December 9th, 1943

Sixth Year

"Let's kill my father."

She whispers it into the space between them. It's a sentiment Catalina has been throwing his way since they were eleven. All these years she has spared him the details of her troubled parental relationship. Still, Tom can guess what's what with the way she talks about them with both hatred and fear. 

His hands are cold, making her hiss when he slides his fingers over her waist above her skirt. They're hidden in their favourite spot to collude before he goes to Slug Club and she goes to her Quidditch meeting.

They can't seem to stop moving, hands and lips everywhere. Unlike other nights this will go as far as a kiss because of their commitments. It doesn't stop Catalina from hitching her knee higher and higher up his leg, or Tom from caressing every bit of skin he can reach.

"You say that every year before the holidays," he smirks, drawing away from their passionate kiss. 

Catalina pouts up at him, amused eyes the colour of the snake on their robes.

"Don't be mean," she chides sweetly, before drawing him back in. Of course, the statement is pointless. He's mean by nature, though selective on when he shows it. They both know that after almost six years together.

"Then don't ask stupid questions." 

Tom can see what she wants to say, but she keeps it in and continues to kiss him instead. 

It would not be their first kill together.

He ignores the shivers that run up his spine as she scratches over the base of his scalp. He hides the pleasured look in her neck and nips the sensitive skin there. Catalina moans, head banging back against the wall.

Footsteps sound from the corridor nearby. Tom quickly draws away and admires his work- her shirt is open and out over her skirt, which is unzipped and her hair sticks to the wall. She grins back at him, as usual.

"You better get to the Slug Club, prefect," she tells him, fixing herself up with practice. In seconds she looks normal again, like she wasn't just being ravished silly by her boyfriend.

With a last kiss on Tom's lips- before he can turn away -Catalina bounces off down the hall back to the common room.

Tom takes a moment to think on her words. Let's kill my father. Should Slug Horn be about to tell him what he wants to hear, it may very well be in his best interests to end Cygnus Blanchard's life.

Maybe he'd do it even without that prompting.

Afterall, he had only just found out how satisfying it can be to end the lives of ones own family. Though using his uncle to do it probably took some of the pleasure away, his father still got what was coming.

And that is more satisfying than anything.

Suddenly the idea of watching Catalina's father's eyes fade in death sounds much more appealing.

Time to see if Slughorn's meeting will give it more purpose.

◊

◊

People stay away from them in the common room.

Whilst he has achieved and maintained the look of a model student to half the school and all the professors, Catalina has done a fantastic job at making herself out to be a lunatic to everybody. That last fact seems to have placed a barrier around where she curls up against Tom by the fire.

He would guess it began back in third year. There was a school-wide soiree and Estelle Bulstrode sent Tom an owl with a bright pink love letter, asking him to meet her in the Astronomy tower. 

It would have been inconspicuous- she used a school owl and didn't sign it with her name, instead quoting a line from Arithmancy the two had discussed in the class to indicate who his secret admirer was. It was the only subject Tom did not share with Catalina that year. She had continued to attend flying class instead of joining him.

But the letter was pink and the owl found Tom the same time all the owls bring mail to their recipients; at breakfast, while Catalina was happily spreading jam over a piece of toast right next to him. The moment the brown owl floated down on them, the pink attached to its leg drew her in like a moth to a flame.

She had shoved her toast into the hands of her best friend Sierra Greengrass and watched with genuine concern as Tom opened the letter, trying to look pleased for the nosy onlookers. Internally though he was not surprised. It was only a matter of time before one of the idiots who fawned over his every move tried to stake a claim.

Tried. 

Everyone knows the insufferable fact that Tom is Catalina's and Catalina is Tom's. 

He read the letter silently, basking in the anxiety flowing off of his 'squeeze' in waves.

"What's it say?" She asked, bouncing, pretty plucked eyebrows knitted together.

Without much care he pushed it towards her and she snatched it from his hand so fast the corner ripped off in his fingers. He glared at her, but she didn't notice, skimming the messy handwriting urgently.

"'Numbers are the sun and the letters are the stars?'. What in Merlin's name does that mean?"

She looked at Tom with wide, fretting eyes. Before he could deny knowledge or even just shrug, Sierra leaned forward and muttered in her ear. He distinctly heard her name the appropriate class.

He sipped his pumpkin juice boredly, not having to watch the truth unfold in her mind.

"Estelle."

That didn't take long.

She turned to Tom expectantly. He could see Snyde and Nott grinning at the prospect of Catalina's rage.

"You gonna jinx 'er?" Nott asked, practically jittering.

"We could wait in Tom's place," Sierra added, much in the same way.

"Riddle hasn't yet said what he intends to do about the letter," Avery pointed out from across the table.

Catalina turned her ire to their classmate, but once she noticed many on their table and Ravenclaw's table staring at her curiously, she wound the crazy back in, fixing her hair over her shoulder.

"There she is," Ricky smirked.

Catalina smiled at him sweetly, but their group of friends could see the daggers in her eyes.

"I have no interest in Estelle. Do what you want," was all Tom said.

Evidently, 'do what you want' could not have doomed Estelle Bulstrode more.  Though the professors could never trace what happened to the girl that night in the Astronomy tower back to Catalina, many students guessed it was her.

Fearing Tom and his gang, no one said anything, but only looked upon Estelle, her newly patchy-green skin and slowly expanding body with pity. What was once a pretty, petite girl had become a great beast of a teen. 

Rumors swirled about the particular irreversible jinx used against her. The most popular was that it was so powerful, her children and grandchildren were likely to suffer its effects as well.

That one act had sent one message to every girl with her eyes on Tom; touch him and you will suffer at the hands of Catalina Blanchard.

"What are you thinking about?" Catalina suddenly asks, drawing him out of the memory.

She's wedged up against his side with her legs folded underneath her. In her lap is her well-loved copy of Quidditch Through The Ages, opened on her favourite chapter about famous Seekers; a chapter he knows she secretly aspires to star in.

"Nothing."

"Do you want to go to the room?"

A covered question for listening ears. The room of requirement had been a discovery of theirs a few years ago, when the time finally came to consummate, as it were. Catalina had tried to convince Tom to spend many holidays at the Blanchard Manor with her so they could finally share a bed, but he always declined. 

When he found the Room of Requirement for a completely different purpose, it managed to serve two.

"We were only there a few hours ago. You're insatiable."

That being said, Tom was equally in good spirits when he had left Slug Club that evening. Professor Slughorn had willingly handed information over like the idiot he is, Tom acting under the guise of academics.

"Not insatiable," she responds lightly, "Just sad. Christmas holidays are a week away and I hate the thought of being away from you for so long."

"It's two weeks," Tom says flatly, closing his book and moving to stand. Catalina retracts from him quickly.

"I know," she whines, following him to the dormitories, "You know usually I'd stay at the castle with you and Sierra and those other idiots..."

"But you have you family's annual Christmas gala," he fills in, taking the first step up to the boy's dorms. Catalina stops just short, having made the mistake many times already. It becomes a slide at the touch of the fairer sex.

"You could always come home with me," she suggests quietly, looking anything but coy when he turns back to her. Without caring that a group of third year girls are watching them curiously, Cat leans up and kisses Tom gently on the lips, before whispering, "I'd love to watch my father choke to death in front of his guests with you."

With a bright smile on her face, she backs away, retreating to her dorm for the night.

His tongue darts between his lips and he waits until all eyes are turned away before he smirks.

Killing her father will have purpose indeed.