A/N: a consistent update? who? me? never. Though I do have two more already written just needing to be edited so you'll have a few more at least. Please check out CountessRose on Youtube and Twitch as she has begun a podfic for Compassion and art to go with it. I will be adding the art at the beginning of every chapter.

Once the initial shock wore off, Tom didn't really notice too much of a difference in his day-to-day Hogwarts experience, except that maybe any of the Slytherins who previously pestered him seemed too distracted to bother with it. His belongings went mostly untouched and very little was said to him or about him, which was actually a nice change of pace. There was even one first year girl of "questionable" family heritage, but two purebloods seemed to have taken a shine to her and one of them had declared they were cousins, and no one seemed to care enough to pursue the matter. Tom thought the first year was rather on the lucky side, all things considered.

And honestly, it would have been lovely overall, but now he had friends, which was still something he was getting used to after years of having the bare minimum of social interaction at the orphanage, but Tom couldn't say he wanted anything bad to happen to Mrs. Chadwick, and Mia, Tammy, and Lyall were all worried about their families as well. Probably less so than Chadwick, as their families all lived in smaller Wizarding Villages away from London, but still the worry was present in them.

Like Headmaster Dippet said, there was almost no post for two or three weeks, then it slowly began trickling in. The owls seemed annoyed, though Tom didn't know if that was from whatever warding was done, or from being poked and prodded at by ministry officials, or maybe from being cooped up for a few weeks. Not that he noticed except in the exchanges his fellow students had with them, given he never got any mail. If he had the money to, he would have subscribed to the Daily Prophet just to have something delivered to him every day, and also to keep up on the news.

It was something that most of the students griped and complained about loudly and Tom usually just nodded his head in agreement whenever the topic came up, but was otherwise indifferent to. He often completely ignored the complaints, but at least within their study group, it was more aimed at worrying about how their own family was doing less than pretending to care about the mail itself and the lack of attention they were receiving.

That changed about half way into October. An owl drifted down and landed on his shoulder, startling him. He blinked at it, trying to place it- it was a tawny owl, which was a common breed, along with barn owls, but he didn't know immediately who it belonged to.

It hooted gently and held out a leg, to which several letters were tied together, along with a couple folded up papers. Muggle, from the looks of them- which wasn't too odd, if only because even the pureblood students were having their families send them anything they could about what was happening with the muggle's war. He wondered if the owl had mixed him up with another student when he saw the first letter on the pile was addressed to him in an elegantly slanted cursive script.

He paused and untied the bundle and found the muggle papers were select pages and tied neatly to another letter that had his name sloppily written on it. Behind it was a letter to Chadwick and he quickly put together at least some of it-

Mrs. Chadwick had sent him post, which he didn't really know why given he doubted there was any specific reason she needed to reach him, but he appreciated it nonetheless.

The owl hooted again, looking offended that he was taking so long and Tom pulled the letter for Chadwick out and held it out to the owl. "Is this what you want?" He asked.

The owl's eyes narrowed as if insulted for half a moment before it plucked the envelope from his hands and took off, circling for a moment before gliding to the Gryffindor table. He hoped none of the Slytherins would notice, given plenty of owls were circling and it might be easily missed, but he never put it past them.

He opened Mrs. Chadwick's letter first, as it seemed only polite, though he was curious about the second. He wasn't terribly surprised to see it wasn't pages of correspondence, but still unfolded it gently,

Tom,

I was coming home from work a few days ago and you can imagine my surprise when a young man was pacing in front of my home!

When he saw me he asked if I was the woman who took you to King's Cross on September 1st and when I confirmed, he explained he was a friend of yours from Wool's. He wanted your address so he could send you a letter and I realized it was silly of me to not realize the position you are in- I'm sure your head of house has stressed that we shouldn't reveal anything about magic to our muggle friends, but I thought it unfair to keep you from corresponding with your friends, especially with everything going on, so I told him that I could mail it when I send mine to my son and he seemed relieved to not have to pay for the postage.

I let him know that if you write back I would drop it by Wool's when I had time, and if he or anyone else had anything else they wished to send, I would pass it along to you.

Best wishes,

Mrs. Chadwick

Tom reread the letter once more and then folded it and put it back in his envelope. The first letter he'd ever received was his Hogwarts letter, which was still folded and in its original envelope and tucked gently inside his first year Defense book. The next bit was the Christmas cards that he'd received, which he'd tucked into his other books. He'd likely tuck this one in as well to keep it safe, but the prospect of more to come was oddly comforting.

But that left the other letter and the paper clippings- The only one who knew where Mrs. Chadwick lived would be Jack- which made something in Tom's stomach turn ever so slightly, and he felt his cheeks beginning to burn when he opened the letter and confirmed that Jack had left his messy signature on the bottom of the paper.

Unlike Mrs. Chadwick's gentle script on parchment, Jack's handwriting was a barely legible scribble on smudged ruled paper that had been clearly ripped from one of the notebooks at school. It was written in pencil and there were fingerprints marking up the edges and smudging on a few of the words, meaning Tom had to work to read the messy writing;

Tom,

If you're reading this then I managed to track down the lady who took you to school and got the address for your school- huzzah!

