A Priceless Gift

July 5, 1944

Rose crossed her arms and looked down at the platform where Tom would soon begin his first duel of the day. Although she had thought the crowd at the opening ceremony at the tournament was quite large, it paled in comparison to the number of people at the actual event. There were at least ten duels going on at a time and, even so, at least three hundred or so people gathered to see each one.

She should have been at the very front of the crowd, right next to the platform, instead of so far up in the stands. Tom could have guaranteed her a spot there. But things weren't that simple; for if she were in the front row, she risked being caught in a photograph that might wind up in The Prophet and completely ruin the cover story she had sold to her parents.

No, that was much too risky. So, instead, she had to watch him from afar. This would have been a tad more bearable if it hadn't been for the rather sizable gaggle of fan girls he seemed to accumulate throughout the first four days of the tournament. As he had officially made it through the first round and had proven himself a worthy competitor, the girls seemed to be becoming more fanatical and numerous with each duel he completed. It certainly didn't help that they were all under the impression that he was single, seeing as she and Tom couldn't exactly advertise their relationship. In the first few days he had become a favorite with the press and as such, they could rarely risk being seen together outside the privacy of their flat.

"Rosemary, good morning!"

She turned her head in the direction of the cheery voice and hid her disdain to the best of her ability when she saw its source. "Good morning, Mrs. Rookwood."

"Oh please, call me Mara," the woman said. "Mind if I take the seat next to you? Augustus is dueling on this platform after Tom so I thought I might come a bit early to see Tom's as well."

"Of course. That's very thoughtful of you," Rosemary told her politely. So politely, in fact, that it might have been confused with sarcasm, which was actually how she meant it of course. Ever since Tom had informed her that Mrs. Rookwood was a muggle-born, Rose had been as appalled as he and immediately understood his slight aloofness toward them during the opening ceremony dinner.

"Why aren't you standing down in the front, dear? You would have a much better view."

Obviously.

"I would if I could," Mara continued, "but I tend to get a bit too claustrophobic in crowds."

"It's the same for me," Rosemary lied, relieved that she had basically been provided with an answer to Mrs. Rookwood's nosy question instead of having to think of her own.

She didn't even need to look at the platform to know that Tom had stepped on it: the shrieks of the girls in the front few rows were enough of an indication. Of course, there wasn't actually anything for her to be jealous of. It wasn't as though Tom paid them any attention, after all. But listening to them chant his name (and even seeing them hold up a few hand-made signs in some cases) was certainly beginning to get a bit old. Rose lit a cigarette and scowled down at them all, though her expression shifted to a smile when she and Tom locked eyes and he gave her a barely noticeable smirk.

The match's commentator began to speak as the Tom and the other contestant went through the motions of completing the traditional dueling conducts, such as the slight bow to each other. "Our next duel is between Tom Riddle and Luca Segreti. This will be the first duel of the second round for each of them. Wands at the ready!" The announcer paused as both Tom and Luca posed themselves to strike with their first spells. "Three! Two! One! Begin!"

Although the beginning of the duels always sounded very dramatic with the countdown and whatnot, not much of anything usually happened within the first five or ten seconds. As Tom had explained to her one night, it was always a bit of a mind game between the two contestants to see who would throw the first spell. As the commentators had too little action to broadcast a play-by-play, they often continued to speak about each contestant after the duel had already begun:

"Both Segreti and Riddle easily made it past the first round, with Segreti winning each of his five duels and Riddle winning four of his five."

Rose held her breath, hoping that the announcer hadn't distracted Tom too much by bringing up the fact he had lost one of his first round duels. She had attempted to remind him that it was impressive that he had gotten through the first round at all, but it didn't really keep him from getting disappointed by the defeat.

Thankfully, it seemed as though he wasn't fazed by the comment at all; in fact, just a second or two after the announcer had spoken, Tom fired the first spell of the duel and it just barely made contact with Segreti. It became clear that Tom had actually used the comment to his advantage; he must have figured that Luca was preoccupied thinking the same thing Rose was: that Tom would be distracted. In the split second that Segreti wasn't focused on the duel, Tom had successfully gained the upper hand.

