Stay with me?
"Staring won't make it boil any faster." Lestrange looked over at Tom who was staring down his cauldron, for reasons unknown. "Why are you in such a hurry to leave anyways?"
Tom looked at the clock that rests in the wall opposite to him then back at the cauldron, "none of your concern, Lestrange". He reopened his potions book for the 10th time, rereading the page over and over.
"Right..." Lestrange stood up and grabbed the leftover potion ingredients he had to put them back on their respective shelves.
Meanwhile Tom finally heard his little timer go off and stirred his cauldron fast enough for it to work, but not too fast that it messed up the potion. He set down the spoon and tapped the table as he impatiently waited the few minutes required before he could finish the potion.
Lestrange came back right as his potion was ready to stir and took his time to make sure it was perfect. "Okay, what's going on? I have never seen rush through a class, much less potions."
"As I said, not your concern." Tom stood up and decided to put away his supplies away, being careful enough to not make a mess. He rushed over to his cauldron a second before his little timer went off and waved his wand to finally finish his potion.
Tom waved over the professor to review the potion. "Finished already? You're not usually the student to rush." Slughorn looked over the potion and nodded his head in approval. "It's not as perfect as you'd normally make them, but it's certainly exceeds expectations."
Tom nodded his head and looked back up at the clock, "does that mean I have permission to leave early, Professor?
Both Sluhorn and Lestrange were a little shocked at the question. Even when Tom finishes a potion early, he never asks to leave the class. Usually he'd take extra time to make sure his station if completely spotless and then works on an assignment for another class until it's time for everyone to leave.
"Um, of course you can leave once you've cleaned up everything. May I ask what brought about this sudden change in behavior?"
Tom had grown a little irritated with everyone asking him what was wrong or why he was acting different. He shook his head and put on his usual smile "I have a big assignment for another class I wanna get a head start on. Apologies if my sudden behaviors worried you Professor."
Slughorn smiled before walking over to another group of students.
"Riddle, you don't have an assignment that needs anything more than 30 miuntes of your time." Lestrange watched as Tom immediately started cleaning up his station, not being as thorough as he normally would be.
"The professor doesn't know that. Besides I have no reason to be here." Tom looked up and Lestrange for half a second before going back to cleaning up.
Lestrange took longer than it should've to realize what his friend meant. Normally Tom would spend the entire time in potions because it allowed him to watch Y/N, since she took her time making sure every cauldron was perfectly cleaned after the students using them had left. This meant Tom would wait for class to be over just so he could spend a few extra minutes talking to her by walking with her to the staircase of the Ravenclaw Tower.
The difference with today was that Y/N wasn't in class. In fact, she had been out all week for reasons unknown. The professors said it's because she was sick, but that had never stopped her in the past from attending class. "So where exactly are you going then? Not like Y/N is gonna randomly show up, not a single person has seen her all week...not even her dormmates."
Tom rolled his eyes and finished up the last of his cleaning. Once his station was cleaned up he waved to Slughorn and rushed out the classroom, not bothering to say another word to anyone.
***
Tom walked into his dorm and hung up his robe and tie. He quickly changed out of his uniform and into more casual clothing. He threw on a pair of black trousers and tucked in a white, long-sleeve button up. He through on a pair of black shoes and looked at himself for maybe two seconds in the mirror before grabbing the letter he had set on his bed that morning.
He threw on an old blazer and read the letter one last time before setting it in his inner pocket. He heard the sound of one of his dormmates coming closer to the room and cast a disillusionment charm to stay hidden. When his friends had walked into the dorm, Tom took advantage of the open door and snuck out the room before it closed. He hurried out the commonroom and through the dungeon, careful not to run into anybody or make any noise.
***
Tom stood behind a few students who were walking to the front courtyard and squeezed past them when they opened the door, once he was officially outside and in the courtyard he ran as fast as he could to the schools entrance, he looked at the watch he was wearing to check the time '3:57' he was gonna be a few minutes late.
He made it to the entrance of the Forbidden Forest after a bit more running and stopped to catch his breath, he undid the disillusionment charm and grabbed the letter from his blazer, opening it to make sure he was going in the right direction:
𝓜𝓮𝓮𝓽 𝓶𝓮 𝓪𝓽 𝓽𝓱𝓮 𝓬𝓵𝓮𝓪𝓻𝓲𝓷𝓰 𝓲𝓷 𝓽𝓱𝓮 𝓕𝓸𝓻𝓫𝓲𝓭𝓭𝓮𝓷 𝓕𝓸𝓻𝓮𝓼𝓽 𝓸𝓷𝓬𝓮 𝓬𝓵𝓪𝓼𝓼𝓮𝓼 𝓪𝓻𝓮 𝓸𝓿𝓮𝓻.
He folded the letter and quickly walked through the forest as he put it back in his pocket.
