the moon is no door ↠ Tom Riddle

30

It had taken about a minute for Saffron to convince her father to let her go to downtown London on her own. It had taken her forty-five minutes to convince Soren.

Mostly, it was hard because she didn't want to tell him that she was aiming to go get Tom and invite him over for Christmas Eve. She knew he was suspicious of Tom—because of what she'd already told him, admittedly—and if she told him upfront she wanted to bring him to their home, he wouldn't have let her go.

So, she told him that she was going to go shopping in Diagon Alley for presents and didn't want them to come along for that, of course. Which was true. But, she was planning on taking Tom with her for it.

Once she had permission, she hurried to her room and got ready. On the weekends at Hogwarts, Saffron's casual wear was often a jumper and simple, wide-leg pants. In the Muggle world, however, it was a little more complicated. Before she left, she dressed in a white button-down blouse tucked into a plaid A-line skirt and threw on a red box coat on her way out of the house. Though it was fashionable to wear heels in the Muggle world, she chose Oxford-style flats. She was already tall, and she didn't want to tower over everyone—the goal was to blend in.

It had been a bit difficult for her to find Wool's Orphanage, as it was one of the smaller orphanages in London. But, she found it eventually. The problem was it was all the way in Southwark in a particularly not-so-good neighborhood. The trip there had taken her over an hour and a half, including the time she spent asking for directions mostly just getting dirty looks.

When she finally found the broken-down brick building, she had to check her paper twice. It stood taller than the buildings around it—it was square, simple and very unpleasant. High railings surrounded the premises. It was quite intimidating and Saffron couldn't imagine what growing up there would have been like.

On the way over, she'd nearly turned around and went right back to her own house. She hated to admit it, but she was so nervous, she was making herself dizzy. Part of her was scared that Tom wouldn't want to come with her. She didn't even know whether he'd stopped hating her yet. It wasn't long ago when she knew for a fact that she disgusted him.

Not to mention, this was such a foreign context. She wasn't sure what he was like outside of the grounds of Hogwarts. She wasn't sure what she'd be like.

She rang for someone to come get her and stood for quite a long time. She was glad she wore a heavy coat. It wasn't snowing that day but the skies were grey, and there was a bitter wind that froze the skin below where her skirt ended at her mid-calf.

It was quiet in this part of London. Saffron wasn't sure if she was imagining it, but there seemed to be a hostile atmosphere. People either stared at her or refused to make eye contact.

Finally, a few minutes after she rang for someone, the front doors of the orphanage opened and a small, thin woman came out. She walked quickly to the gates, hugging her arms to herself and slightly shivering.

"Good heavens, child, what are you doing here?" she asked once she reach the gate and immediately started on getting the padlock opened.

"I'm here to visit one of your residents," said Saffron, taking a step back from the stressed woman. She a sharp nose and a sharp chin, and the darkness around her eyes suggested she hadn't had a good night's sleep in years.

"You wouldn't happen to be Mary Irvine, would you? Billy told me you were coming tomorrow,"

The woman opened the gate and allowed Saffron to step in.

"No, I'm not," Saffron said, taking a moment to look around the grounds as the woman locked the gate again. There were no trees or flowers or anything. It was completely bare.