September to October 1944, 7th year
Naenia watched their new Head Boy and Head Girl converse with each other while they waited for all of the prefects to arrive and wondered whether this would be the end of her patrols with Tom.
She certainly wouldn't mind the absence of those annoying giggles following him everywhere, but she didn't want to go on patrols alone either – or with Jenkin's Ravenclaw partner, for that matter. He was one of the many who couldn't see past her family name, after all, even though a smart person like him really ought to know better.
Amelia had still not appeared, but Malfoy was already sitting close to Tom, looking at him with adoring eyes. Orion Black was, unsurprisingly, the new fifth-year prefect along with Fawcett, the younger sister of Rosier's wife. Naenia didn't recognize any of the others so far, even though she had more or less worked with most of them for two years now.
A minute or so before the train was due to leave, Amelia entered the prefects' carriage, her face slightly flushed and her eyes shining. She spotted Naenia and promptly let herself fall down into a seat right next to her friend.
Naenia raised an eyebrow in enquiry.
Amelia laughed breathlessly. "I was held up by Emery. Even though I told him I had an important meeting."
At that very moment, a Gryffindor entered and their numbers were finally complete, so Tom and Jenkins started their first official prefect meeting of the new school year. After they had introduced themselves, Tom let Jenkins do most of the explanations. There were a few changes, but overall Naenia would have the same duties to fulfil as always.
The only interesting thing about the whole affair was an interruption caused by the fifth-year prefect of Gryffindor raising his hand.
"Yes –?" Tom said.
"Lupin. Lyall Lupin."
Tom nodded in acknowledgement. "You have a question, Lupin?"
"I was wondering if there is a system behind the amount of points we award or deduct? From what I have observed so far, the teachers don't seem to have any and award or deduct points as they see fit."
"An oversight on their part," Jenkins answered. "I have requested a guide on that very matter many times now, but never accomplished anything." She paused, taking a moment to think. "Maybe we can all sit down together at our next meeting and devise one ourselves – we could hand this guide down to the next prefects and maybe, eventually, the teachers will see reason and adapt our guideline for themselves."
As if they could be bothered. But Naenia couldn't deny the sense in this proposal.
"A guideline, huh?" Avery mused when Tom and Naenia had joined their friends and recounted the meeting. "I always assumed there already was one."
Tom huffed. "If you pay attention to how many points each teacher awards or deducts for specific actions, you can easily draw the conclusion that there is none. They aren't even consistent when confronted with identical circumstances."
Avery shrugged. "Didn't really matter all that much to me."
"You know," Lestrange said, looking at Naenia, "I was fairly convinced you would be the next Head Girl. You and Riddle would have made the perfect pair."
Tom smirked. "Slughorn certainly thought so."
"Thank goodness, I'm not," Naenia said which earned her a few bewildered looks. "Being a prefect is already more responsibility than I ever wanted to take on. Can you imagine how much work that would be, had Dippet appointed me as Head Girl? No, really, I'm very glad it's Jenkins. The girl not only deserves the position, but also wants it."
"If you say so," Lestrange said, still not looking convinced.
"Well," Tom said, rising from his seat and offering Naenia a hand. "I think it is time for our first round."
Naenia stared at that hand perhaps a few seconds too long, before his words registered in her mind. "Oh, are we still attending prefect duties together, then?"
"Of course," Tom said as if there had never been any question about that. "Jenkins and I agreed that it would be in both our interests to stay with the partners we are used to working with."
He would have most likely gotten his way regardless of Jenkin's opinion on the matter. There had probably been no reason for Naenia to think Tom would let her fulfil her prefect duties without him.
Avery and Lestrange exchanged a look that nearly made Naenia sigh, but she took Tom's hand anyway and let herself be led out of the compartment.
"What happened to the ring," was the first thing she asked, once they had wandered further down the corridor.
He hadn't offered her his left hand by accident, after all.
He smiled. "Rest assured that no harm has come to it – it is still perfectly intact, not a single scratch to be found. I have simply found a safer place. I could not just have it lie around in the Muggle orphanage, could I? But I never intended to carry it around with me all the time, either."
Naenia did not point out to him that he could have simply put it into his trunk or his school bag. She knew there were enough protections placed on either, because she had shown him those spells, herself. If he had simply wanted to show her that he had acquired the object she desired so much, one time would have sufficed. But there was always more to Tom's actions than Naenia could ever guess.
"If you do not want to tell me, then why tempt me in the first place?"
