The Dark Dyad (Tom Riddle & ofc)

Chapter 3. The Notebook and the Favorite Toy

June 13, 1938

Monday

It was finally the day of the classes that Martha usually taught. She was very young and more often just looked after the children, especially those who had chickenpox. Unfortunately for me, that's probably was the reason why classes were very rare at the Wool's Orphanage. Frankly, I was looking forward to it, and now, finally, I was going to one of them. Another small variety in this permanent existence were the books that got into our class thanks to Martha, and which I always read in just a couple of days.

Martha told us to split into pairs, and she left the classroom for the break to help in the kitchen. There were only three wardens in the orphanage: Mrs. Cole, Miss Blair, and Martha. Sometimes I was genuinely surprised at how they handled everything, but my respect for Mrs. Cole did not want to appear; on the contrary, she seemed to annoy me more and more year after year.

The children were noisily taking their seats at the old, shabby tables. There were quiet whispers and snatches of phrases behind me that said, "There's no way I'm sitting with Riddle." I rolled my eyes. Well, at least they had enough intelligence for something! I physically couldn't stand their slowness, which was literally starting to irritate me, and their stupidity. Thank you for getting a point and for depriving me of the inconvenience of explaining that I wanted to sit exclusively alone.

"May I?" A familiar voice brought me back to reality from the realms of my mind. I turned around slowly — Irene was standing behind me, with a good-natured smile on her face for some unknown reason, and hugging a textbook and a notebook. God's fool girl!

"No," I said indifferently, and looked away unconcerned at the desk where the battered textbook lay.

First you sit at my table in the dining room, and now here? No way.

"Yes," Irene objected, and her face turned to stone. She suddenly hissed through her teeth: 'I'll pretend I didn't notice you following me in London, and you'll just let me sit here.'

Not even her brazen attempt to dictate the terms, but the fact that I was caught red-handed, responded with sharp irritation. I hesitated. On the one hand, she'd finally come to me, but on the other, it was the little hermit girl who owned the situation, not me. If I kept answering now, wanting with all my being to put her in her place, we might have a fight; then some of the staff would come running to the noise, and we would both be punished. And her face is much prettier than mine, and people sometimes rush around her like around the Fabergé egg, which Martha once told us about. Therefore, I'll probably be the one who gets punished.

"So be it." I sat down in an old chair whose legs were rickety. Irene sat down confidently beside me and placed her things on the edge of the table.

"Great, otherwise I already thought I'd have to sit with one of those morons," she chuckled contentedly, throwing back her long, tightly braided black braids.

My furtive glance immediately slid from the top of her head to the ends of her hair, and the urge to pull one of the braids with all my might arose instantly. I put both hands on the old cracked tabletop. Looking at my fingers, I thought how beautifully they would wrap this night darkness on my fist.

I breathed out.

Our thoughts are definitely the same, Irene. But you have to earn a place next to me.

"I left my homework in my room. Can I copy yours?"

She arched an eyebrow questioningly. I continued to convince her, trying to distract myself from the obsessive, stupid thought.

"Don't worry. No one will understand anything; I won't copy word for word; I will change it."

"Okay." The answer sounded a little incredulous, but she still handed me her notebook.