YAY another chapter finally. MY STORY IS OLD ENOUGH TO DRINK! XD I have mono, so I've been sleeping to much. I have no motivation. Stupid mono :P Anyways, thought I'd give you a bit of background and such, to help clarify some of the more cryptic comments. Enjoy!
"No, daddy, no!" There was a bang, and a loud flash of green light. The other children coward in their rooms, shrinking into the gray sheets of their beds, burrowing farther and farther under the covers, trying to escape the cries that pierced the night air like a knife. None of them would help. They never did.
"No, no, PLEASE!" The scream came again. Worse than the cold and the poor meals were the screams. They were insatiable, something that you couldn't protect yourself against. You could pick the maggots out of the bread or try and steal an extra coat from the cupboard down the hall, but the screams penetrated all. There was no escape but sleep. And sleep never came on nights like tonight.
The children were always wary of the house across the street. An old mansion, crumbling and decaying. There was an air of power about it. The maid who cooked the orphan's food often told them tales of the old house. Stories about people who went in, and never came out. Rumors that made the children shiver with fear. But no one ever asked about the screams.
In the mornings, it was better. On rainy days, when no one was allowed to go outside and the haze of fog covered the old mansion, you could almost forget that it was there. It faded, gray as the sky, into the background. It was if it never existed.
But it did, and apart from those rare rainy days it seldom faded from the children's minds. It was a constant part of their thoughts, their fears that should they stray to close, they would be the next ones to disappear, the next person whose screams tore through the night.
Tom was the outcast of the orphanage. He was the one who was the freak the loner. Unloved and unaccepted by everyone. Sometimes, when he crouched in mud outside, he wished that the mansion would steal some of them away. His tormenters, the ones who blindfolded and left him there, alone, shouting for help.
"C'mon, Tom! D'nt you wanna play with us?"
"Tommy thinks he's to good for us." Rough hands grabbed at him, pushing and shoving until he lost all sense of direction. A blow to his stomach left him doubling over, gasping for air.
"Tommy thinks he's better than us, Tommy thinks he's special just 'cuz he din't get in no trouble for what he done to the rabbit." He was on his hands and knees, desperately trying to protect himself from the blows he could not see.
"Freak." They spat the word, and left him there, alone, the darkness already beginning to consume him.
He had seen her several times, but he didn't know her name. She appeared, sometimes, at the window, in the room opposite his, staring out at the streets below, as if she was a bird, caged and unable to fly away. Tom knew that the screams came from her.
On the day the man came, she was there, too. She was visiting the orphanage, although no one ever said why. The old man talked with her briefly, handing her a sealed envelope. Tom couldn't hear what they said. As she turned away from him, Tom couldn't restrain the shock he felt at her appearance.
She was quite pretty, golden brown hair falling part of the way down her back, bright flashing green eyes. She exuded power and command, yet it felt somehow repressed. But the thing that caught, and held Tom's attention was the swollen purple bruise blossoming below her left eye.
That was the day the he found out about Hogwarts, that he discovered that he was special. He had always known this, somehow, but it felt right to have some one confirm it. That's what the old man, Dumbledore, did.
They were sorted into the same house, and became quite close. But no matter how powerful and strong she became, he could always glimpse that hint of vulnerability in her eyes, that trapped feeling that she had exuded when he first saw her. It was years before he finally found out why.
It happened one night. They were prefects, head boy and girl. He had thought the bath was empty. As he entered, he saw her emerge from a cloud of steam, a robe tied loosely around her body.
Tom couldn't deny the way he felt then. He had wanted her from the beginning, and with each passing year his feelings only grew stronger. He continuously pushed them away. It was a weakness, he knew, to feel anything for this girl. It would interfere with his…their plans. He already kept her far to close to him. She was his equal in every way, intelligent, cunning, charming. It was dangerous push her away. She would find a way to have her revenge, and he knew that he could not succeed without her. But to have her be so involved with him was equally as deadly. Someone might think to use her against him…
Not wanting to alarm her, he slipped from the shadows, "Reiley…" he said quietly. She turned suddenly, a flash of surprise in her eyes. Her robe slipped off of one shoulder, exposing a crescent of her pale skin. She quickly yanked it back up, but not before he had seen.
Crossing the room quickly, he spun her around towards him again. A dark fire lit his eyes with a red light. His hands were rough, jerking her robe back down. Tom's mouth pressed into a hard line. She looked away, down towards the tiles on the floor. The white, ropelike scars were plainly visible now, the coils of the old wounds cool, like the scales of a snake.
"Who did this to you?" It sounded like more of a statement than a question. His voice rang with a cold fury, a rage so incredibly intense. As well as she knew Tom, she had never seen him this angry. She was silent. Too caught up in the feeling of his hands on her skin, lightly brushing against her scars. She shuddered almost imperceptibly, imagining how he would react if he knew the full extent of her wounds. Imagining his pale fingers skimming over the colorful bruises and cuts that she hid so well under skirts and tights, the ones that trailed over her arms and far up her legs…
Pulling Reiley out of her thoughts as he shook her, and demanded again, "Who did this to you?"
"There is nothing you can do, Tom."
"WHO DID THIS?" He thundered. She flinched away from him. He had never lost his temper like this.
"I told you, there is nothing you can do." His breathing was heavy, like that of an angry bull about to charge. His eyes held that fearsome red glow. "Tom, you are not yourself, please-" Her voice was abruptly cut off as he struck her cheek. The contact with her skin made a startling slap that resounded through the echoy room. Stunned, she slowly brought her hand to her face where a welt was already forming. Then her features hardened.
Wrenching herself from his grasp, she stalked towards the doorway. On her way out, she paused, and spoke without looking back.
"You already know the answer, anyways."
Then the door snapped shut.
Abandoned, once again, Tom stood motionless in the middle of the room. He did indeed, he realized, know the answer to the question. But it was terrible. He did not want to consider it.
It was no more terrible than what he had just done, he reflected. Tom lowered his hand from where it was resting in the air, as though some bit of her still lingered to give it a place to lie.
She was his weakness. Anyone who was a threat to her was a threat to Tom and his cause. Including her father. Including himself.
*A/N: Review please! Love y'all!