t o m h a d
become preoccupied with his seventh-year classes. One of the first times since meeting Evelyn that he had truly no thought about anything else but his own legacy. In the time not devoted to his studies or Head Boy duties, he concentrated entirely on his Death Eaters. He had been recruiting more and more students to his name, and he had been preparing his inner circle to go forth after graduation and do more. More for him and his campaign for power.
For he had no plans of leaving Hogwarts after this year. He had always wanted to become the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor. He had always loved the class, of course, but it wasn't his desire to learn that drew him to professorship. It was the influence professors had over the younger generation. They thoroughly shaped children's minds on what was right and wrong, and he, well, when he wanted them to support him in whatever he decided to do. He planned on asking Dippet closer to the end of the year. He didn't want whatever the answer was to sway him from his planning. He honestly didn't know if he could talk his way into the job since he hadn't ever known a professor as young as him before.
And in the weeks he plotted and planned, he didn't spend a second of time worrying about Evelyn. They talked in classes, but the conversations had little to do with anything other than her teasing of him about magic that she had learned long before Hogwarts. She wanted nothing to do with his schemes for collecting more "dogs," as she kept referring to his new followers. In fact, she seemed to want nothing more to do with any of his schemes anymore; she seemed almost as if she had faded back into whatever blurry in-between world she had first emerged from.
Tom had only stopped once to consider her odd behavior. And it was only when she had told him that her seventh-year spellwork had been mastered at the age of eleven. It was the same year she had started Hogwarts, and yet it was as if she had already been there. He had guessed for Evelyn that learning advanced magic had been the highlight of her miserable childhood. He wondered if in the years she had been watching him before she had let herself be his greatest annoyance, if she had been excited to constantly remind him just how much more skilled at magic she was than he was. And even then, she held back; he knew she did, in their dueling lessons, she still had him pinned. He grew tired of losing, but never tired of watching Evelyn perform. That was what class was to her, a grand performance that only he knew she was acting in.
Tom was tired of his own act at school. He was tired of charming everyone around him into worshipping him. It was almost relieving when he would hang out with Evelyn. They didn't hide who they were from each other. He needed a break from it all. In some sick way, he guessed he missed her. Not that he would ever admit that.
When the end of October rolled around and the grand hall had been decorated for Hallowe'en, Tom was actually looking forward to the first Hogsmeade weekend. He had arrived early to his Transfiguration class the Friday before, almost giddy to ask Evelyn to attend with him, and as he sat down, he thought about hexing some sense into himself. He should be enjoying this time without her; he would be rid of her soon anyway, so it was better to start now. And yet, when Evelyn walked in, he took every inch of her in, replacing his self-hatred with admiration at how effortlessly she made a room stand still.
She scanned the room with such apathy that it made his chest pull tight. She didn't smile as her eyes landed on him, which made his chest clench in a completely different way. Evenlyn only strolled to the seat that was now always reserved for her and uncharacteristically flopped into the chair beside him.
"I have never seen you so out of sorts", Tom frowned as he leaned over to her, keeping in mind Dumbledore's watchful gaze as he started class. "I hope you haven't decided to give up your charade of perfection."
"There is no charade pertaining to my perfection, I simply am perfect," Evelyn huffed a laugh as she pressed her shoulder into his own. Her eyes focused on the demonstration Dumbledore had started. Tom tried not to notice how she didn't lean away from him. His arm seemed unbearably hot against hers.
"I've come to doubt that with your lack of appreciation upon seeing me," Tom half-teased, but there was a part of him that needed to unlock every thought behind her closed-off expression.
"Oh, Tom, were your feelings hurt that I did not immediately fall to my knees in worship the moment I laid eyes upon you?" Evelyn gasped, and although they hadn't turned their faces toward each other, he caught the fake pout on her lips. "Such a shame. Should I rectify this mistake and do it now? I'm sure Dumbledore would understand the interruption."
"No need. I will forgive the misstep, but only for today," Tom said with a roll of his eyes, but he smiled nonetheless. She was clearly well enough to continue tormenting him mercilessly. "I'm too exhausted for a public display of affection."
Tom watched as Evelyn, distractedly, doodled around the margins of her notes. Her quill was a deep blue that reminded him of the Black Lake on sunny days. He wanted to comment something soft-sounding about the little pumpkins and bats that formed, and then promptly held himself back from ever doing such a thing.
"Well, there go my plans for later," Evelyn mused as she tapped her pen on top of her doodles, making the bats flap around the page. "Why are you so tired? Stay up too late with your group of drooling hounds?"
