Chapter Text
Luca sits on her bed in her dorm, still worried about Severus. It had been a few days since the incident and Severus had stopped talking to the girl, most likely ashamed that his peers had seen him getting help from a Gryffindor. He had avoided Luca and told her to leave him alone and she respected his wishes, even if it had upset her and she blamed James and Sirius for it. Luca had stopped talking to the two boys out of spite, and because they hadn’t apologised for humiliating Sev.
“Come on, Luca. It was just a little joke. He knows it too.” Sirius whined, spotting the girl and she descended from her dorm room. He immediately fell into step with the girl, walking next to her and trying to make her acknowledge him.
Luca huffed and turned her head in the opposite direction, avoiding looking at the boy beside her.
“Lucaaaaaaa~” he sang her name, trying to annoy her so she could at least snap at him. He started poking at her sides, waiting between each one to see how she would react, if she would react.
And react she did.
Luca lunged at Sirius in the middle of the corridor, causing the two to roll around and wrestle on the ground. Luca struggled for a while until she felt Sirius tickle her which caused her to burst out laughing.
“S-stop!” She laughed, trying to pry Sirius’ hands off of the sides of her body. “Siri! I-I’m not —wheeze— jok-joking!” She had tears prodding out of her eyes.
“Not until you say you’ll talk to me again..” he had a wicked grin on his face, ignoring the looks he received from other students walking past them. “Will you forgive me, Lu?”
“F-fine!! Si- you w-win!!” She let out little giggles as he tickled her softly, compared to his vicious attack from earlier. Her giggles slowed into hearty laughs as Sirius helped her get up, and they moved to a less crowded area.
The two walked closely together and spoke no words until Luca broke their comfortable silence. “Sirius, I know I forgave you, but please…” she slowed their pace and turned to him.
“Please apologise o-or promise you won’t do it again. I promise Sev isn’t as bad as he seems. You guys probably started on the wrong foot, but if you apologise I swear it’ll make everything better.” Luca looked into Sirius’ eyes earnestly, hoping he would listen to her.
“Luca, listen. Sniv- Snape isn’t a good person. It might seem that way to you but he’s part of the death eaters. I mean look at his friends! None of them are good people— why is he the exception? I’ll say sorry to you, for hurting your feelings but I won’t ever apologise to him until he changes.” Sirius looked like he was fuming, and Luca realised that they would never make up, and that she probably caused more problems then solved them.
“W-well, Siri-“ Sirius cut her off.
“I’m going back to the common room.” He looked mad, and walked away, leaving Luca alone in the corridor.
Luca sighed. She didn’t mean to make Sirius mad or anything but she did, and she needed to figure out how to make him forgive her this time. She didn’t even know what she did to make him angry but knew that she had to fix it.
She walked to the library, the place she needed to go before Sirius had followed her and… yeah. Luca decided to definitely ignore what happened before Sirius got upset. Her face heated up in embarrassment as she thought about it. She can’t believe she pounced on Sirius in the middle of the corridor, nor can she believe that he tickled her in front of…everyone. Yep. Luca decided that he was definitely going to die, and on her hedge stone, that will be the cause of death.
When she made it to the Library, she greeted the librarian, who in turn gave her a small smile and shushed her, pointing to the sign of rules. Luca nodded and sent a small smile back and went to explore. It wasn’t her first time in the library, but it was her first time without her homework or anything to do. She wanted to do some research on a topic for charms, yes, but out of curiosity. Not for school.
She walked around for a while, not completely sure where the book she wanted was. Luca wanted to learn how to bewitch a charm and the bewitchment to be untraceable. She didn’t know why she wanted to find a book like that but she had a dream the night before, and it seems really important.
She wanted to start off small and bewitch pencils and other materials and to ask Remus or Lilly, and maybe even the charms professor if they could tell that the objects had been charmed.
She climbed up the library ladder and searched through a few books before she found what she was looking for. When she got back on the ground, she looked around for a table that she could sit at, without being disturbed by her peers.
As she was walking around and clutching the book in one hand, she was looking for the place where the library provided free parchment paper and quills, seeing as she left hers in her trunk in her room.
