Dose of Darkness | Tom Riddle |

Chapter One: I'm On My Way

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"Now this is not the end. It is not even thebeginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning."
--Winston Churchill

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New beginnings were sometimes unclear.

Where exactly do they start? Surely, not every new beginning was at the first day of school. Not even the first of January or any ordinary Monday were the only ways to have a new beginning.

If anything, every day someone wakes up is technically a fresh start.

But there was no such thing as a clean slate, and Eleanor Parkinson was well aware.

Wouldn't something have to end for something to begin though?

Eleanor's mind was all over the place now and yet she still couldn't place why this morning felt oddly fulfilling to her new persona.
Maybe a new beginning meant continuing her story on another empty space on her slate. Maybe it wasn't just one day she decided she'd wake up and become braver and stronger, maybe it just took a little bit of writing for her beginning to really come into play.

Maybe today was the day she realized she was off to a good start and it absolutely terrified her that something was lurking, waiting to go wrong.

Eleanor entered the city of London where the pale, white wine colored sunlight pierced through the fog that was mixed with ash and soot from the night before. In the countryside where the Autumn air was crisp, the sun shined down on the once cool morning with bits of summer to take its place.

The gray cat in her lap stretched its limbs as it stood up, standing up on the window as if it knew they were close to the station.

"It's our last first day driving to school together, you know?" Eleanor dryly commented with a little grin on her lips.

The radio picked up another station in the city through the static.

"Churchill was seen leaving Ten Downing Street this morning, sources say for a meeting in Quebec with President Roosevelt. A close aid to the Prime Minister says this discussion is one for the Pacific Theater and how the Allies will proceed with Japan."

When Eleanor glanced over at Abraxas, whose light was still barely flickering inside of him, there was a ghost of a brief smile that was seemingly forced. She could see the mourning of his mother still radiating off of him and she knew soon, the nice boy she had come to known while they were away from school this past month would change like nothing had happened once among his friends.

It was even stranger to think that Abraxas Malfoy had a similarly twisted mind as his friend.

Things were quite different this time last year.

"--rumors of a strong resistance by the Polish in Warsaw and there is no word on what the Allies plan to do in regards to their effort, but the Soviet Union has made a clear statement claiming they are becoming protective of expanding their arms--"

Kings Cross Station was their arrival point and they rolled their luggage inside, walking together while they still could.

Eleanor wasn't sure how prepared she was for this, regardless if she spent the weekend convincing herself she would be fine.

Would her peers fear her? Hate her? Or worst of all, would they pity her?

There was no chance of admiration in her mind.

But that was just her thinking process.

As the crossed the bridge under the arched ceiling of glass, she looked down the steps to see the hustle and bustle of children and some of them with their parents. The crowd took up the entire platform!