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“This school is all hot air, really. Nothing’s that important, y’know.”
Tom is snapped from his musings by a familiar crisp timbre. Water slicks his fringe and clings to his skin, creating a sluggish path across his face before it plummets to the floor. Drip. Drip. Drip.
The steady rhythm offers welcome hypnosis, distracting him from the cold that had seeped into his very bones. At her words, he reorients, taking a step closer to the fire, oh sweet warmth, and smirks. ”What?”
He looms over her, a gloomy figure casting a wet shadow over her dark face. Still, her black eyes glint with the firelight, more present and yet still so sharp as they had been in her pondering. Clever thing. She never lets her guard down around him, or perhaps this is what is behind the cages of her societal mask - a taloned bird, with the strength to strike deep within him. “Your head disappeared again, Apprentice? Where to?”
Dorcas’s nose crinkles, her sharp teeth flashing as she complains, “You never listen. You don’t seem to be screwed straight-“
“Screwed straight?” He scoffs. Brave, is what she is. A liar, he has found, she unnervingly is not. Nor an emotional speaker. Her tone is rapid-fire, and yet calm. Smarter birds aim for the eyes. She sees through his eerily. “Perhaps a few were knocked loose, but only by your reckless casting, love. You nearly knocked my tooth out our last session.”
“Knocked a tooth-?” Her arms cross over her navy robes, a dramatised moment taken to be befuddled. She whistles through her teeth. “Well, Riddle, is it not your job to take on any challenges with your student? Our agreement must have faded in your memory. You’ll have to just take it on the chin and deal with it.” Her own cutting chin juts.
“Deal with your buffoonery? For such potential, you’re too quick with it. You have to focus. Too much-“ Power. He was about to say power. Although unnatural, his praises ring true - in the privacy of his mind. He wouldn’t be so foolish as to say it aloud yet, lest her little head inflate.
His lips press together, torn between pride of her and caution. “You- Lowering your head so much gives you trouble. It’s unbecoming, like a wet blanket.” He diverts.
”Chalkie,” Dorcas’s use of the nickname is an affable insult. It makes his lips twitch. She says, “You know as well as I do what must be.”
”Ah, yes. Dorky Dorcas.” He agrees, leaning down to speak to her more directly. There’s little difference to be made, her eyes would unpick him even if his head were turned. It’s only a game of who unravels first. “Ghost of the castle. Always a kind word, nothing but praises, really, when I have to go knocking, because my apprentice is nowhere to be found. That is how you prefer it.” He accentuates his frustration with every inch closer to her ear.
Dorcas lifts one shoulder in a shrug. The movement hidden by her large robes, a writhing mass, a riddle. “Jealous? Maybe you should give empathy a chance. The words were far more sincere than from your gang of loafers, hm? Funny how that is, without even an ounce of manipulation.” She emphasises.
”You spend too much time with them,” Tom says into her ear, thinking better than to speak coarsely, “You’re better to look elsewhere. Which friend would do this for you?” He grins, taking the dramatic opportunity to wrap his fingers around the chain in his great sodden overcoat’s pocket, pulling it out.
The movement is languid. He knows to savour it.
In only a moment of dangling, she makes the anticipated connection, a sharp intake of oxygen, “My mother’s-?”
He lets the old thing spin in the air. It’s nothing so impressive, not Salazar’s locket. A circle of cowrie shells, each separated by a repeating pattern of coloured beads, red, black, green and yellow. The only piece of maintained quality was the string which he had observed her using reparo on on multiple occasions. Pretty, but not so pretty. And yet, it widens her eyes.
”What else would it be?”
Her fingers twitch at her sides, and he takes one hand in his, turning it palm up. He presses the necklace in, watching as the pale skin of her palm grows whiter as the shells dig in. He pushes until there’s no doubt she can feel it, can feel the force of his damp fingers. “Do you know how I copped this?”
She doesn’t look up at him. It doesn’t matter. He still has her entranced.
”Hornby.” She says finally, fingers curling possessively over the item in his hand, but not moving to even inhale otherwise it seemed. Her trim nails scrape his palm without a mark, but he knows better than to think she’s a clipped bird. “The younger one. He pinched it. You made him give it to you?”
He says nothing. She comes to the conclusion swiftly. “It wasn’t willing, was it? Nothing ever is with you.” Her breathless words are far from an accusation. “You sweet-talked him, then?”
”He’s not worth my time.” He dismisses with a grin too prideful, like a puffed up bird - sue him, they’re one and the same. He lazily glances to the clock. Three hours, it had took. “All he needs to know is his place. He can’t be trusted with much else, hardly my whispers.”
”Riddle, you hurt him?” There’s a concern in her dark eyes. There always is. A quiet contemplation. He doesn’t understand it. It is akin to worry, and yet never has she turned from him yet, never does he plan to drive her to. That would be wasteful of such a rare specimen, an equal.
In her long moment of strange silence, her free hand slips up his wrist, feeling the fabric of his Macintosh. The rain coats her slender fingers. She peers at it, and he stares at her. He’ll learn her, he swears. How could he not know one of his own cloth?
