EXILE | TOM RIDDLE

27. Violent Ends

"Good Merlin!" Abigail cries out from next to me, head pivoting towards the side as she observes the individual walking into the classroom. While the rest of the students inside are having their own conversation, her loud exclamation seems to draw their attention in, and all eyes are now fixed on the boy in the door frame. "Alphard, what happened to your face?"

It takes everything in me to look as well, to peel my eyes open and observe the wreck Tom had caused. If a wreck can even begin to describe the array of bruises scattered across his pale face. Both of his eyes are swollen, the icy blue of his irises difficult to see through the puffy skin, which is various shades of red and green and blue and purple.

"Got into a fight with my little brother," he answers bitterly, though he refuses to so much as look in my direction, as he moves to sit down next to Evander. She opens her mouth to question further, but he shakes his head, holding out a hand to cut her off. "I'm fine, really. Don't worry about it, Abs."

She exhales a breath, but says nothing as she whips her head to look at me instead. "You really think Cygnus could give him bruises that bad? Not to be rude, but he's kind of a wimp."

I shrug. "Maybe Alphard did not fight back."

That was not a lie. Alphard had not fought back against Tom as he hit and kicked and battered him. Maybe he was unsure how to do so.

I was never the one to tell Tom to stop. I was prepared to watch him beat and beat the boy until his heart and lungs gave out, until he was nothing but a mangled frame of what had once been a boy. Instead, Tom had ceased when Alphard had stopped reacting, having lost consciousness in one way or another.

He had turned, looked me in the eye, and smirked that bloody Tom smirk. "I tend to prefer magic — I rarely get my hands dirty like this. I'll have to try it more often."

There was nothing I could think of to say, so I remained silent, my eyes fixed on the bloody, bruised lump that had once been my friend.

We had left, locking the door behind us so no one could accidentally stumble upon what Tom had done. He had brought me back to the Ravenclaw dorms, though by the time I was in my normal bed, the aftereffects of the alcohol I had consumed no longer seemed to be as prominent.

So, I allowed Tom to kiss me, to feel me, to dip his fingers into me and make me his as he had done before. By the time he had retreated back to the Slytherin dorms, leaving me shaking with the aftermaths of the pleasure he had inflicted upon me, the Alphard incident had been wiped from my mind entirely.

"Maybe," Abigail presses her lips together, though it does not seem like she believes my suggestion. "I didn't see him yesterday, or the day before that. Maybe he was in the Hospital Wing."

I shrug, glancing to the left to meet Tom's eye. He is keenly observing my conversation with Abigail, brows lifted and lips curled into a funny sort of sneer.

When the door flings open again, and Professor Awad stalks in, ready to begin his lesson, all attention is reverted away from Alphard Black, and to the man at the head of the room.

The lesson is about something that does not snag my attention, so I find my mind drifting off, eyes slowly moving over to observe Tom instead of listening to Awad speak. I watch the way he rubs the back of his neck and twiddles with his wand in a way to pass the time, as he clearly finds this lesson as boring as I do.

When class ends, I am about to move over towards him, but Abigail snags onto my arm, and practically yanks me out of the classroom in a motion so fast, I do not even have time to collect my books from the desk we were seated at. "Where are you taking me?" I demand as she pulls me through the halls.