"I envy people that know love. That have someone who takes them as they are."
― Jess C Scott, The Devilin Fey
After bustling around in the kitchen for a while, and letting Mary's steady chatter wash over her, Harry shared her experience with Mrs. Cole, shyly. "It was weird," she remarked when they were finally far enough away that Claire wouldn't overhear. Only to have Mary explain something even weirder to her.
Harry stared at Mary in disbelief. 'What?' she asked for what felt like the third time.
'He's not supposed to do that,' Mary repeated, looking at her as if she couldn't possibly understand the implications of what had happened to her.
'He just held me by my arm,' Harry recounted. It had been more of a grip, really, but it hadn't even been as bad as Hermione's when she was set on getting her to go to the library with her. If she thought about it, it had just been enough to make him appear assertive, in control of the situation, not that he had been either of those things.
'It's always been this way, at least since I remember. Sometimes it happens on accident, but even then, Mrs. Cole will talk to the kids it happened to, in private to see if everything is alright.' Mary shrugged as if that was normal. They were both peeling potatoes and throwing them into the large pot on the stovetop.
The Dursleys hadn't been good to Harry. But they'd never been apprehensive about reaching out to her or having her touch them.
Her aunt used to brush and tame her hair when she was younger, and she'd actually always tried not to hurt her, when she did it. A lot of other instances came to mind, too. She knew that someone always held her hand when she was little and they went outside, to make sure she followed along and didn't get lost. Her aunt also used to run her fingers through her hair, to try and fix it. They'd never questioned whether they should reach out to her or not. Even Dudley, wouldn't think twice about sitting next to her and having his arm brush up against her. They'd been cruel and abusive, but they'd never made her feel dirty or repulsive, never mind, Ron and Hermione, who both had no concept of personal space.
To be fair, she lost her concept of personal space with them, too. They were constantly hanging out with each other, went on adventures, shared near-death experiences, and so when they sometimes fell asleep on the same couch after Hermione had nagged them into doing revision with her (even though they were all exhausted), it just wasn't a big deal. It wasn't like their adventures and time together over the holidays had been conducive to establishing healthy boundaries, either. Hermione probably knew more about Ron and Harry's work ethic than anyone else. Ron knew exactly how either of them thought and ticked, and Harry had a solid insight into how her friends felt for her and the world around them. With that kind of understanding, apprehensions about touch became obsolete, as long as no one had any hold ups about it, and since they've all known each other since they were eleven, they surely didn't have any.
It seemed wrong to exclude someone from something so simple. Something that was done, without thinking about it, without even second-guessing the movement. The very act of reaching out to someone had been taken away from him.
'That seems awful,' she finally said. It wasn't like she was defending Riddle or even pitying him. It was just that she could recognize and acknowledge that what had been done to him and what was still being done to him sucked.
'You don't know him, yet' Mary said, as if she was so used to how obviously messed up Riddle was, that the idea that someone else might not agree went completely over her head.
Harry would have snorted, but she knew Mary wouldn't have understood it, and how could she? How could she possibly understand that Harry probably knew him better than any of them did? Knew how far gone he'd be and how much he'd change within the next few months. But he wasn't a monster, yet.
'He's handsome, but you know what they say about the wolf in the sheep's clothing,' Mary elaborated, while Harry frowned at her, not liking what she was implying.
'It's just weird, is all. I've never met someone that was deemed so dangerous that they weren't allowed to touch other people, but not dangerous enough to be locked away,' she elaborated.
Mary blushed. 'I guess it's not like that everywhere,' she said, somberly, and Harry groaned inwardly. Of course, Mary wouldn't know. After all, she'd told Harry that she'd been in the orphanage for as long as she could remember.
They didn't speak much more after that, at least not until Mary asked her where she'd spent the afternoon and Harry told her she'd been searching for a book shop that she remembered visiting a while back. Harry also told her that she hadn't been very successful, yet.
Her mood dropped significantly when Mrs. Cole called her to her office a few moments later.
'Are you alright?' Mrs. Cole asked, looking worried.
'Yes,' Harry said, earnestly. 'I feel fine,' she added after a moment, trying to put as much reassurance in it, as she could. It was kind of Mrs. Cole to worry about her. She was terribly misguided but at least she cared.
