Broken Wings / tom riddle

Chapter 43 - Losing Friends

"You pulled off a rescue mission without me?" Aleks asked with a prominent frown. "Why didn't you ask me to help?" No one really knew where to look.

"I'm not the biggest fan of you in current times, Avery," Tom said, mindlessly.

"Why?" He jolted his head back as he spoke.

"Tom's scared about your feelings for Briar," Lestrange butted in. Briar stomped his foot from underneath the dining table. "Ouch Emeralds!"

"Is that true?" Aleks had a slight expression of accomplishment on his face.

"Not even in the slightest. You don't even compare to me, Avery." Tom was now sorting through a stack of notices for their upcoming NEWTS.

"Sure about that?" Avery smirked.

"Yes quite positively, Emeralds told me herself." Aleks' face dropped, his cheeks turned slightly pink. The others snickered. "Now would you please get up, Briar, and help me hand out these papers." Briar stared at Tom with her mouth slightly hanging open, as if she could not believe the boy had just said that. She glanced over to Aleks as she sipped her cup of tea, his skin was still flushed.

Briar finally took half the stack of papers from Riddle. "Which houses do you want me to cover?" she asked.

"I'll take Slytherin and Ravenclaw, you do Hufflepuff and the ugly red monsters."

"Oh come on Riddle that's not fair!" she cried.

"Fine, I wouldn't want to talk to the Hufflepuff's either, you may come back missing a few brain cells. You can do the Ravenclaw's," he sighed loudly.

"Not that you dim witted donkey." She hit his arm with her hefty stack of papers. "Calling the Gryffindor's such harsh names."

"Oh I'm sorry I forgot you're in love with them." He rolled his eyes.

"Stop being such a whiny baby." She narrowed her eyes.

"Since when did you two go from mindless pining to quarrelling like an old married couple?" Aleks laughed, along with Abraxas and Gabe. But Casper stared at Briar, who stared at Tom, who stared at Casper. It was a sensitive spot, marriage. Tom would rather sit through 100 of Slughorn's slow stories then before he allowed her to marry Rosier.

With the tension in the air still high, Briar walked over to the Gryffindor table. "Welcome back everyone. Seventh years, I have your NEWT information sheets." She tried to pass them to Cordelia and Julian, prefects of Gryffindor. But Cordelia wouldn't make eye contact with her. "Delia?" Briar questioned.

"It's okay, I've got them Emeralds," Julian said, coolly.

"No." Briar raised her hand to stop Julian from prying the papers out of her other. "What's wrong, Delia?"

"How about we step away from the table, do we really want to do this in public?" Julian said in a panic, gesturing to the full table of students.

"Do what?" Briar questioned as she walked out of the great hall with the two Gryffindor prefects.

"Potter, you can go," Delia finally spoke.

"You don't need a mediator?" He tried to smile.

"No." Delia was angry. "Give him the bloody papers, Emeralds." Reluctantly, Briar handed them over and watched the tall wizard make his way back to the table.

"You want to tell me why you're mad at me?" Briar asked.

"Take a wild guess, Briar."

"Did I forget to do a prefect duty? You know this is all new to me," Briar continued on.