Tom did his best not to show any fear or weakness as the other students around him trembled and whimpered in fear, some screaming at every bright flash and loud sound that reached them. It was his 3rd year at Hogwarts. The war had been going on for a good two years, at least on the Muggle side of things. It had been going on for a great deal more than two years on the wizarding side where it had started with small skirmishes here and there in Eastern Europe before igniting across the continent dragging everyone along in its wake, including the muggles. Hogwarts had seemed so safe, so impregnable, throughout that time and he'd thought he was secure for the first time in his life.
He should've known that he'd never be safe or secure. He'd learned that lesson early on, back during the lean times when the orphanage had let them out as domestic help in order to get food and food money, being careful to send them away from London and calling it trips to the Seaside so potential donors wouldn't realize. He had seen the sea, but he'd also cleaned some toff's manor from top to bottom to back to top again while some bastard in his 20s who was obviously the owner's son made mess after mess after mess for him to clean up, laughing cruelly and calling him Lord Riddle all the while. And, that was only when the bastard was being nice.
Hogwarts had seemed so safe. They had told him it was safe when he had come. Promised him it was safe year after year. The safest place in Great Britain they'd said.
The sounds of battle, the screams of the dying and the shuddering of the castle walls which supposedly hadn't been breached in centuries put paid to that lie. The wards were holding so far, but the castle walls shuddered harder with every hit to them. The entire school had been gathered into the Great Hall and teachers were doing constant head counts to make sure that none of the students who were crowded in little huddled masses that at times ignored house lines had wandered off either to join the fighting or to flee on their own. Brooms could be seen flying across the night sky which was reflected on the ceiling, too high up to tell which had belonged to Grindelwald's air fleet or their own Sky Patrol as they corkscrewed around each-other in aerial dogfights. Every so often, the wards flashed as something was dropped on them, further weakening with each flash until it wasn't a matter of if the wards would be breached, but when.
"Send them home." Headmaster Dippet said, looking grim as he gazed up into the image of the night sky above their heads.
If what he was hearing from the guarded whispers amongst the professors was accurate, this attack had almost been prevented before it could even take place. A Sky Patrol border scout had seen Grindelwald's forces coming in off the North Sea and turned back to land in order to send a warning. He was hit by a stray hex before he could reach the ground and disapparate however. By the time he had regained consciousness, Grindlewald's broom fleet had coasted over the border and into Scotland on their way to Hogsmeade which was also under attack alongside the castle.
The anti-Portkey ward which had been raised over the school and the village had fallen, and Grindlewald's forces were now attacking from both ground and sky with ward specialists working to take down the castle's defenses.
The school's staff looked as grim as the headmaster as they led the students to the floo points around the castle. As he looked to his "friends", trying to find sanctuary away from London, which he had been hearing was under constant attack by the muggle allies of the lot that were attacking, he realized that despite the fact that they were willing to believe he was of Slytherin's blood there would be no welcome for him in any of their homes. No matter where he went, there would be no safety or security for him, not with Grindlewald's forces on one side and Hitler's forces on the other.
There was never any safety or security for him anyways. He'd learned that when he'd basically been sold as slave labor in order to get funds for the orphanage when he was a small boy, and he'd learned it again at the end of June 1939 when he'd returned from his First year. He'd done his best to hide it from his schoolmates and his teachers who would just spread it around and cause him no end of ridicule, but there had been no return to the orphanage for him. At the end of each year, he had just enough money to stash his trunk and maybe get a little bit of food, but not enough to get a place to stay for the Summer since his bed had long since been given over to someone else. There wasn't enough room at Wool's orphanage for anyone to just hang around for two months each year, especially not the likes of him whom the orphanage staff had disliked practically from the day he was born.
This time, he wouldn't be sleeping rough in the Summer where there would be warmth at the very least if not food and shelter. It was the tenth of January and, since he couldn't use magic without getting expelled or much worse due to the magic detectors and the draconian laws put in place at the start of the war in order to prevent Grindelwalden living on British soil from causing chaos, there was a very real chance that he could freeze to death if he didn't find somewhere to stay. He knew that that place wouldn't be the Leaky Cauldron, because Tom the barman - who already had enough help thank you very much - had told him that he wasn't running a charity once before.
All too soon, it was his turn to depart from the only place in the world where he had ever felt anything approaching a sense of being at home. Watching the grim-faced Transfiguration professor who always kept an eagle eye on him and wouldn't let him slip away and hide in the castle which might yet fall, he noticed a sense of sadness and responsibility, as if the man believed things were all his fault. He mused on this for a moment as he grabbed some floo powder and called out the name of the pub that was the gateway between the wizarding and muggle worlds. Though he wasn't feeling half as miserable as he tried to look upon his arrival, he gave Tom the barman who most-likely already knew what was happening a hopeful look in the scant hope that the man would take pity on him under the circumstances.
The man gave him a shake of his head and said "I'm full up with paying customers, I don't have room for strays". That was par for the course though. Wizards never had room for strays, especially not strays of questionable ancestry. Even if such strays were usually able to charm people who weren't on their guard against them. He might get one or two things out of them if he worked at it, but houseroom wasn't one of them. Not unless he offered certain services that he was tempted to offer if it would keep him from freezing to death that was.
He turned to give a sad smile to a likely looking individual who had all the marks of one who preferred his own sex.
"You, out!" the barman exclaimed. "I won't have one of your sort hanging around the place. Go to Knockturn where you belong!"
Giving it up as a bad job, he departed, but not for Knockturn. The streets of muggle London were far more familiar to and far safer for him than Knockturn Alley. Being January, it was freezing out and things were made worse by the fact that he had to remove his only warm clothing because, aside from the fact that it marked him as a wizard, it was sufficiently unusual enough here to cause a great deal of comment. Moments after leaving the Leaky Cauldron, he stood shivering in the street in worn second-hand clothing he had acquired in a storage room that he had discovered the week before when he had been avoiding a couple of Gryffindor Sixth Years. He'd originally taken them to wear under his clothes because, unlike born wizards, he didn't appreciate a healthy breeze around his privates, and the castle got damn cold, especially in the dungeons. They were all he had to wear now however, and they were doing a very inadequate job of keeping the cold out.
As he moved down the road looking for a likely place to sleep, a set of air raid sirens went off. He'd been told where the shelters were back during the summer, and he headed for the nearest one reflecting that thanks to the Germans he would be warm this evening. Terrified, possibly not even make it through the night if a bomb got too close, but warm.
As he walked down a road that was a few streets away from Charing Cross, he saw a group of ragged children making their way not towards a shelter, but into a home that had been vacated. Slightly curious and willing to grab some necessities and other items he might be able to sell since their theft couldn't exactly be pinned on him, he changed course and followed the children who were raiding the home's scant pantry when he'd made his way into the house.
"And, who might you be then?" a girl who was a couple years older than him with her hair bound in plaits asked, looking at him guardedly.
"I'm Tom." he said. Doing his best to appear charming, since there was no point in making any unnecessary enemies who might make things difficult for him later on. While he'd ruled the roost at Wool's, that had been the result of years of effort and the same couldn't be said of the streets of the city where there were people older and stronger than him who'd been charmed by better, not all of whom were muggles.
"I'm Nancy." the girl replied.
Edited 7-25-15.