Merry Christmas everyone! This is a present for my good friend and beta, Rapha :)
I promised there was a one-shot coming for Didn't You Know, and even though it's not the Alphard/Lorraine one, I hope you'll like it. It's sort of an excerpt from the original story, but longer and from a different point of view, namely Tom's. I recently read a great Batman fanfic called "Abducted" and it's completely written in that perspective. It's really great and thus inspired me to do it like this.
What else? Right. I don't own Harry Potter. But you all knew that, right?
You moved through the Great Hall, eyes fixed on me. I saw you coming, but I didn't give any form of recognition. You never cared about the way people looked at you – or me, for that matter – but I sure did. Sure enough, you arrived in front of me, sitting down as if this was your table.
"Merry Christmas," you said, ignoring the incredulous looks of all those around us. Slytherins used to dislike you a lot. Your parents were blood-traitors, after all, and you weren't much better. That Hitchin-boy you used to date, he was mudblood. You, of course, didn't care. It didn't gain you any sympathy, at least not from the purebloods.
You handed me a small box and I took it from you, looking questioningly at you. Since when did we give each other presents?
"Go on," you said, urging me forward. "Open it! I want to see if you like it."
I sighed, but I did you the favour and opened it, unwrapping a small black book. "A diary? Seriously."
Obviously, you weren't great in picking gifts. Did you think I'd confide in a diary? Did you think I'd use it the way you wanted me to? You were wrong.
You still smiled, though. "I just wanted a little something. You know, you can keep your heart and your soul in it."
You stirred something in me as you said that. My heart and my soul – in a book? If I'd put my soul somewhere, I sure wouldn't put it in that small black book... I turned it around to see an address stamped onto the back. It was a muggle book. Of course. You probably had your parents buy it for you.
You were still watching me and I felt the need to say something. "I'll try it out. I feel bad, you know I have nothing for you."
I didn't actually feel bad, of course. You shouldn't have got me anything in the first place. That was not the way it worked between us. And you knew that I had no money to spend on Christmas gifts whatsoever.
"Don't," you said and for a second I believed you had bought it. "Besides, you're just saying that to be nice."
But you always saw through me. You were the only one I ever met who actually saw through me whenever I lied. You didn't mind, either. You just told me you knew and moved on. As if you actually liked me, no matter what I did.
"Why are you not on the Ravenclaw table, huh?"
You sighed, frowning slightly. "What for? Who's waiting there for me?"
You were right – practically none of the Ravenclaws had stayed over Christmas break. Hogwarts was relaxingly empty. I had stayed, as I was never keen on going back to the orphanage and you had stayed, too, because you hated to live without magic just as I did. Sometimes, I thought we were more alike than you ever realized.
"Ay, no one," I admitted. "I just thought..."
"You just thought I shouldn't sit here, right? Because they're looking."
You said that so accusingly that I felt the need to defend myself. It wasn't my fault, though! You knew people were looking, you knew people were whispering behind your back, but you just didn't care. You provoked them over and over again.
I sighed. "You make it hard on them."
"Your friends cope. The others can, too."
I sighed again, scanning the Great Hall. Wasn't there anyone who you could sit with? Not that I didn't like you with me. But I had to keep up appearances.
You were watching something else, though, smirking. "You know. Phoebe Greengrass is watching you all the time."
My eyes darted over to the girl you had mentioned and I in fact caught her watching. She was quite annoying, actually, always running after me now.
"You wanna say what?"
"She surely wouldn't mind your attention."
I wondered why you said that. It made no sense to me whatsoever. Why would you want me to be with someone as superficial as Phoebe Greengrass? Why would you want me to be with anyone in the whole? What did you care?
I smirked at you. "Oh, she had my attention."
You stared at me blankly, obviously trying to process what I had said. Was it so hard to believe, after all? I felt a little insulted, though that surely wasn't your intention. "Sorry," you whispered, "What?"
I leant forward a bit, so no one would listen in on our little conversation. "She was not good, though," I told you and your face filled with horror. "I already regretted the one go I had..."
You held up both your hands as to stop me and I fell silent as you had wanted me to. "I don't think I want to hear that."
I laughed, truly amused by the expression on your face. As if you didn't think me to be that kind of guy. Little Phoebe had told me that exactly as I had told her – no, we wouldn't be together forever.
"She doesn't look at you like she regretted it," you said, quickly glancing over to her again. I didn't confirm it, but she was probably still watching us.
"Poor girl believes to be in love with me," I explained lazily. "It's ridiculous."
Your eyes searched my face but you didn't seem to find what you were looking for. I was still quite amused about the whole thing and you didn't seem to approve. You were always the good one of us. The one who believed to know right from wrong and tried to always do the right thing. You never understood that right and wrong didn't matter. Who told us what was right anyways? The ones with power! Meaning, if I had the power – or you – that we could decide what was right. Right and wrong was variable.
You scoffed and muttered, "I wouldn't have thought you to be like that."
I raised my eyebrows. I had been right about that as it seemed. "Like what?"
"Like..." You fell silent, you probably didn't find the words for it. You thought me cruel, cold, but you felt ridiculous saying it. "Forget about it," you finally said as to close the matter.
Only seconds after, Malfoy, Nott and Avery sat down around us. Malfoy was grinning at you like mad and you raised an eyebrow at him.
"So, I heard you finally broke up with Hitchin?"
You sighed, tired already of the subject. I wondered what it mattered to Malfoy, though. It was probably only curiosity – gossip was important to every pureblood as it seemed, even to the males.
"What's your excuse not to like him?" you asked as if there had to be an excuse.
Malfoy wasn't impressed by your almost aggressive tone. "Never made the effort to investigate on his blood status, huh?"
You raised an eyebrow again and asked, "Now, why would I?"
It was so typically you – you just didn't care about these important things. It was probably because you considered it wrong to care about blood status. You were wrong.
Malfoy smirked at you, casually leaning a bit towards you. I found that I didn't like him so close to you, though I couldn't tell why. It didn't matter, did it?
"Because his mother," Malfoy told you, "Is a bloody muggle and his older brother is a damn Squib."
You stared at him. Very shortly, you seemed angry but you regained composure pretty quickly. You probably didn't give a damn about his mother or about his brother or about anything like that, and for several moments, I feared you might actually say it. Usually, you kept quiet on these things around other Slytherins, only telling me what you really thought about what you called "pureblood-nonsense". I felt like it was only a matter of time until you exploded, revealing to everyone that you actually were the blood traitor you pretended not to be. Luckily, you didn't explode then and there. You looked over to me, smiling slightly,
"Well," you said, very carefully. "Then I can be happy to be rid of him, can't I?"
Malfoy, Avery and Nott laughed at your comment and Nott punched your arm as to symbolized camaraderie. You didn't laugh, just as I didn't. Your eyes were fixed on me and you were smiling slightly, as to keep up appearances.
I nodded lightly to tell you that I approved – and you shrugged, probably to tell me that it wasn't for me - or that you just didn't care about any of this.
Please leave a review. That would be a great Christmas present :)
