Promised - Tom Riddle x reader

Part 12 - Pillow Talk and Butterbeer ★

After buying the Foxgloves in Diagon Alley, all you could do for the antidote was to wait. Wait for Nagini to shed and wait for the end of March to arrive, so you could go to Gaunt Manor and look for a flask of Banshee tears. Meanwhile, the cauldron simmered safely in the Come and Go Room. You had to stir it frequently and skim off the foam that built up, so it took up a good deal of time, which was rather worrying. How would you be able to keep that up when school would start again and you were busy attending classes? Of course, Tom and you could take turns, but you didn't want to bother him with all that constantly. He had to attend to his duties as head boy on top of everything, after all. Well, there had to be a way. It would be manageable somehow. 

Even though Hogwarts was almost empty and there weren't many people around, you hadn't felt lonely. Not even a bit. Tom and you had gotten closer over the week. Even closer than before and he still showed no signs of annoyance towards you. Which was surprising. You would have thought that he liked to keep to himself a lot, and wouldn't want to spend much time with someone else, regardless of who it was. But that suspicion turned out to be untrue. Tom had followed you to tend to the potion every single time you had gone there, even if you hadn't asked him to. He stuck to you like a magnet, which was strange at first, but once you had figured out that he just seemed to thoroughly enjoy your company, you let him.

When the two of you weren't in the Come and Go Room, or studied for the upcoming semester, you spent your time in bed a lot. The meaning of 'enjoying the holidays' suddenly had a different ring to it. You still had not gotten used to his touch, his scent, his faint whisper in your ear. But if you were honest, you didn't want to ever get used to it. It was too exciting to get that rush, the way your heart started racing, every time his fingers brushed across your skin. Every time your name fell from his lips and when his eyes lingered on your figure when you lay beneath him. Those smiles, rare and subtle, he graced you with between the sheets. No, you would never get used to that.

And Tom had started to talk more. Granted, still not as much as any other person you knew, but it was certainly a step in the right direction. One rainy day, he even opened up and talked about his family.

You held hands beneath the blanket, your leg was sprawled over him and you had just put your head into a comfortable position between Tom's shoulder and the cushion, when he just began, out of nowhere.

"Do you remember when you asked me about my parents?" he said. "In your room, at Christmas."

Your head propped up again so that you could look at him. "I do. Why?"

"Well," he paused and looked back into your eyes, his voice low and plain. "Do you want to know what happened?"

"Of course. Tell me."

He laid his head onto the pillow and looked up towards the ceiling while he bit the inside of his cheek.

"My Mother," he began. "She fell in love with him, Tom Riddle, when she was seventeen. He was a muggle. Filthy and worthless, even though his family was rich. Merlin knows what she saw in him."

The fact that he was a Muggle didn't define his Father's worth, you thought, but it wasn't your time to speak now. 

"He didn't love her back," Tom went on. "At least not as much as she wanted him to, apparently. Morfin, her brother, had just finished his schooling for Potion's mastery, so she snuck into his chambers one night and stole one of his love potions."

This story wasn't going to end well. Most love potions, the ones that weren't sold in joke shops, which were diluted and only meant to last for a few minutes, were illegal. You had learnt about the most dangerous ones in Slughorn's class in sixth year, so you were able to recognise them. One of them, the most powerful one, had attracted everyone's attention back then. The potion alone was infatuating, even if one had not consumed it yet. Its scent had drawn in every person in the classroom, as it smelled different to everyone, based on one's preferences. You still remembered that striking feeling of needing to take the potion yourself. Obsession was the best way to describe it. All rationality had left you once Slughorn had lifted the cauldron's cover. No one seemed in their right mind anymore. And the mere thought of being at someone's mercy, without even knowing it, was frightening.