Surprisingly, Tom managed to sleep well. He didn't have any nightmares or even voices. Sadly, the common room clock rang and he had to get back up from his short two hour nap.
After a few minutes, some stretching and yawning, he got up, put his robes back on, took his wand and put it in his pocket. It was currently 11 PM and he would have to patrol the halls until 3 in the morning. This wasn't going to be easy, but Tom was sure that he would do great, now that he got some sleep and sanity back.
On the bright side, Tom didn't really have much to worry about, except for that. He had parents who loved him and cherished him. Even with that, these constant nightmares and the voice managed to overshadow that. He wouldn't be truly happy as long as it stayed in his subconsciousness.
Apart from that, he was lonely. In fact, lonelier than he would ever admit. No one would ever want to be friends with freaky little Riddle. That foul, orphaned mudblood. It never really bothered him, but ever since he got adopted, he couldn't get rid of that cold feeling. How would he find friends? He didn't have any experience with that. Yes, he could win anyone's affection and trust, but the problem was that he was never genuine that way. It would all be for his own gain, not for some silly thing called friendship. Also, he couldn't expect people to come to him. Why would they do so? He never tried, so why would they? They don't like him in the first place. But he hoped that someone, be it only one person, would be kind enough to genuinely be friends with him. Thinking about that possibility made him warm and happy. But now, he would sadly be occupied with the prefect patrol that he so dreaded.
"If that little demon comes near me again, I won't hesitate to hex it. That thing's owner should be more thoughtful.", he remembered Walburga's cat and how it's claws scratched his legs.
He did have a point, it was rather annoying to wash your pants everyday because they were blood stained on the inside. He finally left the common room and arrived at the hall. It was quite gloomy, the only light sources there were big lit up torches on the stone walls. He quickly got out of there and started walking around some halls on the upper floors. It was boring, as always. He was thankful that the little demon wasn't anywhere to be found, at least for now. The only thing that happened was that he sent numerous young students back to their common rooms, while taking away some house points from them. There were students of every house, boys and girls.
"What are you doing here at this time? Shouldn't you be in your common room?"
"Why aren't you in bed? Get some sleep while you can."
"Sneaking out? You really need to practice not getting caught."
"If you didn't know, stealing is prohibited. And you didn't even try to steal anything remotely useful for that matter, only your house's points.", were some of the things Tom said.
"10 points from Slytherin."
"15 points from Gryffindor."
"5 points from Ravenclaw."
"10 points from Hufflepuff."
It was getting quite repetitive. Tom couldn't wait for his shift to be over.
"If only I could send myself to bed. That would be convenient", he thought.
After almost two hours of patrolling, he went up some staircases and arrived near the Gryffindor common room. Nothing interesting was happening there, which was quite strange. Every time he went there, someone was bound to be sneaking out. He was honestly surprised. After that, he started going down the staircases.
As he was going down, he barely caught a glimpse of a shadowed figure, lit up only by some torches. They disappeared in the shadows. Instead of shouting at them, Tom would try to sneak up on them. He used the quietening charm and started to speed walk towards them. Because they were in almost total darkness, they couldn't sense that Tom was behind them, even if he was using lumos, although he was careful not to use it too much. From what he could see, the person that was sneaking out was a girl and a Gryffindor. He also noticed that they were walking to the Ravenclaw common room. That wasn't a good sign.
He almost got up to her, but at that exact moment, they walked out into a lit up hall. She looked behind herself and flinched. Immediately after, she began to run as fast as possible. Tom did the same.
"Stupefy!", she shouted.
Thankfully, a measly charm like that wasn't going to stop him. He cast a shield around himself non-verbally. They were going into a dark hallway again, so there was a chance that she would get away.
Before she could, Tom cast petrificus totalus on her. A purple beam of light came out of his wand, and she fell on the floor instantly. She didn't have time to react because he didn't even say anything out loud. With that, Tom caught up to her and resorted to casting lumos again. To his surprise, the girl was the same one that he warned the same day.
"Good evening.", he said to her,
"I see that you haven't taken my warning very seriously."
"Well, you already know what comes next. A promise is a promise, after all.", he said to her.
She was laying on the floor with magical purple binds all over her, and her wand was out of her reach. Not that it mattered, because she was binded. She was frozen from Tom's cold stare and wished she could just disappear. Her face went as pale one could be.
"Your name, miss?", he asked.
"And don't think about lying, I will be checking if you told me the truth or not, and if you lie, your punishment will be more severe. So, spare us both and tell the truth.", he demanded.
And much as she would like to lie, she couldn't. She was already scared enough.
"O-Olive Hornby.", she muttered.
"Well, miss Hornby, I would like you to listen careful to your list of "hobbies" you will do tomorrow.", he said.
"First, you will be spending all your breaks cleaning and polishing the old treasures of our school. Second, after all of your classes are done, you will be going to the forbidden forest for one hour, with only a lantern to keep you company. And third, you will be losing house points. Fifty of them, specifically. I will have a talk with the Gryffindor prefects to limit your time outside of your common room at night."
After that, he unpetrified her. She hoped that she would be free to go, but she was wrong.
"And don't think about going anywhere, because I will be escorting you to your common room.", he said.
Both of them were uncomfortable walking with each other. It was very awkward. At last, they arrived in front of the Gryffindor common room. She muttered the password to the portrait, and they parted ways.
"Goodnight.", Tom said to her, without expecting a response.
And respond she did not. Tom was glad to have that out of the way, it was irritable to him, too.
"Half past two. Only a half hour more."
"Finally, it will come to an end.", he thought, relieved.
That particular half hour was uneventful, but Tom was thinking about what he would be doing tomorrow. Sleep and study, of course, but what else? Trying to make friends?
"Oh, Riddle, you really think that somebody would like you? The best they could do is to pretend, they can barely even tolerate you. No one would ever want a filthy little mudblood who has muggle parents to be around them. You are a spare, Riddle. Nobody would care if you were gone. Remember that."
As much as he tried to ignore those words, he couldn't. They affected him greatly. What if this was true? What if truly nobody liked him? Variations of those words echoed in his head every day. And he couldn't make them stop.
He could feel his throat tightening and eyes swelling. Tears formed in his eyes and started falling down his cheeks. Soon after, he started sobbing, and he wanted to get out of the halls as quickly as possible. When he arrived at the Slytherin common room, he didn't bother getting ready for bed, instead, he just took off his robes and went straight to bed. Since he wasn't alone, he cast a quietening charm again and a silencing charm around him, so that he couldn't hear them, and they couldn't hear him, while he continued to sob quietly.
He wanted to sleep, and he tried his best to ignore his mental state and current situation. He did eventually fall asleep from exhaustion. Little did he know, somebody actually cared for him in this school.