𝕬 𝕯𝖆𝖗𝖐 𝕷𝖔𝖗𝖉 𝖎𝖘 𝕭𝖔𝖗𝖓 | 𝑇𝑜𝑚 𝑅𝑖𝑑𝑑𝑙𝑒 |

Chapter 53- How Far He'll Go

Frankie suddenly woke up in Gryffindor tower. The sky was dark, but her roommates were not lounging on their beds, or gossiping in small circles. She was alone in the empty silence. The last thing she remembered was Tom, standing amongst the crowd of people, very much alive. However, as she stared at the empty room with no recollection of how that encounter ended, she was forced to excuse it as a cruel dream. A pity it was to wake up from that, but it wouldn't have been the first time she'd had such a terrible dream.

Then, a small paper crane suddenly slipped through the window. She gasped as it landed right into her lap. A letter from Tom. It wasn't a dream after all! Suddenly, as she grabbed the wing to unfold the crane, it morphed into a soft red rose. Her expression sunk immensely. She quickly recalled her huge fight with Malfoy. Tom had not actually been in that crowd. He wasn't yelling words of encouragement from the sidelines and arriving to save her from so many months of torture and guilt. Malfoy sent her the flower in attempt to apologize, she knew it. Another hideous reminder that Tom was gone. Frankie opened the window and began picking the petals till she was left with nothing but a thorny stem. She would not come down from her tower to face reality. Unfortunately, if she didn't tell him to stop it now, he would just go on sending them forever. Always giving her the faintest glimmer of hope, one might be a letter from Tom. Suddenly, she found herself exiting the tower she had promised not to leave. She'd had enough. Malfoy needed to pay. Frankie was climbing out the portrait hole when she found Peter waiting outside.

"Malfoy is sorry for what he did. Please come to the Great Hall so he can apologize." Peter stated, as she pondered the reason he was there and how he knew the location of Gryffindor common room.

Frankie was about to deny his request and slam the Fat Lady in his face, but Peter sounded so polite and kind. She couldn't say no to one of her friends and that's probably why he had been sent in the first place, because she was less likely to deny his request. She considered it. It couldn't really hurt to just hear Malfoy's attempt at an apology, could it? Frankie needed to go tell him off anyway and he'd surely have Peter's head on a stake if she didn't go. She nodded her head to indicate 'yes' because for some reason her voice didn't seem to be working. And oddly this didn't seem to bother her as they departed.

Of course, when Frankie arrived, she immediately regretted leaving her tower. They were having yet another ridiculously festive ball with shimmering lights and grand decorations. It looked like the ball on Halloween mixed with one of Slughorn's extravagant Christmas parties. Dreamlike and ethereal. There was a strange aura of maturity and adulthood. The party guests wore hideous goblin masks, instead of a fun mixture of different themes and creativity. As Frankie walked through the crowd, they were laughing drunkenly and cackling quite wickedly, at the same time, as they spun around her in circles. Suddenly, Peter vanished, and she found herself isolated between the dancers. She wandered, alone and tormented, through the crowd of strangers, looking for Abraxas Malfoy.

"Where is he?" she asked, finally regaining her ability to speak. No answer, just more hysterical laughter. Was her inability to find Malfoy somewhat funny? She wasn't dressed in the proper attire of a ball, they could've been laughing at her for that, but she would never know.

"Are you having a good time, miss?" a voice asked behind her. She whipped around to find a boy with blond hair and forest green eyes peering out of a repulsive goblin mask. It wasn't Malfoy's harsh grey eyes and long hair, thankfully, but she still couldn't figure out who was hiding underneath.

"Not at all." she stated. Although, she couldn't see much of his true face, he seemed rather familiar. It was as if he was from a dream she'd had long ago and only existed in this exclusive dimension. However, her broken mind seemed to already be in a drunken cloudy haze along with the rest of the goblins. "Have I met you before?"