Eve made it through the first half of the next day relatively Riddle-free.
He'd been mysteriously absent at breakfast, along with the rest of his future Death Eaters—probably meeting in some random dark room in the castle secretly, Eve didn't doubt, though she still couldn't imagine Avery or even Rosier in that group.
But that was a whole different trail of thought she could investigate into at another time.
Then, in Herbology, a Patronus in the shape of a mole rat had ambled into the greenhouse at the beginning of class, and Dippet's warbly voice had bounced off the glass walls, asking if my dear boy Tom could come up to the Headmaster's Office for official Head Boy matters, whatever that meant.
The last Eve saw of Riddle was him stepping out of the greenhouse, his robes billowing and dark hair casting shadows onto the carved, pale features of his face, and then he'd been gone.
The lack of Riddle since then had been unexpected, but not unwelcome; after all, Eve hadn't realized just how big of a ball of dread crushed her stomach every single time she was about to step into a room and anticipated seeing Riddle inside until she'd seen his empty seat at breakfast and had felt like flying with glee.
Sure, she'd just conceived a Riddle-thwarting master plan—again—in which he played a pretty large role, and she needed to actually be in his vicinity to carry it out, and nothing would be achieved if she wasn't actually near him, but. . . .
If Eve had to be honest, she hadn't really realized just how much she needed a break from bumping into the bloke every ten minutes and to get her mind off the name Riddle for one second. Her poor brain the past week had just been cycling between either worrying about Riddle or planning about Riddle, and the temporary distance so far was a well-needed reprieve she hadn't known she craved until she was currently experiencing it—even if it was only for a few hours.
And—the past week?
When the realization that it was now Friday had hit Eve in the morning, it had taken her a moment to process the fact that she'd officially survived her first whole school week here in 1944, a fact that seemed surreal given everything that had been thrown at her already in this time; it honestly felt like a whole month had passed instead.
Now, as Eve sat in her second Ancient Runes class of 1944, frowning down at the parchment of runes in front of her, she felt a welcomed spark of familiarity—after all, translating runes in class was a repeated activity she would do all the time with Hermione in class back in her time.
I guess rune translations don't transcend time, she thought wryly, writing mannaz next to the word intelligence and watching in satisfaction as a checkmark appeared next to her translation on the parchment.
Sitting next to her currently, however, was not Hermione like Eve was used to. Instead, to her left, Logan had his head bent over his translation parchment, his dark-brown waves falling over his forehead and his gray-blue eyes scanning the paper as he focused on marking down the rune for protection.
On Eve's right was Grace, who—as she'd mentioned to Eve in their last History of Magic lecture—actually was in this class and had apparently been sitting in the back of the classroom last lecture next to a Gryffindor classmate. She'd pulled a chair up to Eve and Logan's table at the beginning of class and was currently rapidly tapping her quill against the desk, brow furrowed in concentration.
Luckily, after Wednesday's rough lecture, today, Professor Dunne—who reminded Eve of Molly Weasley in her moments of non-teaching—had only assigned for them group practice with translating the runes they'd previously learned. The classroom was filled with content chatter, with low tones of discussion and the scratching of quills emanating from the small groups of students scattered throughout.
"It's ehwaz, not eihwaz, I think," said Logan, reaching across Eve's parchment to point at one of Grace's translations. "For horse."
Grace frowned down at her paper for a moment. "Damn, you're right." She crossed eihwaz out, shaking her head. "I just already know that's gonna mess me up on a later exam."
"It's okay—I always get those two confused too."
Grace gave him an unimpressed look. "I know you're lying just to make me feel better."
Eve glanced up just to see Logan raise his hands in an I'm guilty manner. She hadn't been surprised when Grace had greeted Logan with familiarity before sitting down at their table. Back in 1997, she could've confidently said that she was at least cordial acquaintances with a good amount of the other students in her year, regardless of what House they were in, since she'd shared so many mixed-House classes with them throughout the year. It was only natural for those repeated interactions to give way to familiar relationships.
As she glanced around the Ancient Runes classroom, taking in all the new, unfamiliar faces around her, she found that she missed that comfortableness.
She exhaled inwardly, casting the depressing thought away and directing her attention back to her translations just as Grace heaved a loud sigh and fake-slammed her quill onto the table.
