The afternoon sun shone brightly through the large windows as the third-year students piled on into the classroom. The morning of the first day back at Hogwarts had been fun to most. They had been doing Flying Lessons in the grounds. As usual, Aubyn dominated; his proficiency in the air being unparalleled by the other regular third-years. For Tom, however, the morning was as monotonous as it had always been at Hogwarts. He wasn't allowed in the air considering the orphanage, or more specifically the matron, failed to sign any consent papers. This, of course, meant that he also wouldn't be allowed to leave the grounds to go to Hogsmeade but he didn't really care. So, unlike everyone else's, his spirits were especially low as he sat down in his isolated corner in the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom. He had been dreading these lessons but now that he knew that Alistair Young would and could not be his teacher, he had begun feeling much better. After a small while of waiting, the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher (and the old Potions teacher) Professor Huntail arrived. The class's good spirits almost instantly vanished as the lesson began and was replaced by an unrelenting sense of utter boredom. Tom wasn't usually interested in lessons but even this was new to him. The Professor kept rambling on about histories of elves and orcs and werewolves and...
"Wake up!"
Even though he wasn't the one being yelled at, his eyes shot open. He hadn't even noticed he had been falling asleep. Nor had anyone else for that matter, the Professor was yelling at a Hufflepuff in the front row. Tom leant his head on his arm. Why did it feel like time was going so slowly? This lesson was just so boring...
"Hey wake up!"
Tom's brain woke up but his eyes barely opened at all. He looked up at the figure standing in front of his desk blearily.
"Wake up!" the voice repeated. Tom recognised it. It was Alannah Estevan, the Slytherin girl from yesterday.
"Wake up!" she repeated for the third time. Tom sighed.
"I'm awake, I'm awake," he said agitatedly, "What the hell are you doing?"
Alannah tilted her head to the side, "Weren't you listening? The professor said to get a partner for the activity."
"Activity?" Tom asked. He noticed everyone else was standing up so he did the same.
"Yeah and you didn't look like you had anyone near you so..."
"I can work on my own," Tom said tiredly.
"Yeah well I don't have a partner, alright? And I don't want to work on my own," she hissed.
"Ok, ok," Tom resigned himself to his fate, "What are we meant to be doing anyway?"
Alannah paused for a second and bit the tip of her finger, "Something, something, spells, something- I don't know," she said uncaringly, "I thought you would listen."
"Why would I listen?" Tom asked quietly, almost to himself.
"I don't know, you seem like the type," Tom looked at her even more blankly than normal, "The 'nerd' type," she elaborated.
Tom looked away from her, "No," he said simply.
Alannah sighed, "I'll go and ask the Professor again. Hope he doesn't yell at me," she turned around to go. Tom looked up at her as she went. He still didn't trust her.
Alannah came back a few moments later holding a small book in her hands.
"We're meant to revise this spell from the first year: Wingardium Leviosa," she enunciated the word carefully as she read it off the page.
"I don't remember," Alannah was beginning to realise that Tom liked to speak simply most of the time.
"It levitates objects. It's pretty easy, like this," she pointed her wand at the quill by Tom's desk, "Wingardium Leviosa."
As she flicked her wand, it began to slowly levitate upwards in the air.
"Oh," Tom said, "I remember," he paused for a second, "I don't think I can do it."
"What?!" Alannah shot him a weird look, "This is like the easiest thing ever!"
Tom shrugged, "I'm bad at magic."
"How bad we talking because this is like the third spell you're ever taught."
"I don't know any spells," Tom spoke unapologetically.
"Huh?!" Alannah was dumbfounded, "How'd you even get in?"
Tom shrugged again, "It was probably a mistake," he suddenly changed the subject, "Did you change your hair?"
He suddenly noticed it, Alannah definitely looked different from yesterday.
She nodded, not caring much about the abrupt subject change, "Yeah I change it everyday. I don't know what to do with it so sometimes I put it up, sometimes I let it down, sometimes I put in buns, I kinda just go with the flow."
"I don't really even know how my hair works," Tom said, scratching the back of it, "I kind of just let it do what it wants."
"Yeah it looks like it," Alannah looked at him scathingly, "It's so spiky and dark."
"Yours isn't that straight either," Tom commented to which Alannah blushed, embarrassed.
"I do the best I can, it just always comes out curly!"
"Wasn't trying to insult or anything, I was just saying," Tom's tone of voice rarely changed.
"Are we gonna do the spell or are we going to keep talking about hair?!" Alannah said, desperate to change the subject.
"I like hair," Tom said randomly, more to himself. Alannah sighed.
"What the hell are we even doing..." she murmured.
"So what's the spell?" Tom asked, trying to get back on topic.
"You forgot?! How?" Alannah was still dumbfounded.
"I don't speak 'magic' how am I supposed to remember all the random words?"
