Extra Ordinary (Riddle Era)

Chapter 41

Tom didn't see Steele on either the train or the platform and, after a moment's contemplation, he decided that this was a good thing. First because seeing her on the platform would have meant seeing her with her mother. And if the end of last term was anything to judge by, Tom really didn't want to see that. Really, he didn't want to see any of the parents bidding their children farewell, which was why today, as always, he didn't even bother glancing out the window.

That he didn't see her on the train, however, was less obviously positive. But it was positive. If only because it meant that the train ride was spent in the comfortable, familiar position of the most important person in the room.

People ducked their heads into the compartment just to say hello to him. People looked at him every time they said something, waiting for his reaction. People laughed when he laughed. Smiled when he smiled, existed like he was the center of their universe. And after a summer of being so far on the outskirts of the world he might as well have been some unknown bit of debris in some bombed out building, this was a relief. And he had no doubt that it was a relief Steele would have ruined. Even if, he knew, she might have replaced it with her own strange brand of relief.

And indeed, when he did at last see her, she did both of those things.

When dinner was finished and the noise in the hall had risen from the quiet hum of conversations over food to the louder buzz of less hindered exchanges, people began milling about, killing time catching up with inter-house friends as Professor Dippet inevitably lingered over pudding for far longer than anyone thought was remotely necessary.

Tom, for his part, was listening rather uninterestedly to Rosier, Lestrange, Mulciber and Avery comparing their summer holidays, when someone sat down next to him on the bench. Tom nearly rolled his eyes, expecting to have to deal with the mixed blessing that was yet another admirer hoping to become his friend.

But instead, when he hitched a smile on his face and turned, he found Steele sitting, watching him with a little ghost of an upward tilt on her own lips that looked somehow like she was sharing some inside joke he couldn't quite remember.

"Lucy," he said, surprised enough that he felt his smile flicker for just a fraction of a second.

"Hello, Tom," Steele returned, her smile widening slightly. "How was your summer?"

Tom had already opened his mouth to say good, it had been good, and turn the question right back on her when he caught the slightest gleam in her eyes, the faitest raise of her brows, the something like challenge in the subtle set of her mouth, the hints he had learned last year meant she was waiting for the lie. So he pivoted.

"The same as ever," he said instead, keeping his voice light enough to suggest this was far from a bad thing even as he made certain that he was not, in fact, speaking anything but the truth.

Steele's smile tipped. It was a difficult thing to read, not a falling so much as a softening, not a deepening, but a blurring of the edges, a settling almost. "I'm sorry," she murmured, so softly he didn't think anyone else could hear. So softly that he was sure she'd kept her volume low on purpose. So softly it couldn't be anything but a mercy.

It made his smile stiffen, made his entire self go rigid. Made him almost say a stupid, halfway honest thing about a letter that had helped. Almost. And if they were alone he might have done it, might have risked it, might have lost it. But there were people around to hear and so instead, he swallowed the words and said something else.

"How was your summer?'' he offered, electing to act as if he hadn't heard those words, that sympathy, that gentle empathy she had no right to.

This time, the shift in Steele's smile couldn't be called anything but a fall, but even in falling, it didn't quite vanish, held up by some fine, fragile threads of what seemed to Tom to be sheer willpower.