July 15th, 1941,
Well, it’s happened. Tom finally blew a gasket at Mme. Westyn, and now we’re both sitting on a dark street corner trying to figure out where we should go.
---
The afternoon had begun innocently enough. Miriam was sitting upstairs on her bed, secretly writing a report for school under her covers, which proved to be a sweaty job. Tom was outside in the gardens, lying under a large tree with Vipera.
After she finished her homework a few hours later, she noticed it was getting dark and decided to go downstairs in search of Tom. As she had correctly guessed, he was still outside talking to Vipera. Sighing, she headed outside to join them. Walking into the expansive garden, she traveled over toward Tom, who was still lying underneath a massive tree.
“How come,” she began, “you haven’t introduced me to your new friend?”
Tom looked up with a mildly amused expression on his face and replied, “Sure. Vipera, this is my sister Miriam. Miriam, this Vipera.”
Charmed, it hissed.
“Tom,” she asked casually, not sure where to even begin the conversation, “how is it even possible to, uh, understand it?”
He nodded. “I dunno. I just talk to her, and she understands me.”
She? Miriam wondered. It was a girl?
“Don’t you think it’s ...kinda odd, though?”
“No.”
“Let me rephrase this: Is it normal to be able to talk to snakes?”
“Why not?”
“Yes, I would be interested to hear this as well,” a brash voice called out. Miriam slowly looked behind her and came face-to-face with Madam Westyn.
“Uh, hello, Madam Westyn,” they uttered in unison.
“Would you two please come to my office at once?” she asked, barely moving her mouth through her fake smile.
Miriam’s heart started to race as they followed Madam Westyn to her office. How she absolutely hated being in that wretched room. The only good thing that ever happened there was when she and her brother found out about being ‘magical,’, which in turn lead to those glorious nine months away from Madam Westyn and her crummy orphanage.
Madam Westyn closed the door behind them and sighed. “It’s as if you two couldn’t make my job any harder,” she huffed.
“What did we do?” Tom asked, trying hard to keep his voice as calm as possible.
Madam Westyn looked around the room. “I allowed you two to go to that school, and now, I see that you can talk to snakes. What type of monstrous trait is that? What do they teach you there? The dark arts?”
“Why do you care?” Tom asked darkly.
Madam Westyn looked shocked.
“How dare you talk back to me, you insolent little brat!”
“You know something,” Tom replied, eying Madam Westyn rather intently (Miriam gulped as she knew she wasn’t going to like what was coming next), “you’ve been riding our backs ever since we got back here, and I ... AM ...SICK ...OF ...IT!”
“Well, if you don’t like it, there’s the door. Don’t let it hit you on the ass on the way out!” Madam Westyn snarled, as she pointed aggressively toward the door to her office.
“Fine!” Tom shouted as he slammed the door behind him. “Don’t want to live in this crappy place anyway,” Miriam heard him mutter as he stomped away.
Following her brother out the door, she had to literally run to catch up with him in the main entryway.
“Tom!” she called after him.
“Pack your bags,” he ordered her. “We’re leaving!”
“But Tom,” she called out again.
“Just do it!” he yelled.
Miriam gazed at her brother in amazement.
“Look,” he said, more quietly this time, “pack your bags and meet me downstairs at midnight tonight.”
Questions were racing through her head, and she was quite understandably puzzled.
Tom walked away, but turned around to face Miriam again. “Oh, and one more thing, don’t bother going downstairs for dinner tonight.” He continued walking, leaving Miriam even more confused.
Skip dinner? Easy for him to do, she thought bitterly.
~*~
Miriam went to her bed and began furiously throwing things from her night stand and dresser into her trunk rather more hastily than she planned. When she finished, she hid her trunk back under her bed and sat down on her comforter, staring out the window onto the darkening sky. The sun was merely a speck on the horizon now, and the sky was a pinkish orange color. Resting her head against the cool glass of the windowpane, she looked at her small alarm clock and counted down the time until midnight, when she would meet her brother downstairs.
~*~
7 pm. It was dinner time. Although Miriam was really hungry, she followed her brother’s advice and didn’t head down to join the others.
9 pm. Sighing, she looked out the window and waited for the other girls to come up to bed.
11 pm. Only one more hour, she thought, as the snores from the other girls began to fill the room.
