Holiday From Real

I didn't talk to Tom after Potions class; we have more classes together, but I sat with either Jane or Doug instead of with Tom. It's not that I didn't want to be around him, but, honestly, I'm afraid. I can't tell his lies from his truths, and until I can tell without doubt, I'm going to remain nervous and scared. He's extremely good looking; I don't even know how to start explaining how attracted to him I am. I could go on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on about his features, but I could never capture how truly handsome he is. I don't blame Merope for hoodwinking Tom Riddle Senior, especially if Tom is his carbon copy, even more so if Tom is the ugly version of Tom Senior.

The only times I talked with Tom has been strictly in Potions class, and our conversations haven't been as deep or as humorous as Monday's. It's Friday evening now, and about ten or so of us are just chillin' around the Lake. It's a rather chilly day, but we have our hoodies and whatnot on, so we're not bothered. Besides, we're from ChiCity, we know what cold is. Some of us are seated on large rocks while the rest have situated themselves on the cold, but dry grass. I'm sitting down on a rock; Lauren is sitting down on the grass to my right, to he right is Karen, and to her right is Kayla. Jeff is sitting down right next to Kayla, and T'uan is sitting down on across from him. To my left is Jane, she is also sitting down on a rock, and to her left is Bueno, who is also sitting on a rock. Lazy Legs and Doug are to his left, and they're sitting down on the grass. To their left is Karen's friend, Jael, and Lauren's friend, Annie. Directly across from me are Alice, she's a bit of a slut, but she is very fun to hang out with, and her friend, Lilly.

We spent the last hour talking about Hogwarts so far, how we're still shocked, and about what we're supposed to do. I pointed out that it'd only make sense for us to be here for Tom since we weren't only just sucked into this time and place by his diary, but we've been sucked in the same year he opens the Chamber of Secrets. It makes the most sense that we're here to stop him from fully becoming the Dark Lord Voldemort. Doug looked up at me and asked, "How can you be so sure?"

I lightly shrugged, "I'm not sure, but it makes sense to me."

"How?"

I sighed, "Lets think about it. Doesn't he quickly go down hill after the…" A group of Hogwarts students started to walk dangerously close to us, "After the Inner Sanctum of Doom?"

"Wha—?" The group seemed to understand my code word at the same time; they chuckled for a minute before I could continue,

"He opens the Inner Sanctum of Doom, he shows off his big snake," Lauren, Jane, Alice, and Lilly laughed while I smirked, "kills his dad and his grandparents, blames it on his uncle, and then comes into contact with his first whore?"

They all snickered, but erupted with hysterical laughter when Doug looked confused and said, "Didn't that happen on Monday? During Potions?"

"Oh ha, ha, ha!" I glared at him, "You're hilarious!"

Doug smirked; once everyone stopped laughing he told me, "I'm glad we agree on that."

I rolled my eyes, "You're just jealous."

"Psh," he scoffed, "Jealous of what?"

I raised my brows, looked to the right, pressed my lips together, flexed the corners of my lips to give myself a small, odd smile, and tilted my head slightly to the left. "You're jealous that I'm interested in him instead of you."

Doug laughed, "That's obviously it."

I rolled my eyes and then caught sight of Tom about two hundred feet away; he's going back and forth from reading and writing an essay. I smirked, stood up, and said, "Watch and learn, kiddos." No one said anything, they just stared at me while I slipped my hood off of my head, zipped up my brown leather jacket to just under my breasts, and walked over to Tom while absent-mindedly twirling my wand in my right hand. I looked over my shoulder at my friends, smirked, winked, and then focused back on Tom. His body tensed as I stepped on a large, crunchy leaf, but he didn't stop writing or reading. I sat down to his left, brought my knees into my chest, leaned against my upper legs, and loosely wrapped my arms around just below my knees. I looked at him with no facial expression and quietly watched him work on the essay for Divination.

He looked at me a few times, but didn't say anything. I sighed softly and then whispered, "Books can't help you when it comes to the future."

He scoffed.

I rolled my eyes, "At least not when it comes to personal futures."

Tom looked at me with slight annoyance and slight curiosity. He slowly put down his quill and asked me with his silky, sugar sweet voice, "Please do tell me about my future."

I smirked crookedly, his eyes flashed down to my mouth, but quickly back up to my eyes, "To know about your future I have to know about your past."

He smirked, "Have you done your research yet?"

The way he said 'research' made me shiver. He didn't pronounce it like "ree-search," he pronounced it like "reh-search." My crooked smirk widened, "As a matter of fact, I have."

"Oh?" He raised his right brow inquisitively, "And what do you know?"

"I don't want to tell you."

"And why not?"

"Because you'll get all sorts of upset."

He laughed, "Which sorts?"

I chuckled, "The instant angry, and the 'I'm going to be polite to you, but make no mistake, I'm plotting against you' angry."

Tom looked amused, "Just tell me."

I shook my head from left to right, "I'm sorry, Tom, but our project for Potions isn't ready yet, and I can't have my partner compromised in any way."

