His mother is confined to her room for the entire summer, and his father does not like Tom to visit her. He prefers that Tom stay in his own room as much as possible, and in most cases he is more than glad to comply.
Why bother suffering through the company of these Muggles, when Ari awaits him behind closed doors?
But he resents taking the time from his mother, because he knows she would want to see him. Merope Riddle does not protest the enforced bed-rest, she respects her husband and his judgment too much to do that, but she loves her son and has not seen him for too many months.
He waits until that Muggle midwife has left the household to sneak into his mother's room. She is holding the baby, shushing it and rocking it as it sobs in the midnight darkness. Tom is irritated at the sound, but at least it will keep his father away.
It takes a moment for Merope to notice her son, standing silently in the shadows near the door. Her face lights up in a beautiful smile, and Tom can count on one hand the number of times he has seen that expression. The baby does not stop wailing.
"How was Hogwarts, dear?"
"Wonderful, Mother."
The only place I could call my home, he means, but he cannot say that here, not to his mother.
"Have you seen Elizabeth yet?" There is a joyful pride in her question, and perhaps that is how she sounds when she first spoke about him, too. He wonders, for a moment, if his father has ever felt that way, but it is an inane thought and he does not allow himself to dwell on it.
He looks at his new sister, if only to please his mother. Her tiny red face is screwed up into an unattractive squall, and she is waving her small fists about in frustration, and he thinks she looks rather unimpressive – disgusting, even.
He offers to hold her for a moment, even though it is the last thing he truly wishes to do – but it makes his mother smile like that again, and it is worth it. Besides, his father expressly told him not to touch the child, for fear of infecting it with his worthless magic.
She is warm in his arms, tiny and compact, like nothing he has ever felt before. Looking into her face, he expects somehow to feel that flickering warmth curl up into his chest like it did with Mother and Ari – but he can feel nothing except how much he does not want this young thing as his sister.
One more person to worry about, one more person to share with.
Would she be a witch, too? He could not believe otherwise – any child born of the blood of Salazar Slytherin must be magical. It would be inconceivable to share such dignified lineage with a Muggle.
His father would not be pleased.
A smirk grows slowly on his face.
Merope feels relieved that her baby boy seems to have taken to his sister. The infant even begins to quiet down in his arms, and soon she is asleep.
"You will be a wonderful big brother, Tom."
The darkness hides his smirk.