Infatuation - Tom Riddle

Eighteen

Tom didn't mention the kiss after they left the greenhouse. He felt he didn't need to, what happened happened. But for Merida, it was eating her up inside.

She felt relieved to have finally been able to tell someone about Ilvermorny, but as the night went on, tossing and turning in her sheets, she wasn't able to get her mind off of kissing Tom.

  Merida slowly crept back into her dorm room, making sure not to wake up the other two sleeping girls inside. To her surprise, however, Annalise was awake.

  "Merida?" Parkinson quipped from her bed in the corner.

  "I thought you'd be sleeping by now." Merida awkwardly stood by the door, not having the energy for a confrontation at the moment. Annalise scoffed.

  "I thought the same for you too. Where are you sneaking back from this late?"

Merida sighed, "I had a long night, can we talk about this in the morning?"

Annalise looked at her sternly for a moment, trying to think of what to say. "Can I ask you something?"

Merida nodded, heading over to her bed to lay down.

"Do you think Tilda is interested in anyone?"

"That's an odd question."

Annalise's eyes flickered with frustration, she was trying to figure out what to say without actually saying what she really meant. To be honest she had no idea why she was asking the American in the first place, but under the blanket of night everything seemed safer. An unspoken rule of confidentiality.

"Nevermind." She decided on just ending the conversation there. Merida was too tired to question her further and just shrugged before lulling off to sleep.

"Chin up mate, what's got your panties in a knot?" Abraxas playfully shoved Tom's shoulder as he sat down next to the annoyed boy, a wide smile on his face.

  "Riddle went to see Corvus today and now he's acting like he saw a ghost." Oliver piqued from his seat next to Merida.

  Merida raised an eyebrow, he went to visit Lestrange?

  "Why didn't you tell me," Abraxas rolled his eyes, "I would've gone with you."

  "Just went to check up on him, that's all." Tom resumed his notes but Merida could tell his mind was anywhere else but there.

  "I would've came too." Merida whispered. To be fair she just wanted to speak to Tom again, he seemed to be giving everyone the cold shoulder that morning.

  Tom looked up from his notes for a moment, looking intensely at Merida before sighing and continuing to write.

  Fine be that way.

  "Well if you went to see him, why don't you look happy?" Merida knew she was pressing, but she didn't care. He'd done the same to her multiple times, she could do the same to him if she pleased.

  Tom rolled his eyes, placing his quill down, "We had to discuss a few things. It wasn't some sort of reunion."

  Merida may not have been the brightest student, but she wasn't stupid. A terrible thought crept up at the back of her mind. Tom never seemed phased with Corvus' accident, he never seemed surprised by it either. She bit her tongue, could he have known something that she didn't?

  She ripped off a piece of paper from her parchment and quickly scribbled down something before throwing it on Tom's desk. Her eyes never left the paper as he unraveled the crumpled ball and read her message.

  Greenhouse. Tonight. Time to hold up your end of the deal.

  Tom looked up to meet Merida's gaze. He nodded sternly before crumpling the paper back up and placing it in his robe pocket. She smiled to herself; she knew what she was going to ask him.

  After their first class, the day seemed to go by terribly slow for her. Class after class, she couldn't focus. All that was on her mind was what she was going to talk to Tom about later that night. The more she replayed the events of the quidditch game in her mind, the more unusual she realized Tom had been acting during the whole thing. Not to mention the constant whispering and quick glances Tom and Corvus had shared days prior to the game. By the time it was Merida's last class of the day, she had put the pieces together. Tilda had told her Tom was dangerous, shit, Tom himself  had even told her that. She never picked up on it before, but for these students who had been with Riddle for the last six years, they had been sure to know him better than her by now. Was Tilda warning her about something? Did Corvus know something about Tom that he shouldn't have?

  These horrible thoughts were eating her up inside. She knew she wasn't one to judge too much, she'd killed someone herself. But the mechanical way Tom seemed to act around others, the cold gaze he held, she could tell he harbored something much more sinister within him than her.

  Fuck. If he did something to Corvus to make him fall, he didn't seem to regret it. That's what really made her stomach turn. She had to know if she was just being paranoid or if she was actually onto something. And she had to know from Tom himself.