Change → Tom Riddle

38

ahh, I know I'm the world's worst updater!! i'm trying, i promise!! i just can't stand forcing myself to update weekly because then i know my chapters won't be good quality, and i don't want you guys to read rubbish. so bear with, please!!

Olivia had only been home for a week, but she was pretty sure Tom was her mama's favourite child; it was no longer Javier. Olivia and Ana never tended to be in the picture, but now Javier had joined them anyway.

Olivia wasn't really sure when her mama had decided to adopt her boyfriend, but it had happened anyway. Every evening, when her mama came home from work, she'd always cook Tom a 'pre-dinner' before dinner, and then tell Olivia she had to wait. She couldn't understand her mama's logic, but she didn't say much about it. On the other hand, she knew that Tom was both delighted and embarrassed by it. 
"Is it normal?" he'd asked Olivia on the first night. They were both hunting for jobs at this time and Olivia couldn't help notice how muddled he looked from behind her copy of The Daily Prophet. 
"She does it with Papa and Javier all the time," Olivia reassured him. He was still flustered.

Since they had nothing else to do (their friends were busy doing what they dubbed 'pureblood things'), both Olivia and Tom were desperate for a job. Since Ana and her fiance had already moved out and all the wedding stuff was sorted, there was very little for them to do. Sure, she could take Tom out and about her local area (she lived in Newquay, where there was plenty of watersports for them to do), and as fun as it was to watch him try and surf, she couldn't really get involved with her tail around muggles. And they hadn't found a secret spot to do anything, either. 
"So, over summer and Christmas, do you not go in the water?" Tom inquired. He'd spent the past half hour trying to kayak to Olivia's entertainment (she was sat on the side of the dock watching). 
"I tend to go at night, but I have baths a lot and the urge is just usually to get the tail out and flipping." 
"But at Hogwarts, you go swimming so often!" Tom exclaimed. 
"That's because Gabbie loves swimming but hates going alone because she's scared of sharks." 
"There aren't any sharks- are there?" 
"No, but she's still scared shitless." There was a good apparition spot not so far away and so it wasn't long before they were home. 
"Why not go out tonight?" Tom asked her as they entered the house, watching as Olivia struggled to lock the door. It was an old lock and none of the keys truly fit the hole. "Here, let me help." 
"Out tonight? Where?" Olivia replied, frowning as they tried to turn the key together. 
"To the beach. We can explore; see if we can't find a hidden spot for you and your tail," he explained, letting out a small grunt of effort as they finally turned the key. 
"Gracias." 
"So? Tonight?" Tom repeated. 
"Bien."
"Good. Dress nice." He patted her cheek and walked off to the kitchen. Initially, she was confused, but she overlooked it, heading upstairs to get into comfier clothing. 

Olivia had kicked Tom out of her bedroom so that she could get ready. They'd spent some time cooking together for her parents so that they wouldn't bother them about the date, but it seemed that their plan hadn't worked well anyway as when Olivia came down the stairs, it seemed they'd caught Tom in a conversation about his plans for the night. Tom stopped, however, at the first sign of Olivia, mainly because he'd gotten a telling off from her the last time he gossipped about their date with her parents. 
"Are we ready to go?" she asked, pulling out a pair of shoes from a store cupboard. Tom came around the corner, looking as handsome as usual in his usual outfit of a dress shirt and trousers. 
"Liv," he whispered, "I love your parents, but they are everywhere!"
"What did you expect? Don't worry, I think they're just trying to make sure I don't pull an Ana." 
"Pull a- what?" 
"I'll explain on the way, come on! ¡ Adíos!" she called to her parents, then grabbed Tom's hand and dragged him out the door. 
"They don't want us to do what?" Tom repeated, obviously intrigued by Olivia's word. 
"An-" she paused to make quote marks "-Ana. When my sister was sixteen, she was in a relationship with a boy she worked with, and they would sleep together, in the same bed, as we do. Anyway, they thought they were just sleeping, as we do, but that was, in actual fact, not what they were doing. They were actually having-"
"I understand the subtext. What does this have to do with anything?"
"Well, mama walked in on them one night, and, erm. She blew up. I've never heard her shout like that before. It was terrifying," Olivia explained. 
"So she doesn't want us to be having sex," Tom confirmed. Olivia nodded. 
"Mama's a big believer in sex after marriage. A little old-fashioned, but what she doesn't know can't hurt her, I guess." Olivia didn't catch the little smirk Tom threw her way. "So, where are we eating?"

Tom had picked a small restaurant close to the beach for them to eat; it was actually a place they had eaten at before. Dinner consisted of small talk and fish and chips before they finally decided to start exploring the beach. The sun was just starting to set, meaning the beach was pretty much empty except from a few dogs and their owners. 
"Which way shall we go?" Tom asked, coming to a stop as the pair of them looked both ways. 
"There." Olivia pointed to their right, where there was a gathering of rocks. "The car park is in the other direction and there are more rocks past that." 
"So that's the criteria? Rocks?" Tom questioned, as they started to move in the decided direction. 
"I like rocks. You've seen my rock collection," she replied simply. 
"Collection? Oh, that's the bunch of rocks on the top of your wardrobe."
"It's not just a bunch of rocks! Hang on-" Olivia stopped to take off her shoes, grabbing Tom's arm to steady herself. "There. Those are important rocks! Most people can't get to them, you know," she said, wagging a finger at him. 
"Oh, so most of them are from the deep?" Olivia nodded. 
"That's why they are important. Special. It's not that they are rare; they are hidden gems. This rock?" Olivia patted the mound they had just reached. "So easy to get hold of. So I could have as much of it as I wanted. That means I would cherish it less." 
"But why rocks?" Tom asked. They started to climb to get over to the other side. Well, Tom did. Olivia started to debate whether or not she should put her shoes back on. 
"Because why not?" Eventually, she decided to put them back on so that she wouldn't cut her feet. "¡Ayudarme! [help me!]" she shouted at Tom, who paused at the top of the pile. 
"What?" 
"The rocks are a little too far apart! I can't reach the hold!" 
"Oh. Sorry," he apologised, coming back down to pull her up. "You didn't want to swim past?" 
"Ha, ha. I think I'm good now." They both jumped down from the top, and Olivia held her arms up. 
"See? Much more beach here." Again, she kicked her shoes off. "Let's go down to those rocks. I think there is more down there, but that's too much of a walk." 
"You could just swim." 
"That would ruin the fun!" 
"Fun of what? Getting sand stuck in your shoes?"
"Take them off, then!"
"I don't want to get a bit of broken glass in the bottom of my feet, thank you."
"Do you not feel the wand in your back pocket?" Tom threw a smirk at her. 
"Do you need helping getting over this set of rocks, now?"