His smile widened. "Why, my dear, I merely wanted to draw your attention to something you had overlooked."
"I have been trying my best to ignore the damned thing for two years now," Naenia said, slightly irritated. "Which includes not looking at it every chance I get – best if I forget about it altogether."
Tom took her hand and placed a gentle kiss on her knuckles. "Don't be angry, love. I simply did what I had to. And now that I do have a safe place for it, I thought it best not to torment you anymore."
"How very gracious of you," Naenia said dryly.
Tom seemed satisfied with that – Naenia was not – and changed the subject, "How have your holidays been?"
She raised an eyebrow. "You already know that. Or was there some other Tom Riddle replying to my letters?"
There was the usual twitch of his lips when she called him by his name, but the rest of his expression turned into amusement.
"I would be very concerned if you could not distinguish between your closest friend and some other person. And you did not tell me everything in those letters."
"I am not obliged to tell you every little detail about my life."
Tom laughed. "And I am not asking you to. But the state of your hair and skin and the gleam in your eyes alone tell me that you have been up to more Necromancy than your letters would have me believe. And I distinctly remember you telling me about an invitation from your Hufflepuff, yet no mention of that appeared anywhere in our correspondence."
Naenia sighed. "As for the first one – how many times have I told you that there are secrets that are meant to stay secret? But I will play nice and tell you this at least: I have started a little side project for my own and it has taken up a lot of my time."
She could confidently say that Perseus was almost perfect now. She had still not managed to change his eyes and doubted she would ever manage to. It was more likely something that had to be done during the process of creating an Inferius – or maybe even before that, maybe something that had to be done ante-mortem – if there was anything that could be done at all.
Naenia had not told Tom about Perseus Black's death, nor had she told anyone else (if you didn't count Amelia, who only knew that 'a friend' had died) and she did not plan on changing that anytime soon – not even for a chance at discovering the truth behind his death.
"As for the second – I did indeed visit Amelia, but I did not think it important to tell you and I doubt anything Amelia and I discussed would be of interest to you."
Tom sighed in that way that was both realistically dramatic but also deliberately put-on. "Do we have secrets from each other now, Naenia?"
Naenia glared at him. "We have both been keeping secrets from each other since the day we met. Don't start pretending we haven't."
Tom laughed, high and clear, and Naenia was surprised that it had the opposite effect his presence usually had on their peers – because the girls that had begun peeking out of their compartments to steal a glance at him hastily withdrew at the sound of his laugh.
He grabbed her by the waist and brought her close to him, halting their steps in the middle of the corridor, where everyone would be able to see them.
"Naenia," he said, lowering his voice.
He brought one of his hands up to cup her cheek, the other still holding her waist securely. There was a brief moment where she felt the urge to step back and turn away from his touch, but it passed and they were still standing there, eyes interlocked.
"I hope that one day there will be no more secrets between us," he said.
She hoped that, too. But it was a foolish hope.
Naenia raised her hand to take Tom's away from her cheek, holding on to it. "You know that won't happen, Tom."
He sighed, deeply, heavily, sadness in his eyes. "Yet I still find myself wishing for it to come true."
Ꝋ
There was at least one benefit to Tom's new status as Head Boy, which otherwise made him even busier than ever. Tom was responsible for the patrolling schedule and, therefore, able to assign Naenia and himself less duties and patrols than everyone else without anyone noticing.
Naenia appreciated that greatly. All Tom asked in return was that she didn't refuse him whenever he found time to spend alone with her.
It therefore came as a surprise when Tom assigned them to supervise the first Hogsmeade weekend of the year – something neither of them had ever willingly attended, safe for a few select occasions.
It was the beginning of October and the weather was relatively mild for the season, although Naenia didn't trust the clouds to keep them dry for the entire visit. They started the trip as a group of five Slytherins, but split off once they had reached the village, because Tom thought it would be more efficient if they didn't stay together. Which left Naenia standing at the edge of the village, looking around helplessly. If she had known Tom's intention beforehand, she would have asked Amelia whether they could spend the day together, but now Amelia had a date with Longbottom and Naenia wouldn't impose on that.
"Hey," Lestrange said. "Would you like to accompany me?"
"Depends," Naenia said, not hiding the smile creeping onto her face. "What do you have in mind?"
He shrugged. "Wander around for a bit – you haven't been here often, have you? I could show you around and we could enter a shop or two, if anything catches our eyes."
"Sure, why not. It's not like I had any plans to begin with."
