Extra Ordinary (Riddle Era)

Chapter 53

Saying yes to the party was a mistake. Lucy was sure of it. There were too many problems. Too many hesitations on Tom's part, too many questions on hers and... well. And she wanted to go. Sort of.

She wanted to go to a party with Tom. The way she had always wanted to go to holiday parties as a child. For the glitz and glam of it all. For the joy of it all, the way people loosened slightly, the way the air at a party always sparkled with a little something extra. A spirit people missed in their everyday lives.

And now, with everything going on, with the gloom that had settled over the castle and all the things that were decidedly missing from the air these days, Lucy wanted the joy. Wanted the escape. Wanted to, as she had as a child, put on a pretty dress and pretend she was someone who belonged there.

It had been a very long time since Lucy had felt like that.

She didn't like that the feeling was back.

It felt like slipping. Like backtracking. Like lying. Like falling into that life where she was forever being asked to be what she wasn't.

And yet...

I wouldn't dare ask it.

That was what he had said.

Or want it.

And it was a lie. Lucy knew it. Because it was Tom Riddle and it had to be a lie. And yet, it hadn't come with any of his usual tells. With the blinks and that slight stiffness in his jaw and that look in his eye like he was studying her response as much as she was studying his words.

And maybe she was a fool, but it was a lie she wanted to believe. Because she had spent so much of her life pretending she was a thousand things she wasn't. For her father. For her mother. For her friends. It was nice to think someone might not ask that of her.

And really, it wasn't such a far fetched thing to believe Tom might be that person. He didn't ask of her the perfection her father had. Or the joy her mother did. Or the strength her friends needed. He didn't really seem to ask anything of her. Sure, she knew there were things about her he didn't like. She asked questions he didn't want to think about, much less answer. She pressed on sore spots he would have preferred to let fester. Perhaps worst of all, she caught him in lies he seemed all too used to getting away with.

Lucy could see why, too. Tom Riddle was, after all, an impeccable liar.

The problem was, Lucy had met better. Lucy was better.

The thought caught Lucy and she sighed, dropping her head into her hands, fingers tangling in her half-curly hair as she ignored the glance Tom cast her way from across the table.

The thought was an honest one, she knew that. It was also an unpleasant one. One that, under normal circumstances, Lucy would let slip past her and fall away, dismissed and ignored. But as easy as dismissal and ignorance looked, it took energy and Lucy was decidedly out.

She had been honest with Tom on that front. Was honest with Tom on most fronts, really, and this had been no exception: Lucy was tired. Was fraying. Was in need of being held together the way she spent too much time holding everyone else together.

The way Tom had, probably accidentally, held her together last night.

And that, there, was why she had said yes. Why she wasn't going to backtrack. Why she was going to find a nice dress and let herself pretend.

Because Tom Riddle had done something utterly unlike himself.

He had admitted to weakness.

Of course, Lucy wouldn't have called it a weakness at all, but she wasn't Tom and Tom... well. Lucy didn't need to be any kind of special to know that Tom Riddle thought of honesty, of openness, of caring, as a weakness.