12 am. Showtime. Quietly sliding off her bed, she delicately pulled out her trunk from under her bed and started sliding it across the floor. Making it to the stairs, she sighed as the thought of trying to carry the heavy trunk down entered her head. This is going to take all my strength. Taking a deep breath, she tried her hardest to quietly slide the trunk down the staircase.
It took a lot of effort, but she managed to get it to the bottom without waking anyone up. Catching her breath and wiping her forehead off with the back of her hand, she strained her eyes to try and see in the darkness. Looking around, she spotted a dark shape standing by the door.
“Tom?” she quietly called out.
“Miriam! Glad you finally made it.”
“How long have you been standing there?” she asked, anger slowly starting to fill her. “You know, you could have helped me carry that blasted trunk down!”
“Sorry,” he mumbled, though not sounding very sorry.
“Are we doing what I think we’re doing?”
“If it’s what I’m thinking of,” Tom replied. “I don’t know about you, but I can’t stay here at Madam Westyn’s anymore.”
“Neither can I,” she sighed.
“We can head to London,” Tom continued. “We... we have loads of money in Gringott’s, so finding a place to stay won’t be a problem.”
“But London is two hours away by car! Who knows how long it’ll take by foot!"
“If we start now, we should hopefully be there by morning,” Tom sighed. He turned around and, to her astonishment, started crawling on the floor.
“What on earth are you doing?” she hissed, wondering what he was up to now.
“Looking for something.... Aha, got it!” he answered. He stood up and proceeded to the main door. Miriam heard something moving around and then click. The front doors opened, and the starry midnight black night sky came into view.
“Let’s go.”
Tom and Miriam dragged their trunks out into the cool night air.
“Lumos,” he whispered. Holding his wand, it lit up and together they used it to light their way to freedom.
~*~
“I don’t think I can drag this all the way to London,” Miriam huffed as they hauled their trunks down the dirt road that lead away from the orphanage.
Tom agreed. He sat down on his trunk and sighed. “Nox.” The light from his wand dimmed. “If only we could use our magic to get out of here.”
“I’m tired, hungry, and lost,” Miriam complained as she sat down next to him on her own trunk. “Look, we better keep going if we want to try and make it to London by daybreak.”
As soon as she stood up, something blinded her ...headlights. They were getting closer.
“Tom, what is that?”
“Headlights.”
“Duh, I know, but from a car this late at night?”
The lights got closer, and Miriam had to put her hands in front of her eyes to shield them from the blinding light. After a minute, the lights didn’t pass by. Miriam knew they couldn’t have belonged to a car... could they?
“Bloody hell! Where’d that come from?“ Tom asked incredulously, looking at the huge, purple bus parked in front of him.
“Hello,” a strange voice called out. A male figure appeared. “Welcome to the Knight Bus, transportation for the stranded witch or wizard. My name is Quintin Shacklebolt, and I’ll be your conductor this evening.” The man looked down at Tom and Miriam.
The kids looked at one another, unsure what to make of this rather bizarre situation.
“Are you two coming aboard or not, cause we’ve got to make another stop tonight.”
“What... how... how exactly did you know where to find us?” Miriam asked.
“One of you two contacted us,” the man replied.
“Tom, did you ““
”No - at least, I don’t think I did.”
Miriam looked up at the man. “Would you be able to take us to London?”
“Certainly, miss.”
Miriam grinned at Tom, who was looking just as pleased as she was.
“What about our trunks?” Tom asked.
“I’ll grab those,” Quintin replied, stepping off the triple-decker.
Tom and Miriam boarded the bus while Quintin lugged their heavy trunks up the stairs. Inside, Tom gave a low whistle as he looked around the expansive bus. It was even bigger on the inside than it appeared on the outside. But the best thing was, there were beds in which they could lay! Some looked to be occupied, but others weren’t.
“You want to head to London, you have to pay for your tickets,” Quintin panted, wiping the sweat off his brow.
“Um, how much?” Miriam asked. She realized then that they didn’t have any money for tickets.
“Three knuts.”
“Here you go,” Tom said, handing him the money. Miriam was surprised.
He’s been holding out on me, she thought.
Quintin handed them two tickets in return. “We’ll be arriving in London shortly.”
