***
To say that Aurora sincerely detested Spinner's End would be an understatement. The rickety house groaned and creaked all throughout the hot summer nights. The dark and murky atmosphere surrounding the small home made Aurora nearly yearn for her old Manor, which was only slightly less creepy. Severus Snape's home was not much different from his office at Hogwarts, with bottles and jars of different gruesome ingredients on shelves like decorations. The peeling wallpaper added no charm to the withering halls.
Aurora's room was small. She didn't mind the size, however it was the utter loneliness she could sense seeping through the peeling walls and creaking floorboards which unsettled her. Her godfather had informed Aurora that it used to be his childhood bedroom. It was bare, with a twin sized wooden bed, the only other artifacts in the dingy room was a rickety steel chair, as well as a medium sized circular mirror hung unevenly on the wall. She was starting to understand Snape much better in this environment.
Her godfather was rarely at the house— he'd be at Hogwarts on most days. She had learned to cook meals on her own in the few weeks that she'd been there. As lonely and desperate for human contact as she was, she had yet to call for Tom. She had found herself in a depression of sorts. She had not responded to any of her friends letters, nor had she spoken to Draco. Most days, she was laying in bed, her thoughts never leaving the events of that treacherous night.
Her magic had not taken kindly to her new attitude— on harder days that'd end up with her crying, items would implode and wind would pick up outside due to her frustration that'd been festering for too long. On one night after Rory had a particularly nasty nightmare, which included both versions of Tom Riddle, the whole neighborhood had nearly gotten swept up in an accidental tornado. Uncle Severus had not been pleased. The next night, he had informed her that Dumbledore pulled some strings at the Ministry, allowing for her to use her magic as she wished. Dumbledore had also passed the message to get it out, probably hoping for Rory to not accidentally murder a pack of muggles in some freak accident.
After yet another night of restlessness, she found herself staring at the blank wall of her room as usual. Aurora felt her powerful magic swimming uneasily in her veins, making her irritated already, on top of a night with little sleep. She had decided to get some fresh air, not being able to stand the murky atmosphere any longer. She had almost grabbed the diary out of instinct, however, as soon as her fingers touched the black leather she had flinched back as if burnt. No, she thought to herself, it's a simple walk— I can live without him.
Glancing back at the diary one last time, she gently shut her bedroom door. Quietly stepping down the squeaky stairs, she crossed the foyer swiftly and exited the front door. She had to shield her face from the bright summer sun, not having left the the small home in weeks. The air smelled slightly of petrol as well as the scent of burning nearby factories, but it was pleasant nonetheless.
She walked aimlessly, passing the other houses in the neighborhood, all the houses varying in different levels of shabbiness. She was wearing jean shorts and a blue tank top that Draco certainly would not have approved of. Aurora stopped herself upon seeing a small abandoned park not too far away from her new home.
She plopped down on the only swing not broken, and proceeded to kick the ground— resulting in her going back and forth in a rocking motion. Her white chucks were starting to get dirty from the damp dirt that lay beneath her, but she paid no mind to it as she narrowed her eyes and made the nearby wood chips levitate. It had been so long since she intentionally used magic, that she barely had to concentrate in order to keep the small wooden pieces afloat.
She had been swinging there for almost ten minutes until she heard a rustling noise behind one of the larger bushes surrounding the ghostly park. Aurora raised a hand, uprooting the bush in question, only to see a curly haired boy looking like a deer caught in the headlights. Aurora tossed the uprooted bush to the side and narrowed her eyes at her new watchful companion.
The first thing Aurora noticed was his peculiar body language. He was holding his arms to his chest and awkwardly looked at the ground. She could tell right off the bat that this was a very shy and introverted boy. He had the most beautiful dark golden skin, with random freckles spattered across his cheeks and nose. He was tall and lanky, with hyper pigmented hazel eyes. She shamelessly admired his deep brown curly locks, his shabby and tattered clothing not escaping her notice as well.
"Hello," said Aurora pleasantly.