'Sometimes it doesn't happen until the nightmares set in,' Mrs. Cole said, warily. 'Most of them dream of snakes in their beds or something equally as horrid,' she said shaking her head.
Harry shrugged. 'I really don't think he did anything,' she said. 'He just asked me a few questions, because we ran into each other in the city, and he probably thought I followed him home.'
Mrs. Cole examined her for a few moments. 'You're a kind girl, Harry,' she said it as if that was a bad thing. 'Being kind is going to be your downfall, with that boy though,' she added, after pausing for emphasis.
'I'm not going to go out of my way to see or talk to him,' Harry stated determinately. She really wasn't. She had a plan and a hope, and she'd decided earlier that day that she'd chose herself over him, over Voldemort.
Mrs. Cole watched her a bit longer. 'Alright,' she finally said. 'Just remember that you can always come to me when something happens.'
Harry nodded, even if she thought Mrs. Cole's overprotective behavior slightly confusing. She would have been flattered by it if she hadn't used the word when.
'Thank you.'
'It's nothing, now go back to the kitchen. You can eat there with Claire tonight.'
The rest of the day passed in a blur. She'd eaten with Claire and helped distribute food right afterward. Riddle seemed to do his best to ignore her, but she caught him looking a few times when he thought she didn't notice.
Harry wasn't too fond of having caught his attention, but she also realized that there had been no way around it from the moment he'd seen her in Diagon. So, she buried those feelings of doubt and inadequacy. She kept them locked down with all her other regrets and tried to concentrate on where she would look for clues tomorrow.
There had to be a way back. There always was. They lived in a magic world for fuck's sake.
By the time she was ready to turn in for the night, she'd almost forgotten their encounter. It was scary how little this Riddle reminded her of the Tom Riddle she'd met in the diary or Voldemort. Maybe she was biased, but the fact that he had a human face and was somewhat socially inept helped her perception of him along.
In the evening, she did one small rotation with Edna who was supposed to help her change and feed all the babies before bedtime. That went swimmingly. She didn't dare sleep, though, because she didn't want to dream of Cedric, which she always did that after remembering the graveyard.
However, she wasn't the only one who had trouble sleeping that night.
One of the babies in the nursery, Maddie, sometimes struggled with infantile colic, which meant that she had a terrible stomachache and tonight was a particularly bad one for her. So, she laid Maddie across her lap and started rubbing circles on her back carefully. She didn't have a lot of experience with this. This was just the second night she'd been left alone to care for them, and even though she knew the basics of what could help, it still scared her.
An hour into trying and failing to put Maddie to sleep, Harry finally got her to stop crying a few minutes ago, she heard footsteps. Thinking it was Mrs. Cole, she whispered, 'Thank god. She's really struggling, tonight. Do you think you could hold her for a second while I make her a warm water bottle?' she asked relieved.
'I don't think that would be conducive to her health,' a deep voice drawled behind her.
Harry groaned before she looked at Tom, unnerved. She wasn't afraid since she still had her wand, and she also knew that the boy had more to lose than her should he try to curse her.
'What do you want?' she asked, exasperated as she turned towards him, not feeling comfortable with leaving her back wide open for him to curse. Maddie gurgled against her shoulder and shook her little fist against her before she continued to make those disturbing self-soothing sounds that Harry had always hated.
'I came here to talk,' Tom said, leaning back against the door frame, keeping an impressive amount of space between her and himself.
Harry examined him. He looked about as lanky as Ron, as if he was still growing into his features. He also looked a bit shady. No one, who didn't have anything to hide put that much effort into their hair and uniform looking that perfect.
'So, talk,' she finally said.
'Did Dumbledore send you here?' he asked, staring at her in anger. His whole posture seemed tense. He was clearly being paranoid.
'No,' Harry shook her head, snorting. 'A police officer brought me here.'
'But you know of him,' he hedged on.
'Who doesn't?' Harry countered.
'Aren't there any other places for wizarding children to go to?' Tom asked dubiously.
Harry shook her head. 'You tell me,' she answered, drily.
Riddle shrugged her off, but she saw that his mouth had twitched as if he'd been holding back a snarl or a smirk.
'How did he catch you in the first place?'
