2. A Lonely Christmas
Saturday approached not nearly as fast as I would have liked it to. For the first time since the death of my parents early last summer, I felt like a normal girl again. I secretly read Witch Weekly in History of Magic, pondered about what to wear and tried things with my hair. When the day of my 'date' with Tom Riddle was there at last, I was nervous and could hardly eat during breakfast. I had doubts again, and wondered if this was not after all a 'charity project' of his. It might very well be. If only I had someone to talk to about it. A friend. Friends were nowhere in sight, however, and I had to occupy myself until it was time to meet Tom. When it was, I found he looked handsome as ever, waiting for me at the end of the hall.
"Hello Eva, you look wonderful" he greeted me with a kiss on the cheek. If this were a charity project certainly he wouldn't do that? I saw to my greatest surprise that he had brought me a red rose, which I gladly accepted. Did he know that was my favourite flower, or had it been a mere guess? A lucky guess, that's what it was for sure.
"Hello Tom. Thank you, this is wonderful". I put the rose in my bag in a way that would make sure it remained intact, and followed Tom outside. People were staring at us, as I had imagined. People always stared at Tom for his good looks, and they stared at me this year too. Not for my good looks, but to check if I behaved stranger than usual now that I was an orphan.
I'm not sure what I had imagined of our date, but I suppose it was rather a lot. I had expected something very blissful. Happy chatter and jokes, and more silly things I would never dare to speak out loud. Reality was different. Tom turned out to be very quiet and seemed to prefer observing over talking himself. He wanted to know everything about me, but when it came to talking about himself I noticed he was slightly reluctant; he told no more than strictly necessary to answer a question.
"Tell me about yourself" he said after we had walked in silence for a while. Not the most uncomfortable silence.
"What would you like to know?"
"Anything. Where you were born, your family, your blood line…"
"My blood line?". I wondered if he was one of those extremists that put great importance into whether someone was Pureblood or not, and what I would do if he was. Whether I would care at all.
"Yes, your blood line.". Tom gave me one of his most charming smiles, and I would be lying if I said it did nothing to me. I felt flattened that the smile was for me, just for me, while there were so many girls prettier than me he could smile at.
"Well" I replied thoughtfully, "I'm Pureblood. I am in Slytherin, after all". I was known to always consider my words carefully to everyone. Now as well, and I did not see how my words could have been harmful; though there was a harsh look on Tom's face I did not recognise after I had said it.
"There are half-bloods in Slytherin". His voice sounded different too. Strained, if anything. Was he half-blood? I had no problem with that if he were.
"Of course there are, Tom. I didn't… I didn't mean anything with that".
Tom nodded, his expression normal again, though I would not soon forget the look he had just given me. It told me that behind that charming, well-mannered attitude of his, there was a temper. One that I had not yet seen and certainly would not like to see. I started to see proof today that confirmed my suspicions: there was a lot more to Tom Riddle than what met the eye.
"Now, tell me about your parents" he continued. "Your family. What are they like?" That hurt. I thought everyone knew what had happened to them. It wasn't pleasant to have people talking about me behind my back, but at least it saved me from having to explain all the time what had happened before the school holidays last year.
"Don't you listen to the gossip?" Every time I was reminded of my parents' death I felt a fresh stab at my heart. Even after six months the grief was still too new, too vulnerable, to allow me to think of my parents with a smile. Perhaps one day I would be able to have peace with their dead and remember them instead of the way they were murdered.
"I have more useful ways of spending my time than to listen to idiots who have nothing more to do than talk of other people." Tom was just what I needed: delightfully different, just as I was no longer normal either. All that had happened had changed me from an innocent child into an adult who had seen a deeply rotten side of the world. It had aged my mind twenty years. Perhaps that was why my old friends didn't like me anymore, because I had outgrown them. That was understandable. I was so different to them now. They had not experienced what I had, they still lived thinking life would be good for them. I could see in Tom's eyes he too knew that different side of the world. A side that was not nearly always kind to everyone.
