TORMENT (Harry Potter Sequel)

Chapter Seven

He pulled his frail body upwards and allowed himself to be put in the grasp of the matron. She tugged him outside his room and into the orphanage hallway. She looked both ways to make sure there was no one watching them before grabbing him again. Silently and solemnly, his head looking down guiltily at the floor, Tom was pulled towards the matron's office, knowing full well what is in store for him. How stupid he had been for thinking that he deserved not to have another one of those sessions.

Tom's eyes shot open. He sat upright in his bed. Underneath the luscious covers, his small frame was shivering all over. His teeth chattered and his wide eyes stared unfocused in front of him. He had to calm his breathing. Just like he had frequently for the past few months, Tom was waking up in the late hours of the night from a nightmare. Luckily he had never screamed out or anything stupid like that; he would be so embarrassed if that ever happened. He shared the dorm with 3 other students and he had already annoyed them enough with all his other weirdness. Waking them up constantly would definitely not help him any more. His face was drenched in cold sweat but he was too scared to move and wipe it off. A small sound from the corner of the room sent Tom's head darted instantly in its general direction. Slowly he brought his head back to its previous position. He knew his mind liked to play on tricks on him, especially when everything was all dark and quiet. He tried to relax his tensed body and lay his head back down onto the pillow. As much as he wanted to though, he could not manage to force his eyes back shut. Every time he did, they would clamp back open and with much more resistance.

He hated himself for this. He hated his fear. He hated this sadness. He hated this regret. He hated this... weirdness.

"Freak..." Tom mumbled to himself, his hands clutching the covers. He truly was a freak. Even here in Hogwarts, he was nothing but: He was put in Slytherin for god's sake!

He couldn't even do magic! Or at least, not that well. Who had ever heard of a wizard that couldn't do magic! What a freak! When he had first joined, he had been hopeless. He couldn't do it even to save his life but as the first term had crawled by at a snail's pace, he had slowly made progress. Now his wand could produce small sparks which was a huge step up from nothing. It would be a huge kick in the gut, more than everything else, if Tom had discovered that he was a squib. At least the promise that perhaps in the future something could happen, was there. He had been kicked down with everything else (his lack of Wizarding World knowledge, his negative talent with potions, his inability to read and his complete and utter failure that is his broomsticks skills) that if this had not improved, he may have given up altogether.

It was actually this progress with Tom's spells that had convinced him to decide to stay the Christmas Holidays at Hogwarts. Sure Hogwarts had the obvious gravitas, the beautiful architecture and views, the huge amounts of space and just incredible wonders that Tom had never seen or heard of before but there was something about the orphanage's familiarity that made it oddly charming to him. By all objective counts it was worse than Hogwarts but... Tom never felt he belonged in Hogwarts. Where Tom felt he belonged was in his small, cold room, with his small bed and his broken blankets underneath the always-open window that was too high up for him to close.

But now there was a promise of progress; a promise of perhaps belonging- Tom was eager to latch onto it. He heard some teachers say that Hogwarts tried to be a home for all students. He really wanted that to be true of a freak like him as well.

He wondered what time it was. Still unable to sleep, Tom instead looked upwards at the ceiling above. Being in the Dungeons made it excusable that the ceilings would be damp and dirty but it still did not make it any less disgusting to look at.