EXILE | TOM RIDDLE

29. Crime and Seduction

Content warning: sexual content

It is nearing midnight when I slip out of my bed, careful to be quiet as to not wake Abigail from her slumber, and sneak out of our dorms. The Ravenclaw common room is, apart from me, otherwise empty, though I am careful to maintain my stealth anyways as I slide out of the door and make my way towards Awad's classroom, where Tom said to meet.

He is there already when I open the door, hovering in front of the cupboard I'd shoved Awad's corpse into, staring at it with his head tilted and his lips curved upwards into an expression of morbid curiosity. When he turns around, our eyes meet, and the smirk he wears expands.

Though he does not say a word as I step towards him, my gaze fixed on his, on the intensity of the look in his eyes. Something is shining inside them, enough that I wonder if he is about to burst at the seams with whatever emotion is so all consuming to him.

I say nothing on the matter though, simply turn my attention towards the cupboard, eyeing it up and down. My fingers absentmindedly twist the ring he had given me, calming any anxiety that had been festering. "What now?"

Tom does not answer me, instead, with a stable hand, he reaches over and twists the handle, pulling the door open and revealing Awad's corpse. In the time he had been stationed inside it, his body has changed entirely, his skin now a ghostly pale and the thick blood that had covered his corpse now dried into a maroon shade.

My lips part, but before I can say a word, Tom speaks. "Do you want me to kill Evander Rosier?"

I shake my head. "No. We gave him enough of a warning. But if he says something..."

"He won't be telling anyone what happened," he reassures me. "I've made sure of that, as you're well aware of."

The torture Tom had inflicted upon the boy earlier today was not long, but it was intense. I could tell by the way Evander's eyes bulged, his lips parted in a scream he could never emit, the tremors that ran through his body when the spell was lifted moments after. I could tell that it was not something he would easily recover from, or ever forget.

"And he won't tell on what you did?"

He shakes his head. "He's learned his lesson. Don't fuck with us."

Us, he says, not him, and something inside me floats. There had been a time where I was nothing to him, where I was a means to an end, as he had flat out admitted to me. But I can see now, clear as day, that those times are over. There is no me, or him, it is us and us alone.

Tom pulls out his wand, aiming it at the body, and with a silent spell it is slowly lifted into the air. "Come on. We should make this as quick as possible."

I nod in agreement, following Tom out of the classroom with the body hovering above him. If anyone sees us, we are in the deepest of trouble, I realize, as I quicken my pace.

"No need to worry," he reassures me, as though he is able to read my thoughts. "All the other Prefects are...indisposed, as of now."

"Indisposed?"

"I may have put a little something in their drinks during dinner. Nothing bad, of course. But they're all out cold right now."

"You truly do think of everything."

He laughs, more to himself than to me, as his head shakes. "Of course I do."

It does not take long to reach the fifth floor corridor Tom had spoken about, and after pacing back and forth in front of the wall three times, a door forms in the stone, wide and mighty. "I've heard rumors about this place," he explains as we enter. "Though I never knew how exactly to find it until I stumbled upon it, on complete accident."