"Look…I'm really sorry Margaret. What I did to you was wrong," Evelyn looked away for a moment as she had never been very good at apologizing and she wanted this to seem as convincing as possible except the look on her face wasn't helping matters. She didn't feel truly sorry but she couldn't bare being on anyone's hate list.
"Are you just saying this because you thought I was on my death bed and you didn't want to have it on your conscience?" she looked up at Evelyn from the rickety infirmary bed, much like she had done from the floor that day.
Sometimes Margaret knew her too well.
"Well--NO!" she fired defensively, "I was really worried about you. You could've died, but luckily you didn't."
"So did Dippet send you or something?" Margaret asked dryly, betraying her angelic looks created by the pouring sunlight from the window on the east side of the infirmary.
Evelyn's eyebrows knitted together dramatically, appalled that her friend would think such a thing and even more so at the prospect of it being on Dippet's behalf.
"Oh Margaret, you know me better than that. I'm no one's messenger girl, especially not his."
"Oh…" she sighed, "I figured he might have sent you as some sort of good will ambassador to ask me questions."
The legs of Evelyn's chair scraped across the stone floor as she pulled it closer to Margaret's bedside, "Well, since you mention it…"
"What?" Margaret spat at her willingness to hear the latest news.
"Well…" she egged on unashamedly, "what happened?"
"Well, I was…you know…"
Evelyn shook her head for Margaret to continue.
"Going to the bathroom…I walked out of the stall and to the sink to wash my hands. I was turning off the faucet and I looked in the mirror and I saw…"
"What?—What did you see?"
"I saw…" Margaret's hands opened up as if the word escaped her literal grasp, "I don't know. I don't know what it was…"
"It wasn't a person was it?" Evelyn was now leaning over the handrail of the bed, blocking the sunlight from Margaret's face.
"No…at least not any person I've ever seen. It was some sort of creature, but I can't be sure—I just know that it wasn't human."
"Riddle guessed that—
"Riddle? Tom Riddle?" Margaret's eyes crinkled in disbelief.
"Yes, Tom Riddle—
"Why were you talking to him?"
"Because he's in my bloody house!" Evelyn half shouted at her, her patience quickly growing thin on the matter. She knew exactly why Margaret found this a particular point of interest. Margaret and Tom had been scholastic rivals since they set foot in Hogwarts and she obviously saw it as some sort of betrayal that Evelyn had fraternized with him.
"So what are you doing hanging around him anyhow?" Margaret inquired suspiciously.
"Looking for a new best friend," Evelyn let the catty remark slip through her teeth, immediately thinking better of it as soon as she heard it out of her own mouth.
"Well if that's the case," Margaret raised from her bed slowly, like a frail, eldarly woman, "then you best go back to him and let me rest in peace!"
"You're not dying Margaret, besides, I didn't come here to fight, ok?"
"Ok," Margaret repeated tersely, not fully believing it.
"Whether you want to believe me or not," she stated matter of factly, standing up from her chair, "I am glad you're okay, and I was worried about you," she gave her friend one last, quick nod and turned to leave. Though she would have hated to admit it, Margaret wistfully watched her one true friend leave her bedside, not taking her eyes off of Evelyn's back until she passed through the infirmary's doors.
Once outside, Evelyn quietly made her way back to the Slytherin common room. Even if there was a ravenous creature roaming the halls, her professors could be just as bad if she failed to turn in any homework the next day. She recalled her chilling interview with Margaret, wondering if the creature could still be about. She cautiously looked around, making sure to glance over her shoulder every few moments. A distinct clicking noise reached her ears and she immediately froze.
Her heart beat quickened to an untraceable rate and she slowly turned her face to take another look down the presumably empty corridor behind her. As far as she could see, there was nothing—but the clicking noise persisted.
She turned her head forward with her first inclination to scream.
"Let go of me!" she thrashed about, "Please!" her voice elevated to a screech as her robes swished around while she tried to wrench herself free as he dragged her into a deserted classroom.
