Huffily Puffily || Golden Trio

The Boy and the Girl || xxxii

Lucy woke up abruptly, her heart hammering in her chest as though she had just been running. Quickly, she sat up in bed and looked toward the clock on the wall. Nearly midnight. She'd missed the feast.

Moonlight streamed through the window, illuminating the satchel on her bedside table. It was the only thing she had with her when she passed out, and she felt a great deal of relief seeing it there. She shuddered to think what would happen if she'd lost the diary...

She felt wide awake. The exhausted, dazed state she'd been in seemed to have washed away with her fall, and she stared out the window, watching the clouds pass over the moon. She coughed quietly into her arm.

"You're finally awake?"

She nearly let out a yelp, clamping her hand over her mouth. She whipped her head over to glare at Riddle, who was sitting in the visitor's chair beside the hospital bed. He smirked, seeing he'd startled her. "Happy Halloween," he said; it was a few minutes until midnight, so technically, she hadn't missed the holiday— only everything remotely fun about it.

"Happy Halloween," Lucy returned. Madame Pomfrey wouldn't hear any of this, so there was no need to be quiet. She slept in a room close by the hospital wing. "Pity there wasn't a troll to fight this time around."

She'd already told him about that excursion, so he chuckled at the reference. "It can't all be that exciting," he said. "Are you feeling better? You had quite the fall— it was a good thing that Rickett boy caught you."

"Anthony's legendary," she agreed. She imagined he had been panicking afterward, and she felt sort of bad. "I'm alright— it was probably Sir Patrick Podmore possessing me to spite Nick. You can't trust men, you know that, Riddle? You just can't. Especially dead men."

Riddle eyed her strangely. If he thought she was mad, he was too polite to say it while she was sick. "I'll... I'll keep that in mind, Lucy."

He looked especially ghost-like in the pale moonlight, but there was a sort of buzzing energy about him that made Lucy feel excited, too. His fingers drummed on the arms of the chair as he stared thoughtfully into the distance. She wondered what he was thinking about.

Since she wasn't feeling tired either and it was a long while until morning, she slid from the hospital bed and walked over to the cabinet. Riddle's eyes followed her, confused, but realization dawned over him when he saw the box she held in her hands.

"Chess? At midnight?" He said incredulously.

"I've got to celebrate Halloween somehow," she shrugged. She didn't like chess after last year, but she knew Riddle wouldn't want to play something as simple as checkers. And who knows— maybe there would be another life sized chess board in the near future. It was always good to brush up on your skills.

Ten minutes later, Lucy sat in the hospital bed. She already lost one match to him, much to his amusement. He sat criss-crossed on the foot of her bed, and although he couldn't move the pieces with his own voice, he certainly gloated about his winning.

"Rook to A4," Riddle said lazily, as though he could have decided so with his eyes closed.

Lucy groaned, realizing it would take out her knight. Still, she was nothing if not a gracious loser. "Rook to A4," she said in a low, posh voice that sounded remarkably close to his.

"You don't have to imitate me every time," he scowled.

"Yes, I do. Bishop to D5."

Riddle smirked. She had a feeling she made a mistake. "You're not very good at this, are you?" he said innocently.