Tom breathes a sigh of relief when he and Evelynn see the two Hogwarts Owls land on the Window sill in front of them. Evelynn says "These seem later than usual…you think he had a hand in that?"
Tom murmurs "Undoubtedly. There's magic on the envelopes."
Evelynn deadpans "Course there is. At this point, it's par for the course." She doesn't even want to know what spells Dumbledore used - Compulsion and tracking spells, most likely. And who knows what else he and Grindelwald found that he's willing to use. The idea of Grindelwald's ex being around thousands of children makes her want to be sick - the idea of Grindelwald's ex not taking the opportunity to spin things how he wants with a few subtle spells he dug up with the dark-inclined ex-Durmstrang boy makes her scoff and want to sic whoever is currently in charge of the DMLE and Aurors on the school, along with all of St. Mungo's. With a lot of damning evidence against Dumbledore.
Evelynn then gets two spare pieces of parchment from her trunk out, and starts making picking motions at the closer envelope - to Tom's utter shock, he sees small lines of sickly-yellow colored magic appear on the envelope originating from a ball of magic placed directly over the wax seal. Wrapped around it almost like spider legs, legs that she's methodically picking away at…detaching from the envelope. Definitely Dumbledore's magic, but he didn't think it'd be colored like that - it's Light, but it feels like the shine on oil rather than something like sun or warmth, like it's trying to hide something. Tom wouldn't want that magic cast on him if he were dying and Dumbledore were the only person that could save him.
As soon as the lines are all gone, she picks up the spell itself and puts it onto the blank parchment. After repeating the process with the second envelope and parchment, Evelynn hands Tom his own envelope like she didn't just perform a feat of magic that effortlessly takes his breath away. She just went and transferred a spell onto a different object as casually as if she were untying a knot! He quickly reads through the list, giving himself a distraction so he doesn't jump Evelynn right then and there, only to be broken from his thoughts when Evelynn says "You've got to be kidding…"
Tom glances up, only to see a look of abject horror written all over her face. "What is it?"
"They've got dress robes written on here. Please, for the love of Merlin, don't tell me there's another Tri-Wizard Tournament happening."
Tom glances at her, and sees she's completely serious about this - right, the only time she needed dress robes in school was for the Yule Ball that they had thrown that one year. And then Tom realizes something truly hilarious - she doesn't know about the Ball. Oh, he can't wait to surprise her.
Tom and Evelynn get into the crowded Flourish and Blotts - though, nowhere near as crowded as when Gilderoy I'm-A-Fraud Lockhart did his signing event, thankfully - and then head to the sections they need. Evelynn's grabbing half the books, Tom the other half - hopefully, it'll get them in and out faster. Only for Evelynn to bump into Dorea and Walburga by accident.
"Evelynn!" Dorea gets the world's biggest shit-eating grin on her face for a moment, glancing at Walburga, and then adopts her usual Pureblood mask of indifference.
And then a woman Evelynn vaguely recognizes from the Black Family Tapestry - Melania, she thinks, Orion's mother - comes around the corner. Walburga politely says "Aunt Melania, this is the roommate we told you about over the summer."
Melania grins, and says "A pleasure to meet you, Miss Peverell. Melania Black."
Evelynn smiles back, studying the woman's face for a moment even as she shakes hands - she might've gotten to know her, had Dumbledore not meddled where he didn't belong last life. Then again, she only knows her by the Tapestry, so the older woman might've died before she was even born. She can see some of Orion's features in her face, the shape of his nose and his cheekbones, and it seems Sirius got his mischievous side from Melania if the glint in the woman's gaze is anything to go by. Half mischievous, half curious, and highly intelligent.
Polite conversation somehow turns to the Yule Ball - and apparently that's an annual thing instead of for special occasions, for fourth years and up, much to Evelynn's unending horror - and then the Blacks all learn she and Tom don't have Dress Robes yet. Evelynn secretly wasn't getting Dress Robes, planning on simply ditching the Ball altogether once she learned of it, but Melania Black doesn't even let her get a word in to say she doesn't need any Dress Robes before deciding to get the pair a set each.