'He saw me after I'd made it out of the ruins of the old train station downtown. I hadn't processed what happened or how bad I must have looked at the time and thought I could get away with searching for Diagon without drawing attention to myself. When he got to me, I wasn't strong enough to get away without breaking the secrecy ban,' she finished.
'Didn't your parents have any friends that could take you in?' Tom frowned at her, as if he'd expected something more exciting, like being a spy for Dumbledore.
'I wouldn't know about that,' she said, shaking her head.
Maddie was slowly falling asleep in her arms. Harry probably should set her down, now that she was still drowsy, but she didn't want to show Riddle her back. She didn't want to risk that in this setting, not when the only witnesses would be a bunch of slumbering babies.
'Why not?' Riddle continued, completely uncaring. He really was socially inept.
'Merlin, what do you think? They died when I was really young. My aunt and uncle raised me,' she answered.
'But you know magic,' he said, moving his hand to hurry her along. He was still focused on her as if he was trying to read her very soul.
She hated lying but she did okay with half-lies. So, she tried going from there. 'There was a squib, who lived on the same street as we did. She showed me books and a friend of hers took me to get a wand, my aunt knew about what I was, because my mum had been the same way.' Technically true. Mrs. Figg had shown her picture books, and she knew Hagrid through Dumbledore.
Harry looked down at Maddie critically. She was asleep. This was the absolute last thing Harry wanted. The transfer into the crib was going to take forever, wake Maddie up again, and probably end with them both in tears. Thrice cursed Potter-luck.
'There's always one that doesn't make it,' Tom said, shrugging, completely misreading her concerned demeanor.
Harry stared at him in disbelief. 'She just had a stomachache. That's not a death sentence.'
'If it doesn't go away, she won't sleep or eat enough to get better,' Riddle said again, sounding nonplussed. 'Why do you care?'
'It went away, for now, I'll just have to figure out how to help her more permanently. Most people would feel the need to help, instead of predicting her death,' Harry answered, brows furred.
'Most people would pretend to care and promise help that they can't or won't give. Either I can help, or I can't. Caring won't change anything for her.' he said, managing to look both condescending, and honestly uncomprehending.
'Why would you feel the need to help if you didn't care?" Harry asked, equally as uncomprehending.
'Basic human decency?' he guessed, and Harry rolled her eyes. As if.
'I don't care,' Riddle stated as if that needed any clearing up, and Harry snorted.
'Wandless magic would be a real blast right now,' she just murmured.
'It's not that hard to learn,' Riddle shrugged.
She watched him calculatingly for a moment. He was right. There were certain spells that were rather simple to perform wandlessly, like an Accio for your wand.
She thought about what it was like to feel magic flow through her. She tried to remember the finer elements of what made an Episkey work and then there was suddenly a hand on her shoulder, pulling Harry from her from her thoughts.
Harry opened her eyes to meet Riddle's shocked ones. 'That would have put her into her grave,' he said staring at her, and Harry immediately stopped, trying to emulate the feeling of magic, and watched him in shock.
'I didn't do anything, yet,' she defended, wary of the fact that her silent efforts at summoning magic had been tangible enough for him to feel them.
'You were conjuring,' Riddle answered, frowning at the place where his hand was still placed on her shoulder.
Harry felt a bit faint. Conjuring was usually a good thing, but without a wand or an idea on how to release it, it could accumulate magic and fire off the power in an uncoordinated way. It was one of the reasons, wandless magic was taught so late.
'Thank you for stopping me,' she finally said, even if she could guess why he had felt compelled to do it. A magical death in the orphanage he lived in wasn't exactly great for his reputation.
'I just tried to get a feeling for it,' she tried to explain, without explaining much of anything. Honestly speaking, she'd just tried to see if she could do it without actually intending to do it. But her magic felt closer as if some kind of barrier had been stripped away from her. She shuddered. Just what had that potion done to her?
'I can't help,' he said, after a few moments. 'I can't heal wandlessly.'
Harry nodded before she looked down at Maddie again who was now snoozing against her.
'Wouldn't it make sense to learn that, though?' she asked. 'London is a horrible place to be at the moment.' She was kind of done with Maddie. Harry wanted her full range of movement back. So, she put her down, as quickly as she could manage, without waking her up, and turned back to Tom. He'd pulled both eyebrows up at her display.
