Broken Wings / tom riddle

Chapter 11 - The Assignment

Briar had spent the past couple of weeks trying to find the mysterious room that Casper had told her about. With Aleks breathing down her neck constantly, and the other boys keeping such a close eye on her, it was hard for Briar to find the time to search for it. Yes there was always the option of just asking Casper, but she didn't want to risk something going wrong and Casper being exposed as a traitor. She had seen the scars Avery had from Tom, and he was tough. She would hate to see the damage Tom could do to a boy like Casper. So Briar kept the stones on her wherever she went, even whilst she slept, she trusted no one. She could always ask Dumbledore for help, but she didn't entirely trust the man, something about him seemed off. Briar couldn't quite put her finger on it.

It was late at night, Briar couldn't sleep, she headed downstairs to the common room, it was empty. She began reading one of her muggle books from the orphanage near the fireplace. It was nights like these when Hogwarts wasn't so bad for the faerie. She actually enjoyed a lot of the aspects about the school, it was mostly just the people and curriculum that she hated. She missed all of the things she learnt about during her youth, faerie education seemed to teach much more things that were useful, well at least in her opinion. She began to get tired, she didn't want to go back to her bed though, she knew by the time she climbed the stairs she would be wide awake again. Briar began to hear soft purrs coming from beside her.

It was Genevieve's cat. She didn't know it's name or why it was not with Genevieve but she stroked it lightly and slowly began to enjoy it's company. She drifted off into a deep sleep near the dying embers of the fire and to the sounds of the feline beside her.

She dreamt of memories from her childhood, her friend Lydia. She missed Lydia, they were close when they were young, Briar tried not to think of the inevitable fate that she would of met like all the faeries that she knew. Suddenly the soft memories of her floating around the forest with Lydia were plagued with bad visions of her parents death. The silence of it all, that was what was most surprising, or more haunting thing to Briar. Her parents had put her to bed, locked her in her room before the great extinction. When Briar had finally found a way out she entered her parents room, they were huddled next to each other hugging on the bed. It was an awful sight for a child to see, but what was even more awful was what Briar needed to do after it.

She had no time to mourn, even though she was only 7 at the time, she knew it would not be safe for her to inform anyone from the magical world that she was alive. She grabbed a few things from the house and wandered into the dark streets. She was found by a lady a few days after where she was then sent to an orphanage. Ever since that day something in Briar had shifted, the magic her parents had transferred her felt like a bad bandage stuck to her skin that she wanted to rip off, she tried to fight it but she got sick of it, eventually she just gave up and accepted the new feeling.

"The portrait of Dorian Gray? Why would you waste your time reading such stupid muggle literature?" Briar was woken up by the harsh voice of Tom Riddle. "More importantly, why did you sleep on the floor? Did they not give you beds at the orphanage? Old habits die hard?" he asked. The pair had made a habit of teasing each other on the fact that they were both orphans. Briar pushed herself up and dusted the embers off of her clothes.

"I should shower," she said looking around the common room confused.

"Yes that would be a very good idea, Aleks would hate to be seen walking around with someone who resembles a peasant," he spat as he fiddled with his wand in his hands. Briar made her way up the staircase.

"I may be an orphan like you Tom, but at least my parents loved me," she said as she walked off. It was just a guess really, she didn't know for certain that his parents gave him up and did not love him, but that is what she assumed based on his hatred towards any authority figures he meets. Tom Riddle was strange, she could only assume his rigid and harsh tendencies were from the lack of love and affection in his childhood.