Her eyes travelled around as she walked in no particular direction, hoping that she would find it soon. Luca spotted it a few minutes later and made a beeline for it. She took one parchment and quill and looked around once more, scouting for a comfortable seat.
She found a table that had one senior sitting alone, surrounded by a mountain of books. Luca huffed a bit and swallowed her pride. She was going to sit at that table and be happy because she decided that she didn’t want to interact with anyone that she knew would distract her from her book. What better thing to do than sit next to an extremely unapproachable and intimidating Slytherin?
Her anxiety spiked as she got closer to the table, the walk there seeming to stretch on forever. It was just her anxiety but her nerves. Everything in her was telling her not to approach him. To run away and not come back. To save herself.
Luca swallowed the lump in her throat and kept on walking, not knowing why her body was reacting like that. She chose to ignore it, even though she couldn’t stop the shake in her legs and her breath from hitching now and again. To ease her discomfort when she had made it to the long console table, she sat 3 seats away from him, she didn’t feel better but the distance she put between her and the boy seemed to calm her down a teeny bit.
She didn’t look in the senior’s direction, avoiding all eye contact. She was determined to focus on the book in front of her and write down the notes she came to the library for. She needed to focus and not think about the boy that was a few meters away from her.
Luca managed to successfully focus on her book for about 26 minutes and read about 12 pages (stopping every few minutes to take down notes and really understand the mechanisms behind the charm) before the boy spoke up.
“You don’t have to be so tense. I promise I won’t bite.” His voice was silky and smooth, but felt like it was stabbing her insides. It hurt her to hear his voice, and she didn’t know why.
His sudden acknowledgment of her made Luca slam her book shut and jump in her seat. She acted like she had gotten caught doing something wrong (she knew what she was doing was perfectly normal, so why did she feel the need to hide when he spoke to her?).
“I… I’m not tense. J-just trying to figure out this book. It’s…hard to understand..?” Luca tried making up an excuse. Why was she so tense? She hoped she didn’t sound as confused as she felt.
She didn’t want to keep talking to the boy. She didn’t even look at him, keeping her eyes trained in front of her while slightly tilting her head in his direction.
“Come on. You won’t even look at me. Do you really think I’m that scary?” His voice had a very playful undertone which made Luca nauseous.
She slowly turned her head to look at the boy in front of her. It was Tom.
“Oh. You’re the girl from the train. I’ve wondered how you’ve been. You seemed scared on the train, and it looks like the first year nerves haven’t worn off yet. You still seem so jumpy.” His full attention was now on Luca, taking in the young girl’s appearance. She had hazel eyes and black hair that had neatly been placed behind an Alice band but her hair seemed to have been brushed in a hurry. It looked like quite a mess.
Luca felt exposed. Tom (she remembered his name because it left a bad taste in her mouth), had clearly been looking and judging her as he spoke. She felt uncomfortable as there was nothing she could do about it.
“Oh Merlin, yes. S-sorry for bumping into you again..” she looked at him but couldn’t hold eye contact. It felt wrong. Speaking to him felt wrong but she didn’t want to be rude. She couldn’t be rude. He was much older, and Merlin knew how he would treat her, especially because he was in Slytherin and she in Gryffindor.
“I didn’t catch your name before. You ran off in such a hurry. I was quite stunned.” He sent a small smile her way, knowing that he was probably making her uncomfortable.
“It’s.. it’s Luca. Luca Potter.” She said as confidently as her body would at that moment. Luca was extremely proud of her heritage which definitely aided her.
“I didn’t introduce myself properly earlier. I’m Tom Riddle. Nice to meet you, Luca.” His smile this time was sweet. Sweet but extremely unnerving to her.
“Yeah, uhm. Nice to meet you Tom. Sorry if I distracted you from your work. You can go back to it now.” Luca didn’t know why she was apologising, but she definitely wanted to stop talking to him. He was making her very, very uncomfortable.
“Oh. It’s no worries. I’m the one who started speaking to you in the first place. You said you were having trouble understanding that book. You wouldn’t mind if I helped you, would you?” He looked at Luca, and she couldn’t identify the emotion or look he had on his face. It was welcoming but felt like she would regret it.
