Confusion.
It seemed to followed Tom everywhere, stemming from the moment people returned from holiday to watch him drag Ophelia over to the Slytherin table. It wasn't an easy decision, deciding to bring her over, but he needed to gain her trust and he couldn't do that if she was never around. The only question was if he'd go to Gryffindor or if she'd come to Slytherin, which wasn't much of a question at all. There was no way he would abandon the noble house of his ancestor to go fraternise with those reckless fools over in Gryffindor.
"You're not sitting with them," he said, taking Ophelia by the upper arm and steering her away from the rest of her House.
"Umm, actually, yes, I am. In case you haven't noticed, I am, in fact, a Gryffindor."
Tom fought the sudden, strange urge to roll his eyes. Ever since she'd agreed to join him, she'd been on a constant crusade to discern just how thin his patience could be stretched.
"Obviously. I'm not blind," Tom said. "But you'll be sitting with mine for now on."
"I don't think the professors will approve," she replied, looking apprehensively over his shoulder at all the Slytherins sliding into their bench's.
"Professor Slughorn will probably be delighted," he pointed out, wry.
She couldn't argue with that. "He's not really the one I'm worried about."
"If anyone questions it, you can say we're just strengthening inter-house ties."
"That's the greatest load of nonsense I've ever heard," she muttered underneath her breath, allowing Tom to steal her away nonetheless.
When they finally found seats across from Rabastan and Avery, Fenella asked sweetly, "Tom? What's this?"
Tom fixed Ophelia with a contemplative look that neither Fenella nor Ophelia particularly liked one bit. "This is our new... friend. Ophelia."
Fenella pierced Ophelia with a glare so dark it was like she thought "friend" was suddenly a synonym for "psychotic child murderer."
Ignoring her, Ophelia waved a hand lamely and said, "Er... hello there."
Rabastan leaned forward, all business. "So, Ophelia was it? Care to settle a bet?"
With obvious hesitance, she said, "If I have to?"
"That's what I like to hear." He flashed her one of the signature charming grins Tom had seen him give plenty of women before, to varying degrees of success. "Tell me, are you a mudblood or a half blood?"
"Oh, that." Ophelia sighed with relief. "I'm neither."
"How can you be neither?" Fenella scoffed, at the same time Avery doubtfully asked, "Are you a pureblood?"
"Do tell," Rabastan drawled. "Did you hatch from an egg?"
Tom tried not to look too interested in her response.
"You caught me. That's exactly what happened."
"That's not a real answer," Nott interjected.
Tom privately agreed.
"If you don't explain, I'll just assume you're a mudblood," Fenella warned, not sounding particularly upset over the fact.
Ophelia shrugged, ducking her head. "Be my guest."
"Looks like Fen has at last met her match," Rabastan noted with amusement. "How about you just tell me and leave everyone else in suspense?"
"How about you tell me more about this bet," she countered.
"It's really nothing," Tom cut in. It wouldn't do for her to realize how often she'd come up in the past.
"Then I guess the relative muddiness of my blood is nothing as well..." she conceded with razor sharp pointedness.
Despite maintaining a perfect veneer of disinterested calm on the outside, Tom gritted his teeth in irritation.
"Very well. If you must know, Fawley bet Lestrange you were a muggleborn, and because they are both children and live for the sake of argument, he bet otherwise."
Fenella's expression soured at what Tom thought was an extremely accurate description of them both, while Rabastan nodded in acceptance.
"How much?" Ophelia asked.
"Pardon?"
"How much did you bet?" Ophelia elaborated, addressing Rabastan, "How much is my blood purity worth to you?"
"Three galleons," Rabastan admitted.
It was a lot to waste on a foolish wager, but to wealthy purebloods such as themselves, it was pocket change.
"Fine, I'll tell you," she decided, to Tom's surprise. She'd always been so evasive about her upbringing when he tried to brooch the subject during the Christmas holiday, so he'd assumed she'd be the same way this time. "On one condition."
"This is ridiculous," Fenella complained testily.
"I'm listening," Rabastan said, the same gleam in his eye that he got whenever he made a wager with Fenella.
Ophelia didn't say anything immediately, choosing instead to trace her finger around the rim of her goblet. "I'll tell... for a cut of the winnings. One galleon from both the winner and the loser."