The shy boy didn't answer, instead finding interest in his left shoe; which was untied. Getting up off of her swing, she walked over to him until she was stood right in front of the boy.
"It's considered rude manners not to greet someone back," she said lightly, "my name is Aurora, but you can call me Rory. What's your name?"
"Francis," he spoke so quietly that Rory had to
use her gift of assumption to put the pieces together.
"I think I'll call you Frankie," replied Aurora with a dazzling warm smile, "well are you just going to continue to watch me creepily from afar, or are you going to join me?"
The boy, Frankie, blushed and awkwardly shuffled to the swing that she had just occupied. Shrugging, Aurora assumed that he was a muggle. They were in a non-wizarding neighborhood, for one, and for two, he didn't seem to recognize the fact that she'd just been doing magic. Or if he did notice, the boy was just too socially awkward to say so. Making the best of what was now a strange day, Aurora sat in the swing right next to his— the chain which held it together was very close to snapping completely.
"So you live around here?" She asked, trying to make conversation with the sheepish boy named Francis.
"I-I live close-by," he replied and blushed again before adding quietly, "in an orphanage."
Aurora furrowed her brows at the boy who seemed only able to communicate through whispering. "An orphanage? What's that like?" She asked, genuinely curious.
Frankie graced her with an uncomfortable glance with his round eyes before replying, "It sucks. W-where do you live?"
She sighed and kicked off the ground to swing and responded, "Not far. I'm staying with my emo Godfather. Got disowned from my real family this year. He lives just around the corner. How far away is your orphanage?"
"About a ten minute walk through London. I come to this park sometimes, Wool's is awful," he whispered as his hazel eyes darted to the ground.
"Wool's? I've heard of that before," said Aurora as she thought about it. Wool's Orphanage, she knew she'd heard it somewhere... it then dawned on her that that is where Tom used to stay when he was growing up. "I had a friend that grew up there a long time ago," she admitted. What did it matter? It's not as if this muggle stranger would know of Tom Riddle who turned into one ruthless Voldemort.
"Really? I-is he like you too?"
Aurora planted her white shoes on the ground firmly, stopping the gradual momentum she'd created on the blasphemous swing. Carefully, she replied, "What do you mean 'like me?'"
The muggle boy fiddled with one of the many holes on his blue jeans and replied, "Got powers. I didn't believe my eyes that there was someone out there like me." Before Aurora could process that statement, Frankie took a string from his jeans into his shaky hand. He closed his hand into a fist around the loose string and then only a moment later, he opened it once more and the string was tied into a perfectly knotted bow.
Aurora blinked rapidly. What the hell? "You go to Hogwarts?" She asked in disbelief.
"Hogwarts?" He snorted, "what is that?"
"Are you turning eleven this year?" She inquired.
Frankie raised his eyebrows, still not making eye contact with with her and instead choosing to look at the point just beyond her wild hair, "No. I turn thirteen next May. May seventeenth."
"And you say you live in Wool's Orphanage? And you've never received an owl containing a letter?" She asked as the puzzle slowly started to put itself together in her addled mind.
Bewildered by her odd questions, his eyes were wide as he questioningly responded, "Yes, that is correct?"
"Oh, this is all Dumbledore's doing. I just know it." She abruptly stood up and grabbed onto Frankie wrist, trying to walk and talk at the same time. Aurora pretended that she didn't notice him flinch when they came into contact.
Dragging him to a nearby tree, she plopped down at the foot of it and after a few moments deliberation with Francis, he joined her in the green grass.
Aurora looked deep into his honeyed eyes and slowly told him, "You're a wizard, that's why you can do things that no other children can. You were supposed to get a letter on you eleventh birthday, telling you of a magical school called Hogwarts, but my guess is that Dumbledore was too wary of you to send it out, like the old bat he is."
Frankie looked both shocked and in disbelief as he replied, "I can't t-tell if you're lying to me or not. So you're a wizard too?"
She laughed merrily and rested her head on the tree behind her. "Actually, female magical people are more commonly referred to as witches. But by all means, the feminist side to me sort of liked being called a wizard instead."
