New life meaning
They took his Doll away.
Tom is trying to remember what happened after Regulus' hair turned red but his recollection of the event is spotty.
He knows there was lots of screaming- done mainly by Mrs. Cole- and a bright flash that left him disorientated for a few hours. He recalled a strange word "Obliviate" before the flash, and he suspects it had something to do with his faulty memory.
Tom knows something happened, even if no one else in the orphanage can claim the same. None of them seem aware that they have all collectively lost their memories or that one of their own was taken by two men.
Men whose faces he can not describe or explain why they were looking for his Doll. If he thinks hard enough, he can make out some details, like one of them was in an expensive green and silver suit while the other wore one with a bunch of sewed patches.
A rich and poor man. What could such men want with Regulus? Why had they taken him? He could even make out the shape of the chins and the noses, but any further than that gave him a splitting headache.
He tried to ignore it, tried so hard to remember what the two men looked like, but the pain knocked him unconscious before he found any more clues.
Tom knows he launched himself at Regulus, clinging to the toddler while the kneeling man tried to lift the little boy in his arms. One of the men had thrown him on the ground, but not before Tom could scratch his arm until the man's arm bleed.
Tom had managed to snatch Regulus' arm and tried to free him. He can recall tiny feet kicking against the chest that had the six-year-old trap, but then an invisible force had thrown him to the wall at the far end of the hall.
There are holes, but he remembers watching Regulus' beautiful face break down in distress, a little hand reaching out to Tom as his hair turns a sorrowful blue.Regulus' scream echoed the sound of Tom's head heading the bricks.
Mrs. Cole had already been lying on the ground by then- he's not sure when she stopped screaming or why she had been unconscious, but he didn't care. She never mattered to him. What did matter was the little boy screaming for him, but Tom had been busy fighting the dark spots appearing in his sight to really do anything to help.
He had tried to stand with his little strength; it just wasn't enough.
Regulus was crying, Tom thinks, tears of anger or sadness he couldn't really tell, as he stared at Tom in horror seconds before the man raised a stick, and the flash happened.
When Tom came to, his Doll was gone, and so were hours of his memory.
He's missing hours, about five.
Tom recalls having Regulus in his lap around ten that morning, then waking up in the hallway at three forty-seven with no idea how he got there and no idea why Mrs. Cole was napping a few feet away.
The two had been looking at something- a book? A toy?- someone had come into their room to warn them- what about? Who was the warning for?- And then the men in the hallway watching black strands turn ruby red.
Flashes of time with Regulus that fateful day but more is needed for Tom to find what is his and bring him home. It tormented Tom and kept him locked away in his room the following days as he tried to find Regulus.
He even tried asking around town to the places where Regulus was famous for making Mrs. Cole look good, but no one could remember him well. Those that did, started to forget detail rapidly as if they hadn't seen Regulus in years rather than the weeks he went missing.
By the two-month mark, Regulus had been completely forgotten by everyone but Tom. Fearing that the memory loss would affect him too. He had started to pin little notes along his wall, for any details of his Doll, just in caseSoon his room was covered in notes, memories, and drawings of Regulus.
Every open spot had something to do with his Doll and his disappearance, leaving no room for decoration. He bought yarn to mark connections between his notes, zig-zagging all that. Tom had to duck and turn his head a certain way just to leave his room. He only left it for food and his chores.
The worst part of this was that no one else was worried like Tom is. None of the orphans or the staff seem to realize that Regulus was ever a part of the Wools. Regulus was the jewel of the orphanage.
The only good thing about this horrible place for three whole years. Why were they all acting like he never existed? Billy still had the bunny bed Regulus made him, Sally still wore the ribbons in the same braids Regulus did for her, Nurse Jane still sang the same strange lullabies Regulus had made, and none of them could remember Regulus.
They all looked at him like he was insane for mentioning his missing roommate. There were harsh whispers about his room and the contents on the walls dedicated to a boy who didn't exist.
They thought him mad.Tom didn't know what to do. Maybe he was insane. Billy had gently told him sometimes lonely people make up imaginary friends but that he wouldn't have to do that anymore. Billy, for some reason, wasn't scared of him anymore, even when Tom was mean to him on purpose.
The other orphan now looked at him with something far worse than fear- he looked at him with empathy. Tom tried to reinstall fear into him in between breaks of looking for any clues on Regulus, but it never worked.
He would only hug Tom until the boy couldn't hold it in and broke into tears. He doesn't know why he cried so much. He just knows that every day that passed without Regulus felt like his chest was slowly caving in.
Billy told him it was grief, the kind he had felt the day his parents and sister burned in a mysterious fire, but Tom didn't want to accept this feeling as mourning.
Because if he was mourning, it meant he would never see Regulus again, which was unacceptable. Billy didn't mind, nodding and listening to Tom restating everything there was to know about Regulus for the twelfth time. He sometimes spent the night in Tom's room, helping him pin up new color strings once Tom gained a new theory.
He would almost claim to like the rabbit pet owner if he didn't think Regulus was Tom's imaginary friend. Just a little.
A year later, when Tom finally lost hope of ever seeing his Doll again when he started to feel his memories slipping through his fingers like falling sand, a strange man came to the orphanage.
Albus Dumbledore looked at Tom's room, all strings leading to the word Men in strange suits and Obliviate cards in the middle before his eyes filled with sadness. "I'm sorry for your loss, my boy. It's never easy to lose love this way."
So it was true. Regulus was kidnapped by those men and likely killed. At least that is what the professor claimed as many magical children in the muggle world were being targetted by a man named Grindelwald in recent years.
Apparently, he was a Dark Lord searching for something called Obscurial, and he had taken children to try to force one of them into it. When they failed to become this being of power, Grindelwald had them killed. The kidnapping that Tom described fit his preferred methods to a t.
Tom burst into tears and did not stop even when told he was a wizard. What was the point of him being magic when he still lost Regulus?What point did life have any more? Professor
Dumbledore promised that Tom would find the answer at Hogwarts, and even offered to ask his brother to take him in, until they were sure Wool's was safe from Grindelwald but Tom refused. Wool's was all he had left of Regulus now.
Billy helped him make a grave for Regulus a day before he boarded the Hogwarts Express, and he swore to write to him. He was the only one to walk Tom to the train, so he allowed the other boy to hug him goodbye.
Tom was never one for faith, but he prayed Regulus would watch over Billy while he was away.
He also prayed Regulys would watch him put Grindelwald into the ground. Because he would be coming for that rat's head, and no one was going to get in his way.
His Doll would be avenged.