Motivation ⌁ Tom Riddle ✔

27

Arms crossed and feet tapping the stone floor, I waited for Tom to exit the Slytherin common room. I hoped he'd hurry up because being down here in the dungeons when it wasn't time for my potions class was really uncomfortable. Bellatrix was sneering at me from the outside of the corridor, where she was lazily hanging around with Lestrange and Avery. I blinked and they were gone. Talk about weird.

Sighing, I leaned against the cold wall, wrapping the blanket harder around my shivering body and stared at nothing. First Nora, and now Colette and Olly. Things couldn't have possibly gotten any worse. I only had to put up with them for about another three months, any ways.

Something flicked at the back of my head, and my hand naturally went straight to the back of it and I turned around in confusion.

"What, are you mad or something? You foolish little girl," Tom hissed at me, nostrils flared.

"Wha - did you just flick me?"

"I sincerely tell you not to go looking for trouble - that I don't want harm to be brought upon you. And what do you do? You go looking for trouble."

I was flattered by the obvious fact that he had been worried about me, whether he tried to deny it or not. But I was still annoyed that he thought he could boss me around. I really didn't understand this whole turn around in his attitude toward me.

"I didn't look for trouble," I tried telling him. "Not deliberately, any way."

Tom huffed and stared down at me in disbelief. "Merlin's beard, Abigail, you do not get it, do you?!"

"Get what?"

"You just..." Tom paused, and his eyes trailed above my head and I could tell he was trying to search for the right word. "You cannot be harmed. You must be protected."

I groaned loudly in frustration. He wasn't giving me much information and he just expected me to understand what he was saying. I swallowed and paced in front of him, biting my lip. "Look. Just because you like me -"

"I don't like you."

" - or something, that doesn't mean you have to -"

" -You did this to yourself, Abigail! It's your fault."

I trailed off and frowned, giving Tom a questioning look. My fault? What could have possibly been my fault? Half of anything that Tom had said to me within the last two weeks made no sense to me whatsoever. His mood swings were getting a little more annoying than usual, also.

"What's my fault?" I asked quietly. Tom didn't even look at me. Growing more perturbed with Tom, I reached out, forced his face over to look at me, and slammed my hands back down against my thighs, allowing the hospital's blanket to fall from my shoulders. "Look at me. What are you talking about?"