antebellum [t. riddle]

x.

halloween, october, 1944

adonis rosier stepped back into the party, getting rid of the disillusionment charm he cast on himself. after seeing his newest friend hug a random bureaucrat in the middle of a school hallway, he had plenty of questions, but he knew he was not the best candidate to find those answers. he planned on eavesdropping, but sicaria was smart enough to cast some sort of spell over the pair. all that was said was a "how are you?" before the view of them blurred, and the sound of them speaking was silenced. 

you play your part quite well, ms. edwards.

what the hell did that mean? rosier scratched his head as he side-stepped around people at the party in search of his friend.

in the common room earlier that day, riddle told malfoy, rosier, nott, and lestrange that their objective today was to observe edwards' behavior during the party, to see if she did anything out of the ordinary. from what he saw, she took to entertaining everyone who crossed her path for a few moments, before hastily discarding them. no one was able to get close enough to hear what was said. rosier prayed that she hadn't noticed. 

finally finding who he was looking for, he caught sight of tom riddle speaking hastily to nott and lestrange. he quickly walked up to the pair. he gave a nod of acknowledgement to nott before turning his attention to riddle. 

rosier leaned in and whispered to riddle. "she's in the hallway talking to the ministry bloke. campbell, i think. i couldn't break whatever silencing spell she put on them."

riddle nodded and set off toward the door but lestrange grabbed his forearm. "might want to disillusion yourself, mate." he advised. of course, riddle had already planned on doing this, but at least lestrange was starting to think affirmatively. lestrange was smart and charming, but he wasn't strategic enough to be a leader. nott had the opposite problem; smart and strategic, but his lack of charm made him come off as condescending. 

riddle exited the room and disillusioned himself after making sure no one was in the hall. he then took off in the direction that rosier had just come from. peering around the corner, he saw a blurry vision of campbell and edwards speaking very mercurially. it was an odd sight, seeing two people speaking but hearing nothing come out. 

tom was plagued with questioned as he watched the pair. 

how did she know him?

why did she have to hide it?

what were they talking about?

he cursed himself for wasting so much time. he quickly brought out his wand and twirled it between his fingers as he reached to the depths of his mind to think of what silencing spells she could have possibly used. given her fascination with magical theory, it wouldn't be so outlandish to suggest that this was a modified version of a spell she had innovated. 

he tried finite with no luck, but he wasn't expecting it to work. he cast a magical analytic spell to see if he could dissect the layers of the spell. if he could create even a small window, he'd be able to find a breakthrough. 

the analytic spell showed that the magical signature was not continuing, meaning that she was not actively casting the spell at all times. she casted the barrier once, and was not still protecting it. if part of the barrier dissolved, she would not notice. foolish girl.

now that he figured that part out, he looked to the components of the barrier. there was a shield aspect to it, but when he casted finite it had dissipated. now, all that was left was the auditory barrier.