Her fingers raise to her pursed mouth, tasting the liquid thoughtfully with a tut. “As salty as the Black Lake.” She decides, looking to him once more. “Hornby. Hornby as in Hornby who’s boggart flooded his classroom.” She questions expectantly. “Riddle?”
”It wasn’t me.” Tom takes a step away, towards the fire. She had come closer. He can’t tell if the sudden weight of his heart is to be appreciated or to be turned from. He wants to keep her close. He shouldn’t let her come any further.
Why must she always take things to her terms?
Because she is his apprentice.
“Consider it your lesson.”
”Lesson?” She follows his thoughts seamlessly, he can almost hear the click as it comes to her. “Avery. He always has a bone to pick. You encouraged Avery, that’s why the both of you were whispering at breakfast, and he’s a right proud man now because the little Hornby took an involuntary dive, wasn’t it so?”
He follows her words like she’s painting a portrait before him. Certainly, the lilt of her voice portrays a clearer image than what he’d seen blearily happen before him under the cover of the upset clouds.
A young boy more bluster than bravery. Who thought he could dare mess with her. Just a little needling, and Hornby had warily wandered to the lake behind them, swallowed salt and tears and screams as he thrashed. What a shame Tom had prioritised returning the heirloom to its rightful owner over watching the sniffling walk of shame to the dungeons.
That had always been his favourite part, the last taste of victory to be saved before the whiny children of that damned home would cry their faces red to the caretakers and he’d face his due. How would it be, now, when no one would dare whisper of it? With no snitches and no trials and no justice as they call it. Sweeter?
Black Lake. Cave. It was all laughably easy, for Tom.
”The lad’ll be in bed quietly if he doesn’t want more teasing. No consequences.” She says with a heavy exhale. He’s never once faced his actions, not since he’s constructed his web as so. What can he say? The ones too foolish to catch him out can field the blame.
”And no one knows you were there.” Her words are rapid, lips moving so quickly. One thing realised, and the rest come falling down like dominoes for a perspicacious thing like her. “Or here in my dorm.”
Dorcas shakes her head in what he wouldn’t presume to call fondness, tells himself is a product of her lax nature, “You didn’t even do ought but pick up the necklace yourself, did you, Riddle? That’s your lesson, doss down and let your lackeys do the brunt of your tasks?”
She teases, and yet he knows she knows what he means. Dumbledore doesn’t understand a thing, refuses to, even. Dorcas is nothing like the nutty old man. Tom can hear her bones sing as surely as his own, with magic. She could be greater, if she wanted.
That damnable smile. Her lips turn down and yet her eyes crease in good humour. It makes him wish to get in her face and cup those thin cheeks, to make her breathless. It’s not fair at all, and it’s not the sort of unfair that works to his advantage, an unpleasant combination.
”Apprentice?” He prompts, speaking lowly through the pressure of his teeth clamping on the inside of his cheek. He won’t perform stupidity. He won’t.
Of all the most infuriating people, it had to be her to rival his excellence.
”Nothing, Riddle.” Dorcas assures dishonestly. Cheeky git. She’s not hiding her grinning teeth. Invaluable and she’s astute enough to know it. “Nothing. Only maybe next time you’d say it more directly.” He moves to protest, but she’s pulling the shells over her head, shifting her hair. It’s distracting, her appearance. A gossamer thing of grace, next to his currently over-watered beanpole of a frame.
”Say what more directly?” He questions.
”It’s a good act.” Dorcas tells him instead, leaning on one hip. “A kind act.” She clarifies. “To return this necklace - a lesson, sure, Riddle - but I still owe you gratitude.”
He can play this game with anyone else. Yet with her, it always makes his skin crawl. He’s not winning. She sees something he doesn’t know, that’s why her eyes twinkle so. It’s a fraught balance they maintain, dancing between presumptions and bold lies, dining with audacious contradictions. Snapping it could calm his furious chest. He’s not prepared.
”You do.” He concedes, making for the door lazily. Tom Marvolo Riddle does not run. He retreats, and to think, not because he is afraid. Her eyes follow his back, and yet she does not move, a wise and calculated measure of respect and yet challenge in her every action. “Show your gratitude by remembering your lesson, Apprentice. Those friends of yours,” his voice isn’t so harsh as it had once been, “could be useful, Meadowes. Black and Shafiq have their purposes. Do not let them pull the strings, by your open heart. They’d know nothing but how to yank a puppet awkwardly.”
His warning falls on deaf ears. He knows it. Dorcas knows it. His mirror sometimes, and so different he wants to return to the days of the orphanage and the cave where he could so easily release his tension. Why does she care about them? She’s too clever for it. Emotion, he won’t let tear her from him. The door shuts.
Cocooned by the crackling of the flames, alone, she lets out a secret laugh. It’s exhilarating, this game is. That haunting touch she knows by a name he doesn’t label, care. The shells vibrate on the hollow of her throat. She should tire of it, she thinks as she throws a towel over the puddle he’d left behind, but it hasn’t killed her yet. It feels far more right to latch on.
In the silence of his dorm that night, he wonders, he’d returned the necklace. It was more than any of her friends had done for her, he was certain.
Was it enough?