Things Worth Hearing

Tom Riddle learns something useful from Walburga Black. Written for the challenge of "Gossip", with an excellent Alice Roosevelt Longworth quote as additional inspiration.

I glanced up at the irritated harumph that wafted across the common room. Wallie Black turned abruptly on her heel and stalked away from the tittering seventh year girls she'd been trying to impress.

She had never learned finesse, that one. Still, she knew things. And opportunity was clearly knocking.

"Wallie doll, why so glum?" I watched as my lop-sided smile infiltrated her defenses, crumbling her facade.

She shot a venomous glare back at the seventh year clique. "I just…hate them all. Stuck-up dingy little twits."

"Well, kitten, if you haven't got anything good to say about anybody," my smile curved broader, "come sit right here by me." I patted the space next to me on the green velvet couch.

Her eyes crinkled as she laughed and sat down. "You're the best, Tom."

I had a private mental chuckle at the source of the line that had amused her so. She'd pitch a screeching fit if she knew it came from a muggle woman, witty as hell though that woman might be. But that was Wallie — predictably prejudiced. Very manipulable. I let her lean her head on my shoulder before continuing. "So now, what's all the fuss?"

"It's Abraxas. At least, what they said about him, that he's...that he's...," I felt her flush, "...that he's just trying to get up my skirt." She took a quick breath, and forged on. "That he doesn't really care about me."

"Well," I inhaled thoughtfully, "he's a boy and you are a dish, Wallie doll."

She sighed and smiled into my shoulder. "He's a boy with the Malfoy family fortune at his back, Tom. You wouldn't believe how my mother's been on my case since he started showing any interest."

"I might. I've met your mother."

She snorted indelicately. "And it's not like he has much else going for him besides his looks and the Malfoy name. He's so boring, Tom. Always bragging about what new thing his Daddy's acquired from that awful Borgin and Burkes."

"Oh?"

"Dark artifacts, or so he claims." She rolled her eyes. "Says they're known for it, but all I've ever seen there are scrubby books and crusty shriveled hands and such."

That's because you don't know how to look, Wallie doll. "Rather unlikely, then?"

She snorted again. "I'll say! And you know what else is rather unlikely? The Malfoy family receiving secret communications from Grindelwald. Like his father's Grindelwald's second-in-command or something!" She paused. "He only whips that one out when we're alone. Probably to get under my skirt."

We both snorted then, for entirely different reasons.

Who would be impressed by someone being second after all? That business about Grindelwald was a crock, of course. Abraxas would never say such a thing out loud if it were true. But the bit about Borgin and Burkes...now that was interesting. Certainly credible - they dealt with quite the clientele.

Worth pursuing.