Hogwarts: a school of Witchcraft and Love (Tom Marvolo Riddle x F!reader)

Chapter 4-12

Time.

You were running out of time.

Time was unrelenting as it chased you, biting at your heels to leave them raw and blistered.

Your stamina had improved greatly with all of the scuttling danger-dodging you've done. You were in peak shape and could feel yourself run longer laps without getting tired as quickly as before.

It meant you could sprint from the dungeons towards the Great Hall without the need for a break and oxygen refill, and preventing a disaster from happening... Hopefully.

The Great Hall was at least a twenty minute walk away from the dungeons, if you knew where you were going. Making it in time was a chance that was as likely for pigs to fly.

Nervousness grew like a vine in you during what should have been a ten minute jog that you cut down to five.

The student body and staff dove into supper as you pushed the doors open way before you thought you'd actually get here. Tom's group looked fabulous, and for a sec you forgot about what you came here to do.

Enter wicked witch Rosalind. One didn't need to be taking Potions course to guess that the amount of Amortentia she slipped into Tom's goblet while he wasn't looking could be fatal.

Scratch that-the amount she put in there was definitely fatal. If she really cared about him, chancing his death on the gamble that the more she threw in, the more sure she was of him falling in love with her, would have never crossed her mind.

Time wasn't on your side. They were too far away, the distance somehow feeling even wider than it looked.

You didn't make it...

And you were by him before you knew you'd even moved. Tom chugged his pumpkin juice, and got in two large gulps. What was left of it spilled from the goblet that went airborne above them before he could get another in.

The drink sprayed around like a garden sprinkler, you were screwed. Everyone unfortunate enough to become collateral damage and their pet owls knew it.

What a scene you made as a wiggly flesh bag that looked more like a gaping fish than a human. Rosalind's disappointment for not being allowed to clean Tom up and paw at him with a napkin like a fretting mother, was satisfying enough for you to not want to retreat back to the dungeons and lock yourself up for all eternity.

If there was a good time for you to suddenly find an invisibility cloak, it would be now. But self-preservation was apparently not on your list today.

Your innards shrank just that little bit more when you saw how mortification burned into every inch of him at being humiliated. In terms of future relationship-potentiality, you may have fucked yourself over.

"What were you thinking?!" Tom cried out, appropriately confused by what you did.

Rosalind sobbed, being one of the victims of your chaotic entry. A thick splash of the liquid dotted her collarbone and leaked down in a bead which she wiped away with the rejected napkin.

First and foremost, you remedied to him only, turning your back to everyone else for the illusion of more privacy. "Sorry, but you can't drink that! Really, you can't!"

"That is true, he can't." Avery made up for the lack of reply from Tom, hence Lestrade's oppressive look smothered his amusement.

The poke didn't land, because his opinion didn't matter to you. Neither did Lestrade's, looking like this circus was a daily costum. "You're both morons Tom's paying the price for."