AN: Thank you very much for your ongoing comments, I very much look forward to them!
Ginny woke up late. Well, late for her, late ever since she'd been dumped into this lonely hellscape for deranged orphans and her body had decided to wake her at sparrowfart every day.
She lay there, staring at the ceiling. Her nose hurt. Her knuckles hurt.
How did she even get here? Under what circumstances did that creepy whispering curtain decide that this was a good place to dump her?
She was half her bloody height, and half her bloody age, and she had just enough magic to get into trouble!
The only decent thing here was the cold little bastard she shared a room with!
That was unfair. He wasn't a bastard, and he wasn't as cold as he seemed. He was a little dark, sure, and a little twisted, but he cared about her, and he felt emotions as much as anyone. He just didn't show it like other people, especially in front of others. She liked him, trusted him.
Still though, it was very easy to see how he could have become the monster that nearly killed her.
But, she didn't want to be the only thing standing between this kid and the abyss.
She turned her head, looking out into the room. Tom was sitting in the middle of the floor facing the door, his back not quite to her.
She should get up. She didn't want to but she should. If she didn't, one of the staff would come in and drag them down to breakfast anyway.
She sat up and rubbed at her face, wincing as she touched her bruised nose.
Tom saw the movement out of the corner of his eye and startled, dropping something and snapping his head in her direction.
A crayon rolled over and hit her toes.
He looked up at her, eyes wide. He wasn't doing anything, there were no papers around him, no books, no toys.
He looked… alarmed. What was he hiding? What could he possibly be doing with a single crayon that was worth hiding? Sticking it up his nose?
She shook her head, and went about getting ready for the day.
Tom stood, "Let me see your hands," he said, sounding as firm as a seven year old could sound, and as gentle as he could. Which was surprisingly gentle, she had to admit. She didn't think he had it in him.
She stopped and held her hands out towards him. The handkerchiefs wrapped around her knuckles were still clean, so that was a good sign.
He unwrapped them, the fabric sticking slightly to her hands and stinging as he pulled it off. Her knuckles were scabbed up, but nothing was bleeding or swollen anymore.
"Your knuckles are nearly healed. I don't think I need to re-wrap them," he looked up at her, teasing, "Unless you plan on punching someone else today?"
Ginny shoved him. This boy was rude.
He laughed, catching himself easily. It was a light, joyful sound. She didn't even know he could sound like that, she hadn't heard him laugh even once before.
She smiled at him, indignation forgotten. Strange that a laugh could make a room seem brighter.
She made her way to the bathroom. The light turned on by itself as she entered.
She should be grateful her magic was back. It was like another sense had been missing, and now it flooded through her veins and crackled at her palms.
But without a wand it was useless. Worse, it was out of control. If she'd had her wand yesterday, she would have Bat-Bogey'd the lot of those morons, instead of having to resort to punching and kicking and hurting her hands.
If she'd had her wand, she would never have been targeted in the first place, because she wouldn't have turned that bulldog of a girl's hair orange.
Maybe she would have been targeted anyway. The girl had come to torment her regardless, it was only Ginny's own retaliation that brought the others. And no matter the means, Ginny would have retaliated.
The only way she could have avoided it all was if she had been a muggle. But magic was a part of who she was, and regardless of the consequences she couldn't just give up a part of her soul. It was a part of Tom too, and she wanted to just sit him down and explain everything, magic, Hogwarts, all of it. But she didn't know if his accidental magic had started yet. Hers had, for certain, but if she just started talking about all this and he hadn't experienced any magic, then either he would think her completely off her rocker, think she was making things up, or the worst scenario: wonder how she knew all this. Because then she'd have to explain how she knew that he was a wizard too.
It was going to be hard enough explaining how she knew about Hogwarts and the magical world without giving away the whole 'I'm from the future, sort-of' thing. She didn't know what kind of time-travel rules applied here, but she didn't need to give Tom any sort of hints about the shit future-him did.
Then again, did she even want to go to Hogwarts? She wanted a wand, desperately. Preferably hers but any would do. And she wanted to go home. Even Tom's strange friendship wasn't enough to replace her family, her friends, her home.
Ultimately, she still needed a way into the Ministry, but only after she'd learned more about the Veil. Hogwarts might well be her only option for learning about that thing, as she didn't have any money to buy relevant books from Flourish and Blotts.
How were she and Tom even going to pay for their things? Did Hogwarts have some kind of fund for destitute orphans?
Ginny rinsed her mouth from the toothpaste and sighed. She wasn't the kind to wallow, she'd decided that long ago. Even if life seemed hard now, she'd been through worse and survived.
She looked at herself in the mirror. She still looked too small, but she'd grown since she'd arrived. Her brown eyes looked hard, coupled with the bruise that was still stark across her nose she almost looked tough. Almost.
She took a steeling breath. She could do this. She'd survived a soul eating diary and a basilisk, she could survive some vicious eight year olds for a few years.
Breakfast was awkward. Perhaps awkward was a little understating it, but 'vaguely sinister' was certainly overstating it.
Ginny and Tom walked into the already crowding dining room, and three separate groups of kids just stopped and glared at them, silently. Everyone else continued as normal, leaving those handful of children as creepy beacons of stillness in a loud, bustling room.
Being a creepy beacon of stillness was usually Tom's job.
Ginny spotted Marcus and his crowd as one of the groups, and the scowling sour-faced girl in another. Her hair was back to its usual blonde. Strange though, she thought that girl was a part of Marcus's band of bullies. She knew no-one in the third group.
They'd all turned back to the table and their meals by the time Tom and Ginny got there.
They squeezed in at the end of the table, as far away from all three bands as possible. She didn't know what was up their bonnets today, but she wasn't letting Tom out of her sight.
