He Is Disappointed
Chapter Four: He Is Disappointed
London, 1935
Tom sat in the darkness of his room, watching the pre-dawn light spill against the featureless walls. He had been awake for some time, running the beaded bracelet through his fingertips as he contemplated the inherent flaw in his own logic. He'd assumed that exchanging items with Hermione might ease his journey through time—a belief that he'd had no evidence to support. It was possible that the bracelets might still be able to smooth over his trips into the future, but they had done little to soothe his travel back into the past.
The void had stretched before him—endless and terrifying—for twice as long as before. He could feel an unfortunate trend developing: each new journey would take a little longer than before as that wretched nothingness threatened to swallow him whole. What exactly was the void, and why had it made its presence known? He had left 1935 on a Saturday and arrived in 1987 also on a Saturday, so he had a suspicion that time was passing at an even and uniform rate between him and Hermione. And yet, somehow, her world appeared to be casually drifting away from him, seconds at a time. Why?
For all his knowledgeability, Tom had to admit that he didn't know much about time-travel. That would have to become his priority, he needed to understand. After all, forewarned was forearmed; if he consumed as much information on the subject as he could, he might be able to find a way to make his power more effective, more efficient. Hermione was the only other person he knew that possessed magic, he could not lose her to something so infuriating as inadequacy.
His focus shifted at thoughts of Hermione, and he griped his beads tighter still as he pondered the mysterious girl. What was this gift they shared, where did it come from, and why did it only seem to affect the two of them? He'd thought that maybe they were related—fifty-two years was more than enough time to pass the genes down—but in the wake of her surname it didn't really seem likely. Had the magic somehow chosen them? They were both intelligent—based on her love of reading or how quick she was to take instruction—and both around the same age. But that seemed to be the end of it. They shared many more points of difference: different genders, different sizes, different generations, different home-lives.
Different levels of control?
Tom had been experimenting with his magic for years; he really only had a set number of tricks, but he could do them well. Hermione, on the other hand, only just seemed to be discovering her magic; she had little to no control except for when he'd told her how to do something. However, she had absorbed his instructions quickly, as if she'd intuitively known what to do all along but had needed someone to put the idea into words. The concept intrigued Tom: here was a girl who had the potential to rival him as no one ever had before, someone who could meet him step for step as they both grew in power. He'd never really been challenged before and the idea was so novel he decided right away that he would teach her as much as he could.
Dawn was now spilling through the room, and Tom watched the light creep along with a curious emotion thrumming through him. He'd never allied himself with anyone before; there'd never been any need. He ruled the play-yard with a silent fist and he slipped around London like a specter. There had never once been a challenge so large he could not handle it on his own, so he'd remained isolated. At Wool's, hangers on would have been nothing short of a liability. But he contemplated that small girl from the future and shivered. If she proved capable, what greatness might they be able to achieve together?
Several weeks later, London, 1987
Tom wasn't exactly her friend, Hermione decided some weeks later. The boy was aloof, sometimes even cruel for no reason she could discern other than that he could be. There was something altogether callous and greedy about him that didn't sit quite right. Yet he still visited her and she still eagerly met him—they shared a camaraderie of some sort. She chalked a lot of his behavior up to being an orphan—he wouldn't have had the opportunity to develop certain social skills and that would leave him both shy and detached—as well as his being a boy. How many times had she seen Andy Smythe being mean just because he could? Tom's behavior wasn't really so different.
And yet it was, in a way. There was a coldness in Tom that she'd never seen in anyone else, a calculating and exacting nature that seemed out of place in a boy so young. However, he was slowly warming to her—his behavior was still rather authoritarian and he took liberties whenever it pleased him—but he'd started asking her opinion about things, at least. In another month, he might even actually care about what she had to say.
So, no, they weren't really friends, but Hermione thought they might be on their way toward friendship. She wasn't exactly sure, truth be told—for all her cleverness, she had never really gotten the hang of making friends. Most children her age didn't understand her, and she got the feeling that Tom faced much the same problem in his own life. They were perfectly matched in so many respects, if only they could just clear this last emotional hurdle. But perhaps it was simply a matter of time—Tom held himself isolated, a self-contained island that could not be hurt by the strain of being an orphan—and Hermione knew how to be patient. She could endure his behavior on the hope that he would continue opening up to her.
