Chapter 4
Getting off the train meant fighting through the crowds of happy families - and Tom had no one waiting for him anyways, so he waited for the platform to clear before he left. Once he left the train, he wondered where to go next. He could return to the orphanage that had never been a home to him and suffer through two months of hell, or he could find a room in a side street on Diagon Alley. The second option sounded infinitely better to Tom, so that is what he did.
With his trunk shrunk in his pocket, and not seeing the point in removing his school robes, Tom paid 2 sickles to use the public floo, and shouted out “Diagon Alley”. He popped up in the Leaky Cauldron, the floo entryway of the shopping district and made his way to the bathroom to change out of his school robes and into some day robes.
Now dressed in a navy, closed-front robe, Tom made his way into the Alley proper, first stopping by the OTTER to find out if he could have his summer job back again. Luckily, he could, and he promised to return the next day, as it was already nearing 6pm.
The next matter was finding accommodation. Tom popped down a number of side streets before finding a boarding house down a short road called Condition Alley, and renting a room for only 22 knuts a night. As he paid for the upcoming week (154 knuts, or 9 sickles and a knut), the landlady handed him a small scrap of paper with some times written on it. “Be wary lad, these are the only times you can enter the road. Those interfering high-ups at the Ministry thought it would be a good idea to make people work more - my son sleeps in half the time and forgets things, so he often shows up at work with only the clothes on his back and has to make do until he can scramble home at lunch to get some sickles.” Tom thanked her and went to find his room.
It was a small, sparsely furnished room, with only a bed, a dresser, and a small kitchenette, but it was enough for Tom. He didn’t need much, and he could keep everything in his trunk, so storage wasn’t an issue. He did think that perhaps since he would be earning more money this summer, he should open a Gringotts account. He would surely need one anyway when he was an adult, so he might as well open it now and see if he could get a couple of knuts from interest. An errand for the morning, he decided as he closed his eyes in this new room.
The next morning he did exactly that, opening a bank account for the hefty cost of 5 galleons, but not regretting it (much) as he now could pay without physical money if the shop accepted Gringotts cheques. As he had chosen blood and key protection for his vault (2 galleons), he had to prick his finger and put a drop of his blood on the cheque, along with his vault number (562) and the amount he was spending. He would get quarterly statements from the bank, delivered to him by owl, where he would be able to see his spending and income from the past 3 months. All in all it sounded very good to him, and he happily forked over the galleons needed to open his vault.
Tom spent a happy couple of weeks shelving books at the OTTER, and reading when there were none to shelve. He normally got his lunch and dinner from a small food cart near the marketplace selling sandwiches and soups. His favourite is the chicken soup, with the chicken pieces charmed to swim around the bowl.
One day however, he decides to take a different route back to Condition Alley, and stops by a small shop in Knockturn Alley that sells snakes. They appeared to be meant for potion ingredients, and were not kept in the best conditions, but Tom has always found it more fun to use something for a purpose other than the one it was intended for. Quills? Perfect darts when the nib breaks. His cauldron? Works perfectly fine to carry his things around on the days he has potions. So Tom never planned to use a snake he bought for potion ingredients, he simply wanted a companion. Of course, it helped that he could speak to snakes, which according to his research was a hereditary talent known as ‘parseltongue’, but due to some issues unearthed by his research, he had not displayed his talent or told anyone of this particular skill.
Whilst he was looking around the cramped shop, he found that he kept coming back to a glass tank housing an arguing young runespoor; a three headed snake with very different personalities belonging to each head. Tom listened to their argument for a couple of minutes, unnoticed by the three, before deciding that he would purchase them. When the salesman rang up the price Tom’s eyes watered, but he managed to haggle the price from 15 galleons to 11. He paid with a cheque, and left with the confused, hissing snake around his neck.
He hissed a few words of encouragement to the heads, and asked them if they wouldn’t mind hiding under his robes for the day so he didn’t disturb the customers at the OTTER, and after much grumbling, the left head conceded, and the runespoor slithered down his neck to wrap around his waist. “And don’t eat each other, no matter how annoying they get!” Tom remembered to hiss at them, remembering from a book he had read that the left and middle heads often ganged up on the right head to eat it when its criticisms became too much for them to bear.
Now with his new friends, his holidays became less lonely. He made many stops over the next weeks at various pet shops, buying mice to feed the runespoor, who he had named Rosemary (for the left head), Lavender (for the middle head), and Thyme (for the right head). The more time he spent with them, the more he got to know their personalities.
Rosemary was very bossy and outspoken, and liked savouring her mice, eating them slowly. Lavender was quiet and spent most of the time thinking, but wolfed down her mice like there was no tomorrow, and Thyme was… bitchy. According to the books he had found on runespoors, the right was known as ‘the critic’, but Thyme took it to a new level, always nitpicking the others’ actions and complaining about what their shared body did.
The snake spent most of its time wrapped around Tom’s body, as he was doing his summer homework, taking advantage of the crowded alley to practise his wandwork without setting off the Trace, working at the OTTER, or simply wandering around the maze of alleys. He had to buy new school robes as it got closer to September again, as he had shot up during the summer months. He requested that the charm that made your clothes grow with you be added for the extra price of 5 sickles each, as he felt that his growth spurt would not end for a while. He had resigned himself to being a beanpole.
All too soon, it was time to return to Hogwarts, and Tom said goodbye to Mrs Coombe, the landlady from whom he had rented his room over the summer, and again paid the 2 sickles to use the floo at the Leaky Cauldron to travel to Platform 9 ¾.