The next day, Minerva could hardly sit still. Last night's tension still weighed on her mind and the time limit was fast approaching. To top it off, Albus had yet to appear at the High Table and he was always the first to breakfast. Tom, however, had passed her on his way to his table, putting his hand on her shoulder and letting it trail across and down to her hip as he walked. This action did not go unnoticed by Poppy and Rose.
"Minerva McGonagall, you will tell me right now what that was about." hissed Poppy. Neither she nor Rose had been at last night's party and hadn't seen Tom's hands all over her. Minerva flushed and ducked her head,
"Nothing. Just a friend."
"Uh-huh." said Rose skeptically. The pair stared at Minerva until she caved with a smile,
"We danced last night. At the faculty party."
"And I'm guessing that wasn't the end of it?" asked Rose. Minerva smacked her friend's arm,
"Rose! We danced…and then he kissed me." she said in a rush. Poppy gasped,
"He did not!"
"He did!" Minerva couldn't stop the girlish glee that crept into her voice. She couldn't tell her friends about Albus, but she was increasingly finding that she didn't want to. Tom, however, was another story. He was their age, a heartthrob. They would understand this. The rest of breakfast was spent with Poppy and Rose grilling Minerva, who repeatedly shot glances up at the High Table but Albus never appeared.
First period was Transfiguration and Minerva was disappointed to see Professor Sandness at the head of the class. Minerva stepped up to him,
"Excuse me, sir. Do you know where Professor Dumbledore is?"
"He's away." said the professor. Minerva nodded, resisting the urge to roll her eyes,
"I know that, sir. Could you perhaps tell me where?"
"No." said the professor and he walked away. Minerva glowered at him and returned to her seat. Poppy nudged her in an attempt to nudge away the discontent frown that was making its way to Minerva's face, but Minerva ignored her friend. The class took far longer than normal, with Professor Sandness reviewing things Minerva had long since mastered in both theory and practical. She found her quill idly scratching in the margins of her neat notes, slowly drawing the same line over and over again. At long last, the class was out. Minerva was collecting her books and still wondering as to the safety of Albus when there was a velvety voice just over her shoulder,
"May I accompany you to your next class?" Minerva looked around to see Tom standing there, Poppy and Rose standing off to the side and obviously not quite sure what to make of this newcomer. Minerva continued putting away her books and quills,
"You may, but I'm afraid I won't be very good company." she said. Tom smiled,
"You are always good company, darling." he said as he tried to slide an arm around Minerva's shoulder. She smoothly avoided it by reaching down to pick up her bag, popping back up to say,
"You know what? I'm not going to my next class."
"What?" shrieked Poppy. Rose could only stare at Minerva in shock. Minerva shrugged,
"It's Divination. I can learn more by looking in the Prophet than in a cup of tea leaves, and that's saying something. The entire class is a load of contrived nonsense. I think a walk around the lake would do me more good." With that, Minerva set off, Tom trying to keep up with her long legs and doing surprisingly well. Once he caught up to Minerva, he tried to slide his arm through her but Minerva only sped up. By now Tom was almost jogging to keep up,
"Minerva! What is it, darling?" Minerva stopped and thrust her finger in Tom's face, almost straight up his nose,
"Don't you dare call me darling. I am nobody's 'darling' and you haven't earned the right to call me anything other than my name."
"You sure seem to be Dumbledore's darling." muttered Tom. Minerva had been about to walk off but she whirled around to glare at Tom,
"What did you say?"
"You heard me."
"When I say I am no one's darling, I mean it. I can't imagine why you would suggest otherwise." said Minerva, a derisive sniff in her tone. Tom laughed mockingly at that,
"So that day I say you two in the classroom and you less than fully clothed, that was…what?"
"An accident!" said Minerva in frustration. An accident that we were caught, she thought, "I'm training to become an Animagus and my reversion to my human shape was not entirely complete, thus leaving me as you saw."
"'An accident', of course. Or perhaps Professor Dumbledore is just a dirty old man who—" Minerva slapped Tom, hard, across the face. The crack seemed to echo across the empty lake and Tom slowly turned back to look at Minerva. Minerva fairly crackled with anger,
"Professor Dumbledore is a respectable man and you will not say such things about him, Thomas Riddle." she snapped. There was a flicker of something in Tom's eyes, something inherently dark and in that moment, Minerva was truly afraid. Afraid of what he could do to her, what he could say about her. What lies he could tell that would ruin her forever. But then the flicker was gone and Tom's shoulders sagged,
"I'm sorry, Minerva. I'm a jealous man and when I saw him looking at you like that…"
"He didn't look." said Minerva quietly. Tom could only snort at that,
"Of course he looked. Pretty young lady like you; I bet he couldn't keep his eyes off you."
"He didn't look and that's the truth." said Minerva. In a moment of sheer stupidity, she continued, "I wish he had."
"You want to be ogled by your teacher?" asked Tom in disgust. Minerva blushed. She couldn't tell him they were soul mates. That was none of his business, and Minerva had said too much already.
"I do not want to be ogled by anyone. I want to be left in peace!" Minerva turned on her heel and stomped off and toward the Quidditch pitch. That was officially the last time she talked to Tom Riddle.
It was another two days before Albus made contact. Minerva was at breakfast when a school owl descended and landed directly in front of her and stuck out its leg. Minerva immediately recognized the loopy writing on the outside of the envelope and fairly tore it open. Sure enough, there was a letter from Albus,
Minerva—
I have captured Grindelwald. Will return within a day. Meet me tonight in the entrance hall to reset the clock.
Yours, Albus
"What's it say?" asked Poppy. Minerva smiled and laughed in excitement,
"It says he defeated Grindelwald."
"Says it in the Prophet too!" said Poppy in excitement as an owl dropped the newspaper in front of her. It was only seconds before the entire Great Hall was cheering, teachers included. They had waited so long for this to be over. Headmaster Dippet stood,
"All classes for today are cancelled!" The cheering grew louder. Minerva hugged her friends close and happened to look over at the Slytherin table. Tom looked less than impressed with the news the Prophet had brought. In fact, he wasn't cheering at all. Minerva put it out of her mind. They were resetting the clock. Tonight. Minerva felt the bottom of her stomach drop out. She knew she'd been significantly tetchier since Albus left, but it wasn't as if she could do that much about it. For a moment, she seriously considered apologizing to Tom for her actions earlier. Then his eyes came back to her, dark eyes that intended all kinds of evil and his words, insinuating all sorts of things. Minerva raised her chin. No, she would not apologize. Nothing could make her.
A/N: Hi. Please don't hate me. I know it's been forever since I updated. I've since gotten in to Once Upon A Time, Doctor Who, and Supernatural. If you have anything you want for those, drop me a note. Otherwise, I'm so sorry this took forever. I've since deleted my outline for this (I didn't expect to update but I kept getting reviews a year after I updated!), so any updates will be slow coming. Reviews definitely make updates faster! Thank you all for reading this and I hope you have a good day!