The boy blushed once more. "Witch. So this is all real? You aren't pulling my leg?"
She chuckled and grabbed a dandelion two feet away from her. She closed her eyes and softly blew onto it. The result of that action caused millions of tiny fluffy particles to surround them like a pillow of clouds. Frankie looked around amazedly and even reached out to grab one with wide eyes. He then sneezed, causing Aurora to giggle for the first time all summer.
And that is how she spent the rest of her day. Answering wizarding questions to the eager orphan boy with allergies.
***
Rory was in very high spirits for the first time in ages as she walked into the front door of her new home. For the first time in weeks, she wasn't thinking of Tom Riddle or the monster he became. Instead, her thoughts only pertained to the socially awkward boy who she'd finally gotten to speak in a tone that wasn't a whisper. He had asked her a ton of questions; all of them relating to Wizards and what they were like. She had even promised to meet up with him again the next day.
She had just made a sandwich in the kitchen, starving after spending all day outside in the blistering heat. Snape still wasn't back yet, and so she made her way up to her room hoping to read. Skipping every couple of steps up the narrow stairs, she entered her empty room. Except it wasn't empty, for sitting on the end of her small bed was the prefect she'd spent all day trying not to think of.
She dropped her sandwich in shock. Her heart rate immediately sped up upon seeing the handsome teen with dark curly locks narrow his dark coffee-brown eyes at her. Too in shock to speak, Rory bent down to retrieve her fallen sandwich as Tom spoke first, "Where have you been all day?"
As she was rising from picking her food off the ground, she accidentally hit her head on the door handle roughly. "Ouch," she hissed, "What are you even doing out?" She asked harshly.
She refused to make eye contact with his scrutinizing gaze as she sat in the metal chair five feet away and ate her sandwich.
"I didn't hear you at all today. You didn't even take me out with you, wherever you went. Idiotic move, Aurora, you could have been mugged out here! Looking at this neighborhood, I wouldn't be surprised."
Neither would she. However, she still had far too much resentment built up from the boy who unknowingly kept her nightmares alive to sit and chat with him like nothing was amiss.
"I don't have to explain myself to you," she said cooly.
Out of the corner of her brown eye, she saw Tom narrow his eyes at her. Good, she thought, let him have it.
"I am aware," he said slowly and calmly, "however, it is irresponsible for you to be going out alone. I thought I'd taught you better than this."
Rory flicked a piece of grass that had clung onto her shorts away indifferently. She just wanted him to go away. It was hard not to feel bad for him. Aurora had to scold herself every time she thought about how bored he must be inside the diary all day. She had to keep reminding herself that he deserved his new isolation, and really deserved her silence towards him.
"How silly of me. You should've been teaching me all about your murderous tendencies,, rather than looking both ways Before I cross a street."
She heard him sigh. She wanted him to hurt him, the same way that he'd hurt her. Aurora knew that it wasn't the healthiest way of coping, but it was the only thing helping her at the moment. She could not keep taking out her anger in random spurts of powerful underage magic.
"You aren't even going to to attempt to talk this through in a civilized manner?" He asked the twelve year old dejectedly.
"I think you've lost the right to boss me around, let's see... around the time that you, I dunno, forgot to mention that you're Voldemort," she snapped, "I suppose it must be very irrational of me to take it out on you, in your opinion. I guess I should have just assumed that you're literally an evil overlord."
She took the last bite of her sandwich and finally looked up to meet the narrow eyes of her old friend. This was the first time that Aurora had witnessed him uncomfortable, as she took in his squared-out shoulders as he dusted off pretend dirt from his left knee.
"I'm sorry."
That comment made her snap. After weeks of torment and nightmares and evil suffocating thoughts, she could not take it anymore. She stood up as her sunburnt cheeks turned an even darker shade, "You are not! Don't apologize to me when we both know that you are completely incapable of remorse! You aren't sorry that you lied, and Id bet every cent in the Malfoy family vault that your aren't even the least bit sorry for my literal torture. You've just manipulated me all these years, and instead of an actual meaningful apology, all I get is a fucking lecture about going out on my own! You've got some nerve, Tom," she spat venomously at the sixteen year old.