The twins set off looking for a place to sit. Finding a vacant bed near the back of the bus, they took opposite sides and sat down.
“This is so much better than walking to London,” Miriam squealed with delight, as Tom merely nodded his head in agreement. As she laid back on her pillow, the bus slowly began to drive away. This isn’t so bad. Closing her eyes, she tried going to sleep as she expected a smooth ride to London, unfortunately she was wrong.
BOOM!
Both Tom and Miriam peered out the window to see what had caused such a noise. Looking out the window, they both received quite the shock. Houses were literally running out of the way of the speeding bus, and cars passing them were driving up onto the front lawns. They continued looking on in disbelief, each holding onto the bed for dear life.
“Never rode the Knight Bus before, have you?” Quintin asked as he carefully walked toward Tom and Miriam, who were each holding onto the bed for dear life.
“No,” Tom replied quietly, still transfixed by the impressive sight.
“Don’t the people outside see us?” she asked.
“Nope,” Quintin replied. “Special charms are used to prevent them from seeing us.”
Feeling slightly more relaxed, they sat down on the bed again, only to be thrown off when the bus suddenly came to a screeching halt and Miriam went toppling on top of Tom.
“Oomph! Hey, get off me!” he yelled.
“I’m trying!”
As she climbed off her brother, the doors to the bus opened and another passenger boarded the purple triple-decker. She was a rather paunchy woman with curly gray hair and rosy cheeks.
“Hello, Lydia,” Quintin said to the woman. “To London, I assume?”
“You got it,” she answered, with a cheerful grin. After she paid him the fare, she walked toward the back of the bus where Miriam was currently situating herself on the bed and Tom was still sprawled out on the floor.
“Why, aren’t you two out late,” she smiled, glancing at Tom and Miriam in a motherly way. “Where are your parents?”
“We don’t have any,” Tom mumbled, not bothering looking at the woman.
“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that,” she replied. Crouching down to face Tom eye-to-eye, she said, “My name is Lydia Lupin. What’s yours?”
“Tom Riddle.”
Miriam sat up on the bed and looked at the woman.
“What’s your name, deary?”
“Miriam Riddle.”
“My goodness, you two certainly look a lot like,” Lydia replied astounded, looking between Miriam and Tom.
“We’re twins,” they replied in unison.
“Where do you two live?”
“At Madam Westyn’s. It’s an orphanage not far from here,” Miriam replied morosely.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Lydia replied.
“We hated living there, so we ran away,” Tom added calmly.
“You ran away? Are you going to live with any relatives then?”
“No. Once we get to London, we’ll figure out where to go from there,” Tom answered.
“London isn’t a safe place for two young kids like yourselves.”
Tom heaved a heavy sigh. “We’re not kids. We’re thirteen and a half.”
“Still, London isn’t a safe place for two... teenagers,” she answered with a wry smile on her face.
“We know how to take care of ourselves,” Miriam answered for Tom, who was struggling to bite back with a retort. “Living at the orphanage, especially at Madam Westyn’s, you learn to take care of yourself.”
“I would feel honored if you two came to live with me until the semester starts at Hogwarts. You, uh, are going to Hogwarts, right?”
“Hm-mm. We’ll be starting our Fourth year in September,” Miriam replied.
July 31st, 1941,
Lydia has been extremely nice! We’ve been at her house for a few weeks now, and we absolutely love it here. Today she is taking us to Diagon Alley to buy our school things. Oddly enough, the school somehow knew to send our letters here. Strange, but at least we have them.
---
“Are you ready?” Lydia asked. The twins both nodded. They had just put on their school cloaks and were ready to proceed with the day’s adventures.
When Lydia saw their cloaks, she let out a small chuckle. “One Gryffindor, one Slytherin. I always figured the Sorting hat placed twins in the same house.”
“That’s what we’ve heard,” Miriam replied with a grin while Tom rolled his eyes.
Lydia leaned in closer to Miriam and whispered, “Just to know, I was in Gryffindor, too.”
Although Tom scowled, she gave Miriam a small wink and then stepped back and began explaining the effects of traveling by Floo powder.
“We’ll be traveling by this,” she announced, holding up a green jar filled with sparkling powder. “Have either of you ever traveled by Floo powder before?” she enquired.
They both shook their head no.
