O R P H I C. [Tom. R × Reader]

19. Hansel and Gretel.

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"Nothing." The drawer is empty.

"It could come in handy though" Tom mutters. My hand is starting to tingle. Not in a good way.

"I guess. You'll be able to bring all your evil books here" I mutter with a hint of sarcasm.

"They're not evil. And I could. Though I doubt they'd fill much of this room" He replies, reaching over to pull the internal metal cup out of the inkwell, then pulling out one of the glass ink pots from the drawer.

"Well that only means that you could have as many books as you'd like" I point out, fiddling with my hands.

"That is true." He begins to pour some of the ink into the well, before putting the lid back on the bottle and returning it to the previous position.

He puts the cup back into the inkwell and dips one of the quills into it as he pulls out the notebook. My hand starts to become restless with its burning and tingling.

Tom neatly writes his name in the first page of the book. I leave him in the room, deciding that I'd unpack my stuff into one of the empty corners of my room to distract my asshole of a hand.

Not long after, Tom wanders back into the room. My hand begins to shake, but I manage to stop it enough to continue.

Tom sits on my bed and decides to read a book that he'd plucked from the pile I'd neatly stacked against the wall by my bed. His hand seems fine. How unfair.

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Once I finish, I sit beside Tom and decide to watch him. After a while of Tom reading while I desperately squeeze my hand, hopelessly wishing to stop the burn slightly, I decide to put my pride aside.

"Tomm" I whine.

"About time" he sighs, holding out a hand. I gladly take it, my whole body relaxing after being so tense.

"Do you recall what I said earlier?" He looks up from his book, his eyes meeting mine.

"..." I do. But it's too embarrassing. I look away, guiltily.

"Don't be afraid to ask, Y/n. I would normally bite, but because there is a valid reason for this whole situation, you can trust that I won't. You don't even need to ask, just touch me" He continues to seek eye contact, to which I reluctantly oblige.

"I'm not even going to comment on how strange that sounds" I say, nervously playing with his fingers between both of my hands.

"Good. Otherwise I was planning to hex you" he mutters. I only giggle in response. His hand leaves my grip to flip over one of the large pages of the book he reads before he returns it to my grip.

"How annoying" I mumble.

"What" he looks up at me again.

"This. It's quite bothersome, really" I squeeze his hand.

"Yes." He agrees, squeezing my hand briefly as well.

The bell rings and Tom closes the book he'd been reading, depositing it back onto my neat stack before standing up and turning around to pull me up too.

"Where are we going now?" I ask as he pulls me out the door.

"Well bye then" Juniper calls irritatedly, I turn quickly to wave before the door closes.

"Lunch." But hardly anyone actually goes to lunch. Well, that's a lie. I mean the majority of students never go to lunch in my time.

"Why?" I ask, curiously as we exit Gryffindor.

'Jeez even these Gryffindors are out to get me. They look about ready to shred my skin' a shiver rolls down my spine as the dozens of glares pierce through me, others just odd glances from people that are probably just wondering why a Slytherin is here.

"Because you've hardly eaten anything in the past two days, and from what you've been telling me, it sounds like you haven't eaten much more since you've been in England. So I think it's about time you had a decent feed, and I'll be the one to make sure of it" He said obnoxiously as we left the common room.

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Once we reach the great hall, Tom hastily leads me to the Slytherin table and sits me down, instantly starting to load up my plate with all sorts of things.

"Merlin Tom, what are you trying to do? Fatten me up so you can send me to an old witch in the middle of a forest so she can roast me in her oven and eat me the next morning??" I joke, referencing an old muggle children's story, Hansel and Gretel.

He ignores my statement as he pulls his hand away from mine.

"No touching until you finish" he watches me look at my plate with no expression. He's piled it up a lot. Like a lot. I turn an alarmed gaze to him, he plans to torture me until I've eaten? I reluctantly look back down at my dish.

"Tom I can't eat all this" I turn back to him. He stays silent for a while.

"Eat half at the very least." he replies firmly. I look back to the dish. Half of this is still a whole dinner's worth of food.

"A third" I wager. Tom scowls.

"Fine." He grumbles. I scoop some mashed potatoes and eat in silence for a while, feeling Tom's gaze on the side of my face the whole time as I try to ignore the growing burn in my wrist.

"Hi Tom, hey Y/n" I glance up from my meal to see Orion standing opposite us, looking back down at me.

"Don't talk to her." Tom says before I can say anything. I scowl at him, confused.

"Why?" Orion's attention moves to Tom as he slips into the seat on the other side of the table.

"She's not allowed to talk until she's done" He says, picking at his nails unconsciously.

"You're not my father To-"

"Eat." He glares.

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