In Horace Slughorn's defence, he couldn't have known that all this would happen. All he had wanted to do was play match-maker between his two favourite students, Tom Riddle and Artemis Potter.
...
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-------------------> ARTEMIS POTTER WONDERED if she would receive permission from Tom Riddle to use him as her muse -her target of inspiration- to sculpt him in marble if she asked. Then, she realised how weird the request sounded and dropped the idea. But it didn't stop her from debating whether she could actually do it.
Her sculpting skills, unfortunately, weren't as wonderful as her sketching and painting talent. She wasn't horrible at it, but she was no Michelangelo either. So, she observed him from the corner of her eyes as they walked along the dimly lit corridors of Hogwarts, silently ticking a mental checklist of which features of his she was confident she could recreate from marble and which all she couldn't.
She never did find out precisely which moment her observing had turned into staring and when exactly Tom Riddle noticed.
"Why were you staring at me?" Tom asked her finally after who knew how long.
"I was just thinking..." She trailed off, hoping he would drop the topic but he didn't and kept looking at her with a pointed expression.
"That's rare, what were you thinking about?"
"Just wondering how on earth somebody could be so ugly that not even dementors would want to kiss them." Artemis smiled.
Tom raised an eyebrow. "Talking about me or yourself?"
"Walburga, actually," Artemis replied, making Tom nod in understanding.
After catching two students in the janitors closet and deducting points, Tom and Artemis once again roamed the lifeless corridors.
"Anyway," Artemis began abruptly. "I don't like silence, so the two of us are going to talk and break it. You don't have a choice in the matter, so do not bother protesting." She told him bluntly. " I think I'm going to ask you a few logical questions, in hopes of sharpening your wit."
Tom rolled his eyes at her remark.
"So," Artemis cleared her throat. "If you water an apple tree with apple juice is it forced cannibalism?"
"...I'm not sure," Tom finally replied after much thought, an odd expression that she could not deduce still painted on his lovely face.
Artemis nodded understandingly. "It's a topic of debate in the Ravenclaw tower, I wouldn't expect you to answer it considering we haven't even come to a solid conclusion yet."
Tom gave her a side-glare. "What do you mean by that?" He said.
Artemis smiled innocently. "Mean by what?"
"You think that anybody who isn't a Ravenclaw isn't smart, that they can't answer a question," Tom stated.
"Well, in my defence, you couldn't answer the riddle -the one that eleven-year-olds can- to enter the Ravenclaw tower."
