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Part Eighteen

A Reluctant Invitation

Lying back in my bed afterwards , feeling faintly nauseated, my thoughts drifted to the Orphanage. My room overlooked the main street, and I had a clear view of the front door of the house that Mrs Cole and the cook would whisper about.

Number sixty-eight. Women would tap surreptitiously upon the rust-coloured door, and always after dark.

The jowly old hag who lived there was an aged spinster, lumbering and fleshy, with near set, greedy little eyes giving her the countenance of an overlarge sow.

She would open the door equally surreptitiously and after a cursory glance up and down the street (but never into the windows above) she would pull the unfortunate callers into the house.

Sometimes, there would be muffled screams and wails. Other times, there would be nothing to hear, but always, the women who had gone in would emerge later, clutching their stomachs and ghostly pale as they staggered away as best they could in the amber glow of the streetlight on the corner.

It was just before the war broke out that one of the women who went in, didn't come back out, didn't emerge to stagger home to their ignorant parents, boarding school dormitories, or more usually, many other children already starving from insufficient meals.

Later, I lay in bed and watched the blue lights from the motor cars parked in the street below play on the wall through a chink in the thin curtains. Nobody saw the woman at number sixty-eight again, after that.

O O O O O

I almost forgot about the Ball. Actually, I did forget. Around me, the twitters and trivial whispers slowed and stopped, silenced by my own thoughts. I didn't even think on it any further until Slughorn asked me outright who the lucky girl was.

"I'm sorry, Sir?" I replied, with more guilt on my face than I would have liked, when he put the question to me after his latest party, and actually dug me in the ribs.

"Tom…Tom, no lady friend yet?"ejaculated Slughorn, with genuine surprise at my blank look.

"Ah……no Sir… studying..you know… there's no time ..." I lied.

"Saturday, Tom, Saturday!" he said, knowingly, indicating clearly what I already knew, I was a Prefect, and had tonight and tomorrow to find a suitable partner.

I turned and left, heading down the passageway and almost collided with the ample bosom of Lucy Louisa Rosier, whose breasts always seemed to precede her arrival anywhere. She stopped and giggled, smoothing her low-cut blouse.

"Hello, Tom." she said.

Suddenly, I heard myself saying

"Lucy, what a pleasant surprise. Whatever are you doing walking alone in the corridors this late?"

As if I couldn't guess.

Evan's older sister gave another of her false, tinkling laughs, and adjusted her clothing, seeming not in the least surprised by my sudden show of interest in her.

"Just….having a….a late bath," she tinkled again, her gaze shifting left, then back again, as if she were half-expecting me to turn on her suddenly and deduct points from Hufflepuff.

"Of course you were." I said, charmingly, and paused. "No Abraxas, tonight, then? Why, I were certain you pair were never to be parted from each other…..but… I looked around the dank corridors, where the only sign of life was a guttering candle stuck in a wall holder……. here you are."

Deliberately feigning ignorance, I watched her almost physically squirm before she spoke again.

"We….er….he….er….well, we aren't going out actually, any longer, Tom."

I know that, you whore.

I gave a look of manufactured surprise.

"Really? I never knew. And with the May Day Ball so close……do I take it, Lucy Louisa, that this is my chance at last?" I leaned in close as if about to try and steal a kiss, touching her cheek with my fingertips….the older girl gasped.

"Tom!" she said, though I noted no anger in her voice, a token protest. Easy .

I pulled back suddenly, smoothing my hair and looking away from her.

"Forgive me, I meant no disrespect. You will, of course, have found somebody else to take you to the Ball. Goodnight, Lucy."

I turned, straightening my cloak and waited for her reaction. It came at once, almost, she stood up a little straighter and said:

"Tom…?"

I turned, with a look of polite waiting on my face to hide the enjoyment as I heard her eagerly agree to attend the May Day Ball on my arm. I had known that she would, or I would never have asked. I liked to know what people were thinking, and Lucy Rosier was remarkably easy to read.

O O O O O

I wondered if I should have asked Laura after all. She was the first and only person I had thought of going with when the Ball was announced, but that was before that day, before France. If I asked her now, she'd likely only stop short of hexing me or slapping my face.

But she would have the rest of her life to get used to me. I would find a way to make her see my point of view…... I would go to the Ball with the Rosier tart to see the look on Abraxas' face, and to see Laura, and who she would be with. Because I would make sure they or anyone else never touched her. However much it took. I would drag myself through these next two days and then tell her, tell her all the things I should have said. I would not accept no for an answer.

Nothing from here was ever going to be the same.

Later, while the others practiced Quidditch, I took my trunk out from under the bed and pulled out my old dress robes. Performing a quick cleaning spell, I held them up and inspected them. Black velvet, a slight collar, bought secondhand from Knockturn Alley. They had suited me well, then, but I had become taller. A few charms later, the velvet was restored to it's former glory days (which I supposed were sometime in the Eighteenth Century, judging by the labels) and lengthened them another five inches. They would do.

O O O O O

I left the dormitory last on the night of the Ball. For a start, I didn't want to go in the crowd of others already milling up the stairs to the Great Hall, preferring instead to gather my thoughts alone before facing the social occasion, and not least to avoid seeing Laura on the way. Oh, yes, I wanted to see her all right, but I wanted to catch her off guard, not in the middle of some corridor like before.

Peolpe had already begun to congregate in the hall waiting for the musicians to begin, by the time I walked slowly up the winding stairs. My shoes, newly mended again, suddenly sounded very loud on the stone steps, and my robes were scratchy against my skin in a way they had never been before.

So there I was, waiting in the entrance hall. It was about four minutes past eight by then. I wanted to bite my nails, perhaps shuffle my feet a little in their magically-mended shoes. I didn't, though. I didn't want anyone to see that I was nervous, and particularly because none of that nervousness was because of the over-made up older girl that was even now walking towards me.

"You're late, Riddle." Lucy Rosier whined.

To be continued...very very soon : )