Do You Like Book Bags?
by ebonyquill
Disclaimer: I don't own it. It belongs to J.K. Rowling.
Summary: It's your story. It's your point of view. It's Tom Riddle's love. It's my take on how you two began. ONESHOT
As you sit down for dinner, you loosen your Ravenclaw-colored tie, and send your classmates a brilliant smile. You're glad classes are over and that your professors were kind enough to only give you a miniscule amount of homework today. You greedily fill your plate with food. It feels like you haven't eaten in ages. You probably haven't since you've been studying day and night for the upcoming OWLs.
As you pop a chip into your mouth, you start to look around the Great Hall. You've always been curious about your classmates. Your stare lingers on the Slytherin table. In particular, a boy surrounded by his fellow classmates. His aristocratic good looks and elegancy catches your eyes. You won't stop staring until he catches you doing it, but he never locks eyes with you. You feel grateful for this fact, but at the same time, you're disappointed.
"Hey."
Your best friend breaks your simple reverie. She's giving you a goofy smile. Her eyebrow is raised in question and then she waves a breadstick in your face, accusingly. "What are you staring at?"
You smile sheepishly and feel your cheeks grow hot. You reply in a soft tone. "Nothing. Nothing at all, " in a stronger, more natural tone you say, "Get that thing out of my face, you twit."
Your so-called best friend waves the breadstick in front of your face one last time, before taking a bite out of it, and leaving you alone so she can chat with fellow Ravenclaw students. You sigh in relief. Your cover hasn't been blown.
Double-checking your book bag, you search for your favorite quill, and in the process find out that you have an overdue library book tucked under your Potions textbook. Your brows become furrowed in frustration. You look at your best friend who's flirting with a nearby Hufflepuff and figure she won't care if you slip out the Great Hall to go to the library. The kinder part of you informs her that you're leaving and she just smiles and waves you off, then giggles at something stupid the Hufflepuff said.
As you roll your eyes and start walking away, you look back. You shock yourself by thinking that if you had been in your best friend's position, you would have laughed at the handsome Hufflepuff too. You would have laughed a million times for that Slytherin you were staring at. Shame on you.
While you walk to the Library, you clutch onto the strap of your book bag, sighing at the bland routine of your everyday life.
---
You slam your textbooks onto the dining table, causing stares from your classmates. Your best friend stares at you obnoxiously before asking you, "What's wrong?"
After exhaling all of the oxygen out of your lungs, in a miffed tone you say, "Madam Corner gave me a detention. I didn't even know the bloody librarian could give out detentions."
Your best friend bursts out laughing. Before she finishes, she looks around to see if any cute Hufflepuffs were watching her. She had come to you with a theory weeks ago that if a boy saw you laughing with your friends that you would seem more desirable to them. Seeing that no one saw, she asks in a tone that hides her disappointment very well, "What in the world did you do to poor Madam Corner?" She wipes a tear from a wrinkle by her eye that she always gets when she laughs.
"I checked in a book two weeks late," You roll your eyes, "I mean, honestly, that's complete and utter rubbish!"
"What's she going to make you do? Alphabetize the books a million zillion times?" She says while she settles down and rearranges her skirt. "Oh Merlin, that's the best thing I've heard all day."
"I hope not," You say, sitting down next to her. As you start eating and your friend starts her usual rounds of socializing, you feel your eyes to trail among the students again. Your eyes rest on the same boy. He's clearly ignoring the boy who is talking to him with such zeal. His clear dark eyes are on his food and his mouth remains motionless. His neat, wavy jet black hair stayed untouched on his head and you've never wanted to run your fingers through anything this particular so badly in your life.
Suddenly you feel eyes on your back and you turn around hastily. Whoever was staring at you with such intensity has turned away suddenly. Nothing exciting ever happens to you, save the library detention, so you casually brush the incident off.
After a few minutes of staring at your food, you become bored with the people around you and excuse yourself. You sling your book bag around your shoulder and tell your best friend that you'll see her in Charms.
Walking through the corridor, you hear something collide with the floor. You look down and see that your book bag has ripped. Sighing impatiently you bend down to pick up the textbook that has fallen out. Before your hand even touches the bind, it floats into your hand. You turn around and see that the gorgeous Slytherin you've been staring at has used a simple incantation to retrieve your book.
You stare at him for two seconds before regaining your composure. "Um - thank you." Before he can doing anything, you quickly powerwalk to the library, your one safehaven. You are so embarassed. How could you forget the simple floating charm you were taught in second year! You look around for something to bang your head on, but unfortunately, there aren't any soft pillows around the library.
