The Golden Thread
Chapter 6: Rumours
Lucie should have known that Riddle would find her eventually. She had retired to the prefects' common room to be alone with her thoughts, and had been staring into the dying embers at the bottom of the fireplace for the better part of an hour. Other prefects had come and gone occasionally, but none of them bothered to speak to her. Whether it was because of her being a Slytherin, or the fact that she looked quite surly, Lucie didn't know. Either way, she didn't particularly care.
Then, just as Lucie was working up the nerve to go back to her dormitory and go to sleep, the door opened, and in stepped none other than Tom Riddle. His expression was, as always, unreadable, but Lucie scarcely spared him a glance. He was the last person she wanted to talk to just then.
"Miss Selwyn," Riddle said stiffly, breaking the tense silence between them. Lucie didn't respond, and she heard a tiny exasperated breath escape Riddle's chest. "Must you insist on acting like a petulant child?"
Anger flared up in Lucie's chest, and she lifted her eyes to meet Riddle's. "Me? Act like a child? How dare you—"
"If you will allow me, Miss Selwyn," Riddle interrupted, "I have something to say."
Lucie crossed her arms over her chest, looking very much like the child she had just denied being. "Very well. If you must."
The muscles in Riddle's jaw tightened, his hand twitching ever so slightly, and for a moment Lucie feared he was reaching for his wand. Then it passed, and his features were schooled once more into a mask of neutrality.
"I came to offer my...apologies," he began, spitting out the word as though it had burned his tongue. "My behavior was inappropriate, and I would appreciate it if the incident could be forgotten. We are prefects, after all, and must spend quite a bit of time together."
Lucie's eyes narrowed. What was Riddle getting at? Surely, this conversation wasn't just meant to spare them both the awkwardness their kiss would inevitably cause. No, he had to have another motive. Perhaps he was trying to appear repentant so as to make it seem that he had actual human emotions, and wasn't the sociopath she thought him to be. Yes, that would make sense. Lucie couldn't relate—if there was one thing she had in common with Tom Riddle, it was an obsession with keeping up appearances, and he knew that.
Well, she wasn't going to let him win. She opened her mouth to refuse, to tell him that, no, it most certainly wasn't forgotten, but then she caught Riddle's eye. Something in his carefully controlled expression was just a bit off, and Lucie felt her heart begin to pound unevenly. Something about him carried a silent threat, the terrifying promise of her destruction should she defy him, and Lucie found herself playing right into it.
"Of course," she finally said, her voice sounding much smaller than she would have liked it to. "Let's just go back to the way things were."
…
When Lucie finally made it back to her dormitory, all of the other girls had already gone to sleep. The curtains were pulled around Grace and Eileen's beds, but Lucie resolved to apologize to them come morning for never returning to the Three Broomsticks. She crawled into bed, feeling much worse than she had just a few hours before. Just as she'd thought that everything was settling into a liveable pattern, Riddle had to go and complicate it. Things most definitely weren't under Lucie's control, as she'd thought they were, and this was a rather unpleasant development. She wasn't used to things not going her way.
It was all that damn Tom Riddle's fault. If it weren't for him, Lucie would have no reason to be fearing for her life every time she had to go to prefect duty. If it weren't for him, she would have been able to stay with her friends and made sure everything continued to go smoothly. If it weren't for him, she wouldn't feel like she was falling in love—what?
Lucie's thoughts ground to a halt. Falling in love? Of course, Tom Riddle was handsome—the most attractive boy she'd ever laid eyes on, really—but she was betrothed! Her heart and hand had always belonged to Scorpius. She'd been promised to him from the very day of her birth, and she'd never once questioned it. That was how things were supposed to be.
Almost instinctively, Lucie reached up and pressed her fingers lightly to her lips. When Riddle had kissed her, something had sparked deep within her, something she'd never felt before—but it was wrong. Lucie couldn't be attracted to Riddle. She hated him, she was afraid of him, and above all, he would never, ever feel the same way about her. It was hopeless.
Besides, it was very clear that he hadn't kissed her because of any attraction. He was testing her, as always, seeing how she would react. He wanted information, and it seemed that he had been trying to use his looks to get it from her.
More than ever, Lucie wanted to go back to her own time. She didn't care what the consequences would be—she missed her family, she missed her friends, she missed the sense of normalcy that had always been assured to her. In 2022, everything worked a certain way. It had been the same for all of Lucie's life, and she knew that it would stay that way as long as she lived. In 1943, it felt like everything was falling apart.