And then they're off to a fitting, Evelynn's first fitting - Mrs. Weasley had her measurements for the sweaters, and just ordered a set of dress robes for her last time. Evelynn took great pleasure in burning the Dress robes after the ball, intent on never going to another such event ever again.
Tom's sitting next to Orion in Twilfitt and Tattings, having just gotten through his own session with the owner - measurements getting taken, an impromptu fitting, and then picking out different styles, colors, and fabrics - and Orion asks "How's it been since she showed up?" Tom's got this look on his face that they can't really remember seeing before, so it's absolutely got something to do with Evelynn.
Tom grins smugly, and says "Wonderful."
Orion smirks, and says "I bet." He's waiting for the wedding, honestly - Tom adores Evelynn, it's clear as day now. He'd be destroyed if anything ever happened to her, and vice versa.
And then suddenly, the fitting room goes dead silent - Evelynn had been making protests, about how they didn't need to go through all this for her, but now the room covered by several dividers and curtains is silent as a grave. And then Melania's voice comes over all too clearly, too-calmly asking who did 'that' to Evelynn's back.
Orion winces, and says "I know that tone of voice…" That's the tone of voice that means his mother is close to murder.
Dorea comes out a minute later looking pale as a ghost, quickly followed by Walburga who looks like she might be sick. Orion frowns in concern, and asks "What happened?"
Walburga swallows several times, then says "Those Muggles had better be damn grateful they're dead. Else Aunt Melania would be coming after them right now."
Dorea nods, then weakly says "Turns out she wasn't exaggerating when she said how her relatives treated her…" Actually, she underplayed it. She'd get downright venomous during her descriptions, but she never said they left scars on her. Didn't say she'd been whipped with a belt - starved, worked like a House-elf, told day after day that she was a freak, her cousin and his gang of friends would beat her up, yes…but she didn't say her uncle would whip her with a belt, or she'd be beaten if he was drunk or anything went wrong.
Tom narrows his eyes at the two distraught females, as it takes quite a bit to get a reaction like this out of any Black, and asks "What happened?"
Dorea manages to get out about how Evelynn's shirt was vanished before she could react, and her back was a rather horrifying sight even for them.
Melania Black comes out of the room looking murderous, and Evelynn quickly follows with an embarrassed blush that has her gaze glued to the floor despite the detail that her shirt is back in place. She won't say much about what exactly happened, despite the questioning looks Orion sends her way or the pitying ones from Dorea and Walburga, and the way Melania insists on accompanying them for the whole trip, so Tom resolves to get it out of her after the shopping trip is over.
She hates having so much attention on her, he knows - especially when it involves a subject as uncomfortable as the way her relatives treated her - but her usual tactic of going on the offensive, getting as descriptive and viciously venomous as possible, doesn't seem to be an option this time.
Evelynn barely even notices when Tom sits down directly behind her on his bed - she knew he was curious about what had happened in Twilfitt and Tattings, but he hadn't tried to get it out of her even once for the whole trip.
Orion kept sending her glances, Dorea and Walburga were practically radiating pity, and Melania had the strangest reaction of throwing spells around at the walls of the room for a moment before demanding to know just who carved her back up and stitched it together so badly. Nobody ever did that, nobody that could make any kind of difference anyway.
Not Sirius, who she almost hopped onto Buckbeak behind.
Not Remus, who threatened her uncle along with Moody.
Not Moody himself, who had to have at least suspected something was up if he was willing to threaten her uncle like that.
Pomfrey had to have known the condition she was in, what with how many times she'd been in the Hospital Wing - and yet, she didn't get so much as a single Potion to reverse any damage she'd taken.
She got Potions practically poured down her throat from the first time she'd woken up in this time, so what had changed? Why did she care now when she didn't care then?
Tom's arm slides around her waist, startling her out of her thoughts, and asks "What's on your mind?" There's no use demanding answers from Evelynn - if she doesn't want to say, she just won't say.
