Femme Fatale ||Tom Riddle||

2

What to wear, what to wear? She decided on tea-length black dress, off the shoulder with sleeves just past her elbows. She paired it with low black heels and her best necklace. It was a string of diamonds with one ruby in the middle. It was short, resting right on her collarbones. Her hair had lost some of its curl, so she swept it into what she hoped to be a simple yet elegant updo.

Not bad, she figured. When she exited the dorm and entered the common room, Tom was there waiting. He had swapped his school robes for a more formal suit. He did not smile when he saw her, just continued his gaze. "You're going to make us late" he scolded, taking her arm and leading her out of the room with a practiced smoothness.

"C'est dommage" she sighed, feigning worry. "I suppose we'll be expelled now, yes?" She asked, placing the back of her hand on her forehead dramatically. Tom seemed only to roll his eyes.

"You're not the only one here fluent in French, you know." He remarked, continuing on towards Slughorn's party. He countered her scoff with a few lines of French poetry. Maybe Hogwarts was a little more cultured than she had thought.

The dinner party, however, threw that thought out the window. To put it in simplest terms, it was a snoozefest. Slughorn's questions bordered on interrogation, firing down the line of each student at the table. When he got to Ophélie, she had already prepared her brief spiel.

"Ophélie, I understand you're related to Vincent Duc de Trefle-Picques?" He observed, phrasing it as a question. He had asked nearly everyone about their family connections. Ophélie gave a polite smile.

"Yes, far down on my mother's side. The French Terror was quite a bit ago. Thankfully, none of us have had to mimic his beheading charm in the recent generations" she answered, earning a chuckle from those who knew about the famous incident, and confused stares from those who did not.

"And what about on your father's side, then?" He asked. Ophélie took a sip of her drink, continuing the silence until the glass was empty.

"May I have a refill?" She asked, finally.

"Yes, of course, my dear" Slughorn answered, gesturing to a server with a frown. He sensed he had struck a nerve in Ophélie and moved on to the next student. She breathed a small sigh and looked around the table. Tom was, yet again, staring at her. She shot him an indignant glare before pretending to be interested in Laura Hodson's barely-famous aunt. When the dinner party ended, Tom was waiting for Ophélie to finish chattering with some of the other students.

"Do you have to befriend every person you run across?" He judged, escorting her back to the Slytherin common room. She laughed a knowing laugh that irked Tom.

"I'm not befriending them, just building a reputation" She explained. "If you're Hogwarts' it boy, I've decided in order to compete I must be Hogwarts' it girl. Oui?"

"You think you can compete with me?" He scoffed. "Not bloody likely"

By that point, they had entered the common room. The pale green lights of the lantern gave Ophélie's blonde hair a greenish reflection, and made her jade-colored irises stand out even more than usual. She brought herself in front of Tom, blocking his path to his dorm. "You'll see, Tom." She winked. Turning to leave, she sauntered up to her room. Tom remained in the common room for a little while. Her perfume seemed to linger, or perhaps it was just his imagination. She was sharp, mysterious, and confident. Combine that with her smarts and she could either be a great asset or a formidable enemy. Tom was glad that she seemed to consider him in the same light.