They know.
They being the Death Eaters—Avery, Rosier, Mulciber, Nott, and Lestrange. Eve can tell, because they're all oddly silent at dinner, refusing to make eye contact with her and speaking in low undertones with Riddle. Even Avery was solemn and quiet, speaking to Eve once to only ask her to pass the mashed potatoes.
She herself had no idea how to act, choosing instead to push the peas on her plate around with her spoon and half-listen to Kate and Alphard's conversation about mixing firewhisky into butterbeer as she pointedly refused to even slightly look at Riddle.
She'd last spoken to him in the dungeons around three in the afternoon. The day had since passed in a blur of nerves and anticipation, with Eve experiencing a perpetual state of frazzledness that culminated in her accidentally dipping the feathered end of her quill in ink at the library, tripping over Sophie's feet twice in the hallway, and answering an Astronomy homework question so wrong while studying in the Common Room that even Kate had to mouth You serious? to her from across the table.
Not that she could help it! Eve wished a magical cloud would just float into the Great Hall and whisk her away to a peaceful meadow free of war, stress, and Tom Riddles.
What had she gotten herself into? She'd probably asked herself the same question three dozen times in the last two hours. Telling Riddle she was a Seer and striking up a deal with him to most likely attend one of his Death Eater gatherings tonight to infiltrate his inner circle and destroy his Horcruxes and destroy him and possibly save wizardkind?
An absurdity! Insanity!
Eve pushed one of the many existential crises that had been looming on the horizon of her mind since she'd landed in 1944 back into its recesses and sighed. She wasn't sure how much more stress and second-guessing of practically everything she could pile onto her poor heart before it inevitably stopped working. She wouldn't be surprised if, very soon, actual gray hairs would start to sprout from her head.
She snuck a quick glare at the culprit of everything from across the table.
Said culprit's dark eyes were already boring into her.
Eve snapped her head back quickly, coughing noisily and refusing to acknowledge the sudden sharp spike in panic that arose in her chest.
"Abraxas!" she said loudly, ignoring the nerves threatening to explode from within her nervous system as the blonde looked up from sipping a mug across the table. "How's training for Quidditch tryouts on Monday going?"
Next to Eve, Kate groaned as Abraxas puffed up his chest, a maniacal expression overtaking his face as he banged his fist on the table.
"TERRIFIC!" he barked, causing the entire half end of the Slytherin table to jump. "I DRAGGED URQUHART OUT OF HIS BED AT FOUR A.M. TODAY AND MADE HIM FLY LOOPS WITH ME FOR TWO HOURS."
As if to confirm the anecdote, the brown-haired Urquhart glared up from further down the table and yelled an obscenity at Abraxas, his eyes heavily rimmed with dark circles.
Eve blinked. "Uh—Abraxas, are you okay? Why are you yelling?"
One of his eyes twitched. "I AM FINE. JUST EXCITED."
Next to Abraxas, Alphard rolled his eyes, levying Eve with a meaningful look. "That's an understatement. He had five cups of coffee earlier because he said the caffeine makes him feel powerful on the field."
"IT WAS SIX."
"Six cups of coffee earlier because he said the caffeine makes him feel powerful on the field."
"IT NATURALLY ENHANCES MY PROWESS."
"It's a stimulant. You're going to crash."
"WHY I—HOW DARE YOU SUGGEST THAT! I NEVER CRASH WHEN FLYING!"
"Oh, for fuck's sake—"
"IN FACT," Abraxas roared, expression slightly-crazed, "YOU ALL SHOULD COME OUT TO THE PITCH TONIGHT TO WATCH ME PRACTICE. IT WILL BE FUN."
Kate was already shaking her head (which Eve knew meant she'd be there), while Alphard and Sophie gave fond sighs of confirmation. Eve, however, frowned apologetically.
"Sorry, Abraxas, I can't." She was acutely aware of a pair of eyes burning into the side of her face as she winced with regret at her friend. "I have to—meet, uh, Dumbledore. For a meeting. With Dumbledore."
She thought she heard a small snigger from Avery and blushed, cursing her occasional inability to lie on the spot.
"THAT'S OKAY. MAYBE THIS WEEKEND."
Abraxas's invitation meant that Eve fortunately parted ways with him, Kate, Sophie, and Alphard at the end of dinner and was free to wander and wallow about alone without arousing suspicion for the next few hours. Unfortunately, that also meant she had zero distractions to occupy her mind from the inevitable as she made her way alone back to her dormitory and collapsed onto her bed.
I need a game plan.