Luca wanted to decline the offer, she really did. She just didn’t know how to do so without making an enemy of Slytherin. If she said no, he might see it as she doesn’t trust him because he’s in Slytherin which would cause all the problems she is trying to avoid. And it’s not like Luca could explain why she felt so…iffy around him.
“I’m.. okay. You can help me…but I’m honestly not that far…” she knew she sounded very unsure, and hoped that he would be able to tell and leave her alone.
“That’s no problem. I’ve finished most of the research I came here for and dinner isn’t until—“ he looked at the clock that was hanging on the wall “-a few hours. We have 3 hours to work on this.” He smiled again, luring Luca further in.
She looked at the clock and cursed it. She needed an excuse to cut their time short, and fast.
“Tom, I actually have something to do before dinner. I’m meeting up with my dorm mates an hour before dinner.” Luca prayed the excuse would work. She needed it to.
“That’s no problem. How about we schedule another time? Later in the week perhaps? That way you could read through the book more and write down any questions you may have.”
Luca groaned internally. Tom was persistent and she knew she wouldn’t be able to get rid of him. She’s glad that she managed to delay and shorten the time she spent with him.
“I’m okay with that. I’m free after school on Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays.” She prayed that he was busy on those days.
“That is perfect. My schedule is pretty much the same. I’m glad we won’t have to make any big compromises.” He let out a hearty chuckle and Luca squirmed in her seat. Just great.
Luca just smiled and nodded at him, not completely trusting herself to not say anything crude at that moment.
“Would you like me to look at your notes so far? What are you actually working on?” The questions kept on coming, and Luca knew she had to sit through and answer all of them.
….
When the two hours had passed, she had excused herself, reusing the lie she had told him and left in a rush. She checked the book out and then ran to her dorm.
Luca dropped her stuff off on her bed and sprinted to their joint bathroom, flinging the door open and immediately stuck her head in the toilet. She dry heaved for what felt like forever. Tears falling down on her face and her stomach cramping.
Luca felt disgusting. She hated how Tom made her feel, and she didn’t want to spend anymore time with him. She pulled her head out of the toilet and rested it in her arms. She didn’t know why she needed to cry, and tried to stop herself from crying.
All he did was speak to her and help her, yet Luca couldn’t feel more creeped out and scared of him. She wiped her tears and stood up, slipping a bit because of the numbness in her legs. She didn’t know how long she had spent dry heaving over the toilet and didn’t want to know.
Luca stripped herself of her house robes and turned the faucet of the hot water on. She let it heat up for a while before stepping under the extremely hot water. It didn’t make her feel better in the slightest, but she felt like she deserved it because of what she had just done.
In the shower, she felt a sense of DejaVu and shivered. Everything felt so strange, and Luca thought back to the dreams (read: nightmares) she had been having and how weird they were. How real they felt and Luca wondered if they were real. Maybe she was a seer and could see the future.
She shook those thoughts out of her head and audibly laughed. Luca was just trying to make herself feel better and it was certainly working.
Luca stopped the shower once her skin was raw and extremely sensitive.
“Accio towel, lotion and nightly robes.” She called her clothes and nightly necessities. It was very hard lathering the lotion over her body because her skin hurt, but Luca pushed through and ignored it. She put on her robes once she had finished and walked out of the bathroom.
She looked at the time and noticed that it was some time into dinner and didn’t want to go down. It made her sick to think of Tom or be around him. And she felt like if she ate anything, she wouldn’t just dry heave but empty her stomach.
Luca decided to sit on her bed. She didn’t know what she wanted to do yet, but she needed to figure out why she reacted so violently to Tom’s presence.
Luca took out a small book that she hadn’t written in since before she came to Hogwarts, her diary. She decided that she would write down whatever she could remember from the first to dreams (read: nightmares) that she had.
Luca didn’t remember falling asleep, but felt someone tucking her into bed and turning off her bedside light, and she couldn’t be more grateful to them. She really needed a peaceful night of sleep.