Harry Potter x Reader One-Shots

Tom Riddle LONG WIP

"What is he plotting?" you demanded exasperatedly, burying your forehead into your hands, as if nursing a pounding headache.

"Who?" Your friend, Margaret Chambers, quizzed at you from across the table with her mouth half full of food. She looked up at you, only vaguely interested in what you had to say, still moving her fork on her plate.

"Riddle, of course," you hissed as if it was obvious. She rolled her eyes and braced herself for another one of your fierce tirades. "Ever since I beat him at Professor Slughorn's weekly challenge last month he just will not stop staring, like he's planning something nefarious," you put down your frantic hands as Margaret raised an eyebrow at you. "He's not someone who likes to be beat, and I beat him," you whispered, your passion discouraged slightly by her reaction.

"Well, I'm so sorry you're too smart for your own good," Margaret teased, giving you a turn to roll your eyes. She craned her head around and hunted casually through the sea of indulging students, searching for the combed dark waves and pale skin that were the hallmarks of Tom Riddles appearance. Her eyes finally landed on a head in between two platinum blonde ones and her chest swelled lightly with a sense of achievement. "He's not even looking at you," she remarked. "You're just paranoid Y/N," You huffed in annoyance.

"Clearly, he just saw you turning and looked away," you mumbled. Margaret looked at you, gobsmacked.

"You've actually lost it now," she laughed in disbelief, shaking her head. Eagerly, she returned to the Brambly Apple sausage on her plate, attacking it with her fork. You looked back up and, lo and behold, your eyes met Tom Riddle's. They were fixed on you like shackles. A slight smirk tugged on his lips as if to say, 'your friend thinks you've gone mad' as if to say that he was winning. You broke off the shackles and looked down, scowling at your mashed potatoes.

"Are you going back to the dorms once you're done eating?" you asked quietly, as if afraid Riddle would hear you. You fiddled with the cuff of your sleeve as Margaret held up a finger to gesture that she was still chewing.

"Yeah, too tired to work on my Charms essay tonight," she said as she swallowed her last piece of sausage. You nodded, unengaged as you tried refolding the cuff of your sleeve. "Look," she began, making your eyes meet hers. "He can't hurt you even if he is planning something, Professor Dippet wouldn't allow it. Plus he is such a sycophant, I doubt he would even put a toe out of line if he knew it would ruin his connections," she joked. You laughed gently, smoothing down your sleeve.

The doors to the Great Hall opened, creaking loudly on it's old hinges, and you looked up to see Riddle and his devoted gang of imbeciles leaving the hall. He glanced at you once more just before he was out of sight, giving you no further acknowledgment other than a small unimpressed twitch of his nose.

"Ok this time he may have looked at you," Margaret admitted, standing and smoothing her uniform in preparation to leave herself. You followed suit, though intentionally reluctantly, trying to ensure as much time as possible for Riddle to get a decent distance away. You let Margaret head out into the hall first, as if using her as bait to ensure Riddle wasn't there waiting for you. You felt a twinge of guilt for this but tried to push it away, the thought hadn't actually crossed your mind until after she was already in the hall. You sighed quietly, perhaps you were too paranoid.

As you returned to your dorm with Margaret, you watched her slump onto her bed without a care in the world and pull out her book from her bedside table. You smiled at her appearance. Margaret did not care to fix her appearance as soon as the clock hit 5 and the school day was done. She lay there now with uneven length socks (one of them having ridden down), a messy bun that was barely a bun anymore and smudged mascara from the rain earlier that evening. That's what you liked about Margaret, she did not care. While you were very preoccupied with others opinions of you, Margaret couldn't care less, and you envied her for it.