If there was one skill Eve could speak well of about herself, it was her level-headedness and preparedness in the face of a problem. Obviously that didn't mean she came into each stressful situation with a detailed ten-step plan to get out unscathed, but she trusted herself to at least stay fairly calm in unknown predicaments (although some recent events had really tested that), and she attributed that to her habit of simply planning beforehand.
Plan, plan, plan. Maybe she was a Gryffindor at heart, but Eve would always forgo brashness in the name of courage for developing Plans A, B, and occasionally C in the notes of her mind. She supposed that was just how her brain was wired. It was somewhat of a comfort to plunge headfirst into a scary or uncomfortable situation without exact knowledge of what she was going to face but with a few backup contingencies tucked into the corners of her brain if she needed them.
It was difficult to describe that sort of over-conceived logic in words without sounding brattily precocious, but if Eve simply had to, she would probably write an example like this:
Situation: My Potions essay is due tomorrow in the morning, but it's 10pm right now and I haven't even started. I'm tired, hungry, and lack energy.
Plan A: Give up on it now, eat a snack, go to sleep early, and wake up at the crack ass of dawn to finish it at the library.
Plan B: If you oversleep a few hours, speed-write whatever you can based on your own knowledge in the dorm and ask Hermione to do a quick check over it before class.
Plan C: If you wake up right before class starts, say you left the essay in the dorm and complete it later for a late grade.
Or a more comprehensive example:
Situation: McLaggen is acting creepy towards Hermione again.
Plan A: Find Peeves and ask him to dump a bucket of egg yolks on McLaggen's head during dinner.
Plan B: If Peeves refuses, threaten to go to the Bloody Baron or offer payment in the form of prank ideas or food to pelt students with.
Plan C: If all else fails, use Harry's Invisibility Cloak and dump the yolks on McLaggen's head yourself.
But forget just Plans A to C. If Eve wanted to even make it to the bottom of the Common Room at nine to meet Riddle without her head exploding from nerves, she probably needed at least ideas of Plans A to X developed in her mind by then.
She rolled over on her bed, pushing the panic and nerves away for a moment and simply contemplating entirely on the situation itself.
Here were the straight facts:
-She'd told Tom Riddle she was a Seer on the run from Grindelwald, and he'd believed her.
-She'd told Tom Riddle her clairvoyance regarding specific individuals' futures deepened the longer she spent near them (and told him some harmless facts about himself to prove it), and he'd believed her to the point where he'd offered her protection in return for her use of her abilities on him.
-Now, she was going to meet Tom Riddle by the entrance of the Common Room at nine o'clock tonight, and he was probably going to take her to one of his Death Eater meetings to induct her or preach his murderous philosophy to her or explain his grand plans to take over the wizarding world in the future to her or something.
In all actuality, Eve had no idea what Riddle wanted to do with her tonight, and that unnerved her.
She needed to be prepared for anything.
When the clock hit eight fifty-five, Eve was all but a bundle of nerves on her bed. She'd deep-cleaned her trunk and forced herself to read sixteen pages of her Herbology textbook before she'd given up and simply lied there, scenario after scenario running through her head like water.
Situation: Tom Riddle is taking me to some unknown location for some unknown thing tonight. I'll have my wand on me, and my friends think I'm meeting with Dumbledore.
Plan A: If Riddle takes you to a Death Eater meeting, as is most likely, keep your wand in your hand at all times and pretend you agree to whatever philosophy he preaches. Act compliant but not weak, and do what he asks. Observe the dynamic between him and the Death Eaters for future reference. Leave unscathed.
Plan B: If Riddle doesn't take you to a Death Eater meeting but to something else instead, keep your wits with you and your wand clenched tight. Give him whatever he wants and tell him things he wants to hear about his future to appease him. Tell him Kate and Sophie expect you back in the dorm by eleven o'clock, or else they'll get suspicious.
Plan C: If something goes wrong and you're under threat, send Dumbledore a Patronus if there's time to do so safely. If not, use Sectumsempra. Possibly. Or not.
Plan D: Don't die. And avoid getting Crucio'ed if possible.
Her mind was cycling through a million different possible plans as she descended down the staircase into the Common Room, where she was not at all surprised to see Riddle already standing by the entrance, a solid figure of black nearly blended into the shadows on the walls.
He looked up when her footsteps approached, and Eve was struck by just how much of a commanding presence his mere figure exuded. It felt like being around him was magnetic—she couldn't help but stare, as if trying to dissect the nefarious intentions under that charming facade.