Rabastan's smile widened. "I knew I liked you for some reason. We'll get along swimmingly. You got yourself a deal."
"Hold on, I didn't agree to this," Fenella complained, blissfully unaware of how thoroughly she was being ignored.
Staring squarely at her untouched food, Ophelia said, "My father was indeed a muggle."
"I told you-" Fenella began triumphant, but Tom cut her off.
"Let her finish."
"Yeah, don't crack open the celebratory bottle of firewhisky quite yet, Fen," Rabastan agreed.
Quieter, as though remembering something unpleasant, Ophelia murmured, "And my mum is a squib."
Tom did not miss the use of past tense for her father.
"See? That still counts as wizards' blood." Rabastan held out a hand to Fenella for his winnings expectantly.
"Raised by a squib and a muggle? That practically makes her a mudblood by default," she challenged, looking to Tom for support.
He fought back his the flash of anger that came with the comparison. He had been born to a muggle and a squib, after all.
"I never said they raised me," Ophelia muttered bitterly. "My mother abandoned me at my first signs of magic."
"That's why you stayed at Hogwarts through the holiday," Tom concluded shrewdly. "You don't have anywhere else to go."
For a fraction of a second that felt more like ten, her eyes widened in panic, meeting Tom's. He'd never before realised what peculiar shades they were, one sky blue and the other pitch black. As different as day and night. He couldn't believe that, after nearly three months of watching her, he failed to notice, but then he thought back to her seemingly evasive nature. She'd never met his eyes, always looking down, or talking to the air right beside him. For whatever reason, she'd hidden her eyes on purpose. It was a clue to... something. But what?
"Yeah." She swiftly averted her gaze back to her plate. "That's why I don't leave."
Her recovery was so good, Tom almost, almost believed her.
She kept quiet through the rest of the meal, not opening her mouth again to even demand her two galleons of winnings. For all intents and purposes, she might as well have been back at her own House table, considering Tom had encountered houseplants with more awareness. A mandrake could have held better conversation, fatal screaming and all.
The owls finished dive bombing their respective mail recipients, and just when Tom thought nothing could tear Ophelia from her reverie, Fenella opened her mouth. In her hands she held a twin letter to the one Ophelia received over the holidays, the one she'd promptly burned.
"Oh? What's this? Who'd be sending our resident orphan mail?"
"Give that to me!" Ophelia said sharply, all softness gone from her features.
"Why? I didn't take it from you or anything," Fenella said, smiling. "I found it. You wouldn't have even realized it existed if I didn't say anything."
"Give. It. Back!"
A chill seemed to wash over them, and Tom was reminded of one of their first encounters when he'd felt such raw, bloodthirsty intent under her gaze. He'd nearly forgotten about that incident, but, looking back, Tom was sure that was what had piqued his interest in her in the first place.
Even though Fenella looked slightly cowed, her pride held strong, preventing her from backing down. "Make me, mudblood." To prove her point, she stood up, displaying the letter exuberantly for all to see. "I think we deserve to know more about our new friend."
So quick Tom would have missed Ophelia raising her wand had he not anticipated it, Fenella crashed against the stone wall behind her and crumpled limply to the floor.
Not looking the slightest bit remorseful or embarrassed by the silence that had descended across the Great Hall, Ophelia said, "Accio letter."
The paper darted out of Fenella's now weak grasp and into Ophelia's.
Dumbledore reached them moments later. "That's enough of that, I think."
The Deputy Headmaster knelt beside Fenella, incanting a quick slew of charms under his breath. At last, she groaned and fluttered her eyes wide.
Fenella cursed vehemently when her disorientation faded. "That bit-"
Dumbledore cut her off. "I'm sorry to interrupt what I'm sure would have been a very colourful exclamation, Miss Fawley, but I'm afraid I must insist you pay a visit the Hospital Wing. Mr. Lestrange, if you would escort her."
"Nothing would make me happier, Professor," he said sarcastically, rising half heartedly to his feet. "Let's go."
He nudged her side with his foot and proceeded out the Hall without waiting.
"I can't believe this, Albus," Slughorn puffed, coming up beside him. "Quite out of character, for both of them..."