“Well, it’s quite simple. All you have to do is stand in the fireplace, grab a handful of this power and say very, very clearly the place you want to go to, which is Diagon Alley. Tom, why don’t you go first?”
Tom grabbed a handful of the sparkling powder and stepped into the fireplace.
“Diagon Alley!” A burst of green flames enclosed around Tom, and he disappeared into them.
“Your turn now, Miriam.”
She walked into the fireplace and grabbed a fistful of the powder.
“D - Diagon Alley!”
Green flames flew up all around her and Lydia’s fireplace vanished from sight. It was completely dark, and when she looked around, she couldn’t see a single thing except for passing fireplace grates. Before long she began to hear voices and a bright light could be seen shining through as a fireplace came into view. Totally unprepared for the landing, she went toppling out of the fireplace and onto the hard floor. Groaning, she got up looked around, coming face-to-face with a crowd of people, one of whom was Tom.
“Where are we?” she asked as she got to her feet, brushing the soot off that covered her clothes.
“Flourish & Blotts.”
Wandering off to look to around the store and at some of the books, they heard a loud crashing noise coming from the same fireplace that Tom and Miriam had just exited a moment before. Working her way through the crowd, Lydia finally made her way over to Tom and Miriam.
“Kids? Oh, there you are!” she called out.
“We’re over here,” Tom mumbled to his feet.
“We need to go to Gringott’s to get our money first,” Miriam spoke.
“Oh no, it would be my honor to get your books --"
"- and robes,” Tom interjected. “We seemed to have grown a few inches, and these just don’t fit us like they used to.”
“Certainly,” Lydia replied cheerfully.
As she walked away, Miriam leaned over toward Tom and hissed, “We can’t let her buy our school things! We have loads of our own money. It wouldn’t be right!”
“We’re getting our stuff for free! Relax!” Tom replied nonchalantly.
~*~
For most of the day, Lydia took the kids around Diagon Alley buying them new books, robes, and a few things for their Potions kit. While their new friend paid for their supplies, Miriam couldn’t help but feel like a petty thief. While the guilt slowly gnawed away at her insides, she decided she would do something nice for Lydia to make up for it, but unfortunately she didn’t have any money on her at the moment to buy her anything nice. Miriam tried to think of what she could do for her, but nothing came to mind.
~*~
Much later, once Miriam and Tom were back in Lydia’s home, Miriam went straight to bed as she was still trying to think up an idea on what to give Lydia to thank her for her kindness. At that same time, in her humble living room, Lydia had turned on her radio and began listening to the evening newscast. Tom was busy examining his new robes when a strange news announcement came over the radio.
“In other news, wealthy businessman, Thomas Riddle, of Little Hangleton, has announced plans to buy more properties in the Little Hangleton area, and possibly here in London. We will announce more info when available.”
Lydia looked inquisitively at Tom, who had stopped examining his robes and placed them carefully back on the table. He seemed eerily quiet, just sitting there, staring out into the space in front of him, the vein above his right eye slowly beginning to protrude.
“You two wouldn’t happen to be related, would you?” she asked innocently enough.
Without even answering Lydia’s question, Tom got up from his seat and left the room in a fit of rage, while Lydia wondered what on earth she had said to make him so mad. Completely befuddled by his behavior, she was unaware that her radio had begun to shake violently as Tom was leaving the room. Storming into the bedroom where Miriam was, he slumped onto a separate bed and groaned loudly into the comforter.
“Damn it, Miriam, it’s not fair,” he grumbled, his face half covered by the blankets. “That moron of a father of ours is planning to buy more properties, yet he can’t even take care of his own children!”
Miriam was still trying to think of a gift idea for Lydia when Tom had come bursting into her room and started mumbling into his quilt.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you,” she said, looking alarmed at Tom.
“I said,” Tom replied, lifting his head off the quilt and narrowing his green eyes at her, “is that our... our... oh, never mind. Just drop it.”
“Excuse me!” Miriam exclaimed. “You came in here all aggravated about something or other and now you’re telling me to drop it?! That’s a bit rich, isn’t it?”
“Just drop it.” He turned to his side and didn’t say any more.
Well, he’s certainly acting like a little prat.
Miriam rolled her eyes over the ridiculousness of her brother’s recent demeanor. Rolling over on her own bed, she turned her back toward him and went to sleep.