Chapter Text
Her walk back to the common room after dinner should have been a peaceful affair. She should be happy that she’s back at Hogwarts, away from the continuous pressure pushed onto her by her parents to be the perfect pureblood bride. It was laughable. She was sixteen, and she was not going down without a fight. Why should she sacrifice everything to marry? In the grand scheme of things, what relevance was a marriage to a wealthy pureblood man if it meant that she couldn’t be free to make her own choices? She had aspirations, as any person would, but apparently as a woman she shouldn’t? And this came from her mother, a woman. Fucking ridiculous. Her peace was unattainable however, due to one Tom Riddle. She had taken up the art of occlumency this summer, as she was bored and thought that expanding her magical abilities would make up for that fact, and well, thank Merlin that she did. She had been eating dinner with her usual group of slytherins, when she felt a sharp pain in her head and put up her occlumency walls. She saw him flinch back in his chair from the force of her actions, and as everyone looked towards him in confusion, only to recoil under his heavy glare, Isadora only glared back, wondering where in hell he found the cheek to push into her thoughts like that. But if he’d done it to her, he must have pushed into everyone else’s. How did they not notice? How long had he been doing this? How had she not realised before?
These questions rang in her brain as she walked, Sofia Zabini and Elladora Nott were talking besides her, but she did not hear a word. The boys were talking behind her; Abraxas Malfoy, Theodore Lestrange, Ryan Mulciber, Edward Rosier, Thoros Nott, Antonin Dolohov, her brother, Anthony, and Tom Riddle. The latter was all she could hear, like her hearing had focussed on him. The boys were laughing, immature as they were, and Tom was talking to them, but she could hear the tightness in his voice. Like he was straining. It was like he was holding something in, and she assumed he was not pleased with her throwing him out of her mind.
Isadora was an intelligent girl, not much got past her. She had seen cracks in Riddle’s façade, and she had pieced them together and discovered who he really was. She never voiced this, of course. She had an inkling that he would not be impressed. Though she can’t say she’s never considered. He was a force to be reckoned with, but she considered herself to be much the same. She was battling with him for top spot in every subject, falling behind by only a miniscule amount in everything except defence against the dark arts, which she had managed to stay ahead in since second year. Perhaps it was because she spent a lot of her free time reading about the dark arts, often glamouring her book as a romantic comedy as she sat to the side as her friends socialised amongst themselves, though she would be stupid to think that Tom did not do the same.
That boy practically radiated dark magic; something had changed, she could tell. She couldn’t place what it was however, or pinpoint exactly when it was but it must have been towards the end of the school year prior, but she wouldn’t think about it too much, it was only fuelling her anger at him more. She didn’t believe in ignoring anger, in using distractions to dissipate it such as painting, which either way in her opinion was very much not therapeutic, but she could not face him with it. She had no doubt in her mind that he would kill her, if his prior glare was anything close to an indicator, and she wasn’t exactly desperate to be dead either.
Hours passed as she sat in the library, her mind still running a mile per minute. She was angry, overwhelmingly so, but also confused. What did he want with their thoughts? What possessed him to start this. She didn’t have any need to be in the library, really, it was only the first day and hence no homework had been set, however that was essentially why she had gone. She knew it would be practically deserted, and she knew that the Room Of Requirement was essentially out of bounds - if she assumed correctly, that's where Tom would be, letting off his anger out of range of his roommates. Not that it would have mattered if his roommates had seen him like that, she was sure that they had, and that was why they seemed to be his puppets on a string - but if he murdered one in his rage, he’d be done for.
Her only source of light was a small candle that she had charmed to hover nearby, as it was now most likely past midnight, and prefect badge or not, she should probably have been back at her common room by now, but really her book had drawn her in. Abraxas had invited the group over to his house during the summer, and nobody had paid any mind as she wandered into their library. After knowing her for years, they knew she’d have ended up there eventually. She had found a small cabinet in the back of the library, one she had not yet seen before, despite her many prior trips to the manor’s library, and inside she found an impressive collection of extremely dark books. Her eyes had trained in on one that focussed on a practice she had never heard of before, horcruxes. She instantly became curious, and without truly thinking it through she grabbed it. She could almost feel the darkness leave the book in waves, so much so that any rational person would have burned it, but any rationality left her once she was curious enough, and so she inspected it. It was extremely old, it looked as if it was ready to fall apart at the seams, and she could sense the hum of a very powerful protection charm on it, keeping it as one, therefore peaking her interest once more. It was clearly an outdated practice of magic, if the physical state of the book was anything to go by, but the need of the Malfoy’s to keep it protected was what possessed her to place a few concealment charms on it and place it into her bag for further inspection. She had never managed to get around to it, so had taken her opportunity in the empty library to begin reading it, and it was very interesting, but her sheer anger had not allowed her to retain all of the information, so she was likely to have to have to read it again.
Giving up, and feeling the need to stretch her limbs, she placed the book carefully back into her bag and stood, feeling as though her legs were about to give in from numbness. She began to walk towards the dungeons, and reached the hallway before the steps down to the common room when she heard steps behind her. She turned, wand raised, only to see Riddle’s agitating face stood behind her. You’ve got to be bloody joking.
“Avery.”
“Riddle.”
“What are you doing?”
She huffed, lowering her wand. “I’m coming back from the library. I could ask you the same question.” She knew, of course, where he had been, though not precisely what he had been doing.
“I couldn’t sleep. I went for a walk.”
“Hm.” She said, turning to continue walking, barely suppressing a sigh when he fell into step beside her.
“What, pray tell, were you doing in the library?”
“I was reading, Riddle. What’s with the suspicion?” Apparently, that was the wrong thing to ask. He spun her by the arm and violently threw her into the wall, forcing his wand into her throat. He glared down at her.
“My suspicion, Avery, simply extends from whatever it is you hide in that head of yours.”
She couldn’t contain her grin. “I hide it, Riddle, because it’s mine. My head, my thoughts. Not yours.”
There was a gleam in his eyes as he looked down, and it sent a shiver down her spine.
“No. I think you hide it because there’s something worth hiding. What is it that you know?”
“I don’t know what you mean to say.”
“What I mean to say, Avery, is that whatever it is you know, I will discover.”
Now that was dangerous. If he learned about the dark magic she knew, she’d be screwed. Specifically what she was learning about horcruxes. He’d know she was different, and it would not go well for her. No. No, she would not let him into her mind.
She quirked an eyebrow, “I’m not so sure that’s a requirement of being a prefect.”
This seemed to snap something in him back into place, he removed his wand from her neck and took a step back, acting as if the whole interaction had been erased.
“Hurry up, Avery. You’re out late enough as it is.”
“Prefect privilege, Riddle.” She said before pushing herself off the wall and continuing her walk down to the common room. She heard him sigh in frustration behind her, before falling in line beside her again, this time in silence, though she could practically feel his glare burn her every few seconds. As they walked into the common room, she heard him breathe in as if to talk again, and took that as her cue to go to the dorm rooms with no hesitation, not awake enough to cope with another confrontation. She failed to notice his smirk as his gaze followed her until she disappeared down the stairs.