his lip was curling. His fingers moved from between her braids to travel down both. Myrtle had done them that morning, scandalized by Eva's admission that her hair had never been in French or Dutch braids. Her thoughts drifted again, this time to think about how happy Myrtle had seemed sitting there, combing and twisting locks of her hair.
Before she knew what was happening, her hair had fallen free and Tom's hands, still Disillusioned, were combing through it. Serpens' teeth gritted. "As much as I love making small talk with you as you fuck with my hair, I'd love it if we could get back to the lesson."
She flicked a second Revealing spell over her shoulder almost lazily. This time, it hit its mark. Riddle's fingers hastily withdrew from her hair and he walked back around with a cold look marring his sharp features. Eva raised an eyebrow. "You look better with your hair down."
The Ravenclaw made a valiant effort to ignore the thrilled tingles the dull compliment sent bubbling up her spine as she bit back, "Well, I hardly style myself to provide you with eye candy, do I?" Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Myrtle wearing a slightly forlorn expression, deep blue eyes trained on the strawberry-blonde locks that had unraveled from the braids she had twisted into them only an hour before.
It was Tom's turn to raise a brow, a carelessly sublime brushstroke of bitter coffee on his skin's canvas. Eva shifted, her discomfort getting the best of her. While her last statement had been true, it seemed Riddle could see straight through the mask of indifference she was trying to display at his earlier comment.
A small smirk painted the Slytherin's lips. The girl across from him wondered what would happen if this brushstroke brought its geranium pink into a higher tip, a wider curve, burying itself up into the dull apples of his cheeks to bring life to them. She'd never seen him smile beyond forced niceties toward professors and smirks, usually directed at herself.
She also wondered what would happen if she inched closer to it. If she shared air with him, felt his breath slipping past her lips to curl around her teeth and tongue. A room full of people, and no one would know the intimacy of it. No one else could tint the moment.
Riddle lifted a hand and nudged her bottom jaw up. Only the thick ring on his index finger made contact with her skin, the black jewel embedded into the gold temporarily indenting the soft skin blanketing her chin. If Eva's blood were red, she'd be blushing furiously— she hadn't even realized her lips had parted, however slightly. His dark eyes lingered over her features.
Eva was just about to give in to her urge to come closer when— "I take it back." Riddle glided his fingers over the woven hair stitched across both sides of her skull, tilting her head a bit. His smirk grew, just so, when he was met with no resistance and her head moved half an inch to let him get a closer look at the braids. "You look the same whether your hair is chained or free."
Her teeth gritted. Only minutes ago, she'd had the boy wrapped around her skilled little pinkie finger with some of her simplest spellwork.
"Real charmer, aren't you Riddle?" Eva took a step back to create safe distance between her and his crooked smirk.
"Snake charmer, perhaps, Serpens."
Eva didn't know whether to feel annoyed at the taunt or shocked at the fact that a joke had just slipped past Riddle's (still smirking) lips. The bell chose that moment to ring loudly, giving the Ravenclaw little time to act on either emotion. So, as Tom made to turn and leave, she flicked her wrist upwards and muttered a small enchantment, despite not needing to vocalize the spell. The utterance had her victim turning back in confusion, giving her hex the perfect path to his face. His eyebrows curved up to create a furrow between them as facial hair sprouted on his skin in the unkempt style you might see an older man don.
"What have you done?" his voice dripped with rage and confusion as his fingers flew to his hairy cheekbones in panic.
Eva just shrugged, her laughter artfully caged behind her teeth. "Thought if you were going to claim such titles, you should look the part as well." She paused, pretending to examine his new look thoughtfully, before adding in a whisper, "I'd say you look rather the same either way, though."
Chuckles rolled around the room like the pattering of a drizzle to the slapping of raindrops, as the leaving students caught sight of Tom's mustache and beard. Eva was rather satisfied with the easy way she'd set chaos like fire to a forest until she heard one of the Slytherin girls whisper to her Ravenclaw friend, "I dunno, Kaia, he looks quite like one of those fit dads in those Muggle magazines your sister always sends you..."
