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The sullen stares were normal, an environment more natural between the two opposing Houses than otherwise. It was a belief you all had, that this was a joke, a little antic to amuse the professors: to force rivals to ‘socialise’ in merged classes of Slytherins and Gryffindors. Thanks to this, it was in Potions that you met the curious boy.
Tom Riddle was an intelligent student – perhaps, too intelligent. His intellect rather alarmed you at first, the fleeting intensity of his calculating gaze enough to discomfort you. And his preference for Slytherin purebloods was not unknown. Naturally, you and the other Gryffindor students avoided him; to the point where most of you dared not even look in his direction.
There were few who liked him. The ones to note were Professor Dumbledore – but he was a man who disliked, perhaps, no one – and the Potions professor, Slughorn. That was not surprising: the man tended to dabble in favouritism and was a Slytherin himself. So, when Tom was invited to the Slug Club, it was no surprise, everyone had been expecting it – it would have been shocking otherwise.
You wouldn’t have cared, until you got an invitation yourself. It sparked elation in you, in a moment all your hard-work and dedication had been paid off, all those nights studying worth it now that they were being noticed. But, then, for some reason, it faded. Classes were awkward enough when merged between Houses, now a club…? For a second, you considered declining. But no! You had worked so hard, there was no way you would throw this opportunity out for a seed of doubt.
The first meeting came, and you could barely breathe. Being the Head of Slytherin House, it was natural for Professor Slughorn to be close to the Slytherin students, and so there was a good amount of them in the Club. There was an enmity between Gryffindor and Slytherin that had bled into generations, passed down from family to family, to even now. At such close proximity to one another, you wondered if the palpable tension would soon lead to genuine trouble.
Therefore, you decided to keep your head down, and just listen.
It worked well. Any bickering went past you, glares were never directed at you, you learned a lot, and most of the students not in your House even came to appreciate you. You became content in your role as a quiet observer.
Until, one day, he observed you.
His voice was calm when he addressed you. The utterance of your name sent your heart into a flurry. Both startled and a little panicked, you jumped in your seat, and turned to face the familiar voice – only to realise that the face was even more familiar.
“The professor has asked me to determine whether you are alright or not.” His eyes seemed to dissect your soul. It was a gaze you could not hold for too long. “You barely speak, and when you do it is not in complete sentences. It’s been a few meetings already, and you have been quiet it them all. Is anything the matter?”
You cleared your throat. “No?”
Tom narrowed his eyes. You glanced up, and even in that fleeting moment when your gazes locked, you saw the whispers of his mind behind those eyes, thoughts flickering, always observing, always learning.
“Why,” there was a hint of curiosity in his voice, “do you answer if it were a question?”
You picked at your sleeve.
“You are not alright.” It was no longer a question, but his conclusion.
“No. I am.” You wanted him to leave. “I am, I’m fine.”
The other students were staring now, too, perplexed just as much as you were as to why Tom Riddle had approached you. Fellow Gryffindors began to whisper amongst each other, then, as if choosing who was best suited to rescue you, one of them came to your side.
“Is everything alright?” She placed a hand on your shoulder but levelled her gaze on Tom.
“Yes,” you replied, almost lamely.
Tom’s nonchalance seemed to irk the girl. “I was just asking [Y/N] the same.”
“Mmm.” She was a familiar enough face, a little older than you, friends with more Hufflepuffs, but sometimes you’d see her around the Common Room with her head buried in a book. For her to come to your rescue was the sweetest thing someone could ever do for you. She smiled down at you as she said, “Want to come sit with us, [Y/N]?”
For some unknown reason, you glanced towards Tom. He was watching you still. Your gaze lingered. “Thank you, really. But… I suppose I have a bit of a headache. I think I’d like to stay on my own for a little while. Just until it goes away.”
The girl pursed her lips, gave a reluctant nod. “Okay. But we’re right over there if you need us.”
She glared at Tom before turning, but called back to you again, “Come sit with us if you’re feeling better, [Y/N]. Anytime, okay?”
You started to regret not having gone with her already, but you weren’t really lying; you could feel the onset of a headache coming. You were picking at your sleeve again when Tom took a step forward.
“What should I tell Professor Slughorn?”
You startled. “I… don’t know. Tell him I’m okay, I guess.”
