Of Mutterings and Lockets
My mother did not return that night, much to my short-lived relief.
-
That morning, too early for the neighbors to begin to stir in their beds, Tom mumbled loquatiously in his sleep, tossing and turning on his makeshift pallet.
"Orphanage... Voldemort... flee... revenge.." he once said incoherently.
I had been fingering the silver locket he had given me last Christmas morning, looking at it with contentment. He had told me not to open it until he said to, which had seemed rather uppity at the time. But I knew he had his reasons, even if he kept them to himself.
It was quite mysterious, the locket, unlike any other. The silver was tarnished, hinting of age, its tiny-linked chain equally as so. Its shape was the peculiar part, however. It seemed to be an elongated diamond with its corners rounded as if it were made to hold something in particular. The silver was also studded with jagged fragments of peridot in the center. I longed to know what it contained, but I managed to restrain myself from undoing the clasp and peering inside.
Tom fidgeted often, tangling the blankets around himself in a cold sweat. I brought a damp cloth to his forehead and patted it lightly on his skin. After that, he seemed to calm, though I remained at his side, my own eyelids growing heavier with each passing hour.
I did not even realize I had fallen asleep.
-
When I awoke, I found myself back in my own bed, tucked in carefully. An instantaneous wave of guilt washed over my body because I had failed my duty as "caretaker."
"Ah, you are awake," I heard someone comment casually.
It was Tom, of course.
He was different in a way that I couldn't quite put my finger on, though he had changed drastically over the past month or so. He was more secretive than before, which made it harder for me to learn about his past. There was little warmth behind his eyes, only sometimes...
...When he looked at me...
Still, he was immensely troubled by something, coming to me in such a state that he was.
I jolted myself back into reality to answer him. "Wha-? Oh, yes. Did you sleep well?"
He nodded grimly.
Hesitantly, I said, "I heard you talking in your sleep, Tom, is something wrong?"
I watched his body go rigid. "What did you hear?" he asked in a quiet, demanding tone.
"Oh, I do not quite remember, your words were rather slurred," I quickly lied, not meeting his gaze. But there was no lying to Tom, I knew, and he would have me ferreted out in a moment.
"Danielle," he said sternly, crossing his arms. "What precisely did you hear?"
I chewed nervously at a loose strand of hair that had fallen across my face. "Something about, er, an orphanage... and a strange word that started with a 'V', I think... Tom, where were you staying before you came here?"
For a moment, I thought I saw a fleeting flicker of anger pass across his pensive features.
"Ah..." he began slowly, clicking his tongue.
"Please tell me," I pleaded.
He was reluctant to answer. He seemed to be weighing his options. "I cannot tell you."
I let out an exasperated, disappointed sigh.
He mumbled something quietly under his breath. Then, clearing his throat, he repeated what he had said. "It is difficult to explain, Danielle, I do not know if even I can, you must understand that. Things have happened... and will happen... Terrible things..."
"What are you trying to say?" I did not understand what he was telling me. It seemed entirely irrelevant to what I had asked.
But he decided to remain elusive.
Tom stared blankly out of the window, lost in thought.
"It is alright," I sighed again, "You do not have to tell me."
"Be cautious this term, Danielle," he murmured in a strange voice.
I decided not to push my luck by questioning him about it any further, and I switched topics. "Are you hungry?"
He looked at me with an amused expression, chuckling. "A bit."
-
I did not know what I would tell my mother when she came home, and I did not even know when that would be. I was not worried yet, however, for she had done that before.
Tom had asked to stay until the start of the term since he couldn't go back to his former home. I had promptly told him, "Perhaps."
-
It was with horror that I had discovered my mother was never coming back. Tom had been there to comfort me–awkwardly–as I cried. We would have had my home to ourselves long after September first had we chosen to stay there and not return to school. For my father's whereabouts remained a mystery.
I eventually arranged an actual bed for Tom after destroying the pitiful pile of blankets I had formerly forced him to use.
Before she disappeared, my mother had been rather fond of various muggle inventions, so Tom and I amused ourselves each night by watching ridiculous programs on our television set. He had not found this non-wizarding device strange, which I, in turn, thought was odd, seeing as I had not expected him to have any connections with the outside world. In fact, he was quite at ease with it, as well as the other scattered muggle things about my house.
Our letters from Hogwarts arrived shortly after Tom did, listing the books and supplies we would need for our fifth year.
That proposed another problem. With my parents gone, we would not be able to travel to Diagon Alley; the last of our Floo Powder had been finished off while I was away at school.
I presented our dilemma to Tom, but he only smiled, or rather, one corner of his lip curled slightly. He reassured me that he had already thought of something. I also could have sworn I had heard him mutter, however softly, "I hope you are not frightened of heights," under his breath as I brushed past him to retrieve something from my chamber.