"My parents are dead" I responded quietly. It sounded awful when I put it like that, but how else could I put it? The outcome would always be the same no matter how euphemistic I spoke of what had been done to the two people I had loved the most of all.
Tom looked at me with what I regarded as renewed interest. "I didn't know that" he said. "When did it happen?' Not a single word of compassion, no pity, nothing. I had had enough of all that already at my parents' funeral and from the neighbours, anyway. It felt good to for once not be treated as an outcast or a freak. Even so, Julian had once explained me, when I grew tired of our nosy neighbours, that it was only human to show compassion of some kind when someone you knew had lost a dear one. So did Tom's respond show a lack of humanity or did he truly know what I needed? Either way, like this it was easier to talk about it. I didn't feel like a sad, pitiful girl because Tom didn't let me be. This was good; now I could talk about this as Eva.
"They died last school year, just before the summer holidays. There was an attack at the ministry. They both worked there". I stared at the floor helplessly, but at least I wasn't crying now.
"What caused the attack?". Tom still sounded as if he were having a conversation about the weather.
"Muggleborns unhappy with some of the political views some ministry workers had on them" I responded sadly, twisting my bracelet around my wrist; fidgeting was always something I did when I felt uncomfortable or not at ease in some way.
"I'm sorry they had to die that way" he said at last; was it an attempt at pity now? He seemed interested that their death had been caused by an accident led on by political disruption. Was he as interested in politics as I had once been? Ever since I was a little girl I had heard my parents discuss politics at the dinner table, my brother usually joining them. When I grew older, into my adolescence period, I finally started to understand their discussions, and I became interested as well. But after their death, I had considered politics to be a sick and twisted little game that no one should ever get involved in.
"I'm sorry too" I said somewhat bitterly to Tom, forgetting that I wanted him to like me. He seemed to bring out the teenage girl in me that had been hidden by a wall of grief.
"You may not see it now, or not even have opened your mind to it, but some day, some day the people that did this will pay for it. All the Mudbloods and Muggles will wish they were never born and we shall live in a world where those with the eldest and wisest blood will rule!"
I had never heard Tom talk like that, and in a way I was impressed by the passionate way he could talk of it. But he also sounded so determined, so almost angry about it. Julian always said that muggleborns should stay on their side of the world, where they grew up, with the muggles. They wouldn't bother us like that and wouldn't pollute the wizarding world with their ideas about a 'multicultural' society. He thought we all had to live in peace on the side where we belonged and not mix everything up. But he was against 'muggle pestering' and other such things. Hurting them was not an option, and I shared this view. Tom left me in the dark further with his views and intentions, so I could ponder about it later. He took me to a sweet little tea room, where he paid for both our cups. My earlier worries about him were forgotten, replaced by childish enthusiasm over a crush I was sure rapidly developing.
"I had a great time, Eva" Tom said at the end of our date, right before we entered the Hogwarts castle again. I liked the way he said my name, as if it were something important.
"So did I, Tom, thank you". I smiled, and he tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. His lips felt nice on top of mine; soft, but demanding, as I had imagined admittedly quite a few times.
"Do you like me?" I courageously asked when we had broken apart and I trusted my own voice again.
"Would I have gone on a date with you and kissed you if I did not?" he asked rhetorically with one arched eyebrow. I could only raise two at the same time. Yet another thing about him I could admire. Did he even have flaws? He did, he sure did, and I would find out eventually- the hard way.
And then the Christmas holidays arrived. It was the first Christmas without my parents. Julian and I had received numerous invitations from far relatives and friends of our parents, but we had decided we didn't want to spend a whole day smiling and pretending to be happy and grateful while we were crying inside. So we remained at home, where we cooked something very simple, but nice. No traditional Christmas dinner with six courses, but as long as we were happy.