She just couldn't believe the absolute audacity of this guy, as she scoffed and paced around the room while Tom watched her warily. She promised herself that she would never cry in front of him again, and from Tom's point of view, he must have been deeply unsettled to see the girl angry, instead of tormented.
"I sincerely apologize, Aurora, in my part played that led to the unfortunate events of that night—"
She cut him off with a snort. "Unfortunate, indeed, Tom. It was quite unfortunate to be tortured into near insanity by your best-friends-future-self. Unfortunate? Really? That's the best word that you can come up with to describe it?" She scoffed at him in disbelief before continuing.
"Because for someone smarter than most of the teachers combined, I'd have thought you'd be able to come up with better explanatory words to describe the situation that you put me in. The few that come to my messed up mind all include, mortifying, horrifying, and completely one hundred percent fucked up, but hey, I suppose the word unfortunate does somewhat fit the category."
Tom watched her pace the small room in a craze. He just wanted this all to be out behind them, but he ultimately knew that nothing would be the same if Aurora continued to have pent up anger with him. So, trying not to let his temper get the best of him, he calmly replied, "I do see your point, Rory—"
She cut him off once more, much to Tom's annoyance. "That's Aurora to you, seeing as you've lost the right to nicknames the second you thought it'd be a good idea to keep such a deadly secret from me," she snarled.
Tom rolled his eyes, "Now you're just being childish. I have known you for eight years, Aurora. Eight long years. We should be well acquainted enough to talk out our problems in a perfectly mannered fashion."
She stopped pacing at last, only to glare at Tom. "We should also be well acquainted enough to know important details of one another. For example, my favorite color is brown. Another example, just off the top of my head, you're bloody Voldemort."
Tom sighed once more, "Is there nothing that I can say to make you forgive me? Apparently apologizing is off the table, seeing as you're currently incapable of accepting it. What do you wish for me to say?"
Aurora breathed out harshly through her nose, "Do not sit here and pretend as if your half-assed apologies even mean anything! I know better now, and that means that I just happen to know that you'll tell me whatever I want to hear in order for me to let you out again. what was that word you love so much? Oh yes, unfortunate. Well unfortunately for you, I am not going to easily fall into your trap once again, just for you to twist the knife in my back even further."
Tom almost felt uneasy at her words. He wore a thoughtful expression as she continued to speak ruthlessly, "Also, the last time I checked , I did not call for you. Meaning that you aren't welcome here. Kindly take you and your manipulative ways back into your diary until I wish to speak with you. Here's hoping that you can actually follow the directions this time," she spat so mercilessly that she almost wanted to take her words back.
She paused just to see Tom's horrifically outraged expression— she knew that she'd just hit way below the belt with that. Tom rarely ever admitted any sort of weaknesses, and one of the few time he did, Tom had told her in confidence about how when he first made it into Hogwarts, the Slytherin students treated him as unwelcome. That was one of Tom's triggers— someone making him feel as though he did not belong. He had even told her that at his orphanage, the other children were never welcoming towards him— he was never accepted.
What he really wanted to do in that moment was to curse her until she was begging for him to stop. Instead, he sighed dejectedly and gave her a half-hearted glare. He knew that his actions had deeply wounded Aurora if she was resulting to use such methods to one up him.
"I see that you have not cooled off fully. Very well, I shall continue to give you space. I only ask you to be careful in whatever pursuits that you go on." With that, he was gone and the emptiness of the despairing room clouded her thoughts once more.
After a few minutes of silence, she hissed in parseltounge, "kiss ass." She was not prepared for his emotional maturity, hoping to continue to yell at the teenager more. She slumped onto her unmade bed, preparing herself mentally for yet another night of tossing and turning.
***
** I hope Frankie made a good first impression on you guys, he's going to end up being a pretty important character in Aurora's story!! Tysm to the people who vote and comment, u guys make my day!!