'You don't trust me very much, do you?' he asked, watching her movements closely.
'I don't know you,' Harry replied diplomatically, even if that was somewhat untrue. She didn't know him now, but she sure as hell knew what he was capable of and that tended to overshadow everything else.
'It's not practical to heal wandlessly. I'd rather be able to defend and attack.' He shrugged before he continued, 'why did you end up in that train station?'
Harry sighed. 'Why are you here?'
'I thought we already talked about why anyone would be in an—'
'No, I mean in this room with me, asking me this?' she interrupted.
Riddle stopped for a moment before he turned his eyes back on her. 'You're lying about something,' he said simply.
Harry stared in his dark blue eyes, for a few moments, leaning her head to the side. 'What makes you think that?' she finally asked.
'How did you end up in that train station?' he countered again.
'I don't know,' she answered, honestly.
He stared at her again. 'Accidental magic?' he asked. 'At your age? I don't think so.'
'I don't know if it was accidental magic,' she admitted.
'Why didn't you go to Hogwarts?' he asked, taking a step towards her again as if he could intimidate her into answering truthfully.
'It wasn't an option,' she had to force herself not to smile at that. He had nothing on Snape, not when it came to intimidating dramatics.
'Everyone gets a letter,' Tom said, angrily. 'Money's not a problem either,' he added after a moment.
'No, but the approval of the guardians is,' she said, remembering Uncle Vernon's frantic attempts to keep magic away from her.
'But they let you go to the Squib?' he said the last word, particularly disgusted.
Harry brushed her hand reassuringly over her wand at her hip, as she stared back as fiercely as she could. If she messed this up, he'd never leave her be. 'It helped stop the accidental mishaps.'
Riddle nodded. 'Makes sense. Except for the fact that the ministry would have picked up on the magic,' he said that last part smirking as if he'd had her cornered.
She laughed. Mrs. Figg had been her crazy cat lady growing up, but to everyone else in the neighborhood, she'd been the one with the crazy relatives who didn't know how to dress. 'Do you really think she didn't have a floo connection to her family? Didn't have them over for visits? I could practice freely there, and I've been mindful whenever I was somewhere else.'
His eyebrows were raised, and he stared at her unattractively. 'Everyone looks down on them. They are always disinherited. Why in the world, would anyone want to keep them close enough for a floo call?'
'Well, as you can imagine we never talked about why she would have family and friends visit her when she was supposed to be the family disgrace, but I can only assume that they still loved her and wanted her around?' Harry answered.
'Don't condescend to me,' Tom growled.
'What do you want me to tell you? It's not like everyone follows those prejudiced rules that say that Squibs can't live in the magical world anymore?' Harry said, exasperated, not really knowing where to go from there.
Something about the way she stood up for Mrs. Figg must have revealed something about her because Riddle's eyes widened, first in anger and then in recognition.
'You're from Kent,' he said knowingly. 'There was an attack, recently. Everyone talked about it in school, a few were even crying at breakfast.'
He smirked. 'You flinch every time I touch you. You try your best not to show me your back. You defend squibs like one of those sympathizers, and you turn somber when I ask you about your family. As if it's been fresh. It probably happened quickly, too. There's no one left, is there?' he asked, and the fucker still smirked, as he asked that. She couldn't tell if he was proud of figuring it out or just a sadist.
Harry swallowed thickly, trying her best not to look him in the eyes.
She didn't want to show him how much his last question had hurt her. Right now, at this moment in time, none of her loved ones existed. There really was no one left. She was alone.
'So, what did they do?' Tom asked and Harry twitched when she heard the perverse giddiness in his voice.
'Want me to show you?' she countered as she pointed her wand at his chest, noticing the way his own hand twitched towards his back pocket. But she had been faster.
He stared at it, for a moment. 'If you use that, they'll know,' he said, his tone cold again, as his gaze bored into her.
'They won't know who did it. I could leave and then it would be just you here. You, the babies, an underage magic charge, and Mrs. Cole. I don't think that that will work out too well for you,' she was honestly angry, now.
