A Magical Journey Continues

Rescuing Tom

"You are getting it now, boy!" David yelled, slapping Tom hard.

The boy winced in pain and tried to protect his face.

"You are going to your room right away and you're lucky the matron doesn't allow me to properly punish you or I would teach you a lesson! In your room, now!"

He hit him at his back one more time before throwing him in his room. Tom staggered while the door was forcefully thrown closed and even locked. Scowling in anger, Tom furiously wiped at his eyes to keep his tears out of them. Stupid bloody Billy Stubbs! The bastard had been taunting Tom so much lately that he just wanted to curse him.

A soft ticking on his window had Tom look over and scowl. Another owl. The black eagle owl from the Blacks if he was right, and he usually was anyway. He strode over to the window and slammed his palms against the glass, scaring the creature.

"Get out of here you stupid bird!" he hissed.
"I'm in enough trouble as it is! I don't need you around making it worse!"

He'd been getting more and more owls around lately, and it started to get noticed by the others. The matron held an annoyingly close eye on him ever since he'd returned, and David always had some more work for him to do. As if that wasn't enough, Billy Stubbs and his gang had apparently decided they needed to make up for the past year where they hadn't been able to bully him because of his absence and kept bothering him at any moment of the day. Because of all that, Tom had been sending the owls back to their owners more and more often without accepting the letters, and he hadn't yet been able to send any kind of reply to any of them.

Sudden commotion in the hall had him forget temporarily about his misfortune and he pressed an ear against the door to better hear.

"Riddle?" he heard Billy Stubbs' incredulous voice.
"What would you want with that freak? He's bloody creepy!"

The next thing that was heard was a loud shout in surprise and shock, again in Billy's voice, which made Tom grin. The little bastard deserved to be slapped around some. Even better, Crucioed.

"Leave it, sis. This dirt of society isn't worth it," someone said coldly.

Tom's eyes widened when he recognized the voice as Seth Knight and he stepped back from the door with a scowl. What were the Knight twins doing here of all places.

"Well, how about someone finally tells us where we can find Tom already!" he heard Hope shout in aggravation.

Tom sighed. Quickly, he took the loose nail out of the broken floorboard and put it in the lock of his door. He'd done this several times before, and by this point, he was able to pick the lock within ten seconds flat. The door swung open easily enough and he stepped out, ignoring the pang of shame he felt when he saw how sharply dressed his friends were compared to him.

"Hey," he greeted them as casual as he could.
"How are you two doing on this fine summer evening?"

Seth and Hope both scowled and Hope stepped up to him.

"How are we doing?" she asked in an annoyed hiss.
"Not one bloody letter! Do you have any idea how worried we all are?!"

Tom glowered at the girl and pushed past her.

"Let's not talk about that here," he said.

"Fine," Seth grumbled, stopping his twin before Hope could explode.
"We have a carriage waiting in front. We'll talk at home."

Tom tensed and looked at his friends with a shocked expression which caused Hope to snort.

"You didn't think we came all the way just for a 'hi', right?" she told him.
"We figured that since you never answered, you were probably being mistreated by these m-people, so we came to save you!"