At least it can't get any worse, she thought, just before drifting off into blissful nothingness.
…
Morning arrived, and Lucie woke to find the dormitory deserted. Glancing at her watch, she saw that she had overslept, and that breakfast had already started. Cursing under her breath, she got out of bed and quickly dressed for the day. She hadn't thought to wash her hair the previous night, so her normally shiny golden locks were dull and tangled. Irritated, she ran a brush through them for a few minutes before realizing that they were beyond help and pulling them back into a ponytail.
In a fairly foul mood, Lucie descended the stairs into the common room, hoping that her friends would be able to cheer her up. Grace, Eileen, and Abraxas were always good for that, if anything.
They were waiting for her by the fireplace, and judging by the looks on their faces, Lucie's day wasn't about to get any better. Last time she had seen her friends look so distraught over something was when Walburga Black had been released from the hospital wing and they'd seen her gruesome injuries. Lucie could only imagine what terrible thing had happened now.
"What's wrong?" she asked, not even bothering to bid them a good morning. Something told her that niceties wouldn't be necessary in this conversation.
"It's Lucretia and Eponine," said Grace. "You really made them angry when you stood up for Edwin the other night."
Lucie's heart sank. From what she understood, those girls could really hold a grudge. "What did they do?" she ventured to ask, not quite certain that she really wanted to hear the answer.
"They've started spreading rumors about you," said Eileen. "Nasty stuff, that you've been sleeping with him. I heard that it even got around to some of the teachers. This won't be good for your image, Lucie."
Eileen was right, and Lucie knew that. She certainly wasn't happy about this latest development, but oddly enough, she felt that it wasn't bothering her as much as it should have. Perhaps it was the culture shock, but nothing that Lucie had held in high esteem in 2022 seemed to be quite as important in 1943. People had different values here—values that she didn't understand. At first, she'd had no interest in coming to terms with these, but with each passing day, she wanted to more and more.
It had only been just over a week since she'd arrived in the past, but already she was a different Lucie Selwyn that she had been when she arrived. The thought was terrifying, to be sure, and yet, not entirely unwelcome. Perhaps the old Lucie Selwyn could benefit from some changes.
Then a thought occurred to her, and Lucie glanced nervously over at her friends. "I suppose this is going to scare you lot off of getting to know Edwin, then, right?" Surely, now that Lucretia and Eponine were after Lucie and Edwin, the others had to be afraid that the mean girls would target them next. Perhaps they wouldn't even want to be friends with Lucie anymore. The very notion made Lucie oddly upset.
"Actually, no," said Abraxas, surprising her. "You were right, Lucie. We should have given him a chance long ago. For a Hufflepuff, he's actually good company."
Lucie grinned. "Really? So you'll still try to be friends with him?"
"Really," said Grace. "After you left the Three Broomsticks the other night, we were all a little nervous, but we ended up having a good time. Most of the boys in this place are mindless idiots—except for you, of course, Abraxas—but we were actually able to carry on an intelligent conversation with Edwin."
"That reminds me," said Eileen as the four of them began their walk down to breakfast, "why didn't you come back last night? We didn't even hear you come into the dormitory." Eileen suddenly paused, a grin spreading across her thin face. "Did something happen with you and Riddle?"
Lucie's jaw tightened. Yes, something most certainly did transpire between her and Riddle, but she wasn't about to tell that to her friends. She wouldn't be able to tell them all the details, and their minds would go to a thousand different places, none of which she cared to think of. "No, we just took a walk and lost track of time. After we went back to the castle I stayed in the prefects' common room to study for a while, and you were all asleep by the time I came to bed."
Perhaps it was her eyes playing tricks on her, but Lucie could have sworn that Eileen looked a bit disappointed. She shuddered to think of what had been running through the girl's mind—did she want her and Riddle to be a couple? The very thought was revolting.
And yet... Last night, she'd had that little slip while she'd been thinking about him. She'd actually, for half a second, entertained the idea of fancying him. But fancying with Tom Riddle was not an option, for a whole plethora of reasons, not the least of which being the humiliation she would suffer when the incontrovertible fact that he did not share her affections came to light.
When they reached the Entrance Hall, Lucie was pleasantly surprised to see that Edwin was waiting for them. He looked bashfully at Lucie, as though silently apologizing for his horrible sister, and she grinned in return, trying to convey that she didn't hold him even slightly at fault.