"I can't do this anymore," she groaned in frustration. "If I'd known at eleven years old that the subject of Ancient Runes existed in the wizarding world, I would've just stayed in Muggle education! I don't even understand why we have to know this—when in Merlin's frizzy beard will I ever have to transcribe the rune for ant in the real world?"
Eve patted her shoulder sympathetically as Logan, looking amused, shrugged. "Who knows—maybe Puddlemere United is going to start asking their Beaters to translate random runes as a test in the future."
"You've been signed to Puddlemere United?" asked Eve, blinking at Grace. She didn't know anyone who'd been drafted onto a professional Quidditch team before they graduated school—even Oliver Wood had been signed after he'd left Hogwarts.
Grace blushed, twisting at a piece of her black hair, her rune translations forgotten. "I wish. I'm just a Beater on the Gryffindor team here." She paused. "Well, I have been for the past six years. Joey—that's Gryffindor's captain, Joey Furnell—holds tryouts every year to be fair, so I have to pass this year's again to make the team. They're next week." A crease appeared in-between her eyebrows. "I hear that League teams send officials to Hogwarts's first few Quidditch games every year to scout for seventh-year talent, so I really have to make sure I get in."
Logan made a psh sound, rolling his eyes. "I'll personally check Furnell into the Hospital Wing for an eye exam if you don't get the position." He turned to Eve. "Grace is really good. I'm not even exaggerating—my older cousin's the Keeper of the Montrose Magpies, and he came to one of the earlier games last year. He said she's a natural."
"Wow," said Eve, impressed. She thought of Wood as she looked at Grace encouragingly. "I know a professional Quidditch player on—uh, an American team—and I know he doesn't just throw praise like that around for fun. Sounds like you have nothing to worry about."
Grace flapped her arms, looking genuinely anxious. "No, no, no—you should've seen how I grazed the grass on the pitch when I was practicing yesterday! I swear I calculated the distance in the air, but the rain must've blurred my vision or something, and it was horrible, and the tail of my broom nearly scraped the dirt! Merlin, if that happens in front of scouts—"
Eve offhandedly wondered if Grace and Abraxas had ever crossed paths.
"Five more minutes!" Dunne called from the front of the classroom, cutting Grace's rambling off as she pointed at the clock over her head. "Turn in your translations by the end of class!"
The chatter in the classroom immediately grew more frenzied, and Eve glared down at the last translation she needed to do, feeling the ticks of the clock echo in her head.
"What the heck is sun?" she wondered out loud.
Next to her, Logan looked up. "Sun?"
"Yeah—like the star. Not offspring. I swear it starts with 's,' but I can't remember the full rune."
Logan leaned forward, tilting his head to get a closer look at her parchment. His hair brushed against her shoulder, and Eve swore she could feel the faint breaths of his exhales on her robes.
"You're right. It's sowilo," he said, giving her a smile before aiming his attention onto Grace's half-empty parchment.
"Thanks," Eve murmured, marking the answer down and letting out a breath she didn't realize she'd been holding.
When class was finally dismissed, they all placed their parchments onto the pile on Dunne's desk before filing out of the classroom, and Eve couldn't help but take a deep inhale when the cool air of the Hogwarts corridor outside hit her face. She enjoyed Ancient Runes to an extent for the challenging material, but there was only so much she could take before she started to feel suffocated by the innumerable little symbols.
"Look!" Grace whispered suddenly, clutching at Eve and Logan's arms to stop them in the corridor. She jerked her chin towards a trio of younger girls in Hufflepuff ties scurrying by in the corridor, grinning. "Eve, remember when I said about you being a trendsetter?"
Eve stared. Everything about the three girls seemed relatively normal, other than the fact that each girl was sporting two even sections of gray by the fronts of their hair, the thick strands falling next to their faces.
"What the—" she started in bemusement, watching as the girls noticed them staring and immediately all blushed, speeding up their pace and whispering hysterically.
"Wow," said Logan seriously, looking after the Hufflepuffs. "I didn't know that I was friends with such an influential individual." He held his hand together reverently towards Eve, who swatted them away quickly.