He rolled his eyes and went back to his work. I silently watched as he continued working on his essay; he occasionally glanced at me, but he didn't say anything. I shamelessly scanned his hair, his face, the way his body is situated, how his right hand held his quill, how he wrote, and how he held down his piece of parchment. I let out a slow and long, but quiet, breath out of my nose and placed my right hand next to his left. He looked at me, but he didn't say anything. I didn't bother to fake a smile or any other small sign of kindness; I just stared down at his hand until he took it off of his parchment. I gently held the parchment down with enough pressure to make sure it wasn't going to move around while he wrote, but lightly enough that I wasn't going to rip it, or even make the slightest mark.

In a very quiet voice, Tom whispered, "What are you doing?"

I looked up into his curious, cold eyes and replied barely above a whisper, "Holding down your parchment."

His voice was still quiet, but it held a significant amount of power, "I'm perfectly capable of holding it down myself."

"At what point did I say you weren't capable?"

"Actions speak louder than words."

"Assumptions aren't facts."

"I'm not assuming."

"So you know exactly why I put my hand down on your parchment? All my reasoning behind it?"

He was quiet. His lips slowly curled into a small smirk, but he didn't say anything.

I looked down at my hand and then back into his eyes, "It's an act of kindness, Tom." I smiled inwardly as I remembered the talk between Morgan Freeman and Jim Carrey in Bruce Almighty. "An act of random kindness."

"I don't need—"

"Yes, you really do."

Tom's facial expression changed from amused, to blank, to extremely irritated. "How do you figure?"

"Everyone needs kindness, you're no exception."

He scoffed and rolled his eyes at me, "I'm no exception?"

"Yes," I sighed, "we're all different in the same ways."

Tom laughed, "You're ridiculous."

I smirked to myself, "That's an odd way to pronounce omniscient."

Tom laughed at me again. He stared at me, and for once, it wasn't awkward. Don't get me wrong, it's not awkward, but I'm not comfortable. I'm not quite sure if I'm afraid of Tom, or if I'm afraid that I'll fail. I've begun to accept what hass happened to me, to my friends, to our lives. We're here for a reason; we were sucked into this time and place for a reason. The reason is obviously to save the wizarding world; hundreds of innocent people and creatures were murdered, even more families destroyed, and for what? Because no one showed this boy love? Sure, many girls are more than infatuated with Tom, but they're not really interested in him as much as his physical appearance or his brilliance.

We sat in almost uncomfortable silence before I murmured, "I've done some investigation of my own."

Tom tensed, but if I haven't spent some time with him, I probably wouldn't have noticed. He blinked once before his silky, sweet voice drifted into my ears, "And what do you believe you discovered?"

I sighed, but I didn't break eye contact with him. "A lot of confusion."

Tom's lips curled into the smallest of smiles while he quietly chuckled without actually opening his mouth. It was the type of chuckle that comes out of your nose, when you think something is amusing, but not enough for you to actually laugh.

I took my hand off of his parchment, slowly wrapped my arms underneath my thighs, and loosely held my hands. I rested my head against my legs, inches below my knees, by pressing the left side of my face ever so slightly against my legs. I looked at him and drew in a deep, quiet, breath, "You confuse me beyond belief, Tom-Tom."

He raised his eyebrows, emptied his eyes of any emotion, and ever so slightly flared his nostrils. "I barely like the name once."

"That's a part of life."

"Being called 'Tom-Tom'?"

"No," I laughed and let my smile linger on my face, "dealing with things you don't like."

He sighed, letting some of his aggravation flow out of his system, "I assume you can keep a secret."

"You assume correctly."

He smirked, "What are you doing tonight?"

I didn't blush; I knew he wasn't about to ask me on a date of sorts, "Planning next weeks show."

He was instantly curious, "Show?"

"Doug, Lazy Legs, Jane, T'uan and I get together and play music. Sometimes a few of our other friends join in with our performance. We usually have two or three of our other friends be in charge of lighting and what not."

"A show…" he rolled the concept around in his mind, "For whom?"

"For us, honestly, but we perform for whomever shows ups. Anyway," I sighed, "I can sneak away from the planning." I looked at him with interest.

He smirked again, "Do you know where the Room of Requirement is located?"

I wondered how far he'd go to have me at his meeting, "No."

He sighed softly, "Then meet me on the third floor by the main staircase."

"Would I be correct if I assumed that the main staircase is the giant one that leads to the seventh floor, but not to any tower?"

"You'd be correct."

I bit the inside of my bottom lip before saying, "What time?"

He smirked; an emotion I've never seen before glazed his eyes, "Ten thirty."

I raised my brows with curiosity, "Curfew is at eleven."

He laughed at me, "Because you always follow curfew."

I smiled and blinked; his cold, vindictive eyes locked gazes with my warm, affectionate eyes. "I suppose ten thirty is a safe time for misdoings. You can pretend to be going straight back to your House after you retrieve your forgotten item."

Tom's smirk grew, "Aren't you the clever girl."

I silently sighed and slowly stood up. I gulped, looked down at him, and replied, "More than you know." I didn't wait for his response; I put my hood back on, slid my hands into my jacket pocket, and walked back over to my circle of friends. I'm going to have to tell them that I've just been invited to what I suspect to be one of the earliest Death Eater meetings ever. I'll have to inform them that I'll probably be in great danger, but not to come looking for me. This could very easily be one of the most critical, pre-Voldemort moments, and I can't have anyone's worry ruin it.