And it wasn't as if she got nothing out of the relationship. He might occasionally snap and glower at her, but it was worth it for the magic he shared. So far Tom had taught her how to move objects in all directions, even at different speeds, and was currently trying to teach her how to control animals. This latest trick wasn't going quite so well—she didn't really understand how he connected to the animals. Every time she tried for herself, she got the dizzying sense she was actually in the poor creature's head, torn between two different bodies. How could he focus like that with his attention so divided?
"I don't know why you're having so much trouble with this," he said offhandedly while flipping another page in the book he was reading. He'd been bringing a lot of his own books, now that she thought about it—Twain and Wells and some french name she didn't recognize. She thought perhaps he was working on a project of some kind. "You got the hang of levitation quickly enough."
Hermione huffed at the quiet accusation. "That was different."
He raised a dark brow but didn't glance at her. "Why?"
She hated his inattention and careless mocking. He was supposed to be teaching her, wasn't he? Working herself up into a lather—disappointed in herself and irritated with him—she replied, "We only moved inanimate objects, which obviously didn't have any thoughts on the matter." She jerked a thumb toward the scruffy looking stray she'd been attempting to practice on. "This cat, however, has a lot of thoughts and it's distracting."
Tom finally looked up from his reading, and fixed her with that slight smile of his—it was the barest quirking of his lips, but carried with it an immeasurable sense of amused superiority. "You're trying too hard," he told her, eyes dropping to his book once more. "You don't need to connect so deep as to know what it's thinking in order to make it obey."
Hermione felt like stamping her feet at the uselessness of that advice. Instead, she marched up to him, slipped the book from his fingers, and hissed, "I don't know how to try less."
His eyes darkened briefly, like the shadow of a cloud sailing across the sun, and she knew he was angry at her attention seeking. "Do this, then: stop thinking of it as a connection." He took on a mocking edge as he reclaimed his novel and continued, "You're not communing with the animal, politely asking it to please do a trick for us." And then a curious thing happened: his voice dropped slightly, flattening into a fervent command, "Envelope it with your will. Make it obey."
But this wasn't like imagining sticks and strings and levers—none of her previous visual mnemonics would work. The only thing she could think to try was to picture herself moving the cat by hand—bending and twisting the little paws as she desired—but that seemed cruel somehow. The animals had never appeared to resist Tom's control, but for the first time she wondered what the experience was really like for them. "Will that hurt the cat?"
"Who cares," he snorted, rolling his eyes.
Hermione couldn't believe her ears. "I do," she bit back. She had always sensed the coldness in him, but this particular disregard seemed genuinely wrong. "I won't torture the poor creature; if it's going to be painful then I don't want to learn this magic trick!"
Tom frowned angrily and stood from his seat on the bench, towering over her as he snapped, "Don't be such a girl!"
"I'm serious," she replied, holding her ground.
Her answer flustered him and he seemed momentarily nonplussed. But he recovered quickly and began needling. "How is this any different than what animal trainers do? You think they don't administer endless months of punishment until their charges finally learn a new trick? What we're doing here is probably far more kind."
She could see the logic in his argument, but there was doubt in her mind now. One thing she had really learned about Tom over the last few weeks was that he was very careful with his words; he was astoundingly good at convincing someone of falsehoods without actually having to lie. So just because he said something was more kind didn't necessarily mean it was pain free. Recognizing his verbal hook for what it was, she pressed, "Will it hurt the cat?"
"I don't know, Hermione," Tom snapped, his eyes narrowing as he took a step away from her in disgust, "but if you're going to whine so much about it maybe you don't deserve to learn how to do this."
He watched in satisfaction as Hermione panicked. Strange, considering she apparently didn't want to learn the trick, but the idea of knowledge passing her by always seemed to make the girl frantic. To be honest, Tom felt frustrated enough that he was considering withholding this particular bit of magic from her for a while anyway. Her little moral hangups were beginning to irritate him. Power was power, and the fact that she refused to grasp at something well within her reach was just baffling. And it wasn't even her cat, so what did she care if it got hurt in the process?
