A/N: I felt bad for the long wait, so I wrote an extra long chapter! Hope you like it :) Comment lots if you do ❤️
The silence, heavy enough to sink a ship and drown all aboard, echoed down the halls so loudly that he was sure everyone in Hogwarts could hear the noiseless sound, the soundless noise. It erased nearly every thought in his head, every word from the tip of his tongue, every scheme and every plan, every idea that he'd ever concocted at late hours by candlelight. His mind was a blank page staring up at him, taunting him, teasing him. It dared him to fill it from margin to margin with words, meaningless dialogue, his shrewd perceptions of the world around him. But still, he stood, frozen.
The seconds crept by in agonising slowness like some grotesque, infinite funeral march. He was hyperaware of every bead of sweat that gathered on his brow, of the slight clamminess to his hands, even of the minuscule threads that made up his socks and enveloped his now-curling toes. Every sense was sent into overdrive, hypertension, haywire with alert and awaiting even the smallest offset to implode entirely.
The thought crossed his mind after precisely six and a half seconds of this foreign torture that perhaps she was a sadist, intent on dealing blows to his very being, unsatisfied until he would crumble into a million pieces and wear away with the sands of time, forever forgotten. With every breath he drew, the possibility became more and more real. Maybe she really was so cold-blooded and cruel; maybe she was intent on his destruction, on ending everything he had ever worked for, everything he had dreamed of.
But there was a light to her eyes, a slight tenderness, that registered in his brain as evidence against his mind's ceaseless working to conjure up answers to unknown questions, explanations for the unexplainable. Her gaze made him feel nothing, yet it sent his mind scrambling for answers. Her gaze was neither cold nor warm when directed at him, but somewhere in the middle -- it was territory upon which he could expand upon by taking her under his wing, by using this moment to make her understand.
Still, the air between them remained unbroken, whispering entire monologues left unspoken. The rush left his heart pounding in his ears, air torn from his lungs -- but one never would have been able to decipher his anguish and how it burned like a fire, how it consumed him entirely, from how tall he stood, his face impassive and emotionless, caging the new sensations that spread throughout his body like plague, holding them captive out of innate fear and stubborn resentment.
"Well?"
All at once, everything snapped into place, so suddenly that it almost gave him whiplash. The world spun back into focus, and the shadows returned from their slumber, lazily draping themselves across the moon-painted corridor, her face, his hands. Everything was normal, and all from one syllable.
"If you don't have anything to say, then I'd best be going," said the distant voice, its tone slowly shaping a single, haphazard thought in his brain.
Tom cleared his throat, taking a step forward with hands clasped carefully behind his back, chin raised with an air of haughtiness befit a prince. He couldn't let her go anywhere, not now. "Do you want to talk?"
He caught sight of her, half-illuminated by the pale moon, and nearly staggered, coming to a halting stop. Their gazes met for a brief second, lingering on each others' surprised faces, wide eyes, parted lips.
She bit her lip, casting her eyes down, towards the stone floor. "I think I'd rather have some time to myself right now, if you don't mind, but thank you."
"No," Tom insisted sharply, fighting back the tugging sensation at the corners of his lips. He suddenly understood why Nikolai enjoyed annoying her so much. "I do mind."
Arabella raised her eyes back to his face, but all the gentleness from them was gone, replaced with a cold hardness like ice. "And who gave you the right to mind?"
To her bemusement, he let out a boisterous laugh, loud enough to wake the entire castle.
"Why, my dear Arabella," he said softly, taking a step closer to her and offering her a small half-smile, thoroughly enjoying her narrowed eyes, her set jaw. "You did."
He didn't allow her any time to respond, taking her gently by the elbow and directing her towards a narrow corridor. "After you."
"If you think that I'm going anywhere with you," said Arabella indignantly, "then you are mistaken."
"Then you will find that my being mistaken is quite right," Tom replied smoothly, urging her forward.
She struggled in his grip, which was strong as iron, although inexplicably light. "Get your hands off of me," she growled, prying at his long fingers, but to no avail. "For Merlin's sake, let go!"
He flashed a quick, rare smile at her, which shone bright as the sun before disappearing into the darkness of the unlit, unused hallway through which they travelled. "I have something to show you, something you've never seen before, so I wouldn't fight if I were you." Then he leaned in, and she could feel his breath on her ear-- "It's worth it."
Arabella scowled, but begrudgingly, she allowed him to guide her without resistance.
They walked in silence for the span of a few minutes, with Arabella's mind filled with strategies of escape, and Tom's with nothing but the glory of satisfaction.
Suddenly, Arabella pierced through the still. "How can you ensure that I've never seen this -- whatever 'this' may be -- before?"
Tom turned his head to face the wall opposite her so that his small, secret smile would be concealed from her searching eyes. "I have my ways, I have my means. You just have to trust me."
Irritated, she let out a sigh. "That seems to be the way everything goes with you."
"Maybe it's time for you to accept that," he muttered under his breath.
"Pardon?"
"Must have been a ghost," said Tom confidently, taking a sharp turn to the right, a purposeful detour.
The way Arabella's eyebrows were knitted together told him that she didn't believe him, but she answered with a terse, "Okay."
