All the Wrong Choices

Tom's Point of View

It was the day before winter holiday started. Students would be catching the Hogwarts Express tonight back to their homes for the next two weeks. Nora had been in hysterics all day for a reason I was ignorant to. In fact, she had been a massive bag of uncontrollable emotions for the last week, so I'd been keeping my distance from her. I turned around in my seat to look at her sitting two tables away from me in Potions. Her eyes were swollen and red but they were focused intently on the potion she was brewing.

“Mister Riddle? Is there a problem?” Professor Slughorn's voice cut through the silence in the classroom, causing me to nearly jump out of my seat. Nora looked up at me and, upon noticing I had been looking at her, gave me a small smile. I faced forward in my seat and felt my face turn red upon being caught staring.

“No, sir,”

“Very well, then. Keep your eyes on your cauldron and off of Miss Longwood. As you are aware, this is an independent assignment and it is half of your grade.”

“Yes, sir,” I mumbled lowly, adding the last few ingredients to my cauldron. Professor Slughorn dismissed the class twenty minutes later. Nora stayed in her seat, not making eye contact with anyone as they walked by her. I stopped in front of her and looked at her questionably.

“Hi.” Nora mustered out, once more giving me a weak smile.

“What's wrong?” I asked.

“Nothing, Tom. I'm fine.” Her words didn't assure me in the least bit.

“That is complete crap. You've been in this state all week. Tell me what's going on so I can help you.” I hadn't even thought about what I was saying before it came out of my mouth. So I can help her? What was I saying? I didn't want to help her.

“Mister Riddle, you ought to be heading to the Great Hall for the feast,” Professor Slughorn appeared behind me. I nearly wanted to slap his head off of his shoulders. Who was he to keep calling me out? If I wanted to have a private conversation, who was he to stop me? “You can catch up with Nora later.”

I glared at Professor Slughorn before gathering my books from Nora's table and walking out. The closer Professor Slughorn grew to Nora, it seemed, the farther he grew away from me – the more weary he grew of me, and it made me furious. Instead of making my way to the Great Hall, I waited for her outside of Professor Slughorn's classroom – with the full intention of eavesdropping.

“What's eating you, Nora?” Professor Slughorn asked curiously.

“I received something in the post from my father today,” Nora explained through sniffles, “And I won't be returning home for break.” I heard the rustling of parchment being pulled out from an envelope.

Nora,

I'm sorry I haven't written you once since you went off to Hogwarts. Your mother has been passing the messages on, however, and hopefully has been passing mine on, as well. How is school going? Have you made any friends at Hogwarts? Headmaster Dippet tells me you're doing exceedingly well in all of your classes. Great news! Your mother has told me that you were sorted into Slytherin. Congratulations, although this doesn't come as a shock to me. Your mother and I were sorted into Slytherin, as well as my parents – your grandparents – and their parents before that. Slytherin will help you on the way to greatness.

Speaking of your mother and I – well, let me just come out and say this without beating around the bush. Your mother and I have filed for a divorce. There are many reasons why, but I assure that you are not one of them. And it isn't specific topics we argued about, but the whole way we approached things. Many couples don't see eye to eye on some things, but it's all about the attitude you take towards one another, especially when you disagree. We didn't listen to each other enough. You know how sometimes you want to say something so much that you don't even hear what the other person is saying? That's how your mother and I got to be. We cared more about what we wanted to say and not enough about what the other person was saying. We didn't know how to stop arguing and walk away from a fight. We were not strong enough for each other.

Even though your mother and I are getting a divorce, Nora, you will always be part of us. We both still love you and always will. We figured this would be the best way to tell you, so you weren't too surprised when you came home on holiday and saw only your sister and me here. Your mother is staying with a close friend of hers from the Ministry. I tried to make it work, Nora, I truly did. For the sake of the two beautiful daughters we have together, and because I've always loved her, and always will. Elsa and I look forward to seeing you soon.

Love,
Dad

“I don't know what to say, Nora.” I heard Professor Slughorn reply.

“She was having an affair. I know it.”

Professor Slughorn sighed. “When I taught your mother, she was always a wild one. During her time here she always had a bit of a… reputation. I think that your father, being the great man that he was, tamed her for a long time, but nothing was ever permanent with her. Judith has always marched to the beat of her own drum, ever since she was just a young girl.”



I sat on the leather couch across from the crackling fire, enjoying both a book and the silence of an empty common room. Ninety-nine percent of the students had caught the train back to their respective homes. Those who remained either had no family or were outcasts or misfits but – contrary to popular belief – not many did. There were maybe fifty students in the entire school during holidays.

I heard the light pitter-patter of small footsteps descending the stairs. I looked over my shoulder and saw Nora standing there in her pajamas, her hair rustled, eyes swollen, and lips puffy. Make that fifty-one students.

I moved from my laying position on the couch to a sitting position and motioned for her to sit. She wordlessly accepted the offer and drew her legs into her chest. She wrapped her arms around her legs for support and watched the fire.

“I heard your conversation with Slughorn. I wasn't aware he knows your family.”

“My parents were both members of the Slug Club,” Nora didn't turn to look at me.

