Returning Home

The Angel and The Demon

Two days later and Gwyn was feeling excited. Her and Draco had exchanged several letters and he had given her a few more every day spells to work on. She had easily mastered all of them and even sent back the incantations and wand movements of the charms she had learned on her own. Lucius had written to inform her that their training sessions would begin on September 1st and would repeat every Saturday. With a date in mind she had a goal to read all of the beginner theory books before then and if she was lucky a few more of the journals in her vault as well.

Draco had even asked her to come over the day after Harry's birthday to begin his flying lessons for her. One would think with all of the new magic she was learning, including the simple charms that had been in Ignotus' journal, that the cause of her excitement would be obvious. However it wasn't the spells that had her so on edge. Nor was it the arrival of the four new elves to her staff that had come that morning. While that did make her happy because it meant an easier workload on Maeve, it wasn't enough to add the bounce in her step. Instead she had performed the bonding to tie their magic together, given them their rules and then sent them off with Maeve to be given their new stations.

It wasn't even little Artemis, the raven chick that Draco had given her that had her so upbeat. The little chick had been with her in her rooms since she had gotten back and had even begun flying small distances from her bed to her desk. She had been extremely proud and immediately written to Draco to tell him about it. He had responded that Apollo, what he had ironically named his eagle owl, had begun doing the same. She was excited to see just how far the pair of them would come by the time they made it to Hogwarts, however it didn't make the top of her list for excitement.

No, her excitement was entirely owed to finally being able to start reading Tom's journal. She had rushed through her dinner and night time routine and was now curled snugly in her bed with both Nero and Nagini around her while Artemis was resting on her shoulder. While she had told her grandfather that she didn't care about Tom's past that was only half true. She didn't care in the sense that it would change nothing. He would always hold the most special place in her heart. However, she was very curious to know all the little events that had made him into the person she knew.

Almost as soon as she started to read her confusion began to show. Nero and even little Artemis had looked at her in concern while Nagini just waited patiently with a somber air about her. Nero took his cue from her and wrapped himself comfortingly around Gwyn's arm as she continued to read. Her confusion at the date of his birth that he had given was quickly forgotten and morphed into horror as she learned that Tom, her Tom, had grown up in circumstances all too similar and yet much worse than her own.

He had lived his entire life in an orphanage, a muggle orphanage. He was born there, even. His mother had quickly passed away after childbirth leaving him only with the name of relatives who either did not know he existed or had written him off entirely before he was even born. He had stood out from the other children and in turn he had shut out anyone who had tried to get too close to him. Of course he had longed for a family, what child didn't, but after being brought back one too many times over bouts of accidental magic he had lost hope.

And of course the matron of the orphanage had reacted much the same as the matron of the girl's home. Except in that time period the abuse she had suffered had been a much more common and accepted practice. There had been no caution shown, no questioning glances that could have saved Tom from those terrors. Her heart shattered the more she read. How could anyone do that to a child, much less to her Tom?

It only got worse from there and she didn't even realize she was crying until a tear fell onto the pages in front of her. She quickly moved the book just far enough to be safe and still allow her to continue to read. He had known from a very young age that he was different from the other children, could do things that they couldn't. He had been called a freak one too many times to not believe it anymore but he would never give them the satisfaction of knowing that their words had hurt him more than their actions. His only friends had become the small snakes that he found in the woods near the orphanage. He had kept that ability hidden from everyone for as long as he could but two children had seen him talking to them one day. She didn't blame him at all for what he had done to them for torturing one of his only friends. In her mind those two children had earned their fate and then some for what they had done.