Author's Note: Hello, it's been months, I hope people still care about this...

Since it's been so long, and because this chapter just jumps in right in the middle of things, here's a little recap: Charlotte and her mother arrived at the orphanage to bring Tom back with them for a visit. Mrs. Cole, the woman who runs the orphanage, was not so keen on the idea of letting him go once she realized he would be staying with a girl. In order to get her to allow him to leave, Tom gets the idea of telling her Charlotte is pregnant. This works, but Mrs. Cole takes it upon herself to also inform Madame Soleil.

"How could you let that happen?" Madame Soleil now sounded more shocked than anything else.

Charlotte couldn't sustain absolute silence and quietly began, "We di—" Tom put one hand on her arm and pointedly stared in the direction of Mrs. Cole, who was moving away painfully slowly.

"Do you really think we should be talking about it here?" he stopped her.

"You will say." Madame Soleil said, glaring at him. He kept himself from looking back at her, knowing that he would show all the anger he felt at being spoken to that way. "I do not care what these people think." She gestured around her to passing Muggles. "And you should get used to the attention!" They were drawing a bit of attention now.

"I think you'll find that the situation is not as bad as it seems," Tom said, hoping Madame Soleil might catch on.

"I am pleased you have that confidence," she answered, not sounding pleased at all and clearly not guessing at the truth.

Charlotte had been holding on to Tom's arm, but she suddenly let go and bolted away, turning from her mother and running past the other passersby. "Charlotte! You run like that, it could be bad for you in your state!" Madame Soleil called after her. Tom observed that she didn't look cross—until she turned to him. "Go, bring her back. I will not chase her." He stared back at her, in a silent power struggle that he refused to lose.

"She doesn't need me to run after her." He looked over his shoulder just in time to catch a glimpse of her darting off the main road. He looked back towards the orphanage. Mrs. Cole had apparently seen enough. "And there is no baby," he said, letting his tone indicate it should have been obvious. Then, without waiting for Madame Soleil's response, he went in search of Charlotte—the sooner he got her back to her mother, the sooner they could all leave that place—although he wouldn't run after her, as if there was some kind of desperation in him to find her.

She had slipped between two buildings, barely enough space to be called an alleyway. He found her standing there, arms folded over her chest, staring seemingly blankly at the wall across from her. Still angry from his interaction with Madame Soleil, he spoke sharply. "Honestly Charlotte, you couldn't manage five seconds more to wait to tell your mother the truth? She humiliated me."

At those words she quickly turned to face him. "You want to speak to me about humiliation?" She lowered her voice to an angry whisper, evidently concerned about further embarrassment. "You let my mother believe I was pregnant!"

"With my child," Tom answered, fighting a nauseated feeling at saying the words. "I had to bear my share of humiliation for that as well." Charlotte stared back at him, a sort of defiance in her eyes, then she unexpectedly leaned forward, wrapping her arms around him with a sigh and holding on tightly. Tom did not return her embrace. It caught him off-guard, so for a moment he simply stood there stiffly, before taking hold of her waist and pushing her away from him; he was in no mood to pretend. "And you ran away to hide like some kind of scared animal." He relished this chance to speak to Charlotte in a way that reflected his true feelings, the lack of love.

Now, taken aback, she looked at him in confusion mixed with a satisfying amount of pain. "Why are you saying th—"

"He should be nicer to you, with you carrying his baby and all." A smug looking man stepped into view.

Tom slowly reached for where his wand was concealed. Charlotte put her hand on his. "Tom, don't," she whispered. Letting go, she stepped around him to fully face the man. "This is none of your business."

"I try to make it my business when a pretty girl isn't getting what she deserves." He had moved towards her, while Tom made no movement at all. She couldn't stand her ground as he got closer and closer to her, but he backed her into the wall and then she had nowhere to go.

"This pretty girl doesn't need a thing from you," she said, with her eyes lowered to try to ignore how near his face was to hers. "Except for you to get away from me."

"Looks to me like you need a better man. This one isn't doing a thing to stop me." He was blocking Charlotte's view of Tom, but clearly from the fact that she was still pinned to the wall with a strange, awful man breathing on her neck, he was right; her boyfriend wasn't helping. She'd meant to tell Tom to not use magic, not to stand by and do nothing. "And of course he wouldn't," the man continued, "one of those good-for-nothing orphan kids. Maybe you felt sorry for him, but you shouldn't bother; they're hopeless rascals, the lot of them."

This was evidently the provocation Tom needed to take action. The man was yanked backwards by his shirt collar, pulling Charlotte forward with him. She pushed him away from her, as hard as she could, and watched him tumble to the ground. He hit the wall opposite them and let out a groan. But before he had the chance to do anything else, his face contorted in pain and his eyes went wide with shock; he looked like he was about to scream. Instead, not only was he silent, but it was quickly apparent he was unable to breath. His hands desperately felt around his neck for whatever was asphyxiating him.

"Tom—!"

He quickly put his hand out behind him to silence Charlotte. It was only a gesture, not a means of magic, but she flinched. Her instincts said she ought to be scared of him. Who was this boy who enjoyed the suffering he was causing? She could see it in the look on his face. There was something pleasurable in this to him. So she stayed still, because whatever he had just become, she didn't want to get on the wrong side of it.

The man was unconscious now. Tom turned back to face her, breathing heavily. He gave her a steady glance up and down, taking in her reaction, then turned away again. He pulled out his wand, pointed it at the man and said, "Obliviate."

"Now that was just foolish," said Charlotte, as he was lowering his wand and tucking it away again.

"No," Tom answered, with some irritation, before facing her. He continued more calmly, "There was some accidental magic and we took care of the effects ourselves—that's the story we'll tell. Although, from what I hear, the department that deals with the Trace is heavily corrupted, I doubt anything will even come of it."

"Accidental magic?" He'd said it so nonchalantly. "Accidental magic is lighting all the candles in a room suddenly or sending books flying off a shelf, not almost suffocating someone!"

"Of course it wasn't actually accidental magic," Tom replied, sounding annoyed again, "but they won't know the difference. No one will know that anything happened. Including him." He started towards the street, stepping over the man's legs, but, as he took another step forward and the man's arm came across his path, Tom's heel came down on his hand. He stepped off of it and faced Charlotte again. "Well, now he'll know something happened." He smirked.

"He did deserve that," Charlotte said, joining him on the other side of the man, "but not the rest."

"I would think you would be more eager to see him punished."

"That's not the point." He didn't react. "Anyway, my mother will be wondering what's happened to us; we should get back to her. But we have to talk about this again, later." When she'd had time to process.

"That's fine with me," he agreed.

Author's Note: Sorry this was a bit short, especially after being away for so long—you'd think I'd have more to post; I do, it's just not all linked together yet. I promise I'll update again soon. I'm also still editing a lot of previous chapters. I plan on having a few more of those done, including major rewrites of a couple (7 and 8, in particular...), by the time I post again so I can let you know what's new. I really hope it doesn't bother people too much that I go back and change things, but sometimes I realize there are parts that I just can't leave as I originally wrote them, for various reasons. Usually for the sake of continuity or better character development.

Also sorry for changing perspective in the middle of a scene; I don't like doing that, but I don't think there was any other way to write it this time.

And once again I'd just like to say thank you for reading this story, especially if you're coming back to it after all these months; it really means so so much to me. ^-^

PS. Did you notice the new cover? There was a small blurb about the old one in chapter one, so I've updated that to be about this new one.