"You have no idea how happy I am to be home". Me and my brother were cutting vegetables for the dinner in the light kitchen of the Foxworth Manor that my parents had named Lucky Four a long time ago. Rumour had it that my father had once thought of it after a few glasses too much wine, but the name stuck and now prided on the outside wall.
"Well, I missed you too, little Evita" Julian smiled. "It's good to have you home".
"You should find yourself a girlfriend" I teased. "They're all looking at you, the girls in town. If you didn't work so hard you'd be able to give them a chance. ".
"And what about you if I did? Would you want to share me?". This was our way of being home. We shared jokes and laughter to make up for the emptiness our parents' death had brought upon Lucky Four. It did sound sort of hollow, as if the walls told us we'd never be able to fill the emptiness no matter how much we laughed, but it was our way. We did feel happy with each other, though not as happy as we could have been with the four of us. What else could we do than adapt?
After we had put the dinner in the oven Julian and I sat down in the sitting room, him with a glass of wine, me with a pumpkin juice.
"We do need to talk, Eva" he said, suddenly serious. I did not like that look in his eyes; the look he always got when he felt the need to be my father. He wasn't my father, never would be, so I didn't think he had the right to pretend. At the young age I had then I did not see yet that if he didn't play the father over me, who would?
"I've owled with your headmaster a while ago, and he says you're not doing well at school. According to him you dissociate yourself from all of your classmates and refuse to join in social activities. Is that so?"
I looked down somewhat ashamed. One moment I felt as if my brother were my friend, the other moment I felt like a disobedient little girl. He tried to do the best for me, of course, but it was hard to appreciate as a teenager. "I suppose. A little bit".
"Why do you do that?"
I shrugged stubbornly. Didn't want to reply. It was hard to explain. And I didn't dissociate myself from everyone. Not from Tom Riddle.
"It was true at first. They didn't understand me, they didn't like me anymore because I didn't smile as often and wouldn't talk about their stupid little issues." I noticed I still felt angry toward my former friends. They truly had hurt me, as much as I tried to tell myself it did not matter now I was making new friendships.
Julian's arms were around me before I even realised I was crying. "I'm sorry, Eva, I am" he said into my ear, rocking me softly as if I were a small child. "I should have foreseen how cruel children of your age can be, how they refuse to understand people only a tad different than themselves. But you need to go on. I still grieve too, but we need to fit in the world again. "
I knew he was right, of course he was. My brother was seldom wrong, which I hated to admit. "I am trying".
"I know you are, and I'm proud of you for that. Try a little harder every day, can you promise me that? You're still so young, Eva, too young to be alone".
"You're alone". Our eyes, both hazel, met, and looked at each other sadly.
"I'm not alone. I have my colleagues and my friends, and my little Evita" he smiled, pulling me in one last hug before sitting me down on the sofa beside him again. "I'm worried about you so much".
"You don't have to be. Did I tell you that there was someone I like?". We started to set the table for our small Christmas dinner.
"No, but I'm very glad to hear it! Who's the lucky young man?" Julian grinned, wiping away the remainders of my tears.
"I don't think you know him. His name is Tom. Tom Riddle". I couldn't help but smile when I so much as mentioned his name.
"And, is he good for my little sister?"
"Of course. Stop being so overprotective, I'm sixteen remember? Old enough to like a boy". Though somehow I was glad that I was pouring us drinks for dinner, so my brother could not see the blush that had crept up my face.
"Not old enough to like one without your brother's approval" Julian chuckled, our former misery completely forgotten now that we had found something new, something different to talk about. To distract us.
"Why don't you invite him over for dinner some time?"
I frowned and shook my head. Tom was my little secret for now, I didn't want to share him with my brother yet. I feared Tom would then think I wanted things to get 'serious'. Perhaps I did, but I was certainly not sure if he did. It could get painful in case he did not. Best to wait with important matters such as meeting my brother, until I was a little more sure. Surer of the fact, at least, that Julian would like Tom. For some reason about that, I was not so sure.