Obliviate

Chapter Six

A shadow cast over Maeve in the Library, and a smooth voice spoke, "I didn't know."

She lowered her book and looked up at Tom Riddle, who she had managed to avoid for over two weeks. She looked back to her book. He had given her well-deserved space.

"How?" Scoffed Maeve. "It's all anyone at school acquaints me with. It's what they love to gossip about when I walk by as if I can't bloody hear them."

Tom's voice remained cool, in opposition to hers. "You know I pay no attention to gossip, Maeve."

The use of her first name didn't go unnoticed. Maeve was somehow infuriated more by his calm demeanor.

Her book vanished from sight as Tom whisked it away, seating himself in front of her. She refused to meet his gaze and stared out over the lake instead.

"You had to have known I would see that eventually."

Maeve's head snapped towards him, opening her mouth briefly to snap at him but resigned, calming herself first.

"I don't want to see it," said Maeve cooly.

Tom's face screwed, looking at her almost dumbly. Maeve sighed, looking at the mahogany table as she spoke.

"You pushed past a barrier that night. A barrier even I don't go past. Antony's death. . . The sight of him like that. . . I can't have it always creeping into my thoughts. I can't have it keep me up at night. I can't have it destroy my studies and...."

"You blocked an entire set of memories somehow?"

She nodded.

"How?" Tom shot impatiently.

She shot him a look back.

"Dumbledore did it for me."

"Of course." Tom pushed back into his chair with a sour look on his face.

"I couldn't do it myself. I invented the damn spell myself. It's just one can't perform it on oneself. He said that if I promised to spend the summer working that silly job at the Ministry, he would make it so that I controlled if I saw those memories."

"I broke past a charm Dumbledore himself put on you," said Tom, poorly attempting to hide a wicked smile.

"Yes, by all means, make it about you," said Maeve.

Tom's eyes shot to hers, but she had a smile tugging at her lips.

"Impressive as it is," she continued. "I don't care to see it."

Tom looked her over and pursed his lips. "You are running from something that's unlike you." He spoke lazily, pulling out a piece of parchment and a quill. "I am here to push you, not to care what memories hurt or haunt you. Face it head-on, or it will be your downfall, I should think."

She opened her mouth to argue, but Tom was quicker.

"And don't say you aren't ready."

Maeve met Tom in the Dueling Hall later that evening. He was pressing her, much more so than he had been doing. His methods of triumph were becoming more and more uncalculated, which kept Maeve on her toes.

Every time Tom defeated her, she had to answer a question.

On their first duel, he asked her if she had ever used her memory charm spells to get something she wanted but possibly otherwise wouldn't have achieved on her own.

"Wasn't it on my own since I cast the spell myself?"

Tom commended her on this clever response.

The second time he disarmed her and had her bound by thick ropes, he asked her if given a choice to bring back her brother from the dead, at the sacrifice of her Father, would she?