"Morning, Edwin," greeted Abraxas, clapping the other boy on the shoulder. As Lucie looked at the two of them, she realized that she had never noticed how starkly different in appearance they actually were. While Abraxas was slightly shorter and had the thick, muscular build of a Beater, Edwin was tall, lanky, and lean like a seeker. Abraxas was pale with a pointed face and a stern expression, while Edwin was slightly darker, with a round face that held a kind, if often distant look. They were two boys who looked as though they could never be friends, and the very sight of them standing together so amiably made Lucie giggle.
The five of them proceeded into the Great Hall, but as they parted ways with Edwin and turned towards the Slytherin table, they were immediately accosted by Professor Slughorn, whose face was reddened and glistening, as though he had been in a great hurry somewhere. He stopped in front of them, looking disapprovingly down at Lucie.
"Miss Selwyn," he said, "I wouldn't even bother going to your table. The Headmaster has requested your presence in his office."
Lucie kept her eyes downcast, but her heart sank. There were only a few possible reasons that Dippet would want to speak to her alone, and none of them boded well. Bidding a solemn goodbye to her friends, Lucie turned and left the Great Hall, trudging up several flights of stairs to what she was sure would be her doom.
Only when she had reached the stone gargoyles did she realize that Slughorn had not given her the password. She furrowed her eyebrows, trying to remember what Marcus Burbage and Jeremiah Cattermole had said it was, the first day she'd arrived in 1943.
"Acromantula?" she said, phrasing it as a question. The gargoyles glanced at one another, looking rather annoyed, but then finally moved aside, allowing her entrance to the winding stone staircase beyond.
"Enter," came Dippet's rough, booming voice when Lucie knocked on the door. As slowly as she dared, she pushed the door open and stepped inside. The Headmaster was behind his desk, looking down his nose at Lucie as though she were something unpleasant he had stepped in.
"Miss Selwyn," he said by way of greeting. "Please have a seat."
She did, looking warily at him all the while. "Professor Slughorn said you wanted to see me, sir?"
"Indeed," Dippet replied gruffly. "There is a very serious matter we need to discuss."
Lucie gulped. This was it—Dippet knew she was from the future, and he knew she'd been lying about where she came from. He was going to report her to the Ministry or worse—send her back. Any other time, she would have given her left arm to return home, but in that moment all she could picture was Bellatrix Lestrange, cursing her into oblivion.
"Sir, I can explain—"
"Quiet, Miss Selwyn. Now, it has been brought to my attention by several concerned faculty members that there are...rumours regarding you and a certain Mr. Edwin Bones."
Lucie opened her mouth to reply, and then stopped dead. Edwin? Like a tidal wave, understanding and relief flooded through Lucie. In her time, students her age were often married, but she supposed that in 1943 premarital relations were most likely something of a scandal. Her secret, it seemed, was safe—at least for the time being.
"Now, Miss Selwyn," Dippet continued, bring Lucie's attention back to him, "I will not state outright what these allegations contain, as I'm sure you are aware of them. However, I will do my utmost to stress that the place of a proper young lady is, to put it delicately, at a distance. There will be no inappropriate relations between unmarried children in my school. Do I make myself clear?"
Anger began to creep its way up Lucie's chest, no matter how she tried to suppress it. This man—gruff old Armando Dippet—had the nerve to try and tell her the place of a proper young lady? She was a Selwyn, no matter how much she hadn't been acting like one as of late, and she knew the terms of being a lady as easily as she knew how to breathe.
"With all due respect, sir," she said tightly, trying to keep the ire from her voice, "I was always raised to be a proper young lady. It is a matter of pride in my family. Any accusations that indicate otherwise are simply untrue."
Dippet's eyes narrowed suspiciously, and Lucie knew that he didn't believe a word of what she said. She waited tensely for him to dispute her, a comeback ready on her lips, but the old man simply sighed, continuing to glare at Lucie.
"Very well, Miss Selwyn. I will take your word for it. You may go."
Lucie stood, clasping her hands together to keep them from trembling in rage. "Thank you, sir."
Filthy old liar, she thought bitterly as she left the office. Dippet still thought she was some kind of whore. It made her unspeakably angry—Lucie Selwyn was nothing if not true to her family's values.
Then a thought occurred to her. Why had she, a betrothed young lady, been having such odd, romantic thoughts about Tom Riddle? Didn't that alone prove that she wasn't as true to her childhood teachings as she had once thought?
Lucie forced herself to stop, to clear her mind. She rubbed her temples against the oncoming headache. The best thing to do would be to forget all of it. At this rate, all she was going to do was drive herself insane.