Author's note: Hello hello, as promised, a new chapter a bit earlier than usually. I barely reread it so I apologise in advance for the potential typos... Thank you so much everyone for favouriting and following this story it means the world! I wish you a great weekend everyone!
August 1943 - The Ride
"Take me for a ride
Take me by your side
Take me with you"
- The Holy Oysters
Annabel pinched her lower lip between her index and her thumb as she glanced at the leather suitcase opened on her bed. Her eyes wandered over the pile of dresses and swimsuits until they settled on a small wooden chest. Inside were stored a dozens of envelopes on which her name was neatly written. She seized the one on top and opened it to reveal a note on which was inscribed a time and a place. Suddenly, two sharp knocks on the door made her start:
"May I come in?"
Annabel hid the letter behind her back before her mother opened the door without further ado.
"Are you all set?" asked the woman as she briefly peeked into her daughter's bedroom through the half-opened door. The girl nodded with a smile, struggling to conceal her excitement.
"Good. I'll send Maeve get your suitcase in a minute" stated the woman before she disappeared in the corridor, leaving the door ajar. Annabel shoved the letter inside her pocket and shut her suitcase. She closed the box with the many letters in it and slid it under her bed before she glanced at herself in the mirror one last time.
She walked down the marble staircase of her parents' mansion to find her mother arranging a bouquet of pink dahlias on the console near the entrance. Her parents were throwing a brunch with the Ministry's crème de la crème and Zeena Selwyn had been running around all day, chastising and ordering anyone who dared crossing her path. Her father had retreated in his study, to work on a major trial, but Annabel knew that he had simply ran away from his wife's nervousness.
"I left some money for you on the coffee table" mentioned her mother absentmindedly, before she turned around to glance at her daughter who promptly stepped aside to avoid colliding with the silverware that was flying down the stairs.
"Trousers, really?" snapped Zeena at her daughter, but the girl simply shrugged. Annabel had anticipated her mother's criticism. The latter was the prime example of the wealthy housewife: spruce and conservative, she followed social conventions to the letter, wary never to challenge the milieu she lived in.
"The lady said it's the latest Muggle fashion"
Her mother pressed her lips together but kept her disobliging comments to herself.
"Are you sure you will be all right in King's Cross? It is very kind of your friend Elena to invite you for the holidays but how odd that you have to travel with the Muggle train…"
"It's an old house. They haven't swept the chimneys in a while" she shrugged.
Her mother shot her a worried glance that Annabel decided to ignore, seizing the small velvet purse filled with galleons and pounds instead.
"The matchmaker also sent this" Zeena announced as she opened a package that lied next to the money and handed her daughter a thick red book.
Annabel winced at the sight of the title.
The girl remembered the conversation her mother and her father's mother had had in early July, when the latter came for a tea. The two women had complained about the discourteous behaviour of some families that meant to introduce their sons as suitors. Once it was certain that Hogwarts would remain opened, it had been announced that Annabel would finish her education in two years, just as planned. The Selwyns, who had initially arranged meetings with multiple courters, had cancelled all such appointments, to some families' great displeasure. Annabel had been appalled, to hear that Tom had been right about her parents' plan to marry her off before she even reached the legal age. The girl had then spent the rest of the summer in a strange mood, wondering what she had done wrong for her family to be so eager to get rid of her that quickly.
Yet the girl chased away the memory as she shoved the book in her purse and inhaled to give herself some composure. She knew holding onto such negative thought would do nothing but sadden her.
"You should start reading it during the summer" added her mother, hinting at the book.
"I scheduled an appointment with the matchmaker right before the start of the school year so you will able to ask her all the questions that remain unanswered" she nodded before she handed Annabel a porcelain bowl that contained floo powder.
"Owl me when you get there" her mother kissed her goodbye as she handed the girl her luggage.
Annabel threw the green dust inside the hearth and walked into the hearth.
—
People were scattered across the platform, some standing still, others fanning themselves with a hand or a folded newspaper. Kings Cross was a furnace in that time of the year.
Plumes of water vapour permeated the air, almost concealing the handsome young man who was leaning on the platform's gate when the horn of the closest train ran out. All around him, people hastened towards the door of the closest wagon and Tom looked at the clock that hung from the ceiling, unruffled.
He knew she would be here on time.
She had written him, some time after the end of the school year. He had been lying in bed one evening, deeply immersed in a book when the sound of a few pecks had disturbed his reading. He had initially assumed the younger kids were playing marbles on the wooden floor upstairs, until he noticed the majestic bird that stood in front of his window. A sacred ibis, perched on the wooden frame, was impatiently waiting for him to come free it from his duty.
Tom had acknowledged the paper, lighter than the parchment they were used to in Europe and he needed not to look at Annabel's scrawly handwriting to know it was her who had sent the note.
She was wishing to thank him, for his foreshadowing back in June, admitting that she had learned that her parents had indeed planned on marrying her off earlier if the school had remained closed.
"I suppose such clairvoyance from your side deserves acknowledgement, so please accept this, as the expression of my gratitude" she had written, before wittily signing: "A joyfully single lady"
He had found a small linen bag attached to the bird's leg, that contained a dozen of onyxes, each engraved with a hieroglyph. They resembled rune stones, in which one could trap a spell and cast magic remotely. Such items were rare, all the while being highly regulated by the Ministry, and Tom could only imagine how precious a gift this was.
He had been thrilled, taking a few of the dark oval rocks in his palm to observe them under the kerosene lamp. Hastily, he had sat down and searched for his own quill.
And just like that, a correspondence had ensued.
