#tom ff

The headache had already started this morning when you woke up and your head felt extremely light. Of course, you spent the day like any other day and did not listen to your body’s signals and warnings. And now you are lying here with the worst headache ever while a thundering storm is passing by outside.

Huge raindrops patter against the only window in your small room and the lightning bolts that keep flashing across the dark night sky illuminate the room for a few seconds before it is shrouded in darkness again.

Sighing, you turn around again, the mattress giving way under you, and place one of your legs over your blanket. You stay in this exact position for several minutes until you finally cannot stand it any longer and straighten up completely. Tiredly, you look at the clock above your room door to check the time.

Past midnight, great.

Reaching over to your bedside table, you pull on the string of your bedside lamp, which immediately bathes the room in a warm light while you sit of the edge of your bed. With your elbows resting on your thighs, you run your hands across your face. How badly you would like to just scream very loud right now, but unfortunately that would wake up the entire orphanage. And honestly you can imagine nicer things than having to explain your scream to several children and supervisors.

However, at this moment it occurs to you what or – to be more precise, who – can help you now.

Slipping into your soft slippers, you finally get up and stretch yourself, your bones cracking a few times from the extremely uncomfortable mattress. You sneak towards the door and pick up a candle that you light with a match on the way. Carefully, you open the creaking door and peer out with your head to make sure that nobody is walking around the dark corridors.

As soon as you are sure that you are alone, you step out into the cold hallway, which is only occasionally illuminated by the light of the streetlamps outside and the lightning bolts. Precisely estimating every step you take, you move across the loud wooden panels that have already seen better days. Holding the burning candle in front of you, you take a closer look at the room doors and the numbers written onto them. Even though you are positive you would also find his room with your eyes closed.

Arriving in front of said door, you put your ear against it first and listen, waiting for some noises from the inside. But when you do not hear anything, you softly knock on the door before opening it, greeting you with a loud creak as well. Quickly, you close it shut behind you and your gaze falls on the room, which looks confusingly similar to your own. Just like every other room in this orphanage, to be exact.

“Tom?”, you softly whisper into the silence, waiting for an answer in vain as you come to quickly realize that he is asleep in his bed, snoring quietly, his wand tightly in his hand. A small smile creeps onto your lips at the sight of his messy hair. He would never voluntarily show himself to anyone like this.

Sitting down on the edge of his bed, you tap his shoulder carefully, but again he shows no reaction. A little frustrated, you roll your eyes. He has always been a deep sleeper.

“Tom”, you repeat his name, this time a little louder, accompanied by a rather rough shake on his shoulder. Finally, this has an effect on him when he slowly begins to move, apparently finding his way back into reality. Before you know it, however, his wand is directly pointed at you.

“Wow, cowboy. Calm down, it is just me”, you giggle and raise your arms in fake surrender. As soon as Tom recognizes you and your voice, he lowers his wand with relief and lets himself fall on his mattress.

“Let me sleep”, he grumbles, obviously offended that you disturbed his sleep.

“Tom, I am here for a reason”, you shake your head in disbelief as he tries to fall asleep again, although he did not even seem to wonder why you are suddenly standing in his room in the dead of night.

“Leave me alone, Y/N. Can that not wait until tomorrow?”, his rough, sleepy voice sounds through the room, and he does not move again, his back facing you.

“No, it cannot wait”, you reply, a little annoyed by the way he talks to you. “I have a terrible headache and do not know what to do about it.”

After those words leave your lips, he abruptly moves and turns to you, his eyes narrowed to take a closer look at you in the darkness which is sparsely lighted up by your dim flickering candle. It takes him a moment to process all of it before he finally points his wand at you again.

“Do not worry, I can fix that”, he states, but before he can even think of a spell that might help you, you snitch his wand from him in shock.

“Are you crazy?! We are not allowed to use magic in the muggle world, you idiot!”, you snarl at him while he can only look at you in utter disbelief that you could get a hold of his wand so easily. “Do you not think that I would have helped myself with magic a long time ago, stupid?”

“Well, if you really want to do it the harder way”, Tom rolls his eyes and takes his wand back before he gets up from his bed with you. “I heard about a miracle cure created by muggles. It is supposed to work wonders against any kind of headache. Come on.”

Feeling grateful, you follow him out of his room and into the hallway, where you slowly move down the stairs. Before you can reach the ground floor, however, Tom hastily pulls you up and to the side, hiding your figures behind a corner. He supports his hands next to your head against the wall while his chest is almost touching yours, you would only have to inhale once, and your bodies would meet. But you are much too frightened to breathe, holding your breath for unknown reasons until you also perceive the echoing footsteps that Tom noticed long before.

“Shit”, you quietly swear under your breath, but Tom immediately presses his hand to your mouth in order to silence you. At this exact moment, one of the supervisors comes running up the stairs, not realizing that two of his proteges are almost right next to him past curfew. Inwardly praying that he will walk the other way as soon as he reaches the top, you close your eyes and try to be as silent as possible.

A sigh of relief escapes your throat once the steps finally fade away in the other direction and Tom takes his hand from your mouth.

“Well, that was close”, Tom breathes out heavily, also relieved, and a smile immediately plays around his lips when he looks at you. It is just like in the old days when you were kids and scurried through the building together every night, always looking for the next adventure.

Taking your hand in his, he quickly pulls you behind him as you go down the stairs now. At the next corner he comes to another halt, causing you to accidentally run into his back, which he only comments with a shake of his head and a gentle chuckle. Once he made sure that you will not make any more nightly acquaintances, he pulls you with him and into the small, run-down kitchen of the orphanage.

Immediately, he fills a glass with water and searches every cupboard for his so-called ‘miracle cure’. Triumphantly he holds a package in the air when he apparently found what he was searching for. Intrigued, you inspect the packaging while Tom takes out a white pill and throws it into the glass with water. The small pill begins to dissolve in the water with a hiss right away.

“Drink this. Completely”, he orders you as soon as the pill has completely disappeared. After thanking him, you take the glass and then drink the fizzing brew. To this day, you do not understand who thought it was a good idea to make medicine taste absolutely gross and disgusting.

“That is inedible!”

“Well, then next time you better make sure that you do not stress your body to the limit! Of course you will get a headache then”, Tom replies to you, annoyed, crossing his arms over his chest when he apparently notices that his words sounded like he was actually worried. But he is Tom Marvolo Riddle, he does not care about anyone.

Almost.

“Are you worried about me?”, you ask in astonishment after you managed to empty the glass with one big last gulp. You look at him with one eyebrow raised, the corner of your mouth lifting slightly. It if were not that dark in the kitchen, you could swear you see his cheek turn red.

“Stop imagining things”, Tom playfully sticks out his tongue and gently snaps his finger against your forehead.

“I would not dare”, you giggle and place a tender kiss on his cheek as a thank you before you take his hand in yours and lead him out of the kitchen.

“Thank you, Tom. You are truly the best!”