"'Wingardium Leviosa,'" Alannah enunciated carefully.
"Wingardium Leviosa," Tom repeated. Without even gesturing his wand, Tom's quill began to fly upwards into the air.
"Woah, are you doing that?" asked Alannah pointing to the quill. Tom turned to it, unsure of how that happened.
"I guess," he shrugged, his tone and expression not showing his surprise. He waved his wand around and watched as the quill followed it. It was kind of fun.
"You improved," said a different voice from behind both Alannah and Tom. Alannah jumped when she heard but Tom didn't react at all. It was the voice of Professor Huntail and he didn't sound all too impressed. In fact, he sounded a mix between snobbish and somewhat angry, "I wouldn't expect that of you." After saying that, Professor Huntail turned on his heel and left to walk around and inspect the other groups in the classroom.
"Wow, rude," Alannah said, looking back to Tom who was still playing around with his wand and the quill, "Wonder why he's so grouchy," when she received no reply she spoke again, "Hey, did you hear me?"
Tom, still clearly distracted, responded half-heartedly, "What?"
"The Professor... he was rude to you... didn't you hear?"
Tom put his wand down and watched the quill fall like a feather down back on his desk, "Hear what? What did he say?"
"He said, 'You improved. I wouldn't expect that of you.'" Alannah repeated the Professor's words in a less than flattering impression.
"Sounds like normal," Tom said tiredly and turned back to the quill to raise his wand again. Alannah stopped him.
"What do you mean?"
Before Tom could respond, however, Professor Huntail addressed the class as a whole at the front of the classroom.
"Alright that's the end of the lesson, you can all go."
Before Alannah could get her answer, Tom, along with the rest of the class, piled out of the classroom.
The rest of the day was nothing if not boring. The rest of the lessons were standard. Tom did not speak to anyone for the rest of the day and he didn't mind it. He was used to it after all; this is how school had gone for the last 2 years. When the time eventually came for Tom and the rest of the school to go back to their dorms, he did so alone. In fact, when Tom entered his dormitory and sat down on his bed, he realised how little he knew the roommates he slept next to. Usually, the dorm-rooms created friendship groups that would last for life but Tom had had no such luck. As a group, they had never spoken with Tom included. Tom could only recall one of his roommates at a team speaking to him in short one-word exchanges. They were usually unfriendly and Tom wasn't exactly sociable enough to try and go out and start conversations. The rest of the roommates were very good friends though which made it all the more weird as Tom looked around. The rest of the people in the room chatted away, laughed, playing games whilst he remained an outsider. He didn't want to pay it much mind. So, paying as little attention as he could to the other people in the room, he got himself ready for bed and tucked himself in.
Tom was shivering. He was shivering all over. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't stop. Tom sat in the special room: the special room in the orphanage and waited. He waited absolutely still because he knew what would happen if he didn't. He wasn't usually called into this room and he was normally excited when he was but this time it was different.
The room he was waiting in was the 'Interview Room' in the orphanage. It's where potential adopters have their appointment with the orphan that they may wish to adopt. Even though Tom never did end up being adopted, he did enjoy the process of being called to the room. It may have been saddening at the end of the day when he realised that it wasn't happening but he reasoned that if he kept being called into the 'Interview Room' then eventually he might just finally be taken away. What would normally happen was that he would be called into the room at an earlier time than the planned appointment and wait until the potential parents came in. Then the matron who oversaw the process would ask a few questions to both parties and then take the potential parents away for their special, private 'disclosure meeting'. Whilst that was happening Tom would wait in the room until he would eventually be taken out by the matron and sent back to his room after the potential parents decided not to take him.
Something different had started happening now though. Tom did still get sent to the room but he never got to have the Interviews with the potential parents. One day, the matron decided to cut that part out and just cut straight to the 'disclosure meeting'. After that, the potential parents turned him down before even seeing him. Every single time.
But it got worse. After the Matron had caught Tom sneaking out to the Leaky Cauldron, she had started doing her special 'sessions' with him where she would... 'punish' him. Every time Tom was called into the room, Tom knew that there would be an extra 'session' for him as soon as the potential parents had been shooed off the premises. The Matron had told him so. She did not appreciate him wasting her and the potential parents' time. They all 'had important things to do and couldn't afford to have their time wasted by him', or so the Matron said. Tom hated the 'sessions'. He hated them. He despised getting called into the room now. Because he knew it would never end in anything other than pain.
And that was why Tom was shivering. That was why he currently couldn't stop himself. He knew that the 'adopters' were gone now. He could sense them through the door, leaving the orphanage. They always came in different sizes. Tom noticed that. The first people who didn't come in for the meeting were a couple called Mr and Mrs Hastings. Tom hated them for setting the precedent. Somehow it hurt even more than the potential parents never even gave him a chance. But also he hated the beatings.
