Tom was pacing around the castle, doing his prefect duties. He'd already sent a class worth of students back to their respective common rooms. But, after one of his encounters, he saw something from the window. A red flash emanated from the window, lightening up the small hallway Tom was in.
Needless to say, Tom felt... uneasy after that.
What in the world was happening in that forest?
He rushed over to the window and looked outside. The only thing that could be seen were the red sparkles left by the spark. Nothing was visible over the tall trees of the forest.
Tom looked at his watch. It was currently quarter to three. Myrtle's detention and his patrolling duty would end at the same time. How lucky.
He started speed-walking to the entrance of the school. It would be a while before he got there, because he was five floors above. As he went there, nothing caught his eye, not even a sound could be heard. The silence was almost deafening.
It was quite boring. But, he couldn't shake off that feeling of unease.
What had happened there?
He had a gut feeling that it was something bad. He just hoped that nothing bad happened to her. And all of this was because he was so careless. She could of easily let him be punched and all of this wouldn't of happened.
But why didn't she just let it happen?
Come to think of it, the outcome would be much better. Her quick, emotional response caused this. Funny, how much those feelings could ruin you. And this was exactly what he had believed.
Love is but a weakness, meddling with your actions.
But it didn't feel right to believe such a thing. Even if he couldn't fully understand why she did it, he couldn't argue against it, either.
All of a sudden, a loud creak echoed through the hallways. It was from the entrance. And along with it came a sharp cry. Tom flinched a little and started to walk faster.
This was it, then. Something bad had happened, indeed.
Tom was half asleep, he couldn't deal with this now, on top of all the other that happened in the last few days.
The cries were getting clearer and clearer, and footsteps could be heard on the stairs. Soon enough, a figure came, rushing down the hallway. It was the caretaker, and he was carrying a girl in his arms. The girl's eyes were puffed up and swollen after crying for so long. Her eyes widened after seeing him. She started to scream some unintelligible words while looking at him with fearful eyes.
Tom didn't give off any expression at that. She deserved it. She is the one who constantly bullies Myrtle. She was the one who was careless enough to knock him off his feet when he was at his worst.
But, did she?
As she faded from his view, so did his soulless expression. His face now had saddened, pitiful look. Although he didn't see any physical trauma, whatever happened must of been bad. He couldn't bring himself to think about it, so he left it at that.
But... what if something between her and Myrtle happened?
He tried to answer that question, but the only things he predicted were bad ones, so he preferred not to think about that.
After this brief sighting, he didn't notice that he was standing in place for all this time. He decided to continue going down to the entrance hall. His patrol and the detention would end in around ten minutes.
While above the entrance hall by a few floors, he heard a loud creak below. Then, a loud bang shook the school's walls. It came from the entrance door. Tom started walking faster. He wanted to know what was happening. He went down numerous staircases, hallways and passages, all while seemingly ignoring the footsteps that could be heard in the distance.
If it wasn't for the bright yellow light of the lantern, they would of surely bypassed each other.
Tom's eyes widened at the sudden encounter.
Myrtle's face was very pale, and she looked very drained. Her glasses, which were in her pocket, were practically useless now - full of cracks and barely held together.
She had minor scratches on her hands. Nothing more, nothing less.
,,Are you okay? What happened?", he asked in an unsure voice.
,,I'll tell you tomorrow, I really can't bring myself to talk right now, I'm sorry."
,,Anyway, here's your lantern.", she said while extending her arm right in front of his face.
He quickly took the lantern out of her hand, and before he knew it, she was gone.
Instead of bringing Tom more closure, this encounter only sparked more questions.
Feeling exhausted, Tom transfigured the lantern back into the piece of stone that it was and headed back to his common room. He tossed the stone in front of the entrance and hopped into the common room. The only good thing that came out of this was the peace and quiet of the common room. Ten of his most annoying roommates were out in the damp, cold forest. At least there was some thing to be happy about.
He collapsed on his bed and slept until the morning.
Strangely enough, nothing disturbed his sleep this time.
The next morning, he woke up at around 9 AM, just the right time to get ready for the day ahead. Normally, there were two possibilities: his sleep would be cut short because of his repetitive nightmares, or just because of Abraxas and his shenanigans.
Thankfully, both were absent this time.
Abraxas was no where to be seen. Tom had no idea what happened to him. Eh, it probably didn't matter. The more time he was out of Tom's sight, the better.
Tom slowly got out of bed and headed to the bathroom. He completely forgot that he didn't change at all, so he actually didn't have to do much, only fix his hair. Last time he tried, he couldn't even get a firm grip on his comb. He hoped that it would be different today. The medicine was supposed to work already, after all.
Noticing the loose bandages on his hands, his hope grew. So, he decided to remove them and discard them with magic. He was pleased to see that they were back to normal, except for the mild blue tint that was still present.
,,Good enough.", Tom thought.
He grabbed the comb and got to work.
Contrast to what he thought, there wasn't much to fix. After feeling that he fixed it well enough, he put some hair gel and finished.
You couldn't really do much without your reflection.
After that, he took the books he needed for the day and left the common room.
The day was uneventful, for the most part. Nothing special happened in any of his classes, they all went well.
What worried Tom was how he would resolve his situation with Myrtle.
Last time he saw her, she was in a really bad mood. No discussion, no explanation. Nothing. Even before that, she was embarrassed when they'd gotten cornered by the Slytherins.
What would he do now? Try to find her? Talk things out with her?
But what if she wanted to be alone? To process whatever happened in the forest? To think about that encounter with the Slytherins?
She did mention that she would tell him when she was ready. Maybe it would be right to leave her to her own thoughts?
Or, maybe she didn't even want to be around him. That was also a possibility, as much as Tom didn't want to consider it.
Nevertheless, he made up his mind. He'd give her time to think about all of this.
His classes had finally ended. Strangely enough, it didn't feel quite as relieving as it was yesterday. He'd have to go on his patrolling duty again. Not to mention he also had N.E.W.T.s to prepare this year, if he wanted to do something after graduating.
Thoughts riddled his mind as he walked down a long corridor on his way to the common room. Right as he left the corridor, he noticed a student and a teacher standing a few meters away from him. They were talking about something that Tom couldn't hear quite well from where he was standing. The student had a red tie and the teacher had hair that no one could mistake. Auburn, ginger hair. It made Tom remember about something he was dreading.
His meeting with Dumbledore.
Before Dumbledore could move an inch, Tom was already out of there.
He'd completely forgot about his soon to be meeting with Dumbledore. And he already knew that it would be awful. That man despised him ever since he met him, despite everything he did being a complete contrast of what Dumbledore's idea of him was. It appeared as if Dumbledore knew his true intentions. His past, monstrous, intentions. He read him as if he were a mere book. But, that was all part of one past chapter in Tom's life. Surely, Dumbledore would be wise enough to read the next chapter, hopefully forgetting all the things before it.
Right?