He tilted his head to the side. “But you have a headache.”
You shrugged. “I’ll be fine.”
A moment passed. He seemed to be hesitating, turning ever so slightly every few seconds, and although he was angling away his eyes remained on you. Leave, you kept thinking. Goodness, just leave.
“Very well, [Y/N].” At last, he turned. But, as he walked away, you noticed that he did not move towards Professor Slughorn, nor that the man was paying you any heed.
Odd, you thought.
Days passed. In potions, your determination to avoid Riddle’s gaze only heightened, but despite doing so, you began to notice his gaze was often focused in your direction.
“He’s staring again,” your friends would whisper to you. “Guard your soul, [Y/N]. He looks as if he’ll steal it from you.”
You hoped, rather than believed, that he was concentrating on something else, somebody else, anything else in your vicinity. You were scribbling on your parchment one day when curiosity got the better of you. You felt your head turn, eyes searching, until you found his table and, as your breath caught in your throat in anticipation, you discovered that yes, he was looking at you. But his face betrayed no emotion. He did not even seem to react as you stared right back at him. He just watched you – and in those eyes again you saw his mind working, thoughts a blur too fast to pin down. And it frightened you.
None of you knew what his head held, what thoughts and ideas dwelled in that cerebral mind of his – and, quite honestly, no one really wanted to know. Some things were better left as mysteries.
As you gathered your books at the end of class, Tom’s robes billowed as he rushed past. As he did, he laid a note at the top of your stack of books. To say you were shocked would be a gross understatement. Confusion sent your mind into chaos; you could not comprehend why he would leave you a note.
Your hands fumbled when you unfolded the note – there was only one way of finding out.
Meet me at the Black Lake after classes. – T.R.
Those words were all you thought about all day. A message so puzzling that you tried and tried and tried to piece it together, but the puzzle pieces were all in a disarray, and you were left as confused as ever the more you thought about it. Your friends grew suspicious when you quietened for too long, stared at your books for too long in thought (the note hidden in the pages of your Potions book), and those who sat with you in Potions were the most wary.
“Why did Tom Riddle give you a note?” one asked as you walked to your last class.
“Is he troubling you? You want us to tussle with him? Tell him to leave you be? ’Cause we will. Gladly.”
You found yourself lying. “It was nothing. Just information about the next Slug Club meeting.”
When your last class was over your mind became numb. You had thought and thought, and thought some more. Until your head could take no more. You had your theories, your suspicions, some wild, nightmarish fantasies in which Tom would drown you in the in the lake for fun. But none of them seemed right. You had no idea what he wanted to meet you for. It couldn’t be, you thought, that he fancied you. That would be ridiculous! Impossible, you were sure. You almost laughed out loud in the middle of class at the idea.
All you could assume was that it had something to do with the Slug Club.
I shouldn’t go. You concluded. He’s not my friend.
And yet, you found yourself at the Black Lake. The grim Scottish weather matched your own mind as your feet, trudging in the grass, carried you to where his figure sat near the water. A heavy book lay in his lap. His perfectly straight back was turned to you, and if it were not for the wind tousling his dark hair, you’d have thought he was a statue.
At your approaching footsteps, he turned to you. A statue’s face, you thought, as impassive as always – but his eyes were too sharp to not be alive.
Again, there was no change, no smile, not even a little pull of his facial muscles. He just observed you.
Stopping a few feet away, you watched him in return. “Hey,” you managed, but it was too soft and was swept away in the wind.
Tom’s gaze dropped to your hands, fumbling, twisting, a nervous trait he noticed sparked in his presence. With a slight tilt of his head, the rarest of things occurred in that moment, a sight you had never glimpsed in all the time you’d known him… Tom Riddle smiled.
“I’m not going to hurt you.” The tremor in your hands continued and he remained watching them. “I just wanted to talk to you. To have a conversation. A proper one.”
“Why?” Again, your voice trembled too much, no match for the wind. A little frustrated, you managed at last to call out, loud enough for him to hear, “I don’t understand. It’s no secret you’re not too fond of my House. You prefer Pureblood Slytherins. So why do you want to speak with me?”
His sharp eyes met yours – it felt as if you had been cut. “It doesn’t matter that you’re a Gryffindor. You… You fascinate me.” He set his book aside as he said, “You would be a perfect Slytherin.”