Riddle's eyes widened, and he was about to say something else when they heard Edna's hurried footsteps against the hardwood floor.
Riddle was pale when he backed away from the door. He realized that he was about to be caught when Harry pulled him towards the closet, she'd been told she could use.
She thought of it, as a bit of a joke. What was she supposed to put in this thing anyway? She didn't have enough clothes to fill it even a quarter of the way.
'What do you think you're doing?' he hissed at her, as he tried to pull his arm back. Harry was honestly surprised that he hadn't thrown her off by now. He seemed honestly apprehensive about contact or insecure about how to react to it.
'Shut up,' she murmured, looking back towards the door as she quickly opened the closet and nudged him towards it. 'Get inside,' she said hurriedly.
His eyes widened at her, and he was about to say something else when the floorboards in front of the room creaked, and she turned wide eyes to him and shook her head at him to shut up. With one last look towards the door, he stepped inside the closet and let her close the door hurriedly behind him.
X
'You're still up?' Edna asked, disapproving when she stepped into the room just a few seconds after Harry had closed the closet door to hide Tom.
'Maddie kept me awake for most of the time,' Harry admitted as she ran her fingers through her hair. She was exhausted.
Edna shook her head. 'Go to bed girl, you're just supposed to soothe them if they wake up before it's time to feed. Feeding them is my job.' Edna was one of the older girls, and she seemed harsh, but Harry was used to harsh kindness from Petunia. The kindest things her aunt had said to her, had often been hidden in cold-sounding reprimands. Even if they meant something else entirely.
The redhead tried not to look too tense, while she nodded and walked hurriedly towards her bed. 'I hate the self-soothing sounds they make.'
'Ah, that's something you'll have to get used to,' Edna said sternly, as she picked up one of the smaller kids. 'It's better they do that than cry.'
'I know,' Harry murmured as she started changing into her sleeping gown, which was just a long white dress shirt. It was probably from the guy's uniform, but it reached down to her knees and hid everything well enough. Edna was also wearing hers, but she'd put a skirt over it to cover her legs a bit more since she had to come down from the girls' room.
Harry angled herself away from the dresser as best as she could while she changed, almost sure that Tom was staring at them through the slit between the doors.
Edna was a prude, and Harry knew that she wouldn't watch her change. She hadn't done it the last time Harry needed to change in front of her either. The witch was thankful for that because she had to put her wand back into the waistband of her knickers in case, she needed it later.
After half an hour of waking babies up, feeding them, and putting them back to bed, Edna bid her goodnight, and Harry waited a few moments before tapping against her closet, to signal that it was safe to come out.
Riddle stepped outside cautiously, looking flushed and a bit dusty, keeping his distance as best as he could, trying not to make too much noise.
When she finally caught his gaze, she felt trapped in it as he examined her.
Harry couldn't place the way he was looking at her. Somewhere between suspicious, surprised, and, maybe if she squinted, he even looked a bit thankful? But also, angry? The way he behaved was probably about having to be thankful in the first place. Merlin, she was too tired to figure this out.
His eyebrows were pulled up, his jaw was set, and he was still staring at her.
'Interesting,' Tom finally said, breaking the awkward silence between them.
Harry swallowed thickly, trying not to think about the fact that she hid him in her closet. She wasn't about to ask him what he found interesting; she'd have to be an idiot to set herself up for that kind of conversation. Instead, she held her head high up and tried to school her features into cold indifference while he watched her.
When he realized that she wasn't going to explain herself, his left eyebrow ticked up, and he looked like he was about to say something else. Then he quickly stepped away from her and made his way to the door, making sure to close it loud enough to wake at least one of the babies back up.
Merlin, he was petty. Harry shook her head in disbelief.
Tonight had been a close call. He probably wouldn't have been lurking around in the nursery if she hadn't been thrown into the past, so having him get caught was a risk.
They'd probably assume that he was up to no good, and maybe even go as far as to punish him for it. And that would change things, which was the last thing she wanted to do.
She let out the breath she's been holding and went to lay down to sleep, her wand safely tucked under her pillow. She wasn't so far gone on the whole savior of the wizarding world thing that she seriously thought her mere presence in this time would change him. If Hogwarts hadn't been able to teach him love, tolerance, and compassion, nothing else would.