“I'm sorry to hear about your parents,” Normally I wouldn't care about something so simple such as a divorce – there were worse things in life, in my opinion – but seeing Nora hurt for some reason affected me.

“I saw it coming. My mother always had been a whore,” Nora muttered. With that I took back to my book. It wasn't my business to pry. If Nora wanted to share her personal information with me, I would listen.

And she did, because less than ten minutes later she was in my lap, crying hysterically on my shoulder, her arms wrapped in a death grip around my neck. I sat there, still as stone, and let her speak incoherent words into my chest, taken by surprise and not knowing what to do. Her fingernails dug into my neck, and overall it was just an uncomfortable, awkward situation.

I soon found myself rubbing her back and shushing her like a young child. Sooner rather than later she began to calm down, her breathing becoming less rapid and her gurgling, sobbing-choke sounds ceasing all together. She'd nearly hyperventilated herself into a panic attack.

She pulled her head back to look at me, keeping her arms around my neck and her body in my lap. She looked like an alien due to the obscene amount of crying she had done. Her eyes bulged out and the skin below them puffed up. Her cheeks were red and her lips pouty and redder than before. She was one of those girls with an ugly, snotty cry, but she still managed to look just as beautiful when she was upset.

Without any hesitation or even bothering to ask permission, she leaned back into me and wiped her tears and her wet nose onto the shoulder of my sweater. If any other girl had done that I would have easily thrown them onto the ground. But I found myself simply inwardly groaning as she did it – completely repulsed by her actions, but not tossing her across the room like a rag doll.

“Why aren't you home for break?” Nora asked casually, as if she hadn't just been crying, snotting, drooling, and practically throwing up all over me. She adjusted herself in my lap to get my comfortable and, to my surprise, I allowed it to happen.

“I don't have a home,” I said simply.

“What do you mean?” Nora gave me the same sad smile she had given me in Slughorn's class earlier that day. “But the orphanage, I thought–”

“That's not my home,” I told her, “Hogwarts is my home.”

“I'm sorry.” Nora mumbled, laying her head on my clean shoulder. “I feel like a jerk for throwing a fit over something so trivial as my parents divorcing when you don't even have yours.”

“I don't think I would like them too much even if I did have them.”

Nora and I sat in the common room for another hour or so. I read my book while she curled into my side, sitting in a perfect silence so as to not disturb me. As I was on the last page of the chapter I was reading, soft snoring started to sound from next to me. I looked down and Nora was fast asleep, dead weight against me.

I bookmarked my page and slid the book into one of the inside pockets of my robes, then stood up from the couch and looked down at Nora one more time before sighing and lifting her up. I carried her sleeping body – which was much heavier than it looked, I swore she was made of lead – up the stairs to the girl's dormitory. She stirred in her sleep and soon I felt sad, little eyes looking up at me.

“Can I stay with you tonight, Tom?” I heard her voice, quiet as a mouse and innocent as a child. I looked down at her, then at the door to the girl's dormitory, then back to her. I sighed once more to show a sign of protest – though I wasn't protesting it at all. I wasn't necessarily put off by the idea as much as I was nervous. I had never actually shared a bed with a girl – sexually, yes, plenty of times, but we would go our own ways immediately after. Physically sleeping next to someone seemed much more intimate than having sex with someone.

“I suppose you can, Longwood. But if someone catches you in my bed and reports it to Headmaster Dippet, I'm going to say that you're insane and I have no idea as to how you got there.” I carried her back down the staircase and to my own dormitory. Having my own dormitory was part of the Prefect privilege – and I didn't mind it one bit. I was of more significance than any other student as a Prefect anyways and shouldn't be sleeping in a hot, smelly dormitory with fifty other boys.

It was a lot more elegant than the average dormitory and far more plush. Nora was practically in awe in her half-conscious state. She said something about how amazing this dormitory was and how she would give me “five hundred galleons for it”, then fell asleep the second her body hit the emerald green sheets of the bed.



Nora stirred the next morning beside me but made no effort to wake up. I was fully dressed in the day's attire – a black sweater, dress pants, and dress shoes – and sifting through a journal while I sat next to her sleeping body. “You should wake up, Nora. I've got things I need to do.”

She groaned in response. “Like what?”

“I've got to take a trip to Little Hangleton.” This got her attention.

“Little Hangleton?” Nora asked as she sat up. “What's in Little Hangleton?”

“It's nothing to be too concerned about,”

“I could come with you,” Nora suggested before quickly adding, “If you needed help finding something. My home is right in Great Hangleton – only about sixty miles away from Little Hangleton.”

“No. That won't be necessary.”

“Are you sure?”

I clenched my jaw, closed my journal and stood up.

“Yes, Nora. I'm positive. Now if you wouldn't mind–”

“Will you at least tell me the reason behind going?” Nora asked, unwrapping herself from the sheets and standing up. I noted that she must have stripped to her underwear some time in the middle of the night and subtly tried to look for her pants on the floor.

I grew angry at her prodding. She asked too many questions.

“It's none of your business, Longwood. It's not like we're an item.”

Nora looked down to the ground and I instantly regretted saying what I had.

“I didn't mean it like that–”

“No, you're right.” Nora murmured, finding her pajama pants and pulling them over her bare legs. “It's none of my business. Enjoy your trip, Tom.”