Grace spread her arms solemnly as they began walking. "Ladies and gentlemen, the influence of Eve Laurence."
"I didn't think you were being serious," Eve said weakly.
"Next thing you know, Witch Weekly's gonna do an article on it! The latest style in hair trends that goes against everything anti-age in beauty—purposefully dying your hair gray instead of trying to charm the gray away! Old British witches are gonna eat it up!"
"Please, no."
They reached the joint hallway on the floor that connected four separate corridors, and Logan gestured apologetically towards the one furthest to the left. "This is my stop—I have a prefect meeting in ten."
Eve raised her eyebrows. "Again already? You had one after our last Ancient Runes class too."
"Yeah, we have one about three or four times a week now." Logan's eyes glimmered. "I can't say specifically what, but we're planning something exciting for the school. A new event."
Eve perked up. "What event?"
He shrugged nonchalantly. "You'll see in a few weeks. It'll be fun."
"Hey—"
"I'm off!"
"You can't just—"
"Bye!"
Eve watched in defeat as Logan turned the corner, his laughter distantly echoing in the corridor as he disappeared from view.
"Bugger," she murmured. She really was genuinely curious about what event he was referring to—after the Start-of-Term Feast at the beginning of the year in her time, she didn't recall any other school-wide events happening up until the Halloween Feast.
She spun back towards Grace, and—
"Erm—why are you smiling so big?"
Grace's smirk only widened at Eve's question, and she let out a loud giggle like she couldn't stop herself. "You can't tell?"
Eve frowned in confusion. "Can't tell what?"
"Duh! Logan's into you!"
"W-what?"
"He was practically pressing himself into you in class!" Grace clicked her tongue playfully, waggishly nudging Eve. "Shameless, really—I was right in front of you guys!"
"Wait—you mean when he helped me with the rune for sun?" Eve furrowed her eyebrows. "He was just being nice. Didn't he help you too?"
Grace shooed her words away vehemently. "Yeah, but he wasn't leaning towards me like he wanted to fuse together!" She grinned teasingly. "And ooh—that flirty banter just now even made me blush!"
Eve made a face, looking at the black-haired girl like she was crazy. "There was absolutely zero 'flirty banter' just now."
Grace only shook her head, smiling knowingly at Eve for a moment like she was dense, before changing the subject. "What are you going to do now?"
Eve shrugged, hoisting her book bag over her shoulder half-heartedly. It was becoming heavier by the day with school books and assignments, and although she knew she probably needed to force herself to get ahead on them, she really hadn't been in the study grind mindset recently. There was only so much energy she could feed towards her personal desire for academic validation in 1944 before the name Riddle directed it elsewhere. "Probably make myself study and do homework."
Any mindless activity, really, to keep her occupied before she had to inevitably face Riddle at lunch later.
Grace winced. "Sounds boring." She pulled out a set of leather Quidditch gloves from her robe pockets. "I'm gonna go practice some flying on the pitch. The weather's not ideal, but it's been pretty crowded recently with tryouts being so soon, so I gotta take advantage of an empty pitch." She snapped the gloves on, eyeing Eve with interest. "Do you play Quidditch?"
Eve shook her head. "Not as an actual extracurricular, but I like flying." She paused, flashes of loud shouts and speeding brooms in the backyard of the Burrow during fleeting summers darting across her mind. She quickly cast them away. "I had a lot of friends who liked Quidditch and played seriously, though, so I played with them for fun sometimes."
Grace perked up and rounded on her, an excited expression on her pale face. "That's something! You wanna come watch me practice on the pitch?" she offered excitedly, before hastily adding, "If you don't have anything else to do, that is. You said you were gonna go study, but you didn't sound too enthusiastic, so. . . ."
Eve was already nodding vigorously before Grace had finished her sentence. She didn't need to be asked twice.
"I'd love to."
—
She sat on the middle row of one of the stands at the Quidditch pitch.
The weather outside—as Grace had mentioned earlier—was extra gloomy. The temperature was chillier than usual September weather, as any bit of sunlight in the sky was suffocated, unable to penetrate through the shield of gray clouds above. Although it wasn't raining, the possibility of a coming drizzle couldn't be ruled out based on the darkness and overall gloominess overhead that only seemed to increase by the second.