They stood frowning at each other for a few moments, neither one seeing eye to eye. He was about to ask if she just wanted to go back to levitation since that at least was something she could do, when someone stumbled upon their hidden bench. No one had ever found them before and this interruption was hardly welcome.
The boy reminded him of Billy Stubbs—God save him from blond idiots!—a soft soul hidden behind a falsely mean look. The wretch barked out a laugh as he eyed the girl. "It's true," he crowed. "Lenny Spiers said he'd seen you playing with someone, but I thought there was no way that the bushy-haired beaver could have made a friend."
Hermione appeared to fold into herself ever so slightly, face going red as she mumbled, "Go away, Andy."
"What did you call her?" Tom demanded of the other boy. As far as he was concerned, this thing was a worm compared to her—she had magic, all he would ever have were empty words. It was a travesty that the idiot was even allowed to speak to her.
"Didn't you know?" Andy cooed meanly. "You must be new. Hermione here is the class suck-up—anything to be first to answer the teacher—and it might be tolerable if she didn't look like something the janitor's pulled out of a plugged drain."
Tom could already see the pattern of abuse taking shape, the systematic bullying she had likely endured. "Does he bother you like this a lot?" He asked her, but he didn't really need her answer. She looked different, acted and thought different—a target if ever there was one, and too timid to use her power against those that deserved her wrath.
Andy laughed again, a grating sound that set his teeth on edge, and answered, "How could I? No one actually wants to talk to her since she'd probably just correct your sentence structure."
Hermione shifted closer to him. He'd seen that move before—it was the way Amy drew close to Billy or Martha hid behind Mrs. Cole—she was seeking some kind of assurance or protection. No one had ever looked to him for safety before, but he supposed it made sense as he was the more magically proficient of the two.
"He's just jealous of my grades," she said, putting on a brave front. "Mum tells me not to pay it any mind."
"Jealous of you?" Andy sneered. "The friendless mop?"
A puzzling hiccup happened at the back of Tom's thoughts—he could feel himself flushing with anger on Hermione's behalf. The more this worthless piece of filth blabbered on the redder he got. But perhaps it wasn't really so puzzling; he'd chosen this singular girl from the future to be his ally, so in truth any insult against her was an insult against him as well. And if there was one thing Tom knew, it was how to deal with disrespectful pests. "She isn't alone," he snapped darkly, darting toward the other boy.
However, Andy apparently didn't know the first thing about fighting, which only fueled Tom's temper. Why throw out a challenge if you lacked the strength to back it up? Were people in the future really so weak that they didn't even know how to throw a punch? Not that Tom resorted to fisticuffs often—he only ever used the fight as a front to slip in his magic. It was a careful game of misdirection that Andy didn't have the decency to succumb to. Then again, why was he bothering to hide himself at all? Tom had done his best to keep his magic a secret so as not to destroy the balance he'd struck with Mrs. Cole, but there was no Mrs. Cole in the future. Why not send the brat flying?
So he did, watching happily as Andy slammed duly into the bench.
"Tom," Hermione gasped his name admonishingly and moved away from him, hurrying over to see if the blond was okay.
But Tom was only getting started. He concentrated on lifting the other boy, which was difficult since Andy was scrambling to put the bench between them.
"Stop it," she growled, and her order would have fallen on deaf ears if not for one thing. With a pop and a hiss, the bench erupted into flame, breaking his visual contact with the blond.
Tom watched, momentarily marveled, as the flames danced across the wooden slats without actually consuming it—imagine, a fire that didn't burn!—before the implication finally dawned. Hermione had stopped him. He had taken it upon himself to deal with her bully, and she'd stopped him. It certainly wasn't the most grateful gesture he'd ever seen, in fact it smacked a bit of betrayal. He'd never tried to help anyone before, not once, and her interference in this felt like a gift refused. She had no problem accepting his magic or his company, but when it came right down to it she apparently hadn't accepted him. Not really.
