The car rocked gently to and fro as it made its way up the street, the grey city flashing by outside the windows. The glass partition separating them from the driver was raised and the windows had been drawn up again now that the heat which had accumulated in the car had been released. The only sound in the dim interior was the dull thrum of the engine.

His father hadn't spoken in the ten minutes they'd been driving, though whether that was because he was waiting for him to speak first or simply didn't have anything to say Tom wasn't certain. The man sat opposite him on the leather bench which lined the left side of the car-it could have fit six people comfortably instead of just two but what did wasted space matter when you were rich-watching him without trying to be obvious and failing at it. His eyebrows had drawn together and his eyes appeared closer to silver than grey in the low light but he couldn't make out if it was an expression of disappointment or concern.

He didn't know enough about this man to be able to read him, and that more than anything left Tom on edge. And what of his take on magic. What would he do when he learned he was a wizard, if he didn't know already? Would he not be allowed to return to Hogwarts for his second year; awful as his House was, his magical education was paramount! Tom didn't want to live his life as a Muggle, even as a rich Muggle.

"Have you eaten, Junior?"

He started, looking up quickly. His father's eyes lingered on his thin arms, no doubt noticing how his clothing hung off of him. Tom shifted subconsciously and pulled his sleeve down further; he'd gained weight over the school year, when he could be bothered to suffer the presence of his House mates at the table, but no matter how much treacle tart and steak and kidney pie he ate it couldn't undo a life of malnourishment that easily. "This morning." Some toast. All that he could grab and run with quickly.

"This morning?" he repeated. "They didn't feed on you on the train back to London?"

Another uncomfortable fidget. "I didn't have the money to buy anything from the trolley."

His father pulled down the partition. "Pull over at the nearest open eatery."

The man made no protest and they soon slowed to a stop at a small but obviously upscale diner in Vintry. After bidding their driver wait for their return his father got out and led him through the front door; they were seated quickly on a private patio overlooking the brown waters of the River Thames.

The menu consisted of a laundry list of foods he'd never heard of, and no prices were listed. When the waitress came around his father ordered a pot of coffee for the both of them-Tom noticed that he seemed to recoil as if she were an Acromantula rather than a perfectly ordinary woman-and then looked to him expectantly. He listed the first dish his eyes fell on, not knowing what else to do.

He'd never been out for food before, and at Hogwarts you took what you wanted from what appeared.

His father didn't speak again until the woman had returned with the coffee and Tom's food.

"I'm sorry." The twelve year old looked up from his meal, dark eyes prompting the man to elaborate further. "I'm sorry that I didn't take you from that awful place sooner, Junior. That I wasn't there when you needed me. My greatest regret…I've failed you. I should have been there."

"Then why weren't you?" it came out harsh, abrasive as sand against an open wound, but the man didn't so much as flinch. Clearly he'd been expecting such a reaction. Knew, on some level, that he deserved it. "Why weren't you there, if that's really true? Why did my mother die birthing me alone? Why did I have to grow up being treated like a monster just for being better than the rest of them?"

His magic began to twitch and tremble, like a stirring serpent, and the coffee pot rattled. Rather than shrink away like all the other Muggles had his father calmly reached out and steadied it. Maybe it was the shock of the lack of reaction, maybe it was the emotional exhaustion finally getting to him, but with that one simple gesture he'd managed to take all the wind from his anger's sails.

He'd acted as if his outbursts, his magic, was normal. He wasn't normal, damn it! He was special! He was special! And it should have made him furious, but it didn't. He doubted the man had even known what he was doing at the time, that it had been meant as anything more than a passing sign of bravery, yet he hadn't seized on the opportunity to ridicule him or call him a freak. Silently and without words he'd afforded him acceptance, something that he hadn't known was worth more to him than gold was to Goblins until that very moment, and it made Tom want to cry all over again.

He clenched his hands into fists and resisted the urge to crawl into the man's lap again. No matter how he treated him he couldn't be trusted. Not yet.

Tom couldn't let his guard down if there was even the slightest chance he'd end up back in Wool's.

