Math and magic
Tom sat on the big couch of Riddle Manor’s sitting room and listened to his young son’s math problems. While Tommy was a very bright boy, he always did struggle with multiplication. “It just doesn’t make sense, dad!”, the boy complained and pressed his face into the pages of his math book, completely defeated. Miss Noodles, Tommys six-meter-long reticulated python, had wrapped herself around her best friend's torso, attempting to comfort him.
“Oh, come on, champ, it does make sense. Think about it with the apples! If you have twenty-one half-pieces of apples, how many do you have?” Tom Marvolo looked up at his father with a pained expression on his face and tears welling up in his dark eyes. “I don’t know dad! Daddy, I just don’t know!” Tom could not suppress a chuckle. “Well, if you had ten halves of apples, how many would that be?”
Tom jr. hesitated. “Five?”, he asked carefully. Tom sr. nodded, full of excitement. “Exactly, champion. And now you add ten halves more. What do you have now?”, he wanted to know. Tommy’s eyes went large. “Ten! That means I have ten and a halve!”, he squealed and quickly wrote it down in his math book. “Good job, champion!”, Tom praised. Even miss Noodles, probably the only resident of Riddle Manor that understood less about multiplication then Tommy, nodded approvingly.
Tom had been right, the day they returned. The last six years, back in Little Hangleton, had been almost perfect. As he began to recover from his Merope based trauma, his love for Cecilia had begun to blossom again, and so it came to be, that Tom Marlovo had a little half-sister now. Jane was a little angle and had, much to everyone's surprise, started to let her toys float around when she was only a few months old. And, and that had surprised Tom even more, Jane’s and Tommy’s magic barely reminded him of Merope anymore. Now, that his little girl was over a year old, she kept toddling after her big brother, who clearly enjoyed being able to share his magic with someone.
Tom and Cecilia had gotten married and, on his ninth birthday, Tom jr. had decided that the time to call her “mom” had come. And while Miss Noodle clearly despised the activity and preferred to curl up in front of the Manors warm oven, while her little friend was away, Tommy loved to go riding with his parents. Thomas had been overjoyed to have a new young boy in the house, he could teach how to fence and shoot and box, while Mary introduced Tommy to the world of medicine and embroidery.
When the privet teacher Thomas had hired went into retirement and it was time for Tommy to attend elementary school, Tom had a big panic attack for the first time after leaving the witch. He was painfully aware of the fact that Merope was still out there and would probably go after their son, if she got the chance. Tommy attended a fancy school a few villages over and got driven by the Riddle’s chauffeur. Nothing bad ever happened.
By the time Tom Marlovo was eleven years old, Tom was sure all would stay that way. His nightmares had become so rare, that he was barely troubled by them anymore. He leaned back into the couch and watched his son move on to the next math problem with a smile.
It was exactly in this moment, that Cecilia rushed into the sitting room. Her eyes were wide and her face as pale as dough. She was clutching Jane to her chest, as if she feared the young girl would vanish. “My darling, are you alright?”, Tom asked worried and sat up straighter. Tommy, always glad for a distraction from math, dropped his pen immediately. “Is Jane fine?”, he inquired.
“Be quiet, both of you, they are here!”, Cecilia hissed, hurriedly put Jane in Toms arms, and pushed a big armchair in front of door. “Who is here?”, Tommy asked and quickly put his textbook away, probably hoping he would get out of studying for the rest of the day. “They! Those wizards. Probably a friend of the Gaunts. He is wearing a... robe. A purple one with sparkles and he stuffed his hair and beard in his belt. What kind of fashion choice is that even? Said his name was Dumbledore, or something like that. He comes from a boarding school. And... and he wants to talk to Junior.”
Tommy dropped his book on the way over to the bag. “What?”, he asked and crawled onto the couch, clinging to his father. Cecilia nodded fearfully. “Thomas and Mary are trying to kick him out but he just doesn’t want to leave.”, she whispered. Tom grabbed his children with shaking hands and retreated deeper into the couch. “Did dad fetch the rifle? Did mom?”, he wanted to know.
“I don’t know.”, Cecilia replied quietly and shoved a bookshelf in front of the door too. It was all for no nothing. Suddenly the armchair and the shelf floated to the side and the room and the door flew open. A really weird looking man with dark red hair and the longest beard Tom had ever seen casually walked in and waved a wand around. It did look a lot cleaner than that shabby one Merope had used. “Hello Tom Marvolo!”, the man greeted the boy cheerily.
Tom senior could feel the colour draining for his face. “No.”, he mumbled. The fear started to rise back into his ribcage. "No." His hands got sweaty and started to shake. “Get away from the boy, you freak!”, Mary screeched and waved around a bone saw. The man simply transfigured it into a flower. The edge of Tom’s vision started to become black.