A few more minutes passed by, until the pair found themselves situated at the foot of a flight of stairs concealed behind the statue of a three-horned goat, the very door from which they had quarrelled in front of not even a quarter of an hour before in plain view.
Arabella's heart stopped in her chest. She reached out an arm, wildly, in the direction of the wall nearest to her, latching onto it as if her very life depended upon it. The floor beneath her feet seemed to give way, allowing the ground seven stories below to swallow her and the memories that now tormented her mind whole. She could feel his lips ghost against her own, then press against them firmly and --
Nothing.
Tom reacted faster than lightning, kneeling to the floor and reaching down to place his hands on her slender shoulders in a gesture of what he hoped was comfort. Without any impetus at all, she collapsed in his arms, sending him into a state of mild shock. This was unaccounted for, and he wasn't quite sure of how to respond, so he just let her rest her head on his chest, her own rising and falling rapidly, as if she had just run uphill.
Awkwardly, Tom lowered his hands from their place on her shoulders to repositioning themselves lightly on her back. His movements were stilted and so opposite from his usual fluid, confident motions. This was, in part, due to the fact that although everything was so far going accordingly to plan, he held an unshakeable feeling that something -- he couldn't imagine what, despite being on constant vigilance -- would happen.
He let her recover from her episode brought on by the three-horned goat for a few moments before breaking the silence. "Are you all right?"
She stirred in his stiff embrace, raising her head until she could study his face for signs of anything, any trace of emotion whatsoever. He knew. He knew about it, that terrible day, but she couldn't prove it from his carefully composed features, his eyes widened with concern and the worry lines etched into his brow so masterfully. She had no evidence, but she had something crucial that she had lacked before: clarity.
"Do I look all right?" she snarled, pushing him away from her and rising unsteadily to her feet. Ignoring his hurtful expression (which she judged, again, to be artificial), she wanted to continue on. If he wanted to play a game with her, she was more than willing. She would act as her own pawn, send him messages that she normally wouldn't dare to have him receive. If he wanted to manipulate her into his grasp, then she would out-manipulate him, outsmart him at every turn. She would let him ensnare her, only to emerge free and more defiant than ever --
"You seem. . . . oddly relieved," said Tom cryptically, interrupting her thoughts.
"It's because I've seen this place before," Arabella replied, swallowing back the tremble to her voice, willing herself to be strong, to be forged of iron and steel, not cast of glass. "I trusted you, like you told me to, and you lied to me."
To her irritation, a slow smile appeared on his face. Before she had found his smiles, although rare, charming and brilliant; now, they sickened her to her very core. "We have not yet reached our destination, Arabella."
She fought back the urge to let out a cry of despair, instead forcing a tight-lipped smile at his expense. "Naturally."
"Naturally," he agreed pleasantly, offering her his arm for the taking. "Shall we?"
"Have I another option?" she muttered, her skin crawling as it came into contact with his once he had clear control over her.
"No," said Tom after pretending to ponder for a moment. "Not particularly."
He led her in the opposite direction this time, winding down a series of corridors that she had truly never explored before, only stopping once to listen to the silence that filled the castle. Just as quickly as they had paused, they set off once again at a brisk pace designed to keep Arabella from memorising the constant twists and turns they encountered, even though it was so dark that she wouldn't have been able to see them even if she tried.
"Here we are," Tom announced finally, stopping before a battered, ancient door with light seeping through its many cracks.
"And just where might 'here' be?" Arabella inquired, wary of whatever lay beyond the seemingly innocent door.
"If I told you," the dark-haired boy answered, "it would ruin the fun of it all, wouldn't it? They're called secrets for a reason, Arabella."
She opened her mouth to shoot off a snarky reply, but was cut off by a sudden eruption within the room.
"She mustn't ever know!" a voice roared, filled with such intense fury that frightened her so much that she resorted to clinging onto Tom. "If you want her to trust you, she mustn't ever know!"
The second voice that replied was kept low, and it was far enough that she could just barely discern the speaker's words, much less to whom they belonged. "I've been doing my best--"
"And when has your best ever been enough, boy?" the first voice spat, an Eastern accent from the marshes made detectable. "You're just like your mother: all talk, no delivery! And thank Merlin that you've got me to straighten you out, son, otherwise you'd be a right mess without any direction, you hear? Without me, you wouldn't even know your right from your bloody left!"
"Yes, Father," the second speaker replied meekly.
"So answer me this," said the father, his voice quieter but, if anything, even more threatening, "are you up to it?"
"Yes, Father," the son answered.
"Are you capable of your task?" The same unsettling, stern tone was used, making Arabella's blood flow cold in her veins.
"So be gone!" declared the father menacingly, "and don't come back 'til you've done what I ruddy told you to!"
"Y-yes, Father."
Quickly, Tom pulled Arabella into an enclave in the wall that might have been occupied by a suit of armour at some point in time but was now left bare, latching a hand over her mouth and motioning at her to keep silent. She nodded in earnest, and he raised a brow; her nodding grew more than vigorous, and he carefully removed his hand from her lips. He leaned in close to her ear and breathed the words, "Say nothing."