Eve actually didn't mind this type of weather. She knew people who absolutely hated it, like Ron (who would constantly complain about the 'bout of laziness' hitting him whenever there was a lack of sunlight outside), but she honestly found it kind of nice to just sit outside and let the fresh, crisp air of a cloudy day wash over her like a wave.
Even now, as Eve watched Grace zoom around the pitch above her, her distant figure blurring as she whacked a practice Bludger across the field with her Beater's bat, she found that she currently felt the most alert she'd felt since getting transported to this time.
Sure, she'd certainly been alert when memory-Dumbledore began speaking to her, or when she'd realized that she'd somehow time-traveled, or when future Voldemort had cornered her in the alcove, but that had all been moments of adrenaline-fueled alertness, moments in which Eve's heart had been beating rapidly, and she'd felt like someone had yanked the floor out from right beneath her feet.
The alertness she was experiencing right now was more of a tranquil sort, like she'd woken up from a very nice rest. Maybe it was the ability that her current setting gave her to finally have a moment of calmness to herself, to just relax and bask in the nature and quietness around her.
Eve could admit that, sometimes, her mood did depend on the weather. The perpetual haze and exhaustion in the back of her brain from everything stressful seemed to recede, and she felt slightly more clear-headed, as if the slight breeze in the air had carried some of her constant worries away.
Weather might be the most magical thing of all, she mused, looking up at the cloudy sky and thinking that this had been quite a nice reprieve from everything.
—
Alas, nothing lasted forever.
After Eve and Grace had left the Quidditch pitch, they'd walked to the Great Hall and split up for lunch at their respective House tables. They'd been early, which meant that Eve at least had a few minutes to prepare herself before Riddle inevitably walked into the hall and infiltrated back into her blissful life again.
Currently, as she sat at the Slytherin table, Eve tried not to stare across the hall at the Gryffindor table, where she could distantly spot Grace laughing animatedly with a group of other students in red ties. She couldn't help herself from sneaking the occasional wistful glance over, though, remembering how that had been her just a week ago.
Sure, she'd settled into Slytherin well enough and had gotten to make friends here, but that didn't mean she didn't sometimes still yearn for the connection and familiarity of Gryffindor.
Eve observed the expanse of the table in front of her. No one else was here yet—a few sparse underclassmen were scattered further down, but they weren't anyone she knew.
She sighed, drumming her fingers on the table bench nervously. She could've stalled in a bathroom or a random corridor somewhere nearby until more people showed up to avoid sitting alone awkwardly, but—as with literally any other thought that seemed to cross her mind these days—she had to take Riddle into account, of course.
It was moreso a case of testing the waters. Eve was curious—her sole interaction with Riddle after the alcove had been at breakfast yesterday, where he'd been cold when she'd said hi, and now she wanted to see how he would act if he had to greet her first, just to make sure he'd really shed his act like she now thought.
So, she figured if she was already at the table, then the responsibility for a greeting would fall on Riddle's shoulders when he arrived.
"Hey, Eve!"
Eve jerked up, feeling her nervous anticipation retreat momentarily at the sight of Kate bouncing towards the table eagerly. Tailing her closely were Sophie, Abraxas, and Alphard, and Eve felt relief when she looked around and abruptly realized that the Great Hall had steadily filled out in the past few minutes without her noticing.
"Why did I just see Avery jump out from behind the stairwell in the Entrance Hall and start chasing the Bloody Baron around?" asked Kate inquisitively, sliding onto the bench next to Eve.
Eve remembered Avery's look of determination after their little spying mission on the Baron a few days ago and groaned. "Oh no."
"Why did I just see the Bloody Baron chasing Avery around in the Entrance Hall?" asked Alphard conversationally, reaching the table a moment later and taking a seat along with Abraxas and Sophie.
"I didn't even know that ghosts could glide that fast," observed Sophie, shrugging her robes off and setting her book-bag down on the floor.
"I didn't even know Avery could run that fast."
"Um—" Eve didn't know what to say. "It's a long story."
"You know what isn't gonna be a long story?" Abraxas growled suddenly, a sour look on his face as he slammed his hands onto the table. "Urquhart's life if he keeps fucking off and refusing to practice for Quidditch tryouts next week because he's lazy." He turned his head, glowering at someone sitting at some point further down the table.