Tom didn't have the patience to argue with her today about her constant belittling of his followers and their essential meetings. Nor did he really care how many times she called his Death Eaters' names. He knew she didn't mean it; she was friends with most of them.
"I was not. I was studying for our Astronomy exam on Monday. The one on Rouge Planets. I have been doing a lot of school work that you have the pleasure of skipping out on," Tom corrected as he made a pointed gesture to the notes he had been writing for the class they were currently attending.
Evelyn shook her head slightly at this and leaned over to fill in the answer to the notes he had been writing down. He narrowed his eyes at her perfectly scripted handwriting on his paper.
"I actually do study for Astronomy, that was not covered in my world domination classes," Evelyn said as she leaned back into her chair.
Tom looked over at her, curious if she was just making fun of him again, but she seemed completely serious as she played with the tortoise that was just placed onto her desk for the lesson. She stroked the animal's shell until it stuck its head out to look at her. She then tickled under the tortoise's chin, and it seemed to purr.
"I would have offered to share my notes if I had known you were struggling with class," Tom smirked as he leaned over to observe his only tortoise.
Evelyn wiped the smug smile off of Tom's face as she placed her wand on the tip of the tortoise shell and turned it into a trumpet before she pulled a set of notes from her bag and handed them over to him.
"I never said I was struggling and my notes are perfectly adequate, but thank you for the offer, Tom," Evelyn said as smug and sure of herself as ever.
He examined the perfectly drawn diagrams of each planet and the lengthy set of descriptions on everything about them. He had half the mind to pocket them for his own studying, but he handed them back to her. She couldn't think her notes were any better than his own. He had nothing left to say back, so he simply switched his own tortoise into a trumpet before it had time to walk off his desk.
"Are you going to quite studying long enough to go to Hogsmeade tomorrow with me?" Evelyn asked and then, as if not meaning it to come off as a demand, included, "I would like a break from being cooped up in the castle."
She had turned towards him, and he liked the way she was looking at him. Like him saying yes really would matter to her, and not because she was brainwashed into loving him. And even though she had completely ruined his plans to ask her first, he smiled.
"Of course, I'll go to Hogsmeade with you," Tom grinned, before turning back towards his trumpet and transfiguring it once more into a reptile. "I'll meet you tomorrow morning at the castle doors."
Tom found it hard to pay attention for the rest of the day, and he tried to blame it on all the extra homework he had been assigned. But he knew the moment he arrived the next morning, too early and eager, that he had just been kidding himself.
He had dressed in a warm black jumper that he had bought when Evelyn had taken him into town that summer to look for suits for the ball. Evelyn had walked by it and had twisted the edge between her fingers with a comment on how it was very handsome and would look doubly so on him. He had felt foolish at the time, purchasing it almost immediately. And this morning, when he had put it on, he hoped she remembered that passing comment. He had paired it with a pair of dark green trousers and his house scarf. The October air had cooled significantly, but not enough to deign to wear a jacket.
He tried to wait patiently for Evelyn, and when he finally caught sight of her walking down the stairs, it was an odd reminder of the year before when he had been waiting for Calista instead. Tom was thrilled that Evelyn was coming down alone this time. Attending the day in town with him and not the handsome Caspian. When Evelyn had told him she was dating him for show and that they were only close friends, he had been too relieved for his liking.
She showed up in her own Muggle-inspired attire, a sweater that was a deep rusty orange. The part of her outfit that surprised him was the straight-legged denim jeans she wore. He knew some Muggle girls had started to wear them, but he didn't think Evelyn would have liked the look.
She had cinched her waist with a leather belt and finished the outfit with an oversized black cardigan sweater. Her long hair was pulled back with a black headband. He liked that she hadn't chosen heels today, so that when she stopped infront of him in her black and white saddle shoes, she barely came to his chin. She looked positively comfortable, and he liked this version of Evelyn. She seemed relaxed. Like the girl he had come to know over the summer, he thought too much about.
"Good morning, Tom," Evelyn said as she looked up at him with a smile and a conspiring glint in her eyes. "Shall we go pretend like life is perfect and that we are two teenagers who are madly in love and can't wait to spend this amazing autumn day together?"
"That depends, Evelyn, are you willing to be madly in love with me even for just a day?" Tom smirked back at her as he placed his hand on the small of her back to lead her out of the castle. He ignored the skip in his heartbeat.
"Perhaps. I would imagine it would be a pretty easy task if you were not so full of yourself," Evelyn hummed as she leaned into his side as they strolled down the hill to town, keeping away from the other excited Hogwarts students heading the same way.
"Well, I will try my best to only think about you and talk nothing of myself all day," Tom promised as he wrapped his arm around her shoulders to bring her even closer to him.