***
Tom stood in the clearing he found a while back and looked at his watch '4:12'. He heard a feint hiss echo all around him and decided to call to it "𝔠𝔬𝔪𝔢 𝔬𝔫 𝔬𝔲𝔱 𝔡𝔢𝔞𝔯, 𝔦𝔱'𝔰 𝔧𝔲𝔰𝔱 𝔪𝔢." A few seconds passed when Tom saw an adder move out from under the sheet of brown leaves that coated the ground.
Y/N shifted out of her snake form and raised an eyebrow, "Class ended ten minutes ago, how'd you get here so quickly?"
Tom shrugged and analyzed the woman standing infront of him. she definitely didn't appear sick so why the hell hasn't she been in school? "I finished the potion early and was allowed to leave."
"...you never leave class early."
"I never had a reason to, until today." He opened his blazer and tapped at the letter residing in the iner pocket, "now where the hell have you been? You've never missed class, regardless of how sick you've been."
Y/N walked closer to him and held her hands behind her back. "I was granted permission by the headmaster to check out my home. I also got to meet the house elves."
"And why was that exactly?" Tom placed his hands in his trouser pockets and tilted his head down at her.
"I had to move my stuff in. Since we leave for break in a month, we decided to get situated now so I have less to worry about when we finally go on break." She rocked back and forth on her feet, biting the inside of her cheek.
Tom took notice of this behavior and raised an eyebrow, confused on her behavior. He removed his hands from his pockets and placed them on her shoulders to stop her from moving, "What's going n with you? You're acting...strange."
"Yeah just....feels weird finally having a home." She brushed his hands off her shoulders and took a step back, "I didn't ask you here to just tell you this."
"Then why am I here, exactly?" He walked to the nearest tree and leaned his back against it, crossing his arms.
"Would you..." Y/N had her back to him, taking a deep and shakey breath out "do you wanna stay with me for the break?"
The only noises heard was the sound of animals and insects communicating. The two didn't say anything, they didn't really move either. Y/N heard this buzzing in her head and everything grew fuzzy, terrified of Tom's scilence. "I take it back, I don't know what I was think-"
She gasped at the sudden feeling of someone holding onto her. She was so trapped in her thoughts that she didnt even hear the leaves crinkle from Tom's movements. Tom forced her to turn and look at him, one hand wrapped around her waist, the other placed in his pocket. "Care to repeat that?"
It wasn't a question or request, and she knew that...but she was terrified to repeat it. She couldn't read the expression on his face to see if he was upset, angry, irritated, she just didn't know. "...what?"
His eyebrows knitted together and tightened his grip on her waist, "I'm not repeating myself."
Her throat completely dried up and the words failed to leave her mouth. She placed her hands on his chest and tried to push him away, to no avail. She shut her eyes tight and turned her head away from him. "Would you like to spend winter break...with me?" She flinched in anticipation of yelling or any sort of anger from him.
Tom loosened his grip on her waist and moved the hand out of his pocket to hold onto her face and turns her head to look at him. He didn't say anything, he honestly didn't know what to say.
"I-um...." she avoided his eyes and looked off to the side. "I know you stay at Hogwarts during break...but thought you could get more research done away from the prying eyes of the professors..." It grew silent again and Y/N clenched her hands into fists, gripping at Tom's shirt. "It's stupid now that I say it out loud....sorry."
Tom sighed and looked down at Y/N, who was practically trembling. She wasn't crying but it was clear she was terrified that he was upset with her...which heavily confused him. "Y/N...look at me." He watched as she hesitantly looked up to meet his eyes, doing everything she could to appear calm...but she failed miserable at is. "What are you apologizing for? I don't recall ever telling you no."
"You didn't seem all that thrilled...I assumed that meant no."
"Did I specifically tell you no?"
She shook her head and tried to move her head, but he held it in place so she couldn't move away. Y/N looked at him and gently placed her hand over his, calming down a huge amount now that she could tell he wasn't upset, "may I have an answer then? You're forgetting that the Headmaster needs to be aware of who is and isn't staying."
Tom kept his expression unreadable and spoke blandly, "Fine. Not much to do here anyways." He was caught off guard by the feeling on Y/N throwing her arms around him in a tight hug, arms wrapping around the back of his neck. He was honored to have this invitation, but wasn't at all expecting that reaction. He tensed up and instinctively pulled his arms further away from her.
Y/N pulled back slightly to look him in the eyes. It then dawned on her what her reaction was and let go him, taking a step back "Sorry, got a little carried away."
Tom fixed his blazer to look more presentable and watched as Y/N still looked a little nervous. He chose to not push it and looked briefly at his watch. "Are you technically back at school or are you still supposes to be out sick?"
"I arrived last night, wasn't supposed to be here till tomorrow morning. The Headmaster doesn't actually know I'm back yet." Y/N scratched the back of her head and gave a small, nervous laugh.
Tom hummed and held out a hand, "Might wanna stay hidden then."
Y/N held his hand and tranformed into her adder form, slithering up Tom's arm and resting on his shoulders. He waiting till she was fully comfortable before walking back towards the school, being sure no one was around to see him exit the Forbidden Forest.