The older competitor's face twisted into a glowering look as the crowd went crazy. Rosemary knew, then, that Tom had unofficially won the duel. That was what it always seemed to mean when she saw that look of rage on the face of whoever he was dueling. She had certainly seen enough of his matches, both at Hogwarts and the tournament, to realize that manipulating the emotions of his opponent was the most essential part of his strategy. Rose suspected that Tom knew that anger (or at least minor irritation) were the easiest to evoke as well as exploit; it was easy for duelers to make mistakes with the distraction of such emotions. It had become clear that none of the other competitors were keen on losing to a seventeen year-old boy and with the added fact that Tom had also become one of the crowd's favorites, his strategy to unnerve his opponents seemed easier than ever before.

Eight spells later it was over, as Tom disarmed Segreti. She immediately rose from her seat, applauding and cheering with the rest of the crowd. At least twenty cameras were taking his picture and before he could even get off the platform, reporters seemed to be bombarding him with questions. He seemed to be ignoring them, though; his eyes locked on hers once more and he grinned. She beamed back at him, clapping even louder.

Rosemary climbed down from the stands and checked the program to choose which duels she would see in order to kill time before Tom's next match. Of course, just as she escaped Mara, Beaumont had approached her. There was little she could do, seeing as he had basically snuck up on her whilst she was reading the tournament program.

"Some match, wasn't it Miss Horton? One of the fastest I've seen so far."

Why was he even at Tom's match? Wasn't Zhou dueling at the same time? Although she would never admit it to Tom, she thought that Zhou was probably the best of Beaumont's sponsored contestants. Rose had seen a couple of his first round duels and she thought it was quite possible that he might win the entire tournament. As such, she would have thought that Beaumont would be especially invested in him and would have elected to go to his matches instead of anyone else's on the team if they were scheduled at the same time.

But yet, there he was, looking at Tom proudly as though he had personally trained him to duel so brilliantly.

"Yes," she answered politely. "Tom dueled quite well." She watched Tom hop off the platform and become immediately swarmed by both reporters and his fan girls. Rose grimaced, wishing she could have been the first to congratulate him as he stepped off the stage.

"I figured this would happen," Raoul chucked, gesturing to the lunatic girls that were throwing themselves at Tom. "I told him that he might regret bringing you here. That was, of course, before I met you and realized what a lovely person you are. He is also much less interested in the attention than I might have expected." Beaumont paused and Rose immediately regretted her grimacing look at them, as that had clearly been the reason he brought up such a thing. "He's certainly not a typical kid, is he? I mean, obviously…he is here after all. But what do you think the difference is?"

"Maturity," Rosemary said pointedly. As she had seen from Beaumont's piggish interactions with women (including herself), she realized that Tom clearly possessed a sense of maturity that his sponsor lacked in tremendous amounts.

"That could be," he said, looking as though he was considering her words. "I have to say, he reminds me a bit of my younger self."

Rose didn't understand how that could possibly be true. They had little, if anything at all, in common in terms of personality. After all, if they were so similar, she certainly wouldn't be able to stand being around Tom.

"Anyway, it's clear that you have no reason to be jealous. I can see from the way he looks at you and speaks about you that he is completely enthralled. And, I might add, he has every reason to be."

For one, she wasn't jealous. And two: even if she was, she certainly wouldn't want Beaumont knowing about it. She could think of little that would be more humiliating; she had grown to dislike him so much that his compliment made her skin crawl. "I'm not jeal-" she began defensively.

"I've got to get going," Beaumont interrupted her, glancing down at his watch. "I'm going to watch Wilson in the next room over. A pleasure speaking with you as always."

'I wish I could say the same,' she thought, though she kept her mouth shut and forced it instead into a small, polite smile.

"Oh! And I wish a happy birthday to you, Miss Horton."

"Thank you," she muttered, fighting the urge to tell him that the best birthday present of all that she could receive would be for him to simply leave her alone.

"Are you sure you want to risk it? There's really no need…" Rosemary called from the bedroom, where she was getting dressed.

"Nonsense," he told her. "It's your birthday and we're going to dinner to celebrate."

"And what if the press sees us? That would be the biggest news of the day, seeing the young and handsome Tom Riddle out on a date."

He couldn't help but smirk at the trace of bitterness that had accompanied her words. She was clearly getting tired of having to stay away from him at the tournament. But they had to, of course. Although, as much as Tom disliked the fact she couldn't always be around him, it was rather fun sneaking around with her.

"We'll make sure they don't."

"Alright," she said hesitantly, appearing at the bedroom door. When he saw her, he couldn't help but stare and seemed to lose track of all conscious thought. "What?" she asked. "Does my hair look bad or something?"