"Laurence," he greeted, voice smooth as always and expression giving nothing away.
"Riddle."
Together, they silently stepped out of the entranceway and into corridors outside, the darkness of the dungeons immediately engulfing both of them. The situation reminded Eve painfully of earlier in the day, and she gulped, not sure what to say. Riddle's robes brushed against her own, his handsome face glinting in the light of the fire pits on the walls as he strode next to her.
This time, however, Riddle took the lead.
"Not joining your friends on the Quidditch pitch tonight?" His tone was light and casual.
Again with the questionable humor. Riddle was becoming a stranger character by the day, and Eve didn't necessarily know how to feel about it. She wondered if he even had an actual sense of humor.
Nevertheless, she wasn't sure if she detected any sarcasm or wittiness in his tone, so she opted to match his monotony. "I had a prior engagement."
He hummed casually, as though this was just another normal conversation between two regular classmates. "Not a fan of Quidditch?"
"I am, actually—I used to occasionally play for fun." What was she even saying? She didn't know if she should laugh or not. She offhandedly wondered how many times she would be forced to make small talk with Voldemort before she returned home.
"I detest flying," he said conversationally as he nodded at a passing Slytherin, as though this was the most normal thing in the world. "I never understood why wizards chose brooms as transportation when the objects are uncomfortable to sit on and difficult to navigate, especially when there are preferable alternatives such as Flooing and Apparating."
Eve tried not to let surprise show on her face. Tom Riddle publicly detested flying? She wondered what the Quidditch fanatics of Hogwarts thought about their perfect, handsome, brilliant Head Boy's abhorrence for their sport and tried not to grin.
Although, now that she thought about it, she'd never heard anything about Voldemort playing Quidditch or flying on a broom. Why would he need to? The man could literally fly by himself without the use of a splintering wooden stick.
"It is a little cliché," she responded slowly, unsure of what to really say. "I suppose it's just wizarding culture."
"Wizarding culture," Riddle echoed. He sounded almost contemplative.
They ascended the stairs into the Entrance Hall and began to ascend the main staircase. Now that it was approaching later into the night, there were less students milling about in the castle, and there would probably be no one outside to call for help in case Eve ran into trouble. she tried not to let that thought unnerve her.
Riddle led her past the corridors she usually passed through to get to her classes, instead heading down to the very end of the hallway on the left. Eve glanced at the portraits on the walls and suits of armor that she passed as they made another turn, this time into an unfamiliar corridor with a dead end.
She didn't recall ever being here before. The corridor screamed unoccupied—it was devoid of people, and a thin layer of dust on the floor that her feet disturbed didn't help that case. A few portraits unevenly littered the stone walls to her sides, the pale moonlight streaming in from the tall, latticed windows above her head illuminating their empty frames.
It was just another empty corridor in the castle, but something about it struck Eve as somewhat sinister.
She watched Riddle step in front of the blank expanse of wall at the stone of the hallway and raise his wand. Here, against the darkness and streaks of silvery moonlight, Riddle's tall figure cut an impressive, debonair silhouette on the ground. With his back turned and bone-white wand raised, dark robes swooshing forebodingly as he faced the looming wall in front of him, he looked like a merciless warrior about to cast a curse on his enemy on the battlefield, exuding a presence that was both alluring and terrifying.
He murmured something under his breath, too quiet for Eve to catch, and flicked his wand. Then, he reached forward and measuredly tapped the tip of his wand onto a stone in the wall twice.
Immediately, the ground began to rumble. Alarmed, Eve looked behind her—and watched in horror as some sort of thin, translucent veil began to spread across the corridor entrance like a web, crawling from the corners to meet in the middle and obscure the view past the entrance into a hazy, blurry mess.
"What's happening, Riddle?" she yelled in panic, raising her own wand in front of her.
"Relax." His voice was strong and strangely reassuring amidst the sounds of resounding booms around them, curling around her like a poisonous cloud. "It's just the door opening."
Indeed, a door was opening. The stones on the wall in front of Riddle were shifting, the source of the rumbling, turning inwards and adjusting their positions until a narrow wooden door was revealed beneath it all, dust billowing everywhere.
Riddle stepped forward and grasped the door handle. He looked over his shoulder at Eve, eyes gleaming darkly. "Follow me."
Then, without another look behind him at her, he turned it and opened the door, stepping through the threshold and disappearing into the darkness.
Eve stood still for a moment, breathing heavily. Her hair stuck to her neck, and she realized she was gripping her wand so hard that her hand was cramping.
What am I thinking?