"I think that is a simply impossible task, but I'm willing to see you try," Evelyn laughed, and the moment felt so natural to Tom he couldn't think of why this shouldn't be a reality.
Evelyn pushed away from him and strolled faster down the hill, occasionally turning back to make sure he was still following. Tom had no intention of catching up. He quite liked watching her hair swoosh behind her. The brightness of it contrasting with the oranges and yellows of the tree line. He enjoyed watching her body move down the hill in natural grace, so different from the roughness of her outfit. He liked how, when she turned back, there was a brightness in her eyes.
The calm blue sky was clear, and the occasional gust of wind was not too chilly to make them uncomfortable. It did keep the two of them closer together as they walked through the Hogsmeade streets. Tom always enjoyed Hallowe'en. It was a holiday that didn't surround family or love, and it was during his favorite time of the year.
He liked following Evelyn into the different shops and getting them the sweet cinnamon tea that she was excited for. He found out she had a rather startling obsession with cinnamon and pumpkin-flavored items. She loved the store that sold clothes, and she all but dragged Tom into the candy shop.
The whole day seemed like they were simply a couple that had decided to spend a lovely day together. He even wandered through the pumpkin patch at the end of town for her and let her pick a pumpkin out for them to bring back to the castle. He had held it the entire way back as she had talked animatedly about what to carve into it. She had been appalled when he had mentioned he had never done anything of the sort.
"It must be done without magic. It simply is more fun that way," Evelyn demanded as she led him back through the castle and towards the room of requirements. She had recommended doing the carving there so Tom wouldn't feel humiliated by getting dirty in the common room.
"I do not understand how you had time during your world domination lessons to carve a pumpkin," Tom grunted as he hefted up the giant gord in his arms again. She had picked one of the biggest pumpkins that could have been humanly possible for him to carry.
"It is one of the few things my mother and I did together. She loved Hallowe'en. One of the only times my father ever left us alone," Evelyn said, her voice always much quieter when talking about her mother. As if talking about her out loud might turn the world against the mad woman. "He also didn't mind the holiday. Probably because it was more of a wizarding holiday than it was Muggle."
Tom placed the pumpkin on the table, which had appeared in the room. A large spoon and a knife appeared beside it. He went to turn toward her fully, to apologize, or comfort, he didn't know, but she had already drawn all of her attention onto the project before them.
"First, Tom, you must remove your sweater; it will get all over it, and it is much too nice for that," Evelyn instructed as she placed her cardigan on the chair they usually use before removing her sweater.
Tom did as he was told and removed his sweater, so he only had a black T-shirt on that was tucked into his pants. He almost choked as he turned back to Evelyn to see her cutting into the top of the pumpkin in nothing but her jeans and a flimsy chemise top.
He had to get over himself. He had seen Evelyn in less, yet there was something about how she had quickly pulled up her hair into a high ponytail. The way the strap of the chemise hung slightly off her shoulder. He watched her dart her tongue out of the side of her lips in a concentrated look. She looked normal in a way that was so foreign to anything close to the Evelyn Maeve he knew. He walked closer to her as she removed the top of the pumpkin head by the stem. She looked at him and smiled so wide he thought he would topple over.
"Now you have to stick your hand in and pull the guts out," Evelyn declared, almost with a sick kind of glee in her tone.
"No, thank you, I'd rather chop my hand off with the knife," Tom grimaced as he shook his head and backed away.
Evelyn laughed and put her hand inside, pulling out the slimy insides of the pumpkin. She then deposited it into the bowl that had appeared beside the spoon, which still lay untouched.
"You are doing this, Tom," Evelyn demanded as she stared at him, hand covered in pumpkin innards. "I'm forcing you, and it's not that bad."
Tom gave her a doubtful look, but Evelyn only gestured encouragingly at the pumpkin. The little impish grin on her lips was the only reason he was giving in.
He reached inside and nearly gagged at the disgusting feeling of the pumpkin. He scooped up a handful and deposited it into the bowl before looking at Evelyn, who was all but jumping up and down in her excitement. He rolled his eyes, but continued the task. His stupid and unreliable heart didn't want to disappoint her.
They scooped out the insides together, occasionally reaching inside the pumpkin at the same time. Tom had to try hard not to smile when their hands grabbed each other instead of the pumpkin guts. When they were finished, they both had pumpkin insides covering their arms and hands, and their pumpkin sat with a large smile and eyes that were a bit lopsided.
"Tom?" Evelyn asked as she stared at the pumpkin.
"Yes, Evelyn?" Tom looked at her. A frown at his own happiness was plastered onto his face.
"I do believe I could be madly in love with you for more than just today if we were normal."