You almost choked, laughing out a “What?”
Tom stood, a motion too fluid, black robes billowing in the wind like a dark cloud around his form. He smiled again, “You’re ambitious. Cunning, but not so much that it would compromise your good heart. But still, cunning, enough to lie and evade your fellow Gryffindor student.”
“No. No, I did have a headache.”
“You convinced yourself that you had a headache. It was a pretence, but your guilt made it true after you lied.”
At your frown, he gave a low chuckle, “It’s fine, [Y/N]. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. Your ambition is an extension of your conscientious, of your zeal for knowledge, for success. It’s an aspiration to see your hard work, your outstanding grades, lead to a future you can be proud of. You underestimate yourself. Despite knowing of the more than likely tension that would arise in the Slug Club, you still accepted the invitation. Because your ambitious.” He regarded you with what seemed like appreciation for a fleeting moment. “Your diligence is respectable, [Y/N], not shameful.”
Dazed, you could only stare back at him. The whisper of the wind washed over the silence. You couldn’t understand him, no matter how hard you tried. It hurt your head to even attempt to.
“I’m still a Gryffindor,” you found yourself saying. “Even if I’d… make a perfect Slytherin…”
Tom Riddle shrugged. “As I said, it doesn’t matter.”
“So…” You pressed your lips together, narrowing your eyes at him in thought. Murmuring, you asked, “You want to be… friends?”
“Acquaintances,” he corrected. “Knowledge and learning are of great value to us both. How about we do our homework together, here, henceforth.”
No, you thought. No. Run away, [Y/N]. Run as far from him as you can.
And yet, you nodded.
Three weeks had passed. Stealing off after classes became more and more difficult as your friends started to notice. In the first week, you would make the vaguest of excuses, uncertain of what else you could come up with, which led them to assume you were secretly “seeing” someone. Incessant teasing began, and so did the dread – what would they say if they knew exactly who you were sneaking off to meet (though, their assumption of it being a tryst was hilariously wrong!). There was no doubt such a revelation wouldn’t end well.
Even now, though it had been weeks, you still felt uncomfortable around Tom. He had eased into your acquaintanceship much more naturally. The silence of your meetings seemed to be a comfort he enjoyed; though, to you, it was just a tad too on the awkward side.
You’d be bent over your books, nervously glancing around every so often to see if anyone was around, when sometimes you’d catch him smiling at you (no doubt amused by your wariness). He had started to sit closer to you; would get up and greet you when you approached, usually late and running out of breath as the task of evading your friends was getting harder; and sometimes laid his Potions book between you and suggested you work on homework together. He started out sitting three seats from your own at Slug Club; then two seats away at the next meeting; then one; until he was sitting by your side.
Gryffindors and Slytherins alike began to notice it: his quiet partiality to you.
Still, you didn’t quite know what you were to him… or, what he was to you. If the status of acquaintanceship was yet achieved, on your part at least, you didn’t know.
It wasn’t until after the recent Quidditch match that you found yourself being the first to trudge to the Black Lake. One of your friends was the Keeper and had been distressed when Gryffindor lost to Slytherin. The latter House’s mockeries had swelled, and so your friends had begun to return it all with bite. Tired of all the tensions, you had asked Tom if he’d meet you in the weekend to tackle the sudden swarm of homework Slughorn had swamped on his classes. For once, you were eager to study with Tom.
He hadn’t arrived yet when you sat down. Despite it being the weekend, you still had your Gryffindor scarf wrapped around your neck to protect your skin from the cold. You sat scratching away at your parchment with your quill when footsteps drew close. At first, you thought it was Tom. But, as they grew nearer, you realised, with each footfall, that there was more than just one person.
“Well, well.” An unfamiliar voice called, harsh in its coldness. “Look at this. A Gryffindor, all on their own.”
Before you knew what was happening, you felt your scarf being wrenched from your neck. For a moment, the harsh yank choked you, but at last it slipped off. Coughing, you watched as it was thrown into the cold waters of the lake, an odd contrast of colour among its dark surface.
A Slytherin boy squatted down at your side. “It’s not a good idea to be all alone. You never know what might happen. No friends to protect you. No one to help you.”