"I'm going to be honest with you, Junior. I wanted to hate you. And I spent years trying, but I couldn't. You shouldn't have to pay for what your mother did." His eyes had dimmed from lunar silver to the same dull color as the woolen coat Tom still had on and his expression now displayed clear signs of someone about to speak of a subject they'd much rather leave buried. "I'm sure that you know by now that you're a Wizard, and perhaps that your mother was a Witch?"

Of course he knew he was a Wizard! And he'd managed to work out the fact that his mother was a Witch earlier that day, thank you very much! "I do."

"We both came from the same town, a small town in the countryside called Little Hangleton. The same town that we'll be going back to tonight. But where my family is highly affluent and lives in a grand manor your mother's was very poor and lived three to a rotting one room hut; your grandfather, your uncle and your mother: Merope Gaunt."

Gaunt? He was a Gaunt? The Gaunts were a Sacred Bloodline; a Noble and Ancient House descended directly from…the Sorting Hat's reaction, his ability to speak to snakes, of course! It all made so much sense.

"I don't know what led to them ending up in such a situation, if they were always poor or if they had a fortune once that was squandered, but…I do know that their otherness terrified me. Terrified most everyone in Little Hangleton. They were inbred to the point of barely looking human. All of them could speak to snakes, like you, and someone in the house had a nasty habit of nailing the poor creatures to the door." His shudder was oddly delicate for a man. "Between that, Merope's constant staring and the fact that your uncle attacked me once as I rode passed…I had good reason to fear their family. But things didn't truly go bad until after your uncle and grandfather were arrested, though for what I can't say."

"For attacking you, most likely. Using magic in the presence of Muggles who don't need to know about it-those being the parents of Muggle-borns or Half-bloods-violates the Statute of Secrecy. The Ministry of Magic doesn't take much seriously but the Statute is one thing that they do."

Incompetence run amok if ever there was an example of such.

"…Yes, that's right. You have…your own government." His father cleared his throat and picked up his mug of coffee. It was plain that he was extremely uncomfortable with magic yet was trying not to let it show; it should have vindicated Tom of his earlier feelings yet somehow it made what he'd done all the more valuable. Parents were supposed to sacrifice for their children, after all. "After they were gone I felt a bit safer riding that trail as I thought your mother would have gone as well, moved on now that her family was no longer there, but I was wrong. She ambushed me one day while I was out. Offered me a glass of water. With the heat I didn't think to object…that's the last thing which I remember in any sort of clarity."

He dropped his face into his hands for a moment before straightening up and resuming his story.

"When I came to it was month's later and I was in London with her and she was begging me to stay. Telling me that she was with child. But she'd bewitched me already, so what was there to stop her from lying to me? I didn't believe her and left. Returned home a broken man, the mockery of the town, yet I could never quite forget what she'd said." He shook his head. "I tried to hate you, tried to convince myself that I wanted nothing to do with you, but I ended up loving you instead. The Doctors all said I'd never recover from the trauma, but the thought of her raising you pushed me to bounce back. Three years ago I started looking, determined to raise you 'correctly' away from magic but…I see that it's too late for that now."

Tom stiffened in his chair, his magic sparking again as he prepared for the split second decision of 'attack' or 'bolt'.

"And that it would be cruel of me to try. I've already done enough to hurt you, Junior, and as much as I'd like to keep you out of her world I realized now that doing so would only ruin you. I want to be able to call myself your father; holding you back would strip me of that right."

Just like this man was repeated by stripping him of any malice that he might have wanted to put as a wedge between them. Morgana! Merlin! Hecate! Hell, whoever the bloody hell else might be able to help him! He didn't know how to navigate a situation where he was unable to scrape up the barest excuse to distance himself from another person.

Because as much as he wanted to cry out for that closeness, giving in to the desire was too dangerous.

"I have as many reasons to hate your people as you do to hate mine." Even reminding himself repeatedly that this man was a Muggle, and that associating with him would likely only make his standing within Slytherin even worse, was an empty platitude at this point. "You just finished your first year of magical school, didn't you? Maybe I could read the books you don't need any more and we can learn about each other's worlds together."

This was either a very elaborate ruse or the man had lost his mind. Given the likelihood of long term exposure to a love potion his story had revealed, Tom was leaning toward the later option. "You need a mind healer!" He snapped, picking up his fork.

It would take a lot more than that to pull the wool over his eyes!