𝕬 𝕯𝖆𝖗𝖐 𝕷𝖔𝖗𝖉 𝖎𝖘 𝕭𝖔𝖗𝖓 | 𝑇𝑜𝑚 𝑅𝑖𝑑𝑑𝑙𝑒 |

Chapter 11- A Sunday Walk

Tom woke up early the next day in Slytherin dorms. Not by choice, unfortunately for him. It was one of those annoying instances when your body just wakes on its own at approximately three o'clock in the morning without any particular reason other than to cause you insufferable hell. He spent this sudden downtime lying in the dark, contemplating whether he should actually go and meet Frankie. Tom kept saying over and over in his mind how much he didn't need her now and how it was in his best interest to just get rid of her friendship, before...something. He honestly didn't know the consequences. It was just an unwritten law around the school that Slytherins and Gryffindors didn't mix. Judging by the structure of this community, staying within your house was in one's best interest. However, looking constructively at the friend pool, Tom would've rather kept her. Currently, the other boys were blissfully asleep, and he took the moment to draw back his curtains and examine them, while they werent being too much of an eyesore. In the farthest bed from Tom, Lestrange was snoring so loudly that his heavy curtains did nothing to damper the sound. Avery was inches away from falling face first into the stone floor in the bed besides Lestrange. Meanwhile, Malfoy was lying face first into his pillow, looking to be dead, in the bed on Tom's immediate right, and Peter had a fat glob of drool hanging out of his mouth on Tom's left.

These people were unquestionably not worthy of being his friends.

Tom was perfectly adept at being on his own before she came along and ruined everything. It wouldn't be so easy to go back to that life of solitude after the mental damage she'd done to him. Tom was finding it extremely difficult to simply just let Frankie go her own way and allow her to drift off into her own destiny. If, he ended their friendship, she would be alright. It might hurt her a little and the summers stuck together at the orphanage would be an extra dose of unbearable, but it wouldn't be the worst thing to ever happen to either of them. It's not like they needed each other anymore now that they were just two amongst the thousands of other magical children out there. However, having allies of sorts might prove useful in the future too. If he had connections in this world, it could take him to great places. Considering Tom wasn't positive he even had a future until Dumbledore talked to him, he didn't have many plans set. But, whatever it ended up being, it would have to be something extravagant and worthy of this society's recognition. Now, that he had found out his powers weren't anything special, he would have to become someone great even by this world's standards. Frankie's future appeared to be going in quite a successful direction, so far. She was intelligent, brave, kind, and rightly placed in Gryffindor house. They had a history of producing Aurors and high-level Ministry workers. Even some of the Ministers of Magic had been Gryffindors back in their day. It would prove quite useful to keep her close.

Or maybe, he ought to be in the hospital wing as well. All these emotions were making him feel sick.

On that thought, Tom heard a sudden hard smash to the floor and the waking of everyone to see what it had been. But Tom did not even need to glance over for a moment to know that Avery's body had collapsed, and he'd fell so spectacularly that he probably took his bedside drawer down with him. He lay in the pile of tangled sheets, probably too humiliated or too tired to move, while the other boys laughed. Looking at the small clock on his own bedside table, Tom decided that now would be a good a time as any to 'wake up'. He reluctantly shifted off the covers and got his uniform off his trunk to get ready. Once prepared, he ate a minimum amount of breakfast in the Great Hall, as usual, before starting to walk towards the hospital wing. Tom peered into the wing from outside, half-expecting her to be out cold in the hospital bed. However, when he looked in, Frankie was sitting in the chair by her bed, arranging a variety of colorful flowers into a glass vase on the nightstand.

"Good morning, Tom." she smiled, as she noticed him gazing at her from the entrance. Tom came in slowly and tried to casually slither up beside her, as Frankie continued to pick up flowers and position them in a more aesthetically pleasing arrangement.