He had learned that she was in Egypt, to visit her family and attend her cousin's wedding.
In her letters, Annabel had written about Cairo, adding photographs of the pyramids or toxic herbs from the magical apothecary. She recounted with a multitude of details the sounds and the smells of a city that never slept, where anything had a price. She narrated the chaos that reigned at the black market, where one could find dragon eggs and hags' nails, how witchcraft pertained in every street.
Through her words, Tom had felt as if he was travelling with her, a window of hope in the monotony of his life. Soon enough, she had become his only connection to the wizarding world, for all his friends were gone that summer, and Tom had found himself longing for her stories, that transported him far away from his small and decrepit bedroom.
A familiar sound jolted him out of his reverie when he heard a deep, husky voice on his left.
"Good morning Tom"
—
The dark-haired man greeted Annabel with a gorgeous smile and he took her suitcase before he led them inside the train.
The carriage was long with seating booths of two alined on each side of the aisle. However, no door nor glass pane granted the customers any privacy and the fact that they had to keep their voices low crossed Annabel's mind. If people heard them discuss jinxes and magical plants, they would most certainly end up with the closest psychiatric hospital's staff waiting for them at the next stop.
Luckily enough, the train was almost empty.
Annabel took the tickets from Tom's hand and found their seats. She watched the young man hoist their suitcases on the luggage rack as she sat down, the velvet fabric tickling her palm as she grazed the seat with her hand.
Tom took place in front of her, tilted his head to hint at the girl's trousers:
"They look good on you"
She beamed at the compliment.
"Thank you. My mother didn't think the same. I understand why men wear them though, they are terribly comfortable!"
At the mention of her mother, Annabel recalled the conversation the two of them had had, when the girl had shared her wish to join her friends for the summer. She had not lied, about visiting Elena's holiday house. She had only… bent the truth. Annabel would be meeting her friends indeed. After a day trip with Tom.
She did not exactly know how it all started, but the fact that they had been paired up for the herbarium project might have been one of the reasons… Just like the fact that Elena's holiday house was surprisingly close to a village the Slytherin had wished to visit for quite some time. Which, supposedly, hosted the oldest oak tree of the country. Which could be a real asset for their herbarium. Or so he had said…
And when Tom had written her in July, sharing his plan for the next month, just for the sake of making conversation, Annabel had asked if she could tag along. In order to share the ride. Because Elena's chimneys were out of order. And because she did not know anything about the Muggles' means of transportation and would need a helping hand. Or so she had said…
"What's the name of our stop again? Great Hangleton?"
Tom nodded and Annabel reached for her purse that she placed on her lap and rummaged through her belongings, looking for the map she had bought earlier that day at the station.
"What are you reading?" Tom asked, hinting at the thick red book Annabel had pulled out of her bag.
"Nothing worth to talk about" she replied, about to shove the item back in her purse when Tom grasped the heavy volume.
A sneering smile stretched his lips once he glanced at the cover and Annabel found herself begging for the prefect not to open the book. She had not skimmed through the work yet, but given the title, she could only imagine what it dealt with…
"The Future Bride's Guide to Love and Intimacy" Tom read with an evident amusement.
She leaned over the table, trying to snatch the book out of the Slytherin's hands but he lifted the book up with a smirk.
She cursed at him and slapped him on the shoulder instead.
"Gentle now young lady, I'm just having a look at your fascinating beach read" he scolded her as he pushed her hand away and looked at the table of content with a light chuckle.
Annabel sighed and crossed her arms in front of her chest, glancing through the window with a scowl.
"Obviously I am not the one who chose to read this" she sulked.
"Obviously not" he replied with a smirk.
"Is that one of your obligatory readings? Well, I must confess that I am actually curious to find out what they teach girls like you"
She glared at him, to conceal her shame, but when Tom turned the first pages and began to read the first chapter out loud in obvious hilarity, she thought that she might as well have been naked in the middle of the train that this would not have been any more embarrassing.
"About coitus, a few basic rules. First, do not initiate. It is men's privilege to decide the proper time and place for intercourse. You may, however, inform your husband of your fertile days, in order to facilitate pregnancy" he sneered, articulating each word with a clarity that made Annabel squirm on her seat.
"Second, be virtuous"
Tom let out a small ironic laugh, lifting the book up in the air again as the girl was trying to get her book back once more.
"Men have innate needs that women do not share, and it is the woman's duty to satisfy her husband's demands in any way he finds suitable. Men and women's bodies differ in such a way that men's orgasm is necessary for reproduction, which is not the case for women. We thus suggest that you forget any association between enjoyment and sex and focus on your duty to bear children, which is the true purpose of coupling. Any other way of trying to make sex pleasurable for women should be perceived as sinful"
Annabel cowered on her seat with each word the young man emphasised, fighting the urge to hide her face behind her hands. If people could die of shame, she would certainly be six feet under. Finally, after long and painfully embarrassing minutes, Tom stopped reading, shaking his head.
"Now this is the most absurd thing I've read in a very long time" he declared as he shut the book and handed it back to the girl.
"Oh I'm sorry, are you an expert of the matter or something?" she retorted, strangely vexed. She could not explain to herself what upset her the most, that he was making fun of things she had not the strictest idea about or that he was basically rubbing in her face how more experienced than her he was.
"I'm not" he simply replied. "But if I was married, I would certainly ensure that my wife finds sex as pleasurable as I do"
"Well then, I suppose that the future Mrs Riddle will consider herself a very happy woman" she snapped with crimson cheeks before she shoved the book back in her purse.
By Merlin, that train ride promised to be long.