The fire disappeared as quickly as it had been conjured, revealing Andy who was shaking on the ground. Tom wanted the boy gone. Now. He walked over to the blond, knelt close beside him and threatened, "If you tell anyone what you saw—"
Andy looked up, watery blue eyes meeting menacing black. "I'll be quiet, I swear," he promised and then was off like lightning, leaving the two young magicians alone.
Tom stood slowly to his feet, not prepared to face Hermione as he fought down his wildly swirling thoughts. Softly, carefully, he asked, "Why did you stop me?"
"He was just being rude," she replied in a small voice.
"Never give that sort of power to your bullies, Hermione," he shouted, spinning around to confront her. "If you roll over every time, they'll keep coming back to pick on you." How could she not understand that? And what exactly had she hoped to achieve, anyway? No matter which way he looked at it, she'd practically given Andy permission to continue bullying her. Which wouldn't have matter if she hadn't publicly rebuffed Tom's protection—he could have been there to support her until she was strong enough to support herself—but she'd pretty much just cut herself off at the knees, as far as he was concerned.
As if she could hear the direction of his thoughts, Hermione was wringing her hands and looking distraught. "I just didn't want anyone getting hurt."
It was such a simpleminded answer, the sort of thing he might have expected any girl at the orphanage to bleat out. He was furious and… disappointed to realize that she wasn't any different from the others. "Magic really is just wasted on you, isn't it," he snapped coldly. Weeks of time wasted in her presence! Weeks that he could have spent figuring out a way to access the future without having to find her first! And to think he'd considered her special, unique even; he never should have gone to the trouble of getting to know her in the first place. "I don't know why I should bother visiting if you're always going to be this hesitant about using your power."
She took a step forward, her magic swirling around her as if to remind him that she existed in a state of raw potential. She could be taught. "Tom—"
But he wasn't listening, blinded and deafened by outrage. "I'm going home," he told her plainly. Her eyes went teary bright at that proclamation and the fact that he didn't completely enjoy the sight only made him angrier. "I don't suppose I'll be back any time soon."
Hermione tried to reach out to the boy, but he swatted her hand away and vanished. She couldn't quite wrap her head around what had happened. Tom had left, maybe for good, and for what? Because she'd tried to protect Andy Smythe? The wispy blond was the bane of her existence; he mocked her at every opportunity. For two years, he'd belittled everything about her from her looks to her personality, and he was one of the main reasons she didn't have any friends at school. Yet she'd felt the need to protect him from the one boy she thought she might be able to call her friend. But she hadn't had a choice, really.
Something dark had slithered around Tom in that moment, a giddy fierceness that unsettled her. His black eyes had burned with cruelty and she'd somehow known that he wouldn't stop until he'd made Andy bleed. Part of her had been shocked—that he should be so terrifyingly mean, so cleanly uncaring whether he got them all into trouble or worse—but another part of her had been intrigued. Tom was without boundary, magic had whirled around him so thick she was surprised it hadn't been visible; in that instant, he had been carefree and untethered, a creature pure power. She could be like that too, and the idea of it was more tempting than it had any right to be.
But her parents had raised her to be a good girl, and that meant stopping a fight if it was within her ability. The fire had been an accident—much like the first time she'd summoned a book—but it had gotten Tom's attention. Andy had slipped quickly away, and then she had watched in muted frustration as her relationship with the fascinating orphan boy fell apart before her very eyes. Tom had been furious with her and she wasn't entirely certain, but she thought it might have been because his feelings had got hurt. But, really, he just didn't get it; it wasn't okay to wield that sort of pain so reflexively. If he didn't understand that, he wouldn't have made a very good friend anyway. And yet…
Hermione thought over the last few weeks. Tom had been patient, helping her unravel the little blocks to her control, allowing her to find her own way of using magic. He'd encouraged her in a sparse but comforting sort of fashion, even silently praised her on occasion. Yes, he could be mean and mocking, but the sheer wonder of what he'd taught her to do had easily outweighed that. So in spite of it all—in spite of the small frisson of fear and curiosity he'd sparked, in spite of the moral outrage and hurt he'd inspired—she knew that she would still miss him for however long he was away.
And she couldn't help but wonder: would he ever come back?