Dont Get Trouble In Your Mind

                                    

                                          
I woke feeling oddly happy, like my body had been filled with warmth. The last time I remember this feeling was when me and Teddy went ice skating and he got beat up by an old woman for crashing into her granddaughter. 
                          
It never lasts for long, and I don't know why I'm feeling it now. Maybe it's because I know there's danger ahead, but I'm not sure why that makes me happy.
                          
I attempt to drag a comb through my hair to make it any less bushy and clear my face of yesterday's disaster. It leaves me looking pale with dark rings under my eyes, I look like hell, and now I'm starting to feel like it. After I'm dressed, I stroll into the living room with a cigarette but seconds before I light it, it's pulled from my fingers. 
                          
"What was that for!" I snap at Tom. He chucks the cigarette on the small wooden table. "Calm down," he says with a roll of his blue eyes, "we are going today." Tom turns round to face me but when he does a odd expression drifts along his face. 
                          
"You look all...crazy again," he observes. His eyes drift over my body, making me feel disgustingly self conscious. "Everyone is a little crazy. The only difference between me and them is that I don't forget it," I say and make a grab for the cigarette but Tom kicks the table lightly and it rolls away. "Good, I like you a lot more when your not all nice."
                          
The sun feels glorious against my frozen skin. It wasn't cold in the shack, the freeze feels as if it's imbedded in my skin. But I only have a few seconds to enjoy it before Tom is grabbing my hand and pulling me along. "Tom...where are we going?" I ask as he pulls me along the earthy path. 
                          
He doesn't answer with words, instead he pulls me into a shack which I think had the sign: Inklings written on a wooden plague. It's clear the place is a pub, and not a very attractive one. 
                          
Alcohol reeks throughout the whole place, somehow creating a cloud in the atmosphere, tables are made of unsupportive wood and there are tree stumps for chairs, the bar looks like the thick trunk of a tree but the energy is entertaining; Men and women laugh and clank glasses aggressively. Not caring about Tom, I make a bee line for the bar and ask for their strongest. 
                          
"It's only just gone 1 o'clock," Tom mutters with an ugly look on his face as he slouches next to me. "Get lost, I need it." The man behind the bar, who has too much tatty hair, torn mattered clothes and a battered face, slides a small glass full of clear liquid across to me but doesn't leave after that. 
                          
The large man stays to stare at Tom, who does notice because he's too busy giving the place dirty looks. "May I ask your name?" I say in a high and polite voice.
                          
Tom's head snaps back and he bores his eyes into the man's face who is staring at him curiously, the only time Tom looks away is to cast filthy looks over the grubby mans appearance. 
                          
"The names Morfin, mi lady," the man says in a rough voice, "Morfin Gaunt." Tom's head snaps back up to the Morfin's face and his eyes almost fall out his head and suddenly he seemed much more interested.
                          
"You knew Merope Gaunt?" Tom asks, his voice sounding stern and threatening. Where have I heard that name? "O'course I knew Merope! She 'ere me sister before she passed," he grunts with a somewhat disgusted look hiding under his crowded face. 
                          
"I've got to say, sonny," Morfin continues, his voice becoming more scratchy, "you look mighty like that muggle." Tom's face became as hard as stone as he started interrogating Morfin. I swear I've heard the name before. Gaunt? Maybe I read it in a book or heard it in History of Magic once. No that wasn't it. Wait, Gaunt was...
                          
"Tom Riddle, lives up in the big 'ole house," Morfin spits, "I might 'o killed him me self." The words had barely come to sense before I noticed my glass had been smashed and Tom had stormed out the shack. 
                          
I ran after him, clearly spotting his neat black hair and has to sprint to catch up. "Where are...where are you going?" I pant as I finally reach him. Tom gives me a disgusted look and pushes past me but I spin back in front of him and hold his chest. "Tom, please just think about..."
                          
"Think about what Kenna!" He shouts, his nostrils flaring and face burning red, "because right now all I can think about is killing him." Tom tries to shove past me again but I give him a small push. "So, what! Your going to just blast down the door and murder your only remaining family!" 
                          
Now I feel mad. How dare he chuck away what he has left of family, except the oaf back in the pub! I would give heaven and earth to have any living blood relatives and he's just willing to kill what I would kill to have! "Tell me, Kenna, why is it you want your father dead?" Tom spits, his eyes still murderous.
                          
"I didn't-" I start, but I'm not so sure what to say. "Don't lie to me," Tom demands, "were past that point." He's right, we never lie to each other. "Because, I'd rather he's dead then to know he just didn't want me. That I was somehow never good enough for him." 
                          
This isn't helping, I'm giving him all he needs to hear to go through with it, because he was feeling exactly what I was. It always shocked me when I realised that I wasn't the only person in the world who felt and such sick and sad things. However, Tom lift up a hand to my frozen cheek, holding it softly. It immediately warms. "We never lie to each other, do we?" He says calmly. For some reason, I can't find the strength to answer. 
                          
"So don't lie to yourself and say you wasn't expecting this," he continues, his voice gaining a slight edge, "and I won't lie to you about how you make me feel things I really can't feel." He then removed his hand from me and walks off. And I let him.
                          
----
                          
I was throwing peanuts into an ash tray when Tom barged through the door and casually sat down next to me. "Was he there?" I asked, trying to sound casual but overall failing. "All three, father, grandfather and grandmother. Oh," Tom fishes around is his pocket and pulls out a clearly valuable ring, "I found the ring." 
                          
He seems proud, but I don't feel the need to deflate him. The worst thing you could do is take away the ambition in someone. It's like being told not to hurt when your thrown into the fire. "Congrats," I mumble and throw another peanut aimlessly at the ash tray.
                          
"I altered that idiot Morfin's mind to make him believe he was the killer, but not before he told me about the locket." My attention springs to alert at the mention of a locket. Tom notices this and continues, "it was Salazar Slytherin's locket and belonged to my grandfather, who no longer lives. After I had murdered my family and altered Morfin's memory, I went to Gaunt shack and ransacked the place, but found nothing." He explains. 
                          
So the locket someone gave me belonged to Salazar Slytherin. But why give me that? Why ask me to hide something from someone I'm around all the time when it was perfectly hidden where ever it was? 
                          
"Will we be leaving then?" I ask, trying to change the subject because my stomach turns whenever I try and lie to Tom. "Tomorrow," he answers sharply. "When we get back, will that be it?" Tom gives me a confused look so I continue, "for us. Me joining you in your quest for power." I explain. Tom scoffs in the usual way, as if I've said the dumbest thing ever. "Don't be stupid, Kenna." 
                          
"Why? I have no power. Not like you." I shrug, but I don't get why I'm fighting because something inside of me doesn't want this to end. I really wish that something would get lost. "No one is like you and that is power." Tom shrugs carelessly then walks out of the room.