She turned to him, after taking her bowl of porridge. "I don't think its a good idea for either of us to be alone today. We should stay with the crowds."
Tom nodded, "Yes. Timothy still has it out for me, and Ruth still looks like she wants to rip your throat out."
"She always looks like that."
Tom's eyes sparkled, amused, "More than usual, then."
"Why does Timothy have it out for you?"
Tom's expression turned cold, "Why did Marcus target you yesterday?"
So he hadn't let that drop. She might have to explain magic sooner than she thought, unless she could come up with a good lie soon. Either way this was not the place to talk about it.
"Not here," she said, turning to her food.
Tom, however, wasn't very good at taking hints. He frowned at her, "If you've got a secret you can just tell me. I thought you trusted me, I thought we were friends."
"We are friends, but people are listening," Ginny hissed.
"People weren't listening last night and you didn't want to say anything then either!" he growled back.
She said nothing, stubbornly staring at her porridge. This was not the place to get into a fight. The kids around them were starting to stare.
"Look at me!" Tom demanded, banging his hand on the table and abandoning all intentions of keeping quiet.
Ginny turned and glared daggers at him, her irritation flaring up into outright rage.
Her porridge bowl whipped itself at the wall, shattering and smearing gooey oats all down the wood.
Both children blinked in surprise, staring at the mess.
Was that me or Tom? wondered Ginny. She glanced at him. He was staring at the dripping mess, looking almost panicked. Did he know it might have been him?
"Who threw that?" yelled the Matron, standing up at the head of the table, and ruining any chance of the incident going unnoticed. Everyone was looking now, every worker, every orphan.
"It was Tom!" a black haired kid opposite them shouted, pointing. Ginny recognised him vaguely, but didn't remember ever having so much as spoken to him.
Tom's already panicked expression went white.
Ginny stood up, "I did it, ma'am. I'm sorry."
Tom stared at her, incredulous. It was the most expressive he'd been.
The Matron's lips pressed together in a thin line. "I don't know which of you it was, you're both troublemakers sticking up for each other at every turn. Food is expensive, dinnerware more so. You will both see me in my office after breakfast. You are to go and wait there for your punishment."
Someone giggled.
"Silence!"
They shut up.
"Everyone will resume breakfast. Mary, clean up the mess," she said, gesturing to the young, frightened looking woman who woke them sometimes, "Griffiths, Riddle, to my office. Now."
It took Ginny half a second to remember that her last name was Griffiths here. She walked around the table, Tom tailing her, and headed towards the Matron's office, feeling the eyes of all fifty orphans on her. As she rounded the corner into the hall, she could see Ruth grinning viciously.
They walked down the halls in tense silence.
They were halfway there when Tom spoke, "Are you going to tell me what you did that upset them yesterday?"
"Really? You're still on that?" Ginny replied, baffled.
"Yes. I think I threw that bowl. I was angry, and things happen when I'm angry. It started yesterday."
"What happened?" she asked. Tom glanced at her, eyes narrowed.
Right. He wanted what happened to her first. Why was she so reluctant to tell him about this?
"I was cornered by Ruth. It was just her, but she gets nasty. She said some really mean things, and I got angry. I turned her hair orange. Not with dye or anything like that, it just happened suddenly, like magic. It was magic. So was that bowl throwing itself at the wall."
Tom nodded, like she'd confirmed something he'd already suspected. "I stole Timothy's voice. When Marcus and the rest were chasing me, I ran at a wall and ended up outside."
"Our magic comes out to help us when we're angry, or scared."
"Do you think we can control it?"
Ginny hesitated. Could they control their accidental magic before they got a wand? Was that what Tom was doing this morning with the crayon? Trying to train his accidental magic?
Was it time to tell him about Hogwarts? She couldn't keep it from him forever, at some point the secret would come out and he would never trust her again. There wasn't going to be a better time to tell him, but how could she explain how she knew?
"I don't know, but we can try," she said, "I know that when we turn eleven we'll go to Hogwarts, a magical school. We'll get wands and learn how to use magic properly, and learn all sorts of spells and potions."
Tom stopped in his tracks, blinking.
She stopped and turned to him.
"Are you playing pretend?" he asked. He looked like he could snap at any second, like a brittle twig.
"No, I mean it," she said, hoping desperately that he would believe her. That he wouldn't declare her crazy here and now.
"How do you know?"
"I told you about my family? They're magical too. All of my older brothers went to Hogwarts, so did my parents when they were kids."
Half truths. She wasn't ready to tell him she was from another time, possibly another world.
"Truly? You're not kidding? Because if this is some kind of joke I will-"
"No, Tom, I'm not kidding. No jokes, no playing pretend. I'm a witch, and you're a wizard, and when we're just a little older we'll be going to a school that will teach us everything."
Tom let out a breath and pulled Ginny in, hugging her tightly. Ginny hugged back, surprised. He hadn't initiated hugs before. He always clung to her like he was starved for touch, but he never started it.
"I'm not crazy," he muttered lowly, relief obvious.
He let go, holding her at arms length and frowning at her. "Why didn't you tell me before?"
"We only got our magic yesterday, Tom, how much earlier should I have told you?" Ginny asked, amused.
"Right. Good point," he said, turning and continuing down the hall towards the Matron's office.
"Later today, we can figure out how to control our magic before we get wands. I don't know how, but we'll try."
Tom smiled at her, his blue eyes lighting up.
Ginny didn't know what punishment the Matron had for them. Maybe they'd get the cane like was always threatened, or maybe they'd be made to shovel snow, or clean the toilets.
It didn't really matter. It would pass, and then she and Tom would prepare.
She had a whole world of magic to show him.