As the door they had stood before swung open, spilling golden light across the hall and just barely avoiding their hiding spot, the father's voice carried over from the room. "Keep Arabella Travers good company, m'boy, and everything else will fall into place. Do your part, and we'll all do ours, you hear? Now, off with you."
Before the two Prefects could catch a glimpse of whoever hurriedly exited the room, the door shut and only the sound of footsteps filled the halls.
Arabella began pacing back and forth, her mind reeling with her newest revelation. Tom let her be as he remained in the shadows, pondering to himself silently upon the success of his plan. Already, she had forgotten her doubt of him; her trust in him had returned like storm clouds on the horizon, inevitable and obscuring all else.
Eventually. she broke his train of thought. "Did you mean to bring me to hear this?"
Tom nodded. "I knew that if I'd simply told you, you wouldn't have believed me."
Arabella ran a hand through her hair in distress. Two things hung heavily in her mind: Tom and whatever had just happened in the room that Tom was so secretive about. She had a nagging feeling that he was somehow inexplicably involved, but the logical side of her questioned why he would reveal something to her that he was part of, if it would portray him in a negative light? So she dismissed the idea of Tom as a participant in whatever deeds that involved her and occurred behind closed doors, which left her at the simple question of just who it was behind that door, sitting before that fire, plotting around her existence so cryptically.
"Thank you, then," she finally said. "It's unlike you to be so. . . . considerate. . . . of my feelings."
Tom shrugged, as if this was something that happened regularly. "Don't thank me. I've just given you something to watch out for."
"Otherwise, I wouldn't have even known that it was coming," she pointed out. "So really, I must thank you."
He ignored her sentiments and intertwined his fingers with hers without warning, leading her back down the hallway in which they came. "It's late. We really ought to get some rest."
"But Tom--"
"Now is not the time to discuss this," he responded brusquely.
Arabella let him drag her to the opposite end of the seventh floor, only because it gave her time to reflect. His sudden mood change irked her, and she found herself longing for his cheerful disposition -- if it could even be referred to as such. Then, she scolded herself for wishing for him at all, and the cycle repeated itself many times until they drew nearer to the Fat Lady's corridor and he spoke again, upsetting the silence. "Don't tell anyone about what you heard, all right? We have to rule out all possibilities about who's behind this before we can act. Don't do anything stupid, don't be rash like your brother, don't--"
"Enough of your lecturing," she groaned, stopping them in the middle of the hallway. "You already teach most of the classes." He gave her an incredulous look. "What? It's true!" He opened his mouth to protest, but she was quicker to the punch. "Don't deny it! Remember your profile on Hungarian Horntails?"
Tom shook his head in disbelief, trying not to laugh as he searched for words. "It's. . . you're ridiculous, you know that? Impossible, even."
"Coming from you? That's rich," she laughed, smirking up at him, at the single dark curl that stood apart from the rest of his hair, at the fringe that was just barely pushed out of his line of vision, at his partly bewildered, partly amazed expression. Her smirk softened into a smile as her eyes lingered on his jaw. "You've got a. . . . a, uh, a bit of soot or something on your neck."
He looked down in effort to try to remove it, causing Arabella to laugh once again. "Here, let me get it for you."
She reached out and swept off the small grey mark left on the pale skin of his neck with the pad of her thumb. Tom swallowed, and she felt it -- not just that, but also how nervousness suddenly overwhelmed him.
"Tom Riddle," she began teasingly, drawing her hand back to her side, "are you nervous?"
"What?" he chuckled dryly, his shoulders visibly relaxing. "That's -- you're ridiculous."
"You're fond of that word tonight," Arabella commented, arching an eyebrow at him as she folded her arms across her chest, silently challenging him.
He heaved a sigh, raking a hand through his hair, making it more unkempt than she'd ever seen it. "Tonight's been a long one, hasn't it?"
"Mhmm," she hummed, considering him with her head tilted slightly to the side. "You can tell just by your hair that it has."
"Shut up."
"What? I like it," she said defensibly.
Tom raised his eyebrows, studying her in disbelief. "You really think so?"
Arabella nodded. "Yeah, I think it looks rather nice. You look less uptight."
He bit his lip, drawing her eyes to a place she swore she'd never look. "Well, thanks."
"I mean--"
"And you know what I think of you?" he said, his tone implying that it was more of a statement than a question.
"What?" Arabella asked, curious about his answer.
"You look beautiful," Tom responded almost coldly, turning suddenly on his heel and disappearing down a flight of stairs, leaving Arabella standing in the hallway with a thousand thoughts running through her head and her pulse in overdrive.
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....okay, that was a lot of stuff that went down! Now, we're getting to the ~fun~ part 😏 That, of course, means that I have more than a few questions for you guys!
Why do think Arabella lost her marbles when they were at the goat?
Who was behind the door?
What do you think they want to do to Arabella?
Why is Tom acting the way he is?
And last but not certainly not least....
Today's Question: What do you think will happen next?
Tbh I am so excited for what's coming up in the story! 😉
Have a lovely day and I'm terribly sorry for the length of this A/N!
-o