He could hear the matron coming back now. The 'adopters' were now gone from the premises. Tom's shivering increased. Somehow, apart from that though, his body remained still in his seat. He couldn't find the strength to move. He was like an animal frozen with fright. The door to the room opened slowly and the matron entered calmly. She shut the door carefully behind her and gave Tom a sickly sweet smile.
"Mr and Mrs Levitt decided that they didn't want to see you after all... just like the rest of them," she breathed out a sigh of contentment and looked directly into Tom's eyes, "Now it is time for your punishment, freak."
Tom's eyes shot open. They darted around to see where he was. He was In Hogwarts; he was in his dorm... obviously. He'd panicked. Tom groaned at his own stupidity. Where else would he be? He clutched his head slightly after having pulled it up from the bed too quickly. He looked around to the ancient clock in the corner of the room: 6am. Tom wasn't surprised. He pulled himself up straight so he could sit facing the side with his feet on the floor.
'Why do I remember these memories now?' he inquired to himself, 'Why can't I just sleep normally? I can't even dream,' he rubbed his eyes, 'And it doesn't even make sense. I haven't been called to the Interview Room in years...'
When the time eventually came, Tom got fully dressed and out of bed. He left his dormitory and the Slytherin common room and went up out of the Dungeons to the Great Hall. Breakfast wasn't necessarily something Tom would say he 'enjoyed' at Hogwarts but he did certainly prefer it to the alternative at the orphanage. Tom was used to living off no food whatsoever though so anything was going to be an improvement.
As Tom entered the Great Hall and sat down at his isolated spot on the Slytherin table, he was shocked in all honesty at how bright it was. The shockingly white morning light shined through the grand windows of the Great Hall and illuminated it brilliantly. Tom couldn't help but look around, his face stil blank as it usually was, but his mind sort of entranced with the pure wonder of it all.
"Good Morning," Tom was instantly snapped out of whatever daze he was in. He turned to where the sound of the voice had come from. In front of him, standing next to the empty seat opposite him on the Slytherin Table, was Alannah Estevan. She looked considerably more awake than Tom did and her voice was recognisably chirpy. Tom squinted slightly, a bit of sleep still hiding in his eye. He grunted quietly to acknowledge Alannah's presence.
"Mind if I sit?" Alannah waited for Tom to speak. Which he didn't, "I take that as a yes," Alannah said as she sat down opposite Tom. He didn't seem to care that she was there.
"Did you sleep well?" asked Alannah, trying again to start a conversation.
Tom finally replied, "Why do you keep trying to talk to me?"
"I-I..." Alannah paused before changing what she was going to say, "You asked something like that before."
"Well what's the answer?" Tom's voice was gruff and unfriendly. His face was the same. Alannah was beginning to notice that Tom wasn't someone who ever looked or sounded happy. He was an unreadable guy. And that meant that was probably just best for her to speak the truth.
"You really wanna know?" Alannah asked quieter, leaning in as she did so. Tom did not move closer but simply nodded his head. Alannah groaned, "It's because I'm lonely alright? I don't have any friends." Tom gave her a weird look but she kept going, "So I thought y'know... you seemed lonely, I am lonely. We could be friends."
Tom paused before finally saying, "I don't get what you mean."
"What?! How? How do you not get what I mean?" Alannah was also beginning to realise that Tom was not a guy who was able to read other people very well either.
"You don't have any friends?" Tom looked her up and down. Alannah nodded sadly.
"Yeah..."
"Really?"
Now Alannah gave him the weird look, "Yeah..? Why don't you believe me?"
Tom looked her up and down again, "No reason," he said simply.
Alannah ignored this and got back on topic, "But anyway," she said, "Wanna be friends?"
Tom thought in silence for a second. This would be a defining moment. Did he trust her?
"Yes," Tom said, his voice sounding a little bit bored, "Okay, let's be friends."
The words sounded so weird coming out his mouth. It was a phrase he never even thought he'd ever say until now.
"Cool," Alannah said, her face blossoming into a smile before she realised that she didn't really know what else to say, "I don't really know what else to say."
Tom, still seeming disinterested and bored, ate a small bit of food he had on his plate, "Same," he said simply.
"Sooooo..." Alannah said lamely, "Got any plans?"
Tom thought for a second before nodding, "Yeah, I heard there was going to be a big Quidditch match soon: Gryffindor vs Slytherin."
"Oh? Big Quidditch fan?" Alannah asked. Tom shook his head lightly.
"Not really," he murmured, putting another piece of food in his mouth. Alannah gave him a confused look.
"Then why?"
Tom finished eating his mouthful and then put his fork down. He looked up slightly at the grand windows of the Great Hall and at the glistening white sunshine coming through it and breathed pronouncedly.
"Personal reasons."