You hurried to your feet, scrambling to get as far from him as possible. Four Slytherin boys surrounded you, laughing at your panicked expression, a gleeful malice in their eyes.
“There’s no reason to start any trouble.” Your attempt to reason with them fell on uncaring ears. They closed in around you like bars of a cage. “Please. I’ll leave.”
Being polite was of no help. Terror flared when one of them feigned a charge, but pulled back with a laugh. You felt as if there was no breath in you as they closed in… closer— closer— closer—
“Leave [her/him/them] alone.”
The five of you turned towards the voice. It was not just you who was surprised to find Tom standing there. Nonchalantly, he twisted his wand between his forefingers.
Nonchalantly, he was defending you.
“Riddle?” The first boy, who had snatched your scarf, straightened at his coming. “What are you doing here?”
Tom gripped his wand in his fists, grip tight. “I came to study with [Y/N]. You’re all interrupting. Leave.”
The boy gave a bark of laughter, more out of surprise than anything else. “You’ve come to study with… [her/him/them]? A Gryffindor? That’s— What? Are you mad?”
“Perhaps you’re all selectively deaf. I said, leave.”
There was silence. It fell in a deafening sweep, muffling all sounds in your ears until all you could hear were the wild beats of your heart. But, your eyes, they were focused – too focused; each subtle movement drew your gaze: the shifts of the bullies’ feet; the twitch of their fingers; the bob of an Adam’s apple when one gulped too hard; and Tom… There was a calm storm of emotions, each flickering behind his eyes, replaced by one or the other as he watched them all – staring, observing, thinking.
And in that moment, you knew. You knew how much danger these boys were in.
Before they could draw their wands, Tom flicked his, his harsh incantation a hiss that was too heavy to reach your ears. Their screams seemed to crash into your ears. Flinching, you covered your eyes in dread.
Again, there was silence. But now, you could hear the breeze, the chirp of birds in trees ahead, the soft approach of footsteps. There were just no human sounds.
Oh no, you thought.
Cautiously, you lowered your hands. Each blink processed a new scene; the boys lay sprawled on the ground; Tom was crouched down at the instigator’s side, tracing his features with the tip of his wand in thought; then, at last, two of them began to move, groans getting louder and louder; the instigator woke, cried out in shock, and scrambled far from Tom. They all rose, tripping over their own feet as they ran, their grunts of pain and desperation carrying back on the wind to where you stood. Never once did any of them dare to look back.
Tom stood. The movement drew your attention, but it took a moment too long before you could meet his gaze. He approached, and you almost took a step back.
“Where is your scarf?” He stopped before you, wand raised at your neck. “It’s cold. You always wear it.”
Dazed, you nodded towards the lake. Tom frowned. It was the slightest change in the usual apathetic nature of his face – and very being – but it was there. You hadn’t imagined it.
“Do you have replacements?” he asked.
“Y—yes,” you nodded.
He paused. Then, took a step closer. “Good.”
It burst forth, “Tom, why did you—” But Tom had been anticipating it.
“I wouldn’t let anyone hurt my friend.”
You stared.
Friend. He had called you his friend…
Tom walked past you. When he returned, he had your books, and held them out to you. Nervous, still a little dazed, and honestly relieved that he hadn’t truly hurt anybody, you took them, careful not to touch his hands. He noticed – but smiled, amused again at your quirks.
He pulled his Slytherin scarf from around his neck and wrapped it around yours. “It’s the weekend. Come, let’s go to Hogsmeade.”
“Hmm?” Startled, you continued, “Really? What about Potions homework?”
“We’ll still have tonight, and tomorrow.”
“But—”
Tom scoffed. “All right, we can do our work. I suppose you’re not keen for sweets. Or butterbeer. Or some time off to rela—”
“No.” You smiled, laughing a little as you hugged your books to your chest. “No, I do. I was just a little… I don’t know, surprised, is all.”
He tugged at the scarf, pulling it tighter around your neck to ensure the wind did not reach past its warmth. “So? Shall we?”
You nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, Tom, let’s go. We’re friends after all. And friends do fun stuff together, too, right?”
Tom watched your features. But all there was, was relief, content, and gratitude. He nodded, “I don’t know. But you and I, I’m sure we will.”