Extra Ordinary (Riddle Era)

Chapter 50

"Afternoon, everyone," Tom greeted, smiling at the group of people sitting clustered around the table, papers for mock exams strewn before them. Every one of them looked up at his arrival, smiled, greeted him, and left Tom with a sense of satisfaction that added to today's earlier successes.

"Any sign of Lucy?" he asked as he claimed a seat and hooked his book bag over the back.

Lestrange opened his mouth to answer, but Hornby, in classic form, beat him to it. "Haven't seen her. Not sure why we would either."

For a moment there was a laden silence, one full of half glances and meaning, one Tom didn't miss. It was the kind of silence that was important. The kind of glances that were important. The kind that weren't quite agreement, but weren't quite disagreement either. Something like a shared secret. And Tom didn't like that at all.

"Well," Tom said, gaze flicking between his fellows even as he kept his voice as unsuspicious as possible. "Perhaps because I asked her to join us."

"And you've only just arrived. She'd want nothing to do with us otherwise," Hornby snapped. "Or vice versa."

Tom raised a brow at his housemate. "Shame," he murmured, pulling out a book and keeping one eye on the almost wary expression Lestrange was directing at Hornby. "She's rather good at developing study habits, I've found."

Lestrange looked away from Olive at last, snorting slightly. "Like you need to study."

Tom smiled, shrugging and letting his grin tip towards self deprecating. "Doesn't hurt," he countered. "Besides, I'm not the only one here." He finished with a smile that made the barb teasing, an inside joke even as it was a reminder that lest they forget in the midst of those glances and secrets and silence, he was better than them. Would always, easily, effortlessly be better than them.

It worked, of course. Noises of mock offense met his words and Olive's scowl softened and lost the worst of its sharpness. And, as an added bonus, the subject of Steele was neatly and simply forgotten in favor of academic woes and their upcoming exams.

This, helpfully, left Tom time to think.

The first problem was a known one. Hornby's distaste for Steele was, by this point, a well documented inconvenience, but it was frustrating nonetheless. It left Hornby at odds with Tom and Tom didn't like being at odds with anyone. Especially not like this. It left the balance of power tipping dangerously against him. The more he asked Hornby to tolerate his relationship with Steele, the more he was indebted to her for doing so. And though it should have been a given that he wasn't, though he didn't feel like he owed her, she could easily feel like he did. And that was a problem. A problem he would need to address sooner rather than later.

And speaking of sooner, Tom glanced around. It wasn't like Steele to be late. In fact, he'd never seen her late to anything. If he had to guess, she considered punctuality a sign of respect, a sentiment he rather agreed with. But she was late right now. In fact, Tom had been late. Which by this point made Steele very late.

By the thirty minute mark, Tom was growing concerned and trying to decide if he was concerned for her well being or concerned for her opinion of him. The way he saw it, there were two reasons she was late: something had happened to her, or she was intentionally blowing him off. The latter seemed unlikely, but Steele had an unfortunate habit of not doing the things Tom considered likely. And it didn't seem entirely unreasonable that Steele had had one of those moments where she decided they needed to talk about something and decided she wasn't going to see him until she could.

But then, he supposed, tapping his quill tip lightly on the parchment in front of him, the last time that had been the case, she'd found a way to pull him aside. She hadn't just disappeared. It would have been easy enough to do the same today. So why hadn't she?