Ambrosia • TMR

C.2

"The eye of the storm is calmest, often where you want to be." -unknown
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When Tom realized he was not the only one who was strange, he was...relieved? Intrigued? He didn't know how to feel about the icy eyed girl who could speak his language. He didn't know how she could do it but at the moment under the tree even he felt it too symbolic to ruin it with questioning.

Because she understood. He could clearly tell that she understood more then just the snake language they shared. She understood that he could do strange things because she could do them too. And if that thought wasn't validating.

In this orphanage where he was out casted for things he -for the most part- couldn't control and bullied to the point of more strange happenings. There was someone like him. He wasn't a freak or a abomination but simply different. Him and Irene both.

He couldn't help but wonder if there were more people out there like him and Irene? And if so why were they here?

One day in their room both quietly reading to the sounds of rain pounding against the window, he asked her just that. The conversation they held that day lived with him for a very long time. Often it kept him up at night wondering of possibilities. What if's. Things that never were possible but they kept him up all the same.

"Tom there's a whole world out there of people who can do many more things than we can now. But you and me? We're extraordinarily special." She'd spoken softly in that pleasantly airy voice of hers closing her book to look at him. The look in her eyes was soft, he noticed, she almost seemed reminiscent, happy.

"How?" He inquired, also wondering faintly how she knew of these things, before also closing his book. He wanted to know. Quench the thirst because he couldn't find anything in any books here on their shared ability. Not that he really expected to as they had a very limited selection.

"Parseltongue is what they call snake speak and only the descendants of Salazar Slytherin can speak it. The Gaunt and Peverell families are descendants however, the Gaunt family is more directly related." When she spoke she sounded like a right teacher. "Wh-Who what families are we from?" He asked struggling to get the right words because she knew she knew so much to the point of knowing names. He desperately hoped she knew where he was from.

"Well you're from the Gaunt family. I'm a loose descendant from the Peverell family on my mother's side, the Potter family. Although, the Gaunt family is a descendent of the Peverell as well...Honestly it's all a bit confusing!" She giggled a bit here but Tom was in a bit of a shock. He had a whole linage! A name! A family...who had him in a dirty orphanage!

"So why are we here? Why are we here if we have so much history behind us? Holed up in-in a filthy orphanage?" That cut her giggles short. The hurt hidden behind the rage in his voice had her starkly remembering this was a kid. A kid wishing for a family; a kid with nothing to his name. Just like how she used to be. Just like how she maybe still was deep down inside.

And so when she answered, she didn't sugarcoat a word that left her lips.

"Well your mother had to have been Merope Gaunt. She..she wasn't well. Her father and brother abused her physically, verbally, and emotionally. She was so desperate for an out that when she found the chance to run away after they got put in azkaban-Wizarding prison- she did. But all of the trauma from abuse for many many years got to her and she just wanted anyone to love her. So she brewed a love potion and gave it to your non-magical father until she'd conceived you." She explained. Talking to Tom wasn't like talking to a 5 year old at all. She felt she could use big words and he'd understand them without difficulty.