The Chain [Tom Riddle]

Chapter 8

TW//Mentions of domestic abuse and small amount of gore details (scars).

A month passed by and only two weeks before Nessa and Tom head off back to Hogwarts for their fifth year. Tom felt like he officially settled into his new family. He finished decorating his room yesterday with the help of Valter. He offered to put up shelves and add some magic artifact that was laying around in the basement. His favorite one was an obsidian blade he found in one of the boxes. Valter explained he won it during a poker match and he said it was supposedly cursed to which if you kill someone with it you gain their life span but someone you love dies. He brushed it off almost immediately claiming it was a fake. 

During the month he got to learn more about Valter, he was born in London but after he graduated from Hogwarts he moved to Ireland and only moved back when he married Delilah. Tom was in a way relieved that there were no tension between them after their little conversation at the dentist office. The way Valter acted around him made Tom think that he forgotten the conversation in the first place. Tom did notice Valter was a famous man among the muggles in the neighborhood. 

On a Sunday morning Tom accompanied him on a small errand. Valter wanted to pick up sweet bread that his wife liked from a small bakery they liked. Tom didn't fail to notice how women who walked by did double glances at Valter and looking away blushing. Not a single man who walked by didn't greet Valter with a hat tip while saying his name. And Valter seemed to enjoy it,  that day he wore black pants along with his black dress shoes and a white button up shirt. The sleeves were rolled up and a few buttons were undone revealing his white undershirt and black suspenders. It was just him and Tom that day so he lit up a cigar as they walked down, the years had been good to him. Only shy of forty six and he got girls around his own daughter's age swooning over him. It must be the golden hair and the dark brown eyes he had that won over so many women. 

When they reached the bakery Valter came to a complete stop, Tom noticed he looked in disbelief and a little bit scared. He looked around and saw nothing that could be the source of Valter's bizarre reaction. Expect for a red-haired woman. The woman smiled at the baker as he passed her the bag thanking him. When she turned around she nearly dropped her bag when saw the sight of Valter. Her blue eyes, one of the two things Tom could never forget about her was her eyes and how they held only one emotion. Hatred. The second feature was the scar on the side of her face, it started on the left side of her face very close to her eye that trailed down to the corner of her lips. She wore makeup but it didn't help, anyone could see it from a far. It also looked like a chunk of her face was missing, but it was only noticeable if she straightened her head.

Her hatred was further expressed as her grip on the bag tighten and so did her lips when she broke away from his gaze and said nothing when she passed Tom to open the door. The bells were triggered from the door opening and closing leaving only Tom and Valter in the bakery. Tom turned to Valter wanting to ask who was the woman but he hesitated when he saw Valter staring at the ground looking distressed. In the time he had been living there he had never seen him like that, and it made him uncomfortable. If it was anyone else he wouldn't care or he would take pleasure in it if he was the one who caused it. He glanced at the glass display and saw the sweet breads, especially the ones he liked which was the chocolate ones. He distracted Valter by gently placing a hand on his shoulder and told him Delilah and Nessa were waiting for them. When they exited the bakery with the sweet bread they only walked back in silence and Tom didn't even bring up about the woman to him. Because he didn't want to for Valter's sake. 

Two weeks until he goes back to Hogwarts, for the first time he wasn't counting the days until he went back like he used to back at the orphanage. Because he didn't completely dread being with his new family. It was Saturday and the sun was out, Delilah practically dragged Nessa and Tom out the house to join her and Valter in the backyard. She saw it was the perfect day to plant more roses, Valter the man who could never say no to her helped her. Nessa and Tom sat in the lounge chairs doing their own thing. Nessa chose a red summer dress that match the drop of blood necklace and decided to take a nap allowing the sun to give some color to her pale skin. Tom did what he usually did, wrote in his diary. Expect he wasn't writing, he was more sketching a face. He remembered Delilah making a jest about how he should sketch a drawing of her due to how much she saw him burying his head into that diary. He decided to do it whenever he ran out of things to write. He heard laughter and looked up to see Delilah and Valter laughing together by the pond they had. They were married for about fifteen years and they still looked at each other as if they were freshly in love. Tom couldn't even imagine Valter leaving her for another woman. But he could imagine him leaving another woman for her. When Valter gently grabbed Delilah's chin to pull her in for a kiss Tom looked down wanting to give them their privacy.