Tom thought otherwise, but didn't say anything.
"I'm sure you're correct, Horace," Dumbledore agreed. He turned his disappointed gaze to Ophelia, who stood, stiff as a board, still clutching her letter in a vice-like grip. "Come along, Ophelia. I believe we have much to discuss."
Mutely, she matched his strides out into the corridor, neither speaking further.
"Run along, students." Professor Dippet's magically enhanced voice rang through the ball, cutting off the renewed chatter and slew of snickers. "Off to class with all of you."
As the masses migrated to the doors, Tom found it painfully easy to blend into the crowd and follow Ophelia and Professor Dumbledore from a distance back to his office. For a long time, Tom wondered if the professor had placed wards around the room to prevent eavesdroppers, so long did their silence stretch, but luckily the trusting old fool hadn't seen fit to do so, as Tom learned when Ophelia finally broke the thick silence.
"I know what you're going to say, Professor, so don't bother."
Tom heard a desk drawer sliding open. "Lemon drop?" the professor offered.
"You didn't bring me here for sweets, sir," Ophelia said with an air of impatience. "I know I shouldn't have attacked Fenella, I know I could have gone to get a professor, and I know there was a million ways to deescalate the situation without using wands."
"Feel free to lecture yourself on my behalf then, because I'm afraid I'm not quite sure what to say as of yet, and you'd save me quite a lot of trouble."
A pause. "I had to act fast, sir. I didn't have time to waste getting someone and she'd already refused to give it back when I asked. Plus, she was getting on my nerves and none of those other options would have been quite so satisfying. She was going to read one of his letters."
She said that one word, his, with so much blatant contempt that it seemed to hang in the air like a weight.
Dumbledore didn't say anything at first, and Tom could imagine the way his contemplative blue eyes were probably piercing Ophelia, always seeing far too much
"There is no crime in saying his name," he finally said, softly.
"I hate him," she spat. "If I never have to say his name again, it will have still been too much. After all he's done- I- I-"
"Perhaps you want to hate him, but love is so much more powerful than hate, my dear child," Dumbledore said kindly. "He has done... terrible things, but he was only ever kind to you. No one of enlightened mind would blame you for caring."
"You're wrong, Dumbledore. I won't waste my love on a monster, not even him."
Wryly, making his doubt of her words obvious, he commented, "Were affairs of the heart only so rational."
"Let's get back to the part where you give me a years worth of detention so I can leave."
Tom couldn't help but be impressed by her boldness, speaking to a professor with such open disrespect. Gone was the fake meekness she hid behind. Evidently, she trusted Dumbledore a great deal.
"Do you think you deserve a year of detentions?" Dumbledore asked.
"You could always revoke my prefect badge," she offered hopefully. "I'm sure that would teach me my lesson."
"A very nice try, though it would have been far more convincing had you not implored me to give the badge to someone else the second you received it."
"Can't blame me for trying."
"Indeed, I can't." He sighed. "No detention this time, Ophelia, but if this happens again, you'll give me no choice."
"Are you sure about this, sir?"she said, sounding skeptical. "I mean, I don't want detention or anything, but I did attack that Slytherin girl. Won't it look bad for you if I go unpunished?"
Dumbledore chuckled. "Your concern, although appreciated, is unneeded. I am still going to detract twenty-five points from Gryffindor, and give you homework, of a sort."
"It's not to late to take my prefect badge," she reminded him halfheartedly.
"I'm sure you would love that, so consider keeping it a part of your punishment." Tom could hear the amusement in his voice, before he continued, more grave, "As for the homework, I want you to think about moving on."
"I have moved on-" she started.
"The fact that you can't even open Gel-"
"Don't say his name!" she hissed.
"Not saying his name gives him far more power than saying it does," Dumbledore said with infuriating patience. "But I won't say it, if that's what you wish. Now, what was I saying? Oh, yes. I won't believe you've truly moved on until you can read his letters. They are just words. He cannot get to you within these grounds. However, I'm not going force you to read them. It has to be your decision or it's meaningless."
"With all due respect, don't hold your breath, Professor."
"I have only the highest faith in you."
Footsteps behind the door told Tom his time was up. He was already rounding the corner at the end of the corridor by the time the door clicked open and Ophelia took her leave.