"Who's Urquhart?" Eve whispered, leaning towards Kate.
Kate rolled her eyes. "That's Anthony." She jerked her head towards a brown-haired boy sitting a few people away from them that Eve had seen around the Common Room a few times. "He's another seventh-year who's been a Chaser on the Slytherin Quidditch team with Abraxas since second year. I don't know if you've talked to him yet, but he's in some of our classes, so you've probably seen him around anyway."
Eve frowned. "Oh. Well—why does Abraxas want him to get on the team so bad? Isn't he technically competition?"
Kate hummed. "Well, technically yes, but Abraxas and Anthony made an Unbreakable Vow with each other in second year to always play on the Slytherin team together until they graduated."
"What?!"
"Yeah. They're close family friends, so when they found out they both made the team, I guess they got really motivated or something." Kate shrugged. "What can I say—Abraxas was pretty dumb as a second-year."
"That's—that's insane!" Eve spluttered. Suddenly, Abraxas's earlier words regarding Urquhart's life were taking a much more literal meaning in her head now. "Wasn't Abraxas talking before about his dad threatening to pull him off the team if his grades didn't get better? If he got on the team and that happened, he'd die!"
"He would," said Kate matter-of-factly. "But his parents obviously don't know about the Vow. If they found out their son made such a stupid mistake, they'd disown him." At the expression of disbelief that was only accelerating faster by the second across Eve's face, she exhaled softly. "Don't worry, Eve—they'll both be fine. We were obviously all really concerned at first too—I remember Alphard actually raised his voice to berate Abraxas. But Abraxas and Anthony are both—" and here Kate sounded like she was forcing the words out "—really good at Quidditch. They've already made it the past six years, haven't they?" She made a face. "Eurgh, I can't believe I just complimented Abraxas."
Before Eve could even finish processing all the crazy information that'd just been launched at her, she jerked, feeling the weight of the bench to her left shift downwards.
She turned and met the eyes of a disappointed-looking, disheveled Avery.
"He threatened to set Peeves on me," he said sadly, clearly referencing the Bloody Baron.
Eve didn't know whether to laugh or be concerned. For the record, Avery looked genuinely disappointed in himself for failing to scare the Baron, with his head hung low and a small frown pasted on his usually-grinning face.
She settled with hesitantly patting his shoulder. "So—you're actually trying to scare the Bloody Baron? After I'd wondered to you if he'd ever been scared before when we followed him around?"
"Yes!" A spark of determination flared in Avery's eyes. "I'm going to go down in Hogwarts history as the only one who's ever been capable of scaring the Baron!" He turned his excited gaze onto Eve. "Whatcha think, Laurie?"
"Er—I think it's very, um—ambitious."
As Avery puffed his chest out proudly, Rosier appeared behind him, making eye contact with Eve over Avery's head knowingly and shaking his head. On the other side of the table, having arrived together, Mulciber, Nott, and Lestrange all took their seats, expressions subdued as they conversed in low tones amongst each other.
Eve knew that it'd only be moments before their ringleader arrived.
Sure enough, the moment she'd been holding her breath for finally came when black flooded Eve's peripheral vision, and she looked up to see Riddle taking a seat across the table from her. He had his book bag slung over one shoulder, and Eve could see the tip of his bone-white wand sticking out from the top.
Despite her hammering heart and instinct to get up and run as far away as possible, Eve forced herself to stay still. She kept her stare trained on Riddle's face, as if forcibly willing him to look at her.
Sure enough, after a few painful seconds of unbreakable eye contact between Eve and the side of Riddle's face, he turned. Their gazes connected, and Eve felt every nerve of discipline in her body light on fire with the effort it took for her to maintain eye contact.
Riddle tilted his head forward, an impassive expression on his face. "Laurence."
"Riddle," Eve returned in the most casual voice she could muster. She waited in a few seconds of silent trepidation, as if daring him to say something, before watching him turn away and begin talking to Lestrange.
That's it, huh?
The indifferent greeting from Tom bloody Riddle was enough to make Eve's entire body shiver, but it also confirmed that yeah, Operation Riddle really was a flop, and it was show-time for her new plan of approach.
