His Dulcet Daisy - Tom Riddle x OC

Chapter Five

Tethered. Little Cilka's breath stuttered in her lungs as she felt herself become so, as she felt herself become stitched to a new gravity and the skin wrapping around her bones become firm and there. Placing a hand upon her heart, pressing the fabric against her shivering skin – it was as if she could feel the seed within her that had begun to bloom. She could feel its little weight, it's little clockwork hum that played underneath the melody of her own pulse of life. She was solid, she was here.

The smoke of the platform misted over her eyes as it thickened with old craftsmanship and heavy coal. She could smell it, smell the difference already between two times so near and yet far apart. It was September and yet it was cold, bitter as if the taste of WWII could not help but smother the air of the Wizarding world too. For the muggle war seemed to hang upon the faces of each child and parent around her, seemed to age them too far ahead of the years their biological clock spun.

Feeling shyness overwhelm her at her new surroundings, those new eyes and faces so different and yet same – Cilka with her small hand trembling around the brown leather handle of her case drew back from the crowds until her back was pressed against the brick wall of the platform. Placing her case down, she felt herself begin to crumble inwardly. She wrapped an arm around her waist, bit the nails upon her other hand as she tried to gather the petals of her withering self. She thought she would feel excited, feel hopeful and new upon arriving – but being here with her feet upon new soil and an older air within her lungs, she couldn't help but feel afraid.

Crouching down, she plucks open the buckles of her case and retrieves an old book. Her fingers steady at the feel of its old red leather, of the familiar embossing and sunken outline of a flower. It was her mothers, scattered and imprinted with her handwriting and annotations of a young girl in the 1970's. She brought it to her chest, held it tight and in helplessness as if it were the only thing that could make her feel safe, feel real.

Closing her case, she stood still holding onto her book. Brushing little strays of hair behind her ear in a nervous habit, Cilka's gentle eyes fluttered as she tried to calm – and yet all she could see in that little moment was the last time she stood upon this station. Her sister had taken her, frail and not yet pregnant. Her sisters' arm was looped with hers as she walked her to the train, that one un-intended scar from her lover all too bright and loud upon her pale skin. It wove up and around her entire forearm, sat there like a brand of who she was and what she had done. Fallen in love with a werewolf – and for all to see.

Her older sister was slightly taller than her, but only just as she placed a kiss upon her forehead and let her lips linger there. Everything was so uncertain then, so frightful of when they may see one another and touch fingertip against fingertip – lip upon forehead. Daisy intertwined her fingers with Cilka, held on tight as they let their foreheads fall against one another and their eyes close as they prayed to whoever may be listening.

Cilka felt a tear bloom in her eye, felt it pool there before gathering into a droplet and tumbling loose with a blink of her eyes at the memory. Platform 9 and ¾ always held an aroma of panic and hustle, of farewells and excitement, forgetfulness and promises given yet not kept out of youthful rebellion. She was used to it, but here, now and then – there was an added layer of desperation. It lay heavy within each farewell of parent and child, within each hand grasped and then parted as they made their way onto the train. And in that little moment Cilka couldn't help but wonder how much WWII had sunk its way into their secret world. How perhaps undivided muggle and wizard truly was, how much like the war going on in her own time was similar to this. Her farewell, their farewells. It was all too similar, all too same.

Taking a dulcet breath of courage, Cilka wiped her eyes and made her way towards the train. As she walked and wove, tip-toed in-between and around, she heard murmurings of parents to child, and child to friends reunited. They talked of their father's at war, of dreams to be soldiers and fight – lost in those youthful hues of naivety and the illusionary glamour of war. Yet it seemed to answer her question in fragment.