Review Reply time!
Layla Azeen - Here you go :)
smolstan - Well, his favourite tool is psychological & emotional manipulation after magic, so we'll see him dabble a little in that in this chapter.
So far, he was making progress.
Tom was slowly making his way into her good books - and I cannot go fast - because she was one of the rarer category of women who valued substance over style, and his typical flirtatious antics were only going to put her down in her bad books.
She already thinks you're trouble, and she isn't the one who'll go looking for it.
Kate Summers was a careful girl, and trouble was the last thing she'd come looking for.
Until it is enticing enough.
She was also curious and determined, whose body was a vessel for the mind it housed. And he had to align himself with her definition of enticing.
Then, she will unite heaven and earth for her goal.
He was unsure now, but people like her were the kind who could make his empire a glorious tapestry, or unravel it all with one tug - he had to become worth the effort for the former.
Which is why his first act in the morning was to make sure that he provided any and every assistance she demanded. "Good morning," he made his way to the sofa where the person in question was fast asleep, face hidden amidst blankets and dark brown hair.
For that one moment, Tom wished to run his lips over her skin, to let his hungry self taste all of her. He wanted to give himself the liberty of having her solely to himself, but timing was of the essence, and his wanton needs were nowhere up in his top priorities.
"Wake up, Summers," he gently shook her shoulders and the girl shot up, wincing loudly as she sat up, massaging her side.
"Riddle - had you not left?"
"I'm certain missing breakfast and classes is nowhere on your agenda." Kate Summoned the bottle, drinking a tablespoonful of the potion before standing up, this time with a much more relaxed expression. "And I returned with a fresh change of nightclothes - couldn't leave you in that state. I take it you're much better?"
"Certainly - this potion works wonders." She took a long look at him, an odd smile on her face, and Tom seized the opportunity to fully probe her mind in its conscious state. She winced, hand shooting up to support her head while he darted forward to assist her.
There was a swish of what seemed like Ministry robes, and he could see a tall, dark-haired woman, hair tied up in a tight bun, smiling down at a small seven-year old girl.
"Katie, won't you take care of your pa while I'm gone?"
"I'll make him soup!" Seven-year old Kate chirped, smoothing the lady's robes while tugging on her own frock. "When will I get robes, Ma?"
"When you're eleven and ready to go to school."
"I bet I'll be in Ravenclaw!" She said proudly, twirling around in her cream clothes. "I'm smart."
"That you are, young lady - and you will be in whichever house suits you best." Her mother carried Kate till the lounge, setting her down by the sofa.
"Ravenclaw does."
"All right then, you little eagle. Wish Ma goodbye."
"Bye bye!" Her mother walked to the grate, taking a handful of greenish-silver powder, and turned around as if remembering something. "And no cooking soup, young lady - Mummy has made enough food to last till dinnertime. Promise not to touch the stove?"
"Promise." Her mother quirked an eyebrow, Kate playing with a cushion.
"And no magic too, you little hellion."
"Mummy!"
"Goodbye, love."
"Bye!" With that, the lady left in a swoosh of flames.
He is thrown into the next memory, a fourteen year old Kate sorting magazines and books in her bedroom, a yellowed Daily Prophet among them. She turned away from the pile, and Tom walked towards it, peering at the lot.
The Daily Prophet, dated 1933, showed the infamous Ministry attack by Gellert Grindelwald, marking the death of eleven Wizengamot staffers and an Isabelle Summers, a senior Auror.
She suddenly turned around, picking up the Daily Prophet and packing it up in between several books and what looked like a family album.
"How often has this been happening?" He asked her, sitting her down on the sofa. Who had once seemed invulnerable and mysterious was now an an armour with many chinks he could pry open.
"Not very often, but then, it started after a day before the match, so not too less either. I'll be fine though - it's probably what the Muggles call a migraine." She stood up again, walking out of the hole leading to the portraits. "Aren't you coming, Riddle?"
