Darkness and Devotion - A Tom Riddle Story

The Beggar

It was dark now, the blue hour transforming the shores of the Black Lake into a spooky sort of place. The waves were calmer and yet that made it seem more dangerous, the water inviting her in when a voice inside of her screamed at her to run. A dense fog was beginning to drift in with the wind, a sign of the storm to come. Evelyn had overheard some professors saying it was supposed to thunder for a week. She hoped that it wasn't true.

Twilight had settled upon Hogwarts. And still, Evelyn sat by the lake and watched the water for a sign of her father.

Mattheo stayed with her, a solid warm presence by her side. He had been smarter and brought a thick coat with a hat and a pair of gloves, both of which he insisted on giving to her. "Tom will have my ass if you freeze to death and then how am I supposed to get girls? They like my ass too much, y'know." But she refused them and told him that she would deal with Tom if it came to it. 

So he sat there. In his own, supportive way. Sometimes he talked, telling her stories about the pretty girls he flirted with. Aapparently, he had asked about five of them to the upcoming Hogmanay Ball—a ball created after the downfall of Voldemort to liven the spirits of Hogwarts, one that third years couldn't actually go to. She thought about going with Tom before she realized that he would probably never go to something as silly as a dance so she shrugged it from her mind. Other times, the boy was pointing out birds that he insisted were evil because they kept stealing a boy named Theodore's cigarettes. Mattheo talked about how they found Angus McLaggen's body ravaged deep in the Forbidden Forest. A werewolf attack, it seemed, the worst one the school had ever seen. They'd looked at each other, both of them knowing the truth, neither of them willing to say it. Evelyn didn't care that a man had died over her. Mattheo seemed used to this behavior by now. He didn't bring it up any more.

As they looked out at the water, Mattheo told her how he'd seen waves fifty feet tall (an exaggeration but one he put his heart and soul into telling). Growing up, he and Tom didn't have any family so they moved around different pureblood homes. For about six months, they stayed with the Rosier family in Cornwall, which is where he saw the waves.

"Rosier? As in, Nora Rosier?" 

Mattheo frowned but nodded. "Yeah, that's where we met. She took me to the beach one day and showed me them." Evelyn wanted to ask him more but the way he suddenly began to look down at the ground made it obvious that he'd had enough of the girl for one evening. 

"So..." she said quietly, wishing that she was actually good at conversing with others. Being kept away by her grandparents didn't exactly make her very social. Though, from what she'd heard, her father was always an introvert too so perhaps it was in her blood. "Where else have you gone? Any favorites?"

"Oh, yeah. Tons." Mattheo reached into his pocket and pulled out a hunk of baguette bread. She wasn't sure how long it had been there and she wasn't sure if she wanted to know anyway. "Theo brought me to his home in Italy for a while last summer. That was really cool. And Draco's family has a summer home in the South of France."

Evelyn couldn't help the laugh that burst out. "What's so funny?" Mattheo asked.

She shook her head. "Sorry. I'm just having trouble imagining Tom in Italy or the South of France." Not that she would know much about either. She had never been anywhere other than her family's estate, London home, and Hogwarts. Even Hogsmeade felt like a holiday sometimes.

A lopsided grin appeared on Mattheo's face. "What you're imagining is probably correct. He hated it. Tom doesn't really like... warmth."

Evelyn scrunched her nose. "I don't either."

"Have you noticed you do that a lot?"

"What?"

He reached over and poked her nose. "You scrunch your nose whenever you think hard. Or whenever you're really happy. It's not hard to tell which one it is."