Riddle could still harm her. Just because she'd convinced him she had some cool and convenient clairvoyant abilities and they'd struck a so-called deal didn't mean he couldn't just take her to a corner of the castle and torture her for some fun. Here she was, stuck in a random abandoned wing of the castle in a corridor with a strange veil that most likely forbade anyone from leaving or entering without permission, about to follow Voldemort into a secluded—what? Hallway? Room? She didn't even know where that mysterious door led.
Maybe he'd built a personalized torture chamber into a secret room and wanted to try out some new techniques on her.
She evened her breaths, gingerly stepping towards the doorway. There was no use panicking about what-ifs right now. She'd gotten so far—if Eve could somehow rewind time back to last week and tell last-week-Eve what exactly she was about to do right now, last-week-Eve would probably laugh in her face and then try to slap her out of her reverie.
That's right—she'd gotten so far, and she wasn't about to back out now.
With one last resolute inhale of air, Eve steeled herself, and she plunged into the darkness.
Except—she blinked furiously, eyes adjusting to unexpected flickers of brightness beyond the door—
"Wha—"
She was standing in some sort of French Gothic manor room. A tall ceiling arched over her head in a ribbed vault, culminating in a row of pointed arches and extending downwards into expansive stained glass windows that reflected spheres of light onto the ground. Double pillars supported the looming walls, ornate with ancient swirl designs and flickering torches, and busts of marble sculptures lined the entire perimeter of the room. A gold-rimmed fireplace, crackling with violet flames, was built into the very central area of one wall, its shadows licking up the wall and the surrounding circle of velvet armchairs around it.
Distantly, Eve registered a spike of curiosity amongst her flabberghastedness and tense nerves as she gazed at her surroundings. She didn't recall ever seeing this hidden room on the Marauder's Map. The Romanesque architecture seemed somewhat fitting to be hidden in Hogwarts, but it was at the same time so grandiose that it seemed extremely displaced as well.
Although the light from the torches on the wall and sizable fireplace did its job to illuminate the space, the overall luminance was still dark enough to exude an ominous, forbidding air that wasn't helped by the complete stillness in the room. Eve looked behind her, befuddled, and stared at the door she'd just come in from—it was still open, revealing the hallway outside.
"It's charmed to look completely dark from outside," said a familiar voice, and Eve jumped. "To prevent any unwanted visitors who open the door."
To Eve's right, barely noticeable under the shadows of the walls, stood five still figures, draped in black robes and wearing hoods that forebodingly concealed their faces. Their unmoving, rigid stances immediately unnerved Eve—she recognized Avery's figure near the end, realizing that it was him who'd just spoken to her.
His voice had been even and monotone, nothing like the giddy, cheerful voice of the Avery she knew.
Meanwhile, Riddle had come to lounge in the center of the room on one of the aforementioned armchairs before the fireplace, his imposing figure languid and relaxed, as if poised to strike. The violet hue of the flames next to him cast lurid shadows that licked up the side of his face, illuminating his terrifying-perfect features—from his sculpted jawline and the aristocratic slope of his nose to the ebony curl that fell perfectly over his alabaster skin.
He looked too perfect—perfect as though one might clinically describe a sculpture, as if he was just one of the many carved marble busts surrounding the room, a piece of art for all to marvel at but stay a safe distance away from. There was a predatory grace in his relaxed posture—he was twirling his wand in his hand, the jagged end of the bone-colored wand hypnotically blurring with the motion; with each spin of the weapon, he seemed to twist another layer of maliciousness over the room.
It was like staring at the human form of malevolence.
He looked—
Well, he looked evil.
"Welcome," Riddle's voice punctuated the air sharply, resounding around the silent room and causing goosebumps to erupt on Eve's arms, "to the Knights of Walpurgis."
—
Author's note: Just wanted to remind readers that this is a slow burn! I crossed the 100k word mark for this fic a while ago (yay!) and realized we'd barely gotten into any of the juicy stuff yet lol. But I think all this world-building and relationship establishment is crucial for Eve and Tom's story—after all, he's Tom Riddle, and rushing anything would just seem unreasonable and unrealistic for his character, the current situation, and Eve's history with him. I also began this fic with the intention to slowly build Eve and Tom's relationship while fleshing out an interesting plot that isn't just purely romance-based as well (as well as just taking the time to write about Hogwarts school life in 1944, because I personally always loved fics that took the time to explore the everyday intricacies of student life at Hogwarts), so please take that into consideration! I'm so grateful you're reading, and thanks for sticking around :)