"No!" Tom barked in her ear and slammed the door behind them, taking extra care to lock it, "How does it feel?"
"What?" the word floated out of her throat like a whisper from a confused child as she was momentarily sedated, breathing hard and staring into his dark orbs that gleamed with malicious intent.
"How do you like being…trapped?"
"You'll never trap me."
"I already have, my dear," he answered nonchalantly, "you think you could just go along—toying with me," he gritted his teeth and twisted her arms tighter behind her, "obviously you didn't expect there to be…any…" he tightened his grip with the grounding out of each word, "repercussions." She winced in pain but fought from crying out.
"Get off of me," she cried weakly and turned her head, determined not to meet his gaze and trying to make as much space between them as possible. Her own hand languidly reached for the wand that was slightly projecting from the waistband of her skirt, stretching her fingers desperately to reach it.
"I'll be taking that," Tom quickly snatched it away from her grasp and pocketed it, "I'm sure this all seemed innocent to you…but you see, you have something that I want…"
"What is it?" Evelyn still turned her face away from him. He whispered a spell and her hands stayed glued to her sides.
"Look at me!" he cupped her chin, forcing it forward and in a completely calm voice, he continued, "You're withholding a piece of information from me that could be vital…and it seems that my other…methods have proved unsatisfactory," his calculating eyes surveyed her with interest and his long digits caressed her pale skin.
"What do you want to know?" she was now regaining her voice and a small ounce of courage.
"What do you know about Horcuxes?"
"I don't know what you mean," she whispered.
"You know perfectly what I mean," he reached for her striped school tie and casually pulled open the knot, tossing it to the floor.
"What are you doing?" blood rushed to the surface of her cheeks and a look of alarm flashed in her bright eyes.
"We'll see how many times it takes to get this right," he answered vaguely, "Who first told you about Horcruxes?"
"I told you that I don't know anything about them and that I've never heard of them before!" she protested, hoping that her oblivious act would ring true.
He now slipped her robes off of her shoulders and let them cascade to the floor, all the while she could only stand there under the spell and watch.
"You most certainly have. You've spoken of them before—to me."
Evelyn's mind reeled through her memory for a time when she mentioned them in his presence, unable to come up with an answer she could only stare at him inquisitively.
"The night that I caught you in the Room of Requirement—
Her eyes widened as she was barely able to recall it now—she had spoken of them, "That was the alcohol talking!"
"Possibly," he sighed, unbuttoning her oxford shirt, "but I highly doubt that because I have reason to believe you know more than you're letting on. On more than one occasion you've displayed your underlying abilities."
Evelyn's heart raced as she realized that revealing that she was a legilimens had been a horrible mistake.
He ran his elongated finger lightly across the top of her bottom lip, "Wish you had kept your little mouth shut, hmm? Well…maybe it would be better suited for something other than talking?" he added suggestively and shoved his finger past her lips, entering her mouth.
Tom discovered his own mistake in doing this; trembling for as moment as the resulting image affected him more than he had anticipated.
Her brain racked through every piece of knowledge she could conjure, looking for something that would provide a believable basis for a lie.
"Don't even think about lying to me," he recovered from his highly aroused reverie, pulling his finger from between her lips.
Damn, the very moment that she let her guard down he was already pervading her thoughts. He was running out of buttons on her blouse and she was running out of time.
"Okay! Listen!" she proclaimed loudly, stopping him for the moment, "…I think I read about them in a book somewhere."
"What book?" Tom asked fiercely, flashing an eye out from under his shadow-clad visage.
"In-in our textbook," she feigned earnestly.
"Liar!" the mixture of his growl and her scream reverberated around the empty room as he ripped the bottom of her blouse open, buttons showering to the floor with her shirt. Evelyn was determined at all costs not to cry—crying would signal that he won and she was not going to let him win this.
A/N: I know it's horrible, but I must leave you there because I'm sending off my laptop tomorrow because I accidentally broke a key off of it—I know, I'm really clumsy…