Eva's eyes slid back over to Riddle, sure that she wouldn't be able to see the allure in the slightest.
Fuck.
─────⋅☾☽⋅─────
Inebriated giggles filled the crisp night air. Eva bit her lip, trying to keep herself from joining in, but failed spectacularly. Her eyelids threw curtains over her vision, and she breathed in through her nose, savoring the moment.
Cassi, Myrtle, and Eva were up in the Astronomy Tower again, passing around one of Cassi's joints, which had come to be revered amongst the trio. Eva's back lay flat on the floor, the smooth marble cold against her bare shoulders and the satin nightgown Cassi had lent her. She felt every groove and indent in the stone as her breath pulled her shoulders up and back down. The fragrance of the buds and smoke was strong in the air, hints of pineapple and liquor sneaking in. Her fingers were warm in Myrtle's hand as the brunette played with them whimsically, stopping only to press the joint into her fingertips. Eva brought the roll up to her lips. She was sucking the dregs from it with her lips pouting around the tip when the clearing of a throat that belonged to neither Myrtle nor Cassi interrupted her sensory overload.
Her eyelids unlocked to gift her with the sight of the starry night sky glimmering through her pale, fluttering lashes. She wasn't in her own mind enough to pay much more mind to the intruder.
Until she heard Cassi gasp, "Oh, your glorious whiskers are gone!"
"Silencio," a familiar voice hissed, and Cassi and Myrtle's snickers came to an abrupt halt, leaving Eva to roll over on her front to see who the newcomer was, though she had already recognized the stone of his voice, the condescending confidence in his spellwork.
She flicked a finger towards her friends, and their giggles resumed. "Shame about the whiskers, really."
His nostrils flared. "Need I remind you, I am a prefect and you are out after hours."
Eva rolled her eyes and, with the drugs clouding her common sense, mocked him, "Need we remind you, prefects aren't allowed out at midnight any more than stoners." She rose to her feet and got closer to him so they were standing face to face on either side of the narrow archway between the winding staircase and Tower floor, "Loosen up, will you, Mr. Perfect?"
He raised an eyebrow at the name.
Eva promptly made to cover her tracks, "'Cuz prefect... perfect, ya know? Sarcasm! Don't think too much about it. Bad for you, thinking is."
She pressed her lips shut and held out the joint to him and, to all three girls' surprise, he took it between two fingers and looked appraisingly at it for a moment before wrapping his own lips around the edge. His cheeks caved in and his lips swelled around it as he sucked. Eva stared at the way the action further defined his cheekbones and jaw, and gave his lips a texture she'd never seen before. Her grey eyes wandered down the curve of his pale throat to the hollow of his neck, the skin there shadowed under the moonlight.
She reached out two fingers and swiped the joint from his lips to take the very last of it for herself. Eva felt her face heat up as she tasted Riddle for the first time on the roll. The Ravenclaw was just able to make out the rich, reddish pink taste of pomegranate and burnt rose before his taste washed over her in the form of smoke curling out of his lips.
The cigarette dangling from her teeth, Eva reached out and placed her hands on either side of Tom's face. Her thumbs gently pulled the corners of his lips up. Surprisingly enough, he didn't resist, only let his face be molded into a strange smile. She wouldn't remember this in the morning, either way.
Eva huffed at her ineffective attempt at making him look happy. Another wave of smoke breezed over her face and she leaned her head back onto the beige stone behind her, breathing Tom in, tasting him on the joint. "Y'know," she muttered absentmindedly, "gentlemen usually direct their smoke away from ladies."
There was too much of him in the air, filling her heightened senses, to really think. She would squint at the beautiful, yet murky waters they were in at a later moment, when she was sober. For now, she would bask and bathe ignoring the growth of the ripples, and only seeing the glowing surface.
a/n: hey! i made a playlist for this fic
also eva gets a bit creepy in the next little bit, but let's excuse her bc she served w sub tom in the beginning of this chapter