Zia was worried about Tom. Despite his apparent attachment to her, he was still as serious as before. People would come into the office, and if Tom was sitting on her lap, they would lean down and try to coax a smile out, but he would simply stare at them. He had been offered candy, and simply looked down on it with disdain. If he was praised he would blink slowly, as if assessing the validity of the praise based on the one giving it, but nothing seemed to affect him. She didn't know what to do.
She laid in bed, staring at the patterns in the apartment ceiling, trying to figure out how to crack the boy's stoic attitude. She wondered when he may have first smiled in the book, but since that information wasn't provided, it was mostly guesswork. She knew he had smiled; Harry described the wild happiness that seemed to distort the young Voldemort's features when he was particularly satisfied with something. Or the cruel smile he took when hurting someone, things that she didn't want to picture the little boy sleeping in the other room doing. Yet it was evidence that he had to have smiled at some point. She fell asleep trying to connect dots that weren't provided.
Zia was conscious. Her eyes were still closed, but her body was on high alert, muscles tensed, it was clear that the room was still dark, and there was movement on her bed. Cracking open one eye and turning her head as little as possible, she saw a pair of dark eyes staring at her.
She couldn't remember how she got off the bed, but the next second the light was on, and she saw that the eyes belonged to Tom, who had somehow gotten onto her bed. She had no idea how that was possible, there was no way he could reach high enough to climb, and he had never walked or gotten out of his crib before. Hand over her racing heart, she looked at him sternly.
"Tom Marvolo Riddle, what are you doing on my bed at—what time is it?" She checked the clock on the opposite wall. "At 3:30 in the morning?"
"I don't like being by myself in the dark," he said, looking up at her.
"You don't like…?" She cut herself off. "Young man, I thought I was sharing my bed with a rat."
"But I don't have whiskers or fur or a tail auntie," he explained, pointing out the obvious. He said this with such a matter of fact tone, and such a serious face, that she couldn't help it. She started to laugh. It was just too strange of a situation to handle in any other way. He stared at her blankly as she descended into a fit of hearty chortles. Then slowly, miraculously, the corners of his mouth turned up.
"Auntie?" he asked. Those corners were twitching now, as if trying to fight off something foreign and unwanted. "Why are you laughing?"
"Because you are just so straightforward!" she said. He let out a sound that sounded like a tiny hiccough, and she realized that it the start of a giggle. Zia walked over and sat down on the bed. Tom looked up, a pleased little smile showing his baby teeth to her, and made a couple more of the tiny hiccoughing noises. After a few minutes, she had calmed down sufficiently to be able to talk seriously again.
"Tom, how did you get in here? And up onto my bed?" She eyed him suspiciously. He looked down a little, the smile gone.
"I climbed out of my crib, then I walked here." She raised an eyebrow.
"And onto my bed?" she prompted.
"I don't know. I wanted to be there, and then I was." Zia took a deep breath. She had known this would come eventually, little Tom was after all a descendant of a witch, and obviously would grow up to be an extremely powerful wizard. "Am I bad?" Zia shook her head.
"No Tom, you aren't bad. If you came in here because you were scared, I'm okay with that. And I'm not upset that you can't explain how you got up there. You just have some skills that a lot of people don't have. Most children don't learn as quickly as you do, did you know that?" she asked him. He shook his head.
"Is that why people stare at me sometimes?" he looked up at her curiously. Zia's lips quirked into a little smile.
"No, they stare because you're cute!" she said tickling him a little. He emitted his little laughing sounds as she did so, and she had to admit that even though it was quiet and restrained, hearing his laugh was worth the scare from earlier. Then she sat him down across from her.
"So you walked in here?" she asked.
"Yes." Zia feigned hurt, placing her hands over her heart.
"Your first steps and I wasn't there to see them?"
"I can do it again if you want," he offered. She pretended to think about this for a moment, looking at him as if trying to decide if she was too hurt to let him redeem himself.
"Okay then. I guess I will have to live with that." She told him, and placed him on the floor on his feet. He teetered for a fraction of a second, then did a proud little walk around the room. Zia applauded his efforts and he treated her to a half smile, then he popped back on the bed next to her, skipping the whole climbing business that would normally be necessary. She looked at him. "Tom, I don't mind if you use your special skills here with me, but you shouldn't use them when other people can see. Like I said, most people can't do those things, and some people aren't very accepting of people who can. Only me, okay?"
"Not even Nana Mary and Papa Charlie?"
"Not even Nana Mary and Papa Charlie." She confirmed. "Now, if I put you back in your crib will you stay there, or will you come back in and give me a rat scare again?" He looked up at her seriously.
"I told you, I don't have whiskers or fur or a tail, so it wouldn't be a rat scare. It would be a Tom scare." She fought back the urge to laugh again, and patted the side of the bed that she didn't use.
"Okay, well, if I'm going to avoid another Tom Scare tonight, you'd better stay. But I don't want you sleeping here every night okay?"
"Okay auntie," he agreed, and settled himself comfortably on the bed, his chubby little arms sticking out of the top of the blanket. Zia stood up and turned off the light, then went back to bed herself.
In the morning, she noticed that his stuffed snake had joined them on the bed.