𝕬 𝕯𝖆𝖗𝖐 𝕷𝖔𝖗𝖉 𝖎𝖘 𝕭𝖔𝖗𝖓 | 𝑇𝑜𝑚 𝑅𝑖𝑑𝑑𝑙𝑒 |

Chapter 30- A Meeting in Diagon Alley

"Where are we going to go?" Frankie asked Tom, as they walked down the street together, ignoring the lingering stares from the orphanage windows. Surely, he had some idea, after whisking her away. However, she was still following behind Tom with pure and honest faith, regardless of whether or not he had actually developed a plan. When she had shut down and given up, he had decided to take action and openly fight against the injustice. It was so unlike him to go this far for something. To go this far for her. Tom was definitely the most practical person Frankie had met, and probably would ever meet. Although, he'd certainly dreamed of walking out of the orphanage before seventeen, he would've never dared to do it. So, even though he was still obviously trying to figure out where they were going to go and how they were going to survive on their own for the rest of the summer, Frankie found that she really didn't care about the gritty details. They were out of that suffocating, rundown building and starting a brand-new adventure. All that mattered was that they'd stuck together and, finally, they were both free of that awful place for good.

"I have a place in mind..." Tom answered, hesitantly. It was hard to think after all that happened in the past few minutes. Although, he had always dreamed of being free of the orphanage, he never thought it would be this sudden and he wouldn't have anything ready for an independent life. The two walked a few blocks, until they arrived at a broken house that they knew all too well. Frankie's old house. He knew she wouldn't like it, but it was the only place he could think of on such short notice. Frankie completely froze at the sight. They tried to avoid the place, ever since she had remembered what happened. On their walks, sometimes Tom would tell her to look solely at him until the danger had passed, but often times they'd simply move to the other side of the street, speed up ever so slightly and keep their heads down.

"No. Absolutely not."

"It's either this—or we take our chances on the streets." Tom reasoned. The air raid sirens had been going off every other night at least and he thought this would surely be a better shelter than nothing. But, Frankie still shook her head stubbornly and refused to look him in the eye. He sighed and opened the gate. She would follow along eventually. Where else did she have to go? It was either go back to the orphanage and get adopted, or stay in the house of her nightmares with him. "I swear, it'll only be for a few nights. Only until I can find us someplace better. I just need more time..."

Frankie reluctantly began to follow behind him at the slowest pace she could muster. He sighed and grabbed her hand, as they both walked to the door of the house. They expected to see a charcoaled mess, considering the last time they saw the inside it was on fire. However, when they opened the door, they merely saw an old, dusty house. There was slight scattered debris from a roof slowly falling apart, but other than that, it was just like her parents had left it. Tom started to look around, while Frankie just stood frozen in the doorway.

She gazed up at the top of the stairs, as if hoping to see her six-year-old self once again, standing there. Of course, she had been a longtime gone. Curiously, Frankie walked up the stairs and down the hall, to her parent's old room. She had never been allowed in there and she always imagined what it looked like, especially since she found out about them being wizards. What kind of magic treasures from the wizarding world had they hid in there?

There was disappointment when she opened the door to find a normal room. The room contained a small bed, neatly made, one straight-backed velvet chair next to a bureau with a lovely, framed mirror, and windows with long curtains to shut the world out. There were no moving pictures hung on the wall, or old, hardening magic candy on the bedside table.

She opened the drawer of the bedside table, looking for something, anything that might connect them to the magical world they'd been forced to abandon. Finally, hidden in the back of the drawer were the pictures that were not hung on the walls, or in the shattered photo frames downstairs. None of them were 'normal'. They were moving, but trapped, in little moments of time. The one on the very top of the scatter of pictures was just like the one she had taken with Tom in Diagon Alley. Frankie opened her locket to compare them, and they were nearly in the exact same spot. They looked a bit older then she and Tom were now, around seventeen or eighteen. They were smiling and dancing around in circles, clearly more elegant a pair then the eleven-year-old kids she was comparing them to. There were at least a dozen more. Several of them looked as if they were taken during their Hogwarts years. Her mother was scowling at a camera and trying to focus on a book, yet secretly smiled as the camera holder persisted. A few showed her father in action as a Quidditch Keeper, along with the same team photo Ogg had showed her. There was one of what could only be a younger Dumbledore and Ogg. They were making some kind of weird hand gesture and mouthing something lost by time. Curiously, she checked the back to see if it was possibly captioned. It read: The Order of the Heirs. A forgotten club of sorts. Under those, were some pictures of her father during the tasks of the Triwizard Tournament. Fighting off something wicked, a group picture of him with the champions from other schools, candid shots from the victory parties after the tasks, there was even one of her parents at the Yule Ball. Her father was in dress robes and her mother was in a beautiful gown. They looked like the perfect prince and princess in all the fairytales Frankie had never gotten the chance to read.