"Not at all. It's just…you. You're beautiful." It was true; in fact, she was probably the most beautiful person he had ever seen. Although, it still baffled him from time to time that it had taken so long to notice. He could no longer remember what it felt like to be without this overwhelming attraction to her.

"You're only saying that because it's my birthday," she told him, though his compliment did evoke a small smile from her lips anyway.

Tom walked over to meet her at the front door of the flat. "I can assure you that is not the case." He bowed his head to kiss her forehead; if he had kissed her enticing lips instead, he knew she would have scolded him for messing up her lipstick.

Even though he disliked the idea of Rosemary walking by herself at night, she convinced him that it would be best if they traveled separately to the restaurant. He arrived first and was seated in the dimly lit corner he had requested when making the reservation earlier that week. About ten minutes later, the hostess led her to the table.

"It's just as I remember it," she smiled at him. Apparently the restaurant had been a favorite of hers when she had visited the city as a child.

Rosemary ordered a glass of wine when their waiter came and Tom elected not to, primarily because it meant a few less French words for him to stumble over while looking like a fool. She, on the other hand, had no problem rattling things off in French with a near perfect accent. Well, perfect to his untrained ears, at least. Although he did feel rather inadequate compared to her fluency, he had to admit that it was quite attractive to hear her speaking in an entirely different language. He respected the fact that she was intelligent in all sorts of ways, not just with magic.

"So, Beaumont spoke to me today…" Her dislike of him was obvious in the way she had said his name, as though it were a dirty word.

"Ah. Did he make an ass of himself as usual?"

"Naturally," she sighed. Overall, Tom tended to think her loathing toward his sponsor was rather amusing, considering the fact that he had never seen her truly detest someone before. The fact that her distaste was aimed at someone he also disliked made things all the better.

But tonight, Tom didn't want her to dwell on such things. Tonight, there wasn't supposed to be anything but happy thoughts in her mind. He was determined to give her a perfect evening not only because it was her birthday, but because there was quite a bit of residual guilt in his mind from their argument a few days prior.

Even though he had thought it to be impossible for his love of her to grow any further, it certainly had after the way she had handled the situation with him. She had proven that she understood him in a way he had never expected her to. But, despite the fact that they had moved past it and he had vocalized his changed opinion that she should seek out her grandfather, he still felt the weight of remorse. Tom knew he had to start preventing his temper and pride from wreaking havoc between them; she deserved better. So, he was determined to make that night into the start of a new chapter for them: one that guaranteed he was treating her fairly.

His first order of business in creating a perfect night for Rose was to rid her mind of her annoyance with Beaumont. While he had been planning to wait until after dinner to give her her birthday present, he supposed that now was as good a time as any. Tom took out the tiny box from his pocket and set it down on the table in front of her.

She looked at the box, then him, then back down at it again before taking it in her hands and opening it. He relished the little gasp she gave when she saw what was sitting inside. "Oh, Tom…they're beautiful. But you shouldn't have gotten me these…I mean, really…these had to cost-" Rosemary abruptly stopped herself, probably under the assumption that bringing up his shortage of money would spark his temper.

In reality, it did, but as he had promised himself, he wouldn't allow it to get out of control. Tom told himself to stay calm, to breathe in and out and focus only on that for the moment. It wasn't as though she said it to offend him, not to mention the fact that it was basically true – he didn't really have any money to his name.

Well, at least not loads of it. Yet. But what Beaumont had told him about the tournament had been slightly off. Tom had still won twenty galleons per match in the first round, but as the competitors progressed through the second, third, fourth, and final rounds, the winnings per match increased. Just from that day, he had won a hundred galleons: fifty each from the two matches. At first he had been curious as to why his sponsor had left out this detail, but perhaps he had simply assumed that Tom would be eliminated in the first round. Regardless, Tom was becoming more and more confident that he would continue to advance through the competition and would have plenty of funds to rent a flat the rest of the summer, to add to his savings, and of course, to give Rosemary the gifts he wanted to.

With this in mind, he was able to talk himself out of his temper. It was a tad tiring, but not so bad. He could get used to it…probably.

"Try them on, won't you?" he asked her.

She nodded, looking rather surprised (or, relieved perhaps) at his lack of defensiveness from her comment about the cost of the gift. He watched as she took out her diamond earrings and replaced them with her new pair: sapphires encircled by their own set of diamonds.

"They match your eyes."

