Chapter 11
The ravenclaw girl was boring him to death during the whole ball and he had to do his best to maintain a gentlemanly manner and be good company. The resemblance stopped at the half lidded eyes, truly. Speaking of lidded eyes, his brain and attention couldn't stop going back to the bracelet waiting to feel a sign from it.
"Tom, those are very nice robes you are wearing" Abraxas was trying to sound neutral complimenting him while Tom could tell that he was souring from jealousy. He must say, he was already better in looks, skills and brains. If even in clothes, he was bested, what would be of a Malfoy? Tom would have been thoroughly amused had his brain not been occupied with much more important things than Abraxas and his little personal crisis.
He suddenly felt it tug at him, the bracelet was away from Hogwarts, which means so was Bellatrix. He excused himself before getting out of the ball and heading to her office. This is the opportunity he was waiting for, he would put all kinds of tracking spells in her office then if he had time, he would search it. He carefully pushed the door while sidestepping the wards he saw her put on, though many of them were intentionally made harmless to him by her own self. Still even if they were harmless to him, they would alert her of his presence. He must say, her warding work was amazing. He finally closed the door behind him and put himself to work.
After finishing setting up the spells, he decided to rummage in her chambers. The previous spot where she had gotten out the pile of papers concerning horcruxes from was empty and nothing of peculiar interest was found in her office. His mind rummaged of her cautiousness towards Dumbledore, did she think he might go through her office but not her chambers? She was right. Dumbledore would not go rummage through a female colleague's chambers, it was highly inappropriate. Tom had no such issue, and as it turns out he did in fact have a certain interest towards Bellatrix.
Just as he was rummaging through the drawers, something attracted his attention, it was a gringotts health checkup, the ones wizards do to check on themselves if they wanted to keep utmost anonymity and didn't trust Saint-mungo. It costs a fortune but it does the job for those who want it. He took it out and opened it, the two names after her first name Bellatrix were blurred with a strong fidelius belonging to goblins. What was curious was that two patches were blurred so either her middle name meant something compromising too or....it was her maiden name and Tom absolutely hated that line of thought. He chastised himself for focusing on the wrong things, Bellatrix Lestrange knew some things about him that may compromise him and had the gall to hide them from him. Just for that, there would be consequences and worst comes to worst, he may even have to...take actions against her. What mattered now was finding out what he could. He continued to read the report and then halted in his reading, his breathing halted in his throat. He did his best not to crumble the paper, any spell of unwrinkling it later would have a chance to be detected by goblin magic. The paper clearly reported a decay in health related to an unknown artifact that limits her lifespan to four years at most. He hopelessly tried to look some more at anything, any clue. It said below that there might be a chance at recovery if the goblins got to look at the artifact, they even proposed to waive fees for health treatment if the artifact was left in the possession of goblins. This got his interest, he knew that for it to attract the greed of goblins, then it must be of immense value. He looked through her drawers for a response she may have been writing and he found it just a book of her night table. He read it, it was a scathing refusal to submit the artifact and a strong language was used treating goblins of filthy breeds trying to go after their better's possessions. Tom was absolutely furious at her for not taking things seriously, this was her only chance at recovery and yet she still refused to hand over the artifact. He tried to calm himself, maybe that's why she was searching horcruxes? She was maybe also trying to create one? If so, then maybe he would help her. Hopefully, that was it. Regardless of the uncomfortable things he was feeling, his mind didn't fail to understand the importance of such artifact from this correspondance. He wanted it. No, he must get it.
He carefully put the report back where he found it and then moved on to put the reply letter back in the book on the nightstand. While giving a last look to the letter, Tom grimaced. Bellatrix was not one for subtelty, even in such a situation she decided to antagonize goblins. She truly was not suitable for spy work, maybe he should actually pay attention to her lest she goes saying something of the sort to Dumbledore's face. Just from this, he was worried about what would result of her attempts to help him even if her intentions were truly for his sake, hopefully nothing that would end up landing him in Azkaban.