Hogwarts: a school of Witchcraft and Love (Tom Marvolo Riddle x F!reader)

Chapter 4-15

It used to be standard procedure. For bath time, dancing over hot coals, a quick shot past the mirror to not look at your chest, almost slipping on the slick tiles with how fast you went to the tub.

It was a healthy improvement. You could gaze back at yourself straight into the cracked mirror nowadays. Without even thinking, you checked the closet to see if there was anything to cover your bare knees.

The skirt you had on hit right above them—that you went to inspect before remembering the lines of scratches were gone there—so short it would be considered a belt if it were any shorter.

You found nothing. You would have to ask Mrs. Cole if she had fitting clothing donated by charity laying around somewhere. Your patched-up sweater was too tight, the nylon too thin from constant use, covering where there used to be dips in your skeleton, now having soft pillows of flesh instead of caves, which was a lot healthier.

Your stomach didn't trick itself into fullness anymore. You wore the sweater a lot because of its print, a (F/C) neon smiley face that glowed in the dark, but it was far past the point of being wearable.

She could hook you up with them as a parting gift, in case you would never see her again. Your final summer with the Muggles came earlier than planned because of an arrangement.

Through owl post, Tom got Abraxas to have his parents take you and him in their mansion said to be bigger than the orphanage twice over. Abraxas reached out to you too, but for now you wrote him off after showing you where his loyalities really lay. It was no official adoption-on paper, you would still be living with Mrs. Cole until seventeen.

Adoption. Must be nice, having a family. You have had a couple of families meet you in the past to see if you'd be a fit, but could only dream about the day one of them would sign the legal contracts.

They read your file. You washed yourself and the clothes that had the least holes in them in the cold water you filled the tub up with, soaking with limited resources.

Then you'd throw your hair in various styles, ruffled, open, down, up, looking as fancy as you could be. Dress to impress. Appearance was the first thing a person looked at after all, and to find a family it was vital to make a first good impression.

Rather stressful as it turned out, but you
had the recollection of preparing for a family that looked promising and could be the perfect fit for you. And you hadn't been able to stop thinking about the what if's. You had practiced interview questions with Mrs. Cole hundreds of times, but that was the real deal.

What if you stumbled over your words? What if you made a fool of yourself?

No, you hadn't been nervous. Definitely not. You had definitely not been nervous at seeing the family that had looked like the best out of the select ones that had applied, but you had been more than ready to show what energy you could bring to their dinner table.

They had been just as you dreamed them to be, a pretty mom and a clean dad, a daughter your age. You had looked at them with hope as they in turn had looked at Tom with hope, before he made them race for the crumbling front door, never to look back.

It wasn't the first time, neither had it been the last. You would wait in Mrs. Cole's office, or on a bench outside, for a family to whisk you away-waiting, waiting, your headband eventually balled-up and stuffed away because not much use in presenting yourself when you didn't make it on anyone's radar?

Just Tom. Being orphaned never stopped him from glaring at each and every one of the visitors, as if they were beneath him.

No amount of cheerfulness, curtsies or homemade brownies could distract them from him. He was strong, never bending for anyone, a mystery-everything you were not. Had it not been for his coaching, you would have told yourself that you weren't good enough for any of them. You had for a while, until he argued it was the other way around.