I'm sure you've heard by now, but King George is taking us to war- Cole says I'm not allowed to leave to join the military and to be honest I don't think I want to either, even though I only have one more year at wool's anyway. They're talking about moving us to the country and they've been making us turn all of the lights off at dark in case the Germans come to try and bomb us.

I told Cole I wanted to write, but she said I would have to buy the postage myself, "war times" and all. I managed to snag some of the papers from the bin by Green's and ripped out the ones I thought you'd want. I didn't know what you could get for papers up by your school.

Let me know you haven't died,

Jack

Tom blinked and reread it one more time, the weird feeling in his gut refusing to lessen. And he didn't really have any time to reflect on it because the first bell began to ring, signaling that he had ten minutes to get to his first class of the day and Tom did the only thing he could do- he shoved them into his Transfiguration textbook.

It took a few days- and several sheets of parchment, most of which went into the bin- to formulate a response. It felt odd to be writing to someone, at least just normal correspondence. He knew people did it, heard about it in stories and he'd cherished the letters he'd received thus far, but they had all but in regards to a specific thing- his Hogwart letter and then the others wishing him a Merry Christmas, not just correspondence for correspondence sake.

And it was even more odd because there were plenty of things Tom could think of that he wanted to write, but Statue of Secrecy and all that meant most anything he wanted to say he couldn't or he had to switch it around and use code. Which felt like more lying- and while Tom definitely appreciated the art of the silver tongue and twisting words to mean something slightly different than what it sounded like, he was not nearly as fond of outright lying. It felt crude and unintelligent. He also didn't like to admit it, but he was starting to notice that it turned his stomach into knots after a while. He'd never noticed that before coming to Hogwarts but then again he couldn't quite say he had friends before coming to Hogwarts. Jack was the closest thing before then and it had always felt… odd, trying to be normal like the other children at the orphanage, when he was so clearly abnormal.

After resisting the urge to chew his quill down to the nub he decided on talking about the grounds and his classmates and other social interactions without mentioning the magical bits. He thought it would be a trying process, but it actually came quite easy after the first few sentences.

He was just finishing off addressing the letter and folding it to tuck into an envelope for Mrs. Chadwick when he felt eyes on him while we worked at one of the tables in the Slytherin common room. It was later and most of the younger students had wandered off to bed, but it wasn't quite curfew yet. He resisted the urge to frown when he saw Avery walking over and made sure the letter to Jack was safely tucked in the envelope to Mrs. Chadwick.

"Riddle," Avery said curtly.

"Avery," Tom replied just as cooly. He didn't like not knowing which way Avery would act- he'd been indifferent to him at the beginning of their first year, along with Mulciber, but when Nott had begun picking on him, the both would occasionally chime in. He'd wondered why his parents had sent him a Christmas card, but he'd learned the Avery's sent all of Slytherin House one. Then, at Merrythought's instruction, he'd acted cordial and even just a tad friendly when he'd been getting help for their Defense Classes. It was like watching a ball bounce back and forth between two walls.

Avery's eyes strayed over to the quill and ink in front of Tom but seemed distracted. "You and your little friends all still do your study group in the library, right?"

Tom started to open his mouth and then closed it- Chadwick, and likely Tammy as well, wouldn't be pleased about the Slytherin boy joining after his little exchange he'd had with the two Gryffindors on the first day of classes. Chadwick hadn't mentioned it to anyone, but Lupin had, and both Mia and Tammy had been furious at the exchange. "Yes," He said instead, keeping it simple.

Avery picked at something on one of his nails, still looking distracted, or perhaps embarrassed, "Do you think I could get some more help with Defense work?" At least he sounded a bit sheepish, like he knew exactly how awkward this was.

Tom didn't answer immediately- He wouldn't speak on behalf of the group as a whole since he had an idea of what the answer would be if left the Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs at the table, but that didn't mean Tom had to turn him down flat- Nott had backed off ever so slightly in his bullying the previous year when Avery had been around, and while Nott was still distracted with whatever new victims there were among the first years, Tom knew that wouldn't last forever.

"I don't see why not," Tom said casually, tucking his correspondence into one of his textbooks as he began to pack up his things for the evening. "Though if Chadwick is present, you'll need to apologize," Tom added on.

"Apologize?" Avery said, sounding both incredulous and petulant at the same time, impressively enough. "What for?"

"You know why," Tom said, throwing the strap up on his shoulder for his bag. No point in going into it, given he knew Avery knew exactly what he had done. "You and I both know Chadwick isn't a muggleborn- his uncle is the head of the Potter family and the Heir of Gryffindor. Not bright to go around insulting people like that."

Avery stared at him tight-lipped and then shook his head, "Nevermind, I don't need help that badly," he said, trying to sound nonchalant, but turning quickly and heading back towards the stairs that led down into the boys' dormitory.

Tom felt a smirk on the edge of his lips and banished it, pushing his face back into the calm shield he kept up while he was in the Slytherin Common room. He gave it a moment before he moved to follow him, wary just in case he or Nott tried anything as he came through the door, but both were ignoring him and Mulciber gave a slight nod at him, which was probably the best thing he could hope for.