Rose smiled at him and leaned across the table to kiss him lightly. "They're absolutely beautiful. Thank you."

"They have an added feature, actually."

"What do you mean?"

"There is a charm placed on them so that when you're wearing them, they sort of filter out anyone's voice you don't want to hear. They will also control some of your movements– such as giving you the impulse to nod or say a few words in response to them– so it looks as though you're listening as politely as ever. You may never have to listen to a word that Beaumont says to you again…" he smirked.

"This is the most amazing gift I think I've ever received." She beamed at him.

"I'm glad you like them. Shall we try out the charm?" he asked as he saw the waiter coming their way

Rosemary nodded in excitement. "How do I activate it?"

"All you have to do is consciously think that you'd rather not hear this person speaking."

The waiter arrived and set down her glass of wine before saying something in French, presumably asking if they were ready to order. Tom sat back, watching as Rosemary replied and the waiter strode away. "Well?" he asked expectantly.

"It worked!" Rose smiled. "I heard myself say that he should come back in a few minutes, but that was it. Absolutely brilliant."

Even though he had known she would love them the moment he picked them out, seeing her reaction was the best moment of all. Honestly, it had been quite rewarding to take this annoyance off her mind by providing a solution. It made him want to fix other things for her, too. He wanted to find a way to placate her parents and make things much simpler; he wanted to reunite her with her grandfather after her four days of searching with no progress. Essentially, he wanted to eliminate or resolve anything that bothered or upset her. There was nothing in the world that made him feel like she did when she was happy.

And, before the night was finished, he would ease another point of stress in her mind. Well, if everything went to plan, of course.

The rest of their dinner was pleasant and filled with light chatter about the tournament and the letter she had received from Faye, who was currently vacationing with her family in New Zealand. Tom paid their tab and they left out the backdoor of the restaurant, into an alleyway. It may have been a bit excessive, but if it would satisfy Rosemary's paranoia about getting seen by the press, he didn't really mind.

"Thank you for such a lovely dinner." She kissed him. "Should I leave to go back to the flat first, or are you going to? If I am, I'll need a key…I accidentally left mine there."

"Actually, we have one more stop to make," he told her.

"Are you sure? What if-"

"No one is going to see us. It's nowhere near the tournament center."

He held out his arm for her and she reluctantly took it. "I don't have to close my eyes this time, do I?"

Tom smirked to himself; her questions reminded him of the night that he had taken her to the Chamber of Secrets. The same night they had shared their first dance and first kiss. The night they became Tom and Rose. It was less than five months ago, but it felt much longer: so much had happened. Things had been quite simpler then; there was no constant threat of her parents and the complications that came along with that. In that moment he felt nostalgic– that bittersweet stab –for perhaps the first time in his life.

They walked side by side for several blocks. "Where on earth are you taking me?" she asked.

"You'll see."

It was at that exact moment that he stopped, reading the number on the door they had just passed, and realized that they had reached their destination. Tom led her to the door and knocked, while she gave him a puzzled look. His response was simply a smirk.

He wished there had been a way for him to capture the perfect amalgam of surprise and bliss that spread across her face when she saw who opened the door. All over again, he was struck with the realization that seeing her smile and knowing that he was the one who caused it made him feel the closest he had ever been to whole.

"Granddad Em!" she explained, throwing her arms around the elderly man's neck.

Her grandfather looked just as shocked as she did. "Rosemary? Merlin, love, I hardly recognized you."

Rose turned to Tom and he could see the tears of happiness in her eyes. "I can't believe it. How did you find him?"

"I have my ways," he told her with a smirk.

Ironic as it was, the one person that had ultimately known of her grandfather was none other than Beaumont. But there was absolutely no reason at all she should know that.

"And in her smile I see something more beautiful than the stars." – Beth Revis

Sooo yay, I finished this chapter pretty quickly! I'm attempting to make up for my slow update times these past few weeks...

Thank you to all the new follows and favorites. We are quickly approaching 200 follows, which would be amazing to reach. :D Also, thank you to the lovely reviewers that gave me feedback on the last chapter: A regrettable decision, CharlotteBlackwood, Mrs. WaylandOdinsonBlack, and RosiePosie15.

Hopefully you enjoyed reading this one.(: Next chapter will focus mainly around Rosemary's reunion with her grandfather!

Please let me know what you think by submitting a review below! I'd love to hear from some of you that I haven't yet (or those of you I haven't heard from in a while).