Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
3.
TOM watches, as do all the children, as the happy, perfect couple takes the even happier child for their perfect, loving family. It's the sort of thing you'd see in a book — the sort of thing they'd advertise orphanages as, all cheerful and idealised. Tom has long since past the point of jealousy, but even he can't help but watch every time a child escapes this hellhole. He wouldn't have a chance, anyway; he's too old to be desirable. Adults who come through here only want the youngest, only even considering it because they can't make their own children. Tom wouldn't want to be taken by such flawed people. He's better off by himself.
Even if he doesn't want to be taken by them, seeing those new families so happy does put a sour taste in his mouth. His unappetising, warm grit is even more unappealing. He scoops another spoonful of sludge into his mouth and fights the grimace as it coats his mouth in its claggy consistency. No matter how much he eats this, he'll never adjust to it.
"One day, that'll be me." Some naive child pipes up from nearby Tom. No one ever sits near him, but with limited seats and strict adults, the unlucky ones are forced to at least share a table with him. The wizard slides his cold eye towards the boy, who hasn't noticed his gaze as he talks to his friend. "My dad is going to come get me. I just have to wait."
Oh, to be young and hopeful. To have dreams and believe someone out there still cares about you, that you're here for a reason other than your parents didn't love you or are dead. Tom doesn't remember being like that. He's not sure he ever was. He remembers being angry — being angry that his mother was so weak that she gave up the second he was born, that his father didn't want anything to do with him. He still is angry.
Adoptions put Tom in a foul mood.
*
Dillion has never had Cheerios before. He's only ever had porridge, bacon and eggs, toast — cooked food where a degree of time and care, even for a house elf, has been put into it. This milk and cereal is effective in filling the hole in his stomach, but it lacks that warmth both literally and figuratively.
"I'm going to clean the house today." Dillion tells Ambrosio after glancing around the kitchen. He'd cleaned it a little while stocking up the house, but he can see the spots he missed even from here. It gets worse when he looks out to the untouched lounge room. Merlin, it just makes him shudder.
"I'm sure the house would appreciate it," is Ambrosio's response, which gets a frown from Dillion. The boy doesn't say anything straight away, eating a mouthful of his Cheerios first. They've started getting soggy and what little appeal they had before is quickly disappearing. Someone should have told him cereal isn't the sort of meal you savour.
"You don't mean that literally, do you? The house can't actually appreciate it, can it?" With magic, it's always hard to tell. Worse still, when you start to take into account ghosts and spirits. Dillion has read books on spirits possessing objects, though never anything as big as a whole house. He's also read books on how to cleanse and exorcise, but he's not sure he's quite ready to actually try his hand at one.