He offered her his arm and then they set off into the village.
After a few minutes spent in companionable silence, Lestrange hummed. "I didn't expect Riddle to just leave you like that. We all know how enamoured he is with you."
Naenia sighed. "That again."
He gave he a lopsided smile. "You know we're just teasing you, right?"
"Tell that to the others." Naenia paused. "I think Nott has finally started to believe me and Mulciber and Black haven't been around for that rumour to start, but the rest is convinced Tom and I are involved."
"Huh, really? I thought they were just playing along, same as I."
Naenia shrugged. "They don't seem like they're just playing along. Not that it matters."
Lestrange raised an eyebrow. "But it bothers you."
"A bit," Naenia admitted. "And to come back to your earlier statement – I did not expect him to just leave me like that, either."
"Figures. Sometimes he acts rather strangely." Lestrange shook his head. "I will never understand what is going on in that brilliant head of his."
Naenia couldn't help, but laugh at that.
"What's so funny?"
"Oh, you just reminded me of something." Naenia said dismissively, but continued when Lestrange raised his eyebrows curiously. "Well, I assume you are aware that Tom is a skilled Legilimens?"
If he hadn't known that until now, then he was more oblivious than Naenia thought. But Lestrange only nodded as if that piece of information wasn't new to him.
"Tom hasn't always been a natural at Legilimency – he had to start somewhere. And one day he asked whether he could use it on me. He wanted to practice on someone who would prove to be more of a challenge and since he had correctly guessed that I am proficient in Occlumency he simply asked me."
"And you said yes?" Lestrange asked incredulously.
Naenia shrugged. "I didn't even use Occlumency." She grinned. "Because there was no way Tom could find anything useful in the mess that is my mind. So if Tom has a strange mind no one can truly understand, what does that make mine?"
It occurred to her, then, that Tom hadn't requested to try again. She would have thought he would have insisted on it at some point.
"True chaos, perhaps? Although your actions don't seem as random as his." Lestrange gave her a pat on the shoulder. "One always knows where they stand with you."
"I'll take that as a compliment," Naenia said. "But you should know that there is a reason behind everything Tom does. All his actions are deliberate and in accordance to one or several of his many schemes."
"I can see the truth in that," Lestrange amended. "But it doesn't mean his actions always make sense to me."
Naenia only shrugged.
They spent the rest of the day in each other's company. As promised, Lestrange showed Naenia around the village, pointed the important shops out to her and told her an anecdote or two about Avery and himself. When their trip neared its end, he even treated her to a butterbeer in one of the local pubs.
Which was where Malfoy and Avery found them.
"Riddle wanted me to relay a message to you," Malfoy said to Naenia by way of greeting. "He had some urgent matter to attend to and went back on his own."
Naenia frowned. First, he put her up for supervising – not that she had really had to step in as a prefect today – then he had left her to her own devices, even though he knew she hadn't even wanted to be here in the first place and she really had better things to do, and now he had just gone back on his own.
When they eventually returned to the castle, Tom was waiting in the Entrance Hall by the stairs that led to the dungeons.
"Naenia," he said when she and the others approached. "Would you indulge me for a moment?"
She glanced at the others, saw the looks they were giving each other and Lestrange raising his eyebrows at her. Naenia shrugged, turned back to Tom and took his outstretched hand.
He led her to the seventh floor, where he paced in front of a certain wall three times to make a certain door appear.
They entered their private room and Naenia slowly looked around. It looked exactly the same way it always had looked like. When she finally sat down in one of the armchairs – it only occurred to her then that this was a bit unusual, in recent months it had always been one singular couch – she noticed that Tom was looking at her oddly.
He opened his mouth, hesitated. "Do you… sense anything?"
"Sense what?"
Tom shrugged. "Anything out of place?"
Naenia took a moment for herself, even deactivated the runes of her wand and necklace, but could find nothing amiss.
"No," she said eventually. "Why?"
Tom shrugged again. "I just had a feeling earlier, must have been my imagination."
Somehow, she did not believe him. But telling him that would accomplish nothing.
"You were here earlier?" Naenia asked. "Did that have something to do with the reason you left me behind in Hogsmeade?"
Tom frowned. "I was under the impression you were in good hands."
"Don't change the subject, Tom."
He sighed. "Yes, that was part of it."
Naenia wanted enquire further, but the next words that came out of Tom's mouth rendered her speechless.
"Marry me"
AN
Sometimes… I just want to strangle Tom.
Oh, and note the chapter title.