---
Over the next two weeks, you can't bring yourself to look at the Slytherin table again. Besides, with OWLs only a few months away, you don't have any time to spare. As you sit, eating your lunch, you check your book bag which has miraculously kept itself together - even when its owner couldn't keep herself together. Taking your Charms book out to make sure your homework is still safely tucked in between its pages, you find a musty-looking library book. It's five days overdue.
Having learned your lesson the first time, you quickly excuse yourself to the library, and as usual, your best friend ignores you for some handsome Quidditch player. Rolling your eyes, you leave.
Walking in the corridor, your mind drifts because after so many trips to the library, your feet know exactly where you're going. Suddenly you feel the weight on your shoulder become lighter and here a large thump. You look down. Your bag has ripped. Again. Sighing angrily, you say with a slightly annoyed tone, "Not again."
You bend down to pick up the book. And of course, before you can, it floats comftorably into your hand. You stand up quickly and turn around. It's the same Slytherin from before. He looks the same, but he looks even more handsome. You open your mouth to say something, anything, but he beats you to the chase.
"Your books seem to have a tendency to fall." His tone isn't mocking, but it isn't in jest. His voice makes you want to swoon and every syllable that comes out of his mouth makes you weak in the knees.
After a few seconds of looking like an idiot you say, "I suppose. Er - thank you, again." You move your foot sideways as if to dash off like you did the last time.
"I'm - " you immediately stop breathing as he says this, "Thomas Riddle - " your eyes grow a bit larger, " - by the way." Your completely in love with his voice at this point. Immediately after learning his last name, you pair your name with his in a series of ways. You inwardly scoff at yourself for doing something so childish. But then you stop, thinking that your first name plus his last name, Riddle, does roll off the tongue quite nicely.
You smile stupidly. "Well.. thank you, Thomas, for sort of retrieving my books for me." Before you give him your name, you turn around and quickly finish your trek to the library where you return your book.
That night, when you're chewing on your favorite quill and your eyes scan your textbook, you can't help but keep mistaking the word 'accio' for Thomas Riddle. And it doesn't help that you're studying Summoning Charms.
---
In the last three weeks, you haven't spoken to Thomas Riddle again. You've almost completely forgotten him by now. In your head you think with inevitable cliche, 'Almost.' You've switched to carrying all your books in your arms. You've ultimately given up on your book bag and its reliability. Even though your arms have become tired and weary, you think its worth the pain as long as you don't have to go through another humiliating round of 'which book wants to tear the book bag first?' followed by a round of 'which handsome fellow wants to catch me in my most embarrasing situation?'
You look at your best friend. Her newly-gained boyfriend has his arm lazily slung around her shoulders and she looks absolutely giddy, ignoring her dinner. As she starts to play with his unkempt hair and you don't even bother to excuse yourself. You don't have a reason to go to the library, but you can always use your popular catch phrase.
"I'm going to go study for OWLs," and without waiting for a rude reply from your best friend, matronizing you over your over-excessive studying, you leave the Great Hall.
As you're walking through a familiar corridor, you notice a first year that's only a few steps in front of you. You keep to yourself and crack your knuckles. Immediately your attention flickers back to the first year. His book bag had torn and his books were strewn across the floor. You hurry to his side and bend down, helping him with his books.
The first year looks absolutely frazzled. While you hand him his Charms textbook, you wonder if you looked that nervous and worried when you were a first year. Knowing yourself, you come to the conclusion that you looked much worse than he did.
"Are you okay?" you ask, with a caring smile on your face.
The first year nods quickly and then glances at something behind your shoulder, before mumbling something incoherent. Before you say another word, he dashes off in the opposite direction to the Great Hall. You look behind you and find yourself staring at Thomas Riddle. He looks troubled.
"Oh, hello Thomas," you greet him politely.
He gives you a half-hearted smile and then he says with a toneless voice, "You don't carry a book bag anymore."
"Well - it was rubbish, don't you remember?" You flash him a smile, hoping that you brushed your teeth today. You can't remember if you flossed or not..
"Right.. oh and just for future reference, I don't actually like Thomas. You can call me Tom," he says with a genuine friendly tone. He looks at you and he seems to be searching your eyes for some sort of positive reaction.
You swallow the spit that's been gathering in your mouth before it can start dribbling out the side of your mouth. The muscles in your cheekbones start to rise and you find yourself smiling unintelligently again. "Oh, alright. Goodbye.. Tom."
You turn around and after little time has passed, find yourself in the library again. You feel like slapping yourself for being so dumb. He was only a boy after all.. an utterly handsome boy that the other Slytherins seemed to worship, but still, he was only a boy. Sighing aloud, you start rummaging through the Potions section of the library. You see that no one is around your area and you reveal to no one a small smile. You like it best when it's completely silent around you.
