It was odd, but they walked close on their way to double Potions, his lingering near hers. She locked pinkies with him (something that she'd seen people do in those muggle films), and began cutting up her ingredients.

Chapter Seven

"One thing that drives me insane about Slytherin is its over-whelming tendency to lord everything over the other houses," Marie said, sitting in her usual spot in the 7th year boys dormitory, waiting for Tom to finish packing his book bag. They had a regular schedule – she came up to his dorm to wait for him every weekend before they retired to the library to do whatever pleased them at the time.

The conversation flow had been tense at first but eventually he'd loosened up – and so had she. He was still evil and she'd grown comfortable around him as if he were a friend. A friend who wasn't actually a friend, but a boyfriend, who she was quickly falling in lo – no she wasn't going to go there. She didn't know what was different this time around but somehow Voldemort was becoming attached to a human being. And that person was her.

"Need I remind you, that you belong to the Slytherin house," Tom said, shoving his Potions book into a second bag. "So your point is moot."

"I was just saying that it seems to be a quality of the average Slytherin student, past and present." And future. "To be slightly –"

"Superior?"

"Exactly, you understand me so well." She gave him a bright smile. His lips twitched in response. "Tom," she said, snatching a hold of his sleeve, she hated that she sounded needy, but this was driving her insane. They didn't discuss feelings often, and while they shared multiple opinions and he knew nearly every little thing about her and she about him (except the messy history which they both avoided like the plague) they didn't talk about how they felt about each other. And she felt for him more than he did for her. Or at least that's what she was going to find out.

"How do you feel about me?" It was so weird to ask that – to ask Voldemort or Tom that – because he knew he would avoid the question, usually by kissing her or diverting her attention with something completely random. "I don't mean to sound needy –"

He traced her lips with his thumb, staring.

"Tom, please don't try and distract me. I can't be in a relationship that's only one way."

"It's not," he said, suddenly – abruptly.

There was a plethora of subjects that they hadn't gone over yet – that they both religiously avoided. Well, okay, she avoided. It was Tom's every annoying persistency that cracked one of the biggest secrets she'd had. The one concerning him. Out of all the slip-ups she'd ever give, she had to say the one thing that would make him follow her. Investigate her. And basically blow her cover. It didn't start that way, the beginning of the end never really does. It's something that happens when some one – mainly her – gets too comfortable with someone else – Tom – and spills the beans about certain past events. In this case the problem was Eric Davies, her first boyfriend.

"Am I the first one to kiss you?" Tom said, touching her lips with a frown.

Marie bit her lip, not wanting to answer his question. She'd kissed Eric Davies on their trip to Hogsmeade in her fifth year and their "relationship" had been little more than a few shared kisses before she caught him doing the same thing with Medea Bastian. After that she'd refused to date – condemning the whole institution.

His eyebrows rose menacingly as if he knew the answer already and didn't like it. "Who was he?" She had no doubt that when he used that tone of voice people ran for cover. The inner more shadowed part of her wanted to do just that.

"Eric Davies." And there was her first mistake. In this time and place there was no Eric Davies, and Tom would be just the type of person to follow him. And cut off his lips. And that is exactly what he did, minus the cutting off the lips part. Minutely, she knew that that was her first big slip-up, the part where he continued to ask her questions about where Eric Davies was now, how she'd known them, when she'd met him. And when the lies had gotten tangled in her throat, he'd had her followed. She felt like Desdemona might have from Othello. Smothered. Except the part with the pillow – but that was probably a coming attraction of the Tom and Marie show.

"Are you jealous of Eric Davies?"

He carefully removed his gloves – finger by finger – slowly and meticulously. It was the way he stalked forwards – predatory – that made that familiar flicker of fear ride higher in her stomach. She sat on his four-poster, legs crossed, a book resting open in her lap. He braced his hands on either side of her body, leaning forwards to look directly into her eye.

"Tell me something," he whispered into her ear, a deadly quality to his voice. "Your grandfather, what was his name?"

Her brain stumbled over the answer, who was her grandfather – she couldn't exactly lie outright. He would find out. It was stupid to get involved with him in the first place, it was stupid to even have thought she could change things. Of course, Marie wasn't exactly known for her intelligence in the area of personal matters. Rash and temperamental the logical course of action didn't always apply to her. It hadn't this time – and it wouldn't in the future.

"I don't know," she said, rolling away from him, a flippant grin on her face. "Never really bothered to ask."

His gaze didn't drop. "Then tell me something else, what is your birth year?"

Mathematics was never her strong suit. "19 – does it really matter Tom?" She needed to get out of this dorm – now! These were questions she couldn't answer, they deserved preparation which was something she didn't do particularly well. If at all. "Fine," she said finally when she'd subtracted seventeen years from the current. "If you insist –"

"Don't open your mouth to spew another lie," he hissed, locking her wrists to the bed with his own fingers. "I looked for an Eric Davies – and I found no record of him searching a hundred years back. Now either you've decided to lie to make yourself sound more experienced or there is something important you aren't telling me." It was the first time she saw the real Lord Voldemort surface.

"I'm not lying –"

He covered her mouth with his hand. "Tell me the truth!"