Evelynn sighs, and says "Melania Black. She saw my back, and…"
"And?" Tom's seen her back to, was horrified by it and had the urge to go tear the Dursleys to shreds. So he can't imagine what Melania Black's reaction was.
"She…she was furious. Demanded to know who had done it, where she could find them."
Tom hums, rubbing his thumbs in circles into Evelynn's tense shoulders to keep her going. "And?"
Evelynn shakes her head, the confusion and hurt - why does it hurt, Melania wanted to rip the Dursleys to shreds, she didn't call her a liar or say she must've been mistaken -suddenly spilling out into her voice as she says "And…nobody else, nobody who could've made a difference…they never cared. I tried telling Lupin a bit about what they were like back in Third Year, he threatened them at the end of fifth year with Moody. Fred, George and Ronald Weasley knew, but Ron was in on the whole thing. Molly was told they put bars on my window, and just said she'd do the same to theirs. And for all the times I was in the Hospital Wing, I was never all but drowned in Potions like I was when I first arrived."
Tom pulls her a bit closer, and asks "And?"
"What changed? For all I do know…I don't know why people suddenly care now when they didn't back then when I was a famous child-celebrity."
Well, Tom can see her point there. She was famous all through-out Magical Britain, potentially the entire world, one would think she'd have been checked after living in the Muggle World instantly. And, after each of her death-defying adventures - fighting the insane wraith that was possessing Quirrell and ending up in the Hospital Wing for days, getting bit by the Basilisk, and after each task in the Tri-Wizard Tournament to name only a few.
Tom hums, then slowly says "Perhaps…they didn't really see you as a person. More as some abstract concept, some invincible figure that would always be around to save their skins." A cold certainty washes through him mere moments later, and he suddenly finds Evelynn turned around and wrapping her arms around his neck. She doesn't cry, doesn't burst into tears or sob loud enough to wake the entire town, just buries her face in the crook of his neck and tries to ride out the pain of that particular realization.
Tom puts one hand on her shoulders and runs his other one through her silky hair, not saying anything one way or another - she damn well died for them, and they couldn't even see her as an actual person. She was always ever the 'Girl-Who-Lived' to Magical Britain as a whole, not little Eve Potter. Their Savior, not a scared, lost little orphaned girl who only wanted to be accepted and taken from the people that hated her.
After a long few minutes, Evelynn looks up and says "It shouldn't hurt this much…" Yet it does, it really does - it's like she's just been stabbed in the chest, and the knife keeps twisting the more her mind keeps bringing up various instances of how the people she died for never really wanted her. They just wanted the idea she unwillingly represented. They wanted a scapegoat, a shield, someone they could point to when things went wrong and hide behind when things were getting serious. They never wanted Eve herself, or the emotional, mental, and even physical baggage and trauma she carried around with her all the time.
Tom kisses her temple gently, but it seems even the magic affecting the two of them knows now is not the time for the usual mind-melting effects because it doesn't do much more than make her body start tingling. At least it sends a wave of calmness through her, making the ache in her chest die down.
Evelynn mutters "You'd think I would've figured that out by now, given how many times they turned on me just because they didn't like something that happened." Of course, all those times happened when she was still drugged to the gills - literally, while she was down under the Lake - on all those Potions.
When they pull apart, Tom hums and says "Even the Bond seems depressed…" To his confusion, Evelynn starts and freezes, looking at him in complete and total shock.
After a minute spent wondering just what he said to get such a reaction out of her, she asks "What did you just say?"
Tom blinks at her in confusion, and says "The connection between us seems depressed to?"
"No, you said bond…Tom, I think our Souls are Bonding."
AN: Hey, everyone! Yes, the secret is OUT! FINALLY, they figured it out! Like I said, Evelynn wouldn't figure it out on her own - that, though, technically wasn't alone. Not even going to comment any further on the utter blindness that the entire Wizarding World suffers from in canon - didn't Harry look younger than the First Years in book one? Can't remember if I read that in the book or just a dozen fics, but the movie did have Vernon threatening Harry with no food for a week so I'm inclined to believe it. Like I said...utterly blind.
Enjoy! More chapters coming soon!