"Oooooooh, Young Tom Riddle is in the Hogwarts library and he has just discovered something very exciting!"

Flinching at the whiny tones, Tom looked up from his book and scowled at the sight that greeted him. She had a point though, he had been reading most avidly and his heart was beating rapidly at what he had found. Though the fact that she had been able to tell that he was excited wasn't something he was pleased about.

"Did you want something?" His voice was hard as flint, the words clipped and abrupt as if it pained him to talk to her. The Ravenclaw should have been scared of him, she should have flinched away or gasped, her breath should have caught in her throat and her eyes should have looked away in submission and acknowledgment; but none of these things happened. Instead, when he glared at her, she peered back at him through her bottle thick glasses and laughed. Or tittered actually; the noise she made wasn't pleasant or humorous enough to be called a laugh. His lip curled back in mild disgust.

"Ooooh! Well I'd like the new Glenn Miller record, a date to the next Hogsmeade weekend, Olive Hornby to suddenly wake up with her face transfigured to her... oh! And I'd love to meet Bogie!" She tittered at him some more and put her hands on her hips, her chubby face screwing up as she peered at him, "Aren't you going to pull out a chair for me and invite me to sit? That’s what a gentleman would do!"

Tom looked at the Ravenclaw like she was an alien from another planet. Who was Glenn Miller? Did she actually think someone would ask a lanky-haired, chubby, whiny girl like her to Hogsmeade? Ugh! She probably had dreams about being escorted to Puddifoots by some handsome star quidditch player who would buy her all pie she wanted and let her simper at him. Nothing at all like Tom’s dreams; Tom dreamed of power and... What did she say?

“A bogie?” He recoiled visibly and continued to stare at her like she was some sort of unpleasant thing he had stepped in and subsequently found stuck to the bottom of his boot. Did she mean a bogie of the nose variety? How crass!

“That’s what a gentleman would do for a lady.” Tom told her, attempting not to think about bogies. His knuckles were turning white from the chokehold he had on his book, his expression just barely hiding the fact that he’d much prefer that grip to be on her neck, with his fingernails digging in like talons to make her stop talking in that nauseating voice. He smiled at the thought and flicked his wand, the chair responding by shooting across the library and taking several other chairs with it to crash into a long table containing several inkpots and quills , which promptly spilled everywhere in a splinter cloud of wood and ink.

She watched the collision and was quiet for precisely long enough for Tom to think that maybe she was scared and ready to run away screaming and leave him along forever. But his satisfied half-smirk fell off his face as quickly as it had appeared when she merely turned back to him and sat in the chair adjacent to the spot he had just made vacant, diagonally across from him.

“Oooh! Who would have thought Tom Riddle had it in him to make such art?” She peered over at the wreckage of the chair and Tom followed her gaze, dispassionately staring at the abstract of splinters and blackness, a particularly thick rivulet of ink running down the one intact piece of the broken chair as if it were caressing it in mourning for its abrupt demise.

“Art.” Tom echoed hollowly, relaxing his death grip on the book in front of him and closing it with a satisfying thwap. He examined the wreckage thoughtfully, “You think that is art?”

“Okay so maybe it’s just wanton destruction.” She allowed, rolling her eyes back towards him and shifting in her new seat, clearly making herself right at home. Her voice grated on his ears, but for once, Tom did not notice.

“A Self-Portrait, then.” He decided with an air of twisted satisfaction. “I like it. I think I’ll call it... Untitled.”

“Untitled? Art should have a much nobler title than that; something that means something. You know,” She leaned forward, and under the glare of the candle light, a trail of pimples was suddenly visible in close relief along forehead and chin. “Anyone would think you like being the tortured artist. Or dark artist or whatever it is you consider yourself to be.” The Ravenclaw took off her glasses and polished them on the lapel of her blouse as she batted her eyelashes at him.

Tom’s expression changed again at her simpering tone, his eyes cold and hard and his lips turned down in antipathy as he looked at her. Why was she here? He tapped his finger on the desk, the black stone set in the gold ring he wore, seemed to pulsate in the firelight. “What business of yours is it anyway?”

“Well no need to be rude. I’m being friendly, unlike some people.” She answered petulantly, replacing her glasses on her nose and sighing in an alarming manner, “I bet Bogie would be friendly and a gentleman. He wouldn’t throw chairs everywhere even if it was awfully artistic of you.”

“Bogie?” Tom asked again, unsure if she was teasing him or not, “I don’t know what you are talking about.” And it irked him. Tom Riddle despised not knowing things he wanted to know.

“Bogart.” She attempted to clarify, her voice jabbing at Tom’s ears.

“A boggart? You named a boggart, Bogie?” Tom stroked the gilding on the spine of his book and wondered why he was having this ridiculous conversation with this sad and pathetic caricature of a person.

“As in Humphrey Bogart,” She apparently liked having one up on him because her expression was smug and somehow made her voice even more grating. “Boy oh boy! You live under a rock don’t you? Always in here reading books you’ve somehow managed to sneak out of the restricted section,” She prodded at his hand with one finger and Tom stared at her dirty fingernail in revulsion and moved his hand away to reveal the title on his book. 'Secrets of the Darkest Art'. “I knew you were an artist.” Triumph permeated her voice. “Oh hey, speaking of boggarts—“

“—We weren’t.” Tom attempted to cut her off, even though they sort of had been. It was more that he didn’t want to hear what she might have to say on the subject. But she acted as if she hadn’t been interrupted at all.

“—You know we are doing Boggarts in Defence Against the Dark Arts this week? It’s going to be horrible! I just know when Olive casts Riddikulus she will change her boggart into me.” She moaned, burying her face in her hands and sharing as if she thought Tom cared. He did not, and said as much.

“I don’t care.”

She looked up at him and her expression looked precisely as if the word ‘don’t’ had not existed to her ears. “I know. You know what else I know? I know what my boggart is going to be. And it’s not Olive Hornby.” Her voice lowered to a whisper and Tom finally perked up a fraction of an amount.

“And what, pray tell, might that be?” Maybe he could use it against her to finally get the unpleasant Ravenclaw to leave him alone.

“A Basilisk.”

“How interesting.” And it was. Tom made a mental note to file away for later review. He slipped his hand out and pulled his book toward himself, finally clasping it against his chest. Just wishing she would leave so he could continue reading. Except now she was probably going to ask him what he thought his boggart would be.

“What about you, what do you think your boggart will be, Tom?”

“I’m not afraid of anything.” He knew she was going to ask.

“Everyone is afraid of something.”

“I’m not.”

“I bet you are.”

Tom narrowed his eyes, but did not say anything, he merely sat as still as a statue, the book clutched tight against him.

“I think, knowing you—“

“—you do not know me.”

“—knowing you, it’s got to be a fear of weakness or,” She paused as if suddenly inspired, “Or of death.”

“I will never die.” Tom told her somewhat sibilantly before standing up. “I am going to find a place where I can read, where you won’t bother me.”

Without saying goodbye, Tom Riddle strode from the library, the book ‘Secrets of the Darkest Art’ tucked under his arm.

Myrtle watched him leave.