You get on your tippie toes to reach for the book that you've been lusting after that's finally been returned to the shelves. As you retrieve it, you get back onto your feet and place the book onto the table. You sit down in the chair and start to rummage through it.
Two minutes seem to pass by, but you check your Muggle wristwatch and see that it's been an hour. You rub your eyes and close the book. Stretching your arms, you neatly organize your books and assignments. You stand up and place the books in your arms. As you start to turn you notice that the candle light from the space in between the two shelves has dimmed.
"Oh, hello Tom." You can't seem to escape this boy, but you don't mind.
He has that same troubled look on his face as before. "I have a confession to make and after I make mine, I want you to make yours."
"What?" You ask. You're confused and have no idea what he could be on about.
"I - I've been using Diffindo to cut your book bag open. Your book bag isn't really rubbish," Tom tells you in a quick manner. His dark eyes dodge your face and trail across the books among books that make up your favorite library.
You look at him strangely. "Why?"
"It would have been a bit awkward if I had just sat down by you at the Ravenclaw table without having ever spoken to you," Tom's cool composure seemed to diminish. He looked a bit sick, actually.
"I suppose.. but why the long intervals in between severing my book bag?" You ask, putting your books bag down on the table.
You watch the handsome boy as he looks sideways and then looks you in the eye, "I thought that maybe I could muster up the courage to talk to you, but I didn't." He chuckled with a slight hint of nervousness. "Your turn."
"I - I don't have anything to confess. Sorry," You say with a pure apologetic look on your face.
Tom raises an eyebrow and the color seems to come back. He takes a step closer to you and you don't hesitate to take a step backwards. This is the first time you realize you have no exit. Behind you is a wall filled with shelves that are filled with books and in front of you is Tom, who looks so handsome in his uniform that you just want to.. "So it hasn't been you staring at the Slytherin table these past weeks?"
You feel your cheeks become hot with embarassment. You put your hand on one of your cheeks to rate the damage. By the temperature of your cheek, you know that they're hot red with foolishness. "I - I.. er."
Tom takes another step forward and he's smiling a little bigger now. "It's alright. I most enjoy your stares than the other girls at the Hufflepuff table. I must tell you, you look quite adorable with your cheeks pink like that."
You're still too embarassed to say anything and your breaths have become more shallow. You don't even realize that Tom is approaching you gradually, closing in on any space between the two of you. He stops and you're in elbow's reach of his brilliant hair. You're almost positive that he can feel your nervous breaths on the side of his cheek. The Slytherin boy apologizes quickly. "I'm sorry if I've frightened you." He turns to leave.
You feel like you are frozen in time, watching him slowly walk away from you. You find your voice. "Tom - wait."
He turns around. His lips have formed into a sheepish smile. "It's silly, I know. To be completely and utterly in love with a girl.. and to not even know her name."
It hits you in this moment that you've never told him your name throughout all of the silly situations you've been through together. It hits you even harder that he's told you that he's in love with you. You're so close to believing that you're in love with him, too. Your mouth starts to move, but no words come out of your mouth.
The features in Tom's face become eager, almost sure that you're fighting with yourself to say something.
For a millisecond, you smile naively and then rest your chin on your right shoulder. "You're right. I - I do have something to confess. I have been foolishly staring at you during meals," You take a deep breath, still keeping your eyes on your long forgotten books, "Wow - that's more embarrasing than I thought it would be."
You hear Tom laugh and as the tiny space darkens again, you know that he's moving towards you. You don't even have to look in that direction to know that his face is only inches away from yours. You choose this moment to look at him. Nervously, you search his eyes.
There's a pure, blissful moment where your fear and embarrasment completely disappears. In that single moment, you place your hands on the side of Tom's face. Simutaneously, his hands rest on your hips, and you become unaware to the surroundings around you. As Tom cranes his neck, you rise your chin, and in less than a few moments, your lips meet. It's Tom that deepens the kiss and his hands move to your lower back. He gently pulls your body closer to his so that your loosened Ravenclaw tie and his lazily-done tie collide.
You're almost disappointed when he breaks the kiss. You lower your head and look at the buttons on his uniform shirt. Then you bite your lip while smiling. You look up and when Tom sees your reaction, he smiles too. You wrap your arms around his neck and pull him closer for another kiss. It's just as earth-shattering as the first. A broad smile on your face, you murmur into his lips. You tell him your name.
He kisses the tip of your nose, "Now that I know," he kisses your forehead, "your name," he kisses the top of your hair, "I think I've," he kisses both your cheeks, "fallen in love with you all over again."
As you smile, he lowers his neck for another kiss. Yes - nothing exciting ever happens to you.
Author's Note: This was a side project that took me one or two hours. I haven't reread it because it's almost three and I'm tired. Hopefully you like it. Review please. :