He followed suit, accompanying her to the dungeons and waiting on her in the common room, dressed in a fresh pair of robes.
"Riddle," Alden Greengrass wished him, casting a cursory glance around the room, "have you seen Kate around?"
"Well, she is out of the hospital wing. Changing in the dormitories as we speak."
"And why were both of you absent in the evening?"
"Kate was experiencing extreme discomfort and could not bear the physical pain of coming down to the dungeons - I simply escorted her to the Head Boy & Girl's Common Room. And as a well-wisher and friend, I had to stay back to ensure her well-being in that delicate state."
The ugly silence between the two was broken by Kate's entry, the young lady a flurry of robes and satchel, tearing out of the room and into the corridor, French braid flying behind her. "Keep up, you heathens - we're delayed by fifteen minutes and that breakfast isn't waiting for anyone!"
As Greengrass looked at him with mild incredulity, Tom couldn't help but silently agree.
Being injured was a pain - literally.
Kate couldn't even fully enjoy those pancakes she made that painful sprint for, the ache in her side resurfacing.
She was joined five minutes later by Alden and Riddle, the latter greeted by his coterie of ardent followers. Walburga Black in particular threw dirty glances, but Kate had neither the patience nor the energy to retort, choosing to lavish her anger by vehemently attacking her breakfast.
Classes flew by, and the day was nearly over before she knew it - it was as mundane as it could get, punctuated only by brief stabs of pain and immediate relief from Madam Pomfrey's potion. As evening closed in, she readied herself for the nighttime patrol (which Headmaster Dippet had so graciously excused, but she insisted), waiting for Tom outside the Great Hall.
Riddle arrived by the required time, the two briefing prefects about sensitive areas before they set off on their separate ways, deciding to meet at the fifth floor staircase.
The evening was uneventful as well, and she crossed seventh-year Ravenclaw Gemma McKinnon.
"McKinnon," she nodded in her direction, while Gemma waved back.
"Kate - how far in recovery are you now?"
"A fair level - I have a question for you."
"Go ahead," The Ravenclaw set her bag down.
"You know a lot about Muggle flower language, right?" Gemma's face lit up, looking much more interested than before.
"Yes - why?"
"What do red carnations and camellias signify?"
"Admiration and perfection respectively - paired together, they're a polite way of expressing lust, longing and utter fascination with a person. Thinking of giving those to someone, eh?" Gemma smiled roguishly.
"No - had a cousin at home asking me about them. Guess I know why now," she chuckled, wishing the Ravenclaw goodbye as she walked off.
By the time she met him again, it was quarter to twelve. "Uneventful night?" He inquired, looking slightly worse for the wear.
"Doesn't look like you could say the same," she pointed out, looking at his disheveled clothing with a raised brow. "Do you give every girl red carnations and camellias if she manages to score more than twenty four hours in your company?" He took a long while before a reply, the silence before filled by the sound of their feet in the corridors.
"I suppose I will always be the casanova in your image."
"You do nothing to deny it, and while I am perfectly at ease with that knowledge, I just don't wish to be a name in your ledger, Riddle - I consider my worth far above that."
"So it is clear it will take more than conventional means to convince you of my sincere attempts to befriend you."
"You don't give friends flowers that convey lust." As if on a whim, he took her arm, pulling them into a dim lit alcove, propriety abandoned as he leaned dangerously close to her.
"I adore you, Summers," he spoke in a low tone, "But more than adoration, I admire and worship you in the basest of means, in ways that would be deemed completely indecent." His face had a dazed look to it.
"That's bullshit and a stretch - you barely know me." His face quickly lost its dreamy quality, turning into a cold mask.
"Then perhaps you too should consider your inference as the same, because I'm not a teenage fool who swoons over any pretty face," he snapped, letting go of her as he marched off, leaving a rather perplexed Kate alone in the fifth-floor corridor.
What a shameless way to prove your dignity.
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