Sacred Silence | A Tom Riddle Story

7: Tom's amusement.

Siobhan really made an effort those next few weeks to start being on time for prefect duties. The result was however that she was now late to almost every class.

It was the last Monday before Christmas break, and Shiv was quickly filling in a charms' homework assignment whilst at the same time eating a croissant.
The great hall was busy, but she was completely in her own bubble.

Between her extra potions lessons, upcoming O.W.L's, the slugclub and her prefect tasks, Siobhan was spread very, very thin. From now till Saturday morning, she didn't have a free hour on her schedule.

And it didn't help that this year, amongst all the usual December hectic, she was being driven up a wall by Tom Riddle. He seemed so eager to catch her in a mistake. She didn't know if he saw her as a threat as well, or if he was just incredibly mean. Maybe it was both.

Besides that, the other lingering problem remained that once in a while, when they were together, her head would burst with pain. She got better at feeling it coming and blocking him out. But she had to admit, she had never felt such a strong legilimence before. It scared her a little bit.

He seemed so eager to find something. The memories he had gotten to had been innocent up until now. He seemed to pause at certain things, though. Mostly the book and more recently, her bracelet.
Since Shiv didn't know the importance of those specific items, it was hard to protect the information. How can you hide something if you don't know what you're supposed to be hiding?

The most important thing to keep him away from at this point, was the information about his family. She kept redirecting him to the Secrets of the dark arts book, trying to use it as a red herring.

She tucked her assignment in her bag and dropped her head in her hands. She was running on three hours of sleep. She had double charms in 10 minutes, and that prospect seemed worse than hell at the moment.

Flo gave her a sympathetic pat on her shoulder. She looked just as tired.
'Come on, girl. 5 more days,' she obviously had to force her positive tone.

They dragged themselves through three hours of potions and spent their lunch break in the library, finishing up on last-minute tasks.

They sat at their usual table on the top floor and just like last time, Shivs school supplies were scattered all over. She had her left foot up on her chair and leaned her chin on her knee. She was making a list of people she needed to buy Christmas presents for once she got home. That list was made under another one that summed up all the books she wanted to search up in their family library.

Multiple heavy footsteps were heard coming up the stairs. Shiv recognized Tom immediately. He was followed by about 8 other guys. Lestrange, Malfoy, Avery, Mulciber.. she couldn't make out any more faces.
They sat down at a long table on the row furthest away from Shiv and Flo. Tom took place at the head of the table.

'What do they call themselves again?' Flo looked over at the group in disgust. 'Knights of..'

'I heard Tom mention he calls them his 'Death eaters' these days,' Shiv replied without looking up from her parchment.

'Why do you know so much about them?' Flo wondered, but her eyes darted to the book about dark magic on Shivs side of the table.

'Believe me, everything I learned about Tom Riddle and his clan of pureblood elitist has been again my will.'

It was only partly a lie. A lot of what she knew about the people sitting across from them was because of her families ties. She grew up hearing all of the values and principles of their families and their connections.

She had, however, spent a lot of time researching Flo's first mention.

Siobhan leaned back in her chair and stretched her arms above her head. She let out a deep breath and picked up mug of tea she had brought up with her.