Spectre: The Dark Riddles #1

31: Swedish Short-Snout*

[Chapter Warning: reference to the use of sex toys, mention of murder]

"The Swedish Short-Snout is an attractive silvery-blue dragon whose skin is sought after for the manufacture of protective gloves and shields. The flame that issues from its nostrils is a brilliant blue and can reduce timber and bone to ash in a matter of seconds. The Short-Snout has fewer human killings to its name than most dragons, though as it prefers to live in wild and uninhabited mountainous areas, this is not much to its credit."

--from the textbook Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Newt Scamander, 1927

***

Tom steps through the front door at six o'clock the next morning, punctual as ever. I don't bother to look at him where I sit in my armchair, legs pulled up to my chest, attention locked on the drowning city just outside.

He pauses in the entry, watching me carefully. Regret is woven into my body, but he stands there for one, two moments, determining what it is, exactly, that I'm most regretful of. Something clatters as he sets an object down on the island before walking over to me.

The air between us is void of any heated tension. I wonder if I imagined last night, the secret moment pressed against the wall, or if I dreamed it up.

"You're not dressed," he notes, eyeing my long t-shirt. I'd pulled it over my legs, but I wear nothing else beneath, a fact he realizes only once he's standing in front of me. "What is it?"

"Read my mind and find out," I dare. It's pointless. I've spent weeks making my mental barrier impenetrable. Not even Tom can get in anymore, not unless I let him in, and I'm too mortified by the way things were left between us to ever let him glimpse my thoughts again.

He sighs. "Don't do this, Elastra."

"What?"

"Act like a moody teenager."

Finally, I focus on him. He wears a navy windbreaker today instead of his usual grey one, and running pants that will do little to keep him dry in the rain. His expression, as always, is unreadable. I have a feeling that, if I tried to Legilimens him, I wouldn't make it past his mental barrier, either.

"You said I'm not a child," I remind him, dropping my legs to the floor.

He makes a point to keep his gaze locked on my face, not daring to spare even a momentary glance to my bare legs. "No, I did not."

"Yes, you did."

"When?"

"In the Hog's Head Inn, when you first taught me Legilimency. We were arguing about me being called Ella. You said it was a childish nickname, I pointed out that I am a child, and you said that I stopped being a child the moment I became a Death Eater." I rise to my feet, arms crossed over my chest as I step up to him. "So I guess I'm old enough to be permanently branded, but not old enough for you to touch me, is that it?"

He studies my face and, not for the first time, I'm annoyed by my inability to read him. "It's not your age, Elastra," he finally says, matter of fact. There's more to it.

"Then what is it? And don't try to convince me that you don't want me back or think about me like that, because I was there last night. I... I felt you." My face burns at the memory of squeezing him over his pants, feeling the heat radiating off his body, burning just as much as I was... "The feeling is mutual, Tom. Even if... even if we're not each other's first choice. So if it's not my age, then what's the problem? Are you worried I'll get too attached? Because I won't. I can just have sex with you and nothing more. Emotions don't have to be a part of it."