Bitter Taste

Awfully Irresponsible

Lestrange had been acting strangely. If he was being honest with himself, Tom had expected him to act far differently upon seeing Aurora again art the start of term, especially after the revelation about his own familial ties to Grindelwald, and yet he appeared completely unchanged. That was the strange part.

Part of him wondered if he was simply in denial, believing that Tom had only told his as such to rile him, make the command of splitting them off a little bit easier for him, but another part wondered if the heir was actually as committed to his house's cause as he was expected to be. After all, the death of Leta Lestrange had occurred almost twenty years prior, before he was even born. Could he really be bothered to avenge the death of a woman he never knew, possibly putting the woman he loved at risk had everything been true?

It was a question Tom pondered as he sat watching Lestrange and Aurora conversing over breakfast three weeks into term, just as friendly as they'd always been. As someone who had never known what love truly felt like, he had to ask himself what he thought the answer would be through only things he'd witnessed, the behaviour of those who had.

Not succumbing to the weaknesses love posed was all fun and games until he actually needed some kind of idea of what was going on.

Still, everything seemed eerily normal, which was more unnerving to him than everything being an utter fucking mess. He knew he was still connected to Aurora, given their month long record of going uninterrupted was shattered by a stubbed toe on her end only a few days prior (Seriously, how did one cause that much pain so early in the morning? Has she been attempting to kick a fucking lead football?), but the girl herself seemed entirely calm.

He'd heard whispers of a possible betrothal within the Rosier family circulating, but nothing more than just whispers, and no indication of which sibling either. Naturally, the whole school seemed to have decided it was Aurora who they were finally bargaining off, but Tom knew better, knew it'd be Evan.

He also knew it'd only fuel Aurora's want to set her plan to kill her mother into motion. He was just certain that anything Gueneviere Rosier did to exert her powers as a Lady did was enough to annoy Aurora, and that this would be the final straw, that it was only a matter of days before she came running back to him despite their little spat in the library the first week back.

Yet she held out on him. Another week went, October slowly closing in, and he watched her through every class they shared, from the way she rolled her eyes at Slughorn behind his back, scoffed at Professor Merrythought's lectures on Defence Against the Dark Arts, and looked positively bored throughout Ancient Runes. It was all the exact same.

The only noticeable change, and, in his opinion, the most entertaining, was her plain and obvious disdain for Professor Dumbledore. Where she'd always been somewhat polite to the man, even after the incident with her bird charm last year, she now had no qualms over loudly talking over him in his lessons, or shooting scathing looks every time he so much as opened his mouth to speak. Rather cleverly, she did it under the guise of being irritated over the masses of homework he was setting them in preparation for their N.E.W.Ts. It was a smart move, but Tom saw right through it, and had a feeling Dumbledore did too.

He also had a feeling Aurora knew this as well, but quite frankly didn't give a fuck.

The whole of Britain was looking to the wizard to be the causation for Grindelwald's downfall, and even Tom was beginning to grow tired of the way students looking longingly towards the man every time news of movement stirred the Great Hall at meal times, or whispers of attacks came through from worried parents on post day.

He was not naïve enough to think the man incapable of holding his own against the Dark Lord of Europe, but he was also not convinced he could do it by himself. After all, pretty much the whole ministry was putting their effort behind tracking the man down, and if Aurora was anything to go by, Grindelwald's ranks were smaller than he'd anticipated. There was power in numbers, yes, but what was the point if so many of those figures were completely useless?