But seconds passed, and then minutes, and then tens of minutes, until Eve felt her determination melt into uncertainty as the entirety of lunch passed without a single ounce of projected interest or attention from Riddle towards her.
She kept waiting, poking at random bits of food on her plate and participating in side conversations occasionally solely for the sake of saying something, but nothing—Riddle didn't look at or address Eve a single time, and she felt as though there was a steady stream of sand leaking out from an hourglass he was figuratively holding over her head.
Was this a part of his ploy to get her to confess to his suspicions, or something? Abandon all conveyed interest after threatening her and then wait for her eventual paranoia to make her come to him?
Right. As if she'd do that.
But uneasiness was penetrating through the cracks of her armor now, leaking through the gaps and piling up with the sand of Riddle's hourglass.
To build on Tom Riddle's suspicions and interest, to indulge in his thirst for knowledge and lead him on a chase. . . .
How long could she lead him on that so-called chase?
She needed to figure out the exact logistics of everything. Yes, she knew that the only way to open up other opportunity for her to be able to continuously talk to him and be near him outside of just classes and mealtimes in order to to get a swipe at his precious Horcruxes was to offer him something he didn't have and that he wanted—hence building up his desire for knowledge by nurturing his suspicions—but what?
Eve's newfound worries didn't dissipate in Charms, where Professor Orford had them practice the Ascension Charm in pairs before demonstrating it in the center of the classroom for the rest of the class to see.
When it was Eve's turn to demonstrate it with Sophie, she was acutely aware of Riddle's eyes on her from the corner of the room. For once, they didn't seem extra assessing, but he seemed to be observing her casting like any other classmate.
It bothered her.
Was she already losing her opening with him? Not only had he dropped his nice boy act with her, but he'd seemed to drop any interactions with her altogether, which—while in normal circumstances would've been the most relieving and joy-bringing outcome known to man for Eve—was concerning given her current goals with him.
She didn't doubt that, like she'd thought earlier, he was waiting for her to approach him first, to offer something of value to his threats, to confess to suspicions—but how long would he wait before he inevitably got frustrated, and the alcove situation would be repeated, or he did something worse to quench his thirst for information?
Riddle wouldn't be on the other end of the hook forever if all she was going to do was mysteriously keep her mouth shut. She needed something tangible she could offer him, something that appealed to his interest and suspicions but didn't diffuse them, instead building them up into something she could then take advantage of.
She needed to think fast, to come up with something final that was desirable to him and that she could offer him to cement her plan into action. Riddle was like a snake—smooth and fast; she needed to keep dangling tempting bait in front of him or else he was going to slither out of her grasp.
She needed to reel him in, and she needed to do it now.
Eve wanted to rip her hair out. How was she supposed to come up with something she could feed Riddle that would continuously draw his attention and keep him on his toes, all while keeping herself and her own cover safe?
As she verbalized the spell for the Ascension Charm and sent Sophie rising a good ten feet into the air above her in the classroom, she couldn't help but internally lament at the unfortunate dealings of her predicament.
Why couldn't she be dealing with a less enigmatic villain? A more readable individual? How come, out of all the evil and moody teenagers out there, Tom Riddle had to be the one for her to decipher and defeat?
Eve gritted her teeth, keeping her wand trained upwards as she heard Orford exclaim something about "wonderful casting!" distantly.
The random thought that Sophie—who was now twisting around in midair gleefully, suspended by Eve's Ascension Charm—looked like a floating crystal ball above her infiltrated her mind, passing quickly as with all intrusive thoughts, but the sudden thought that followed immediately after was so jarring and stupid and so brilliantly perfect that she nearly lost her concentration in holding her spell.
Eve suddenly felt like laughing.
—
"Riddle!"
Ahead of Eve, in the corridor adjacent to the History of Magic classroom, the figure of Tom Riddle paused. She watched his back as he stood still for a moment before slowly turning around, an eyebrow raised on his carved, handsome face.
He regarded her with a noncommittal expression on his face, dark eyes piercing even with the distance. "Is there something I can help you with?"
Eve fixed him